A Calculated Risk. Evan M. Wilson
to rest upon false assumptions and questionable data. Lastly, the passions aroused by Palestine have done so much to obscure the truth that the facts have become enveloped in a mist of sentiment, legend, and propaganda, which acts as a smokescreen of almost impenetrable density. (p. 386)
Until the First World War, there was no Palestine problem. Palestine was a part of the Ottoman Empire and the population was overwhelmingly (about 90 percent) Arab. It was the introduction, under the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, of Jewish immigrants in such numbers as to lead the Arabs of Palestine to believe themselves threatened that caused the conflict, a conflict that has not been resolved to this day. The problem in the twenties was complicated by the rise of Arab nationalism and by the contradictory nature of the promises respecting Palestine made by the British in the course of wartime negotiations with the Arabs, the Jews, and the Allies.
To the Arabs, in order to gain their support in the war against Turkey, the British promised independence in an area which, though not precisely defined, had always been considered by the Arabs to include Palestine.
To the Jews, whose connection with Palestine had never been broken since antiquity and whose interest in the land had been enhanced by the rise of Zionism (the movement which promoted the return of the Jews to Palestine and was eventually to seek the establishment of a Jewish state there), the British promised in the Balfour Declaration to work for the establishment in Palestine of “a national home for the Jewish people” (likewise not defined), with the important provisos that nothing be done to prejudice the rights of what were called the “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” (that is, the Arabs), or the rights of Jews elsewhere in the world. The pledge was given to the Jews largely for the purpose of enlisting Jewish support in the war and of forestalling a similar promise by the Central Powers. At the time, according to the best information available, Jews cannot have accounted for more than 9 percent of the population of Palestine.
During secret negotiations with the French, the Imperial Russians, and the Italians concerning the disposition of Ottoman territories after the war, the British promised that Palestine would be placed under international administration. However, at the San Remo Conference in April 1920, attended by Great Britain, France, and Italy, with the United States as observer, it was decided that Great Britain should be given the Mandate for Palestine. The text of the Mandate repeated the entire text of the Balfour Declaration and placed the British under obligation to “facilitate Jewish immigration” and encourage “close settlement by Jews on the land.” Unlike the other mandates covering former Turkish territories, there was no provision for termination of the Mandate and only a vague reference to self-determination.
The early years of the Mandate were relatively quiet. Few Jews came to Palestine and in fact in the 1920s there was a net emigration of Jews. Almost immediately, however, a gulf began to develop between the Arab and Jewish communities. Arab resentment was voiced, and as early as 1920 there were Arab riots.
Immigration increased markedly with the rise of Hitler in Germany and indeed it can be said that had it not been for Adolf Hitler there would be no Jewish state today. By 1939 Jews numbered 450,000, or 30 percent, of a total population of 1.5 million, and Jewish-owned land had increased from 148,500 acres after the First World War to 383,250 acres.
As tension grew between the communities, the British sent out a series of commissions to study the problem, but none of them was able to resolve the basic contradiction between the Arab claim to self-government and the development of the Jewish National Home.
In 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, at a time when the Axis powers were cultivating the Arabs assiduously, the British issued a White Paper setting a quota of seventy-five thousand for Jewish immigration over the next five years, at the end of which the consent of the Arabs of Palestine would be required for any further immigration. By this time it was clear that the basic issue in Palestine was the continuance of Jewish immigration, since this would determine the nature of the future Palestine state.
In the chapters that follow, I shall examine the story of our growing involvement in Palestine between 1942 and 1948 in the light of what I conceive to be three main themes which run through the narrative. I present these themes here as questions. In the Epilogue I shall re-examine them and try to make some assessment of our Palestine policy during the period under review. The contributions of the two presidents, Roosevelt and Truman, to that policy will be assessed as we go along.
The first question is whether the steady trend of U.S. policy in the direction of the Zionist position in these years, ending in our outright endorsement of the concept of a Jewish state, was inevitable or whether it could have been prevented. In other words, could the dilemma in our Palestine policy stemming from the conflict between the Jewish interest and the Arab interest have been resolved in any other way except by our coming out, as we eventually did, on the Jewish side of the dispute, with all the consequences that this implied for our relations with the Arab world?
Second, given a “tilt” in our policy toward the Jews, did this mean that we would adopt a wholly pro-Jewish attitude or would we seek to achieve the greatest possible degree of accommodation between the two conflicting points of view?
A third question is that of the extent to which the career men in the State Department, of which I was a junior member, were able to influence the decisions which presidents Roosevelt and Truman had to take respecting Palestine, in the context of a variety of considerations (domestic, political, global, economic, and humanitarian) that confronted them. Also, just how aware were the two presidents of the probable consequences of their decisions so far as the situation in the Middle East was concerned?
After an introduction, which will provide the setting for the events to be related, I launch into the narrative portion of the book, starting with the year 1942.
The Old State Department Building. (National Archives #VS 320-13-53)
President Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud aboard the cruiser Quincy, with Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the President, and Colonel William A. Eddy, U.S. Minister to Saudi Arabia, February 14, 1945. (Courtesy of Mrs. William A. Eddy)
Chaim Weizmann, head of the World Zionist Organization, testifying before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in Jerusalem, March 1946. (Photo courtesy of the author, Evan M. Wilson, who appears in the background at the end of the table.)
A session of the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine in Jerusalem, June 1947, with David Horowitz (left) and Moshe Shertok of the Jewish Agency testifying. (Jorge Garcia-Granados of Guatemala is second from the right at the table.) (National Archives # 306-NT-21270v)
Haganah recruits drilling openly near Tel Aviv before the end of the British Mandate. (National Archives #306-NT-1190-14)
Damage caused at the headquarters of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, March 1948, by the explosion of a booby-trapped vehicle brought in by the Arab driver of the American Consulate General. (National Archives #306-NT-1189-39)
The author (second row far right) with Druse Sheiks at Abu Sinan in Northern Palestine. (Courtesy of Leila Brown and Martha Wilson)
Syrian