1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris Read Free Book Online Page A

conversation with Joseph Stalin, described himself as "a Zionist" (to which the Soviet dictator rejoined, "me too," but then added that Jews were "middlemen, profiteers, and parasites").'() Though the following month Roosevelt assured Ibn Saud that he would support "no action ... that would prove hostile to the Arab people,"41 the growingly Zionist orientation of American public opinion, fueled by the revelation of the full horror of the Holocaust, proved inexorable. Roosevelt's sudden death in April clinched the Zionist victory in Washington, with the more sympathetic vice president, Harry Truman, taking over the White House.
    Truman was not the committed philo-Semite or Zionist Arab propagandists and Zionist politicians later made out. In i944, Truman had pointedly declined to support his party's pro-Zionist platform. And he reportedly told his cabinet in July 1946 that he had "no use for them [the Jews] and didn't care what happened to them."42 Without doubt, he was often annoyed and even angered by the perpetual Zionist importunings, blandishments, cajolery, and pressure to which he was subjected during 1945-1948. And once converted to supporting partition, he was pessimistic about the outcome: "I fear very much that the Jews are like all underdogs. When they get on top they are just as intolerant and cruel as the people were to them when they were underneath."43
    But in August 1945, in Potsdam, Truman came out in principle in support of resettling the Holocaust survivors, the Jewish displaced persons (DPs), in Palestine (in response to which Arab League secretary-general Abd al-Rahman Azzam declared that this could touch off a new war between Christianity and Islam, as had the medieval Crusades.44 Azzam had long been tagged by the British as "intransigent." Back in 1939, he had told Weizmann that "there was nothing for it but a fight to the death against the Jews.")45 Truman pointedly asked the British prime minister to lift the restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine.46 Soon, this had crystallized into open support for the immediate resettlement in Palestine of "ioo,ooo" DPs.
    For Palestine's Arabs, the war years passed without significant change. True, their financial assets grew substantially because of Allied spending and investment.47 But militarily and politically, things remained much the same. Few-perhaps five or six thousand-signed up with the Allied armed forces or otherwise gained military experience; there was no increment in local military force or organization. And the political (and military) leadership that had been shattered in 1938-1939 remained either in exile, neutered, or hors de combat. But by mid-1943, it had become increasingly clear to Palestinian and outside Arab leaders that the Allies would win and that, whatever their true feelings, the Arabs had better at least edge toward, if not jump outright onto, the bandwagon. To gain anything from the Allied victory in the postwar settlement, Palestine's Arabs would need to have a recognized leadership and an organization capable of managing the coming struggle and reaping its possible rewards. During 1943 the former heads of Palestine's Istiqlal Party- Awni Abd al-Hadi, Rashid Haj Ibrahim, and Ahmad Hilmi Pashalaunched an effort to reunite the Palestinian nationalist movement. In August, Ahmad Hilmi began to reorganize the Arab National Fund, designed to counter Jewish land purchasing, and in November, the fifteenth conference of the Palestinian Arab chambers of commerce met in Jerusalem and set in motion a process to elect new Palestinian national representation. The Istiqlalists' platform called for the rigid implementation of the provisions of the 1939 white paper.48
    Because of Husseini opposition, matters hung fire. But not to be outdone, the Husseinis also began to reorganize. True, their main leaders were in exile-Haj Arnin in Berlin, serving the Nazis, and Jamal Husseini, interned in Southern Rhodesia. But the remaining local