A President is domestically unpopular as an election approaches, a long-suffering people hope for a better future and a decision is to be made about the recognition of a state in the Middle East. You would be forgiven for thinking I’m writing of on-going events but in fact I am writing of the events of 1948. The similarities between now and then are striking but there are pronounced differences. The actual decision made in each case couldn’t be more different from one another but the motives behind them are largely the same – and they’re not honourable motives.
On May 16th 1948, the incumbent President Harry S. Truman recognised the newly-declared state of Israel. This was against the advice of his State Department, contradicted an earlier American preference for ‘Trusteeship’ over Partition and was an abandonment of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry’s proposals.
America’s hasty recognition gave the newly-formed state at least a perception of legitimacy. Other countries were quick to follow America’s example in recognising Israel. A day later, a bloody and inevitable war ignited and the Middle East Conflict had been born. Truman had played the midwife who helped in its delivery. Given the inevitability of conflict and the fact that partition plan was so obviously destined to fail, the question begs, why did Truman recognise Israel so readily? Was it because he was concerned about the countless homeless refugees that the Holocaust had produced, as has been claimed? This is unlikely. If he had have been then he would have made more provision for the settlement of such refugees within America itself – a move which would have been welcomed by many Jewish Organisations. Instead Truman gave priority to Nazi Sympathisers and SS Troopers from the Baltic States in the form of his Displaced Persons Legislation. No, the real reason for Truman’s decision has more to do with his own personal electoral considerations.
With five millions Jews living in the United States at the time of recognition, many of them concentrated in the key electoral states such as Illinois and New York, recognising Israel was the kind of policy decision that would make all difference to Truman in the election of that year. It wasn’t the first time the President acted in such a way. He had previously timed a policy move to coincide with the upcoming midterm Congressional and New York Mayoral elections when he made his ‘Yom Kippur Statement’. On the eve of that religious festival, Truman made a statement pledging his support for a “viable Jewish State.” His motives for doing so couldn’t have been more obvious.
Contrary to all the predictions, Truman defeated the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 Presidential election. He would go on to be re-elected four years later. Yes, things worked out alright for Mr Truman – just a shame the same can’t be said for those who have endured the misery of the Middle East Conflict – a conflict that he had exacerbated by his selfish act.
Jump forward to 2011 and once again we see an unpopular President understandably anxious at the prospect of an upcoming Presidential election. Once again a long-suffering people are hoping for a better future and a decision about recognition is to be made. This time that decision will be one of non-recognition as Obama has made clear; America will veto Palestine’s formal request for full recognition once it reaches the Security Council.
One should be careful not to overstate the similarities between Obama and Truman’s respective decision. There are some key differences. For instance, unlike Truman, Obama’s decision will be in defiance of the majority of world opinion. Obama’s decision, unlike Truman’s does not have to factor in an inevitable conflict that would follow recognition. Regardless, Obama will not be recognising Palestine. Supposedly this is because he believes that any Palestinian state must come after the brokering of peace between the Palestinians and Israel – something that Obama must know is at present impossible given Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence on settlement expansion. As such, one does not need to be a Political Scientist to see that Obama’s motives lie in his own electoral considerations.
It seems inevitable that the influence of the Jewish Lobby in Washington and a man’s personal desire to stay in power will triumph as they did in 1948. As the Nobel Peace Prize winner begins his second term I hope he will be aware it will be at the expense of the fully-recognised state that the Palestinians so clearly deserve.
Mr. Pentney,
Your take on what occurred in 1948 is unfortunately flawed, in my opinion. And perhaps colored by a desire to forget Britain’s own craven conduct. Some have not forgotten Britain’s denial of refuge in Palestine to Jews on the eve of the Holocaust while allowing for unlimited Arab in-migration, the arming by Britain of Arab armies with the avowed goal of massacre and jihad less than 3 years after the liberation of Auschwitz or the fact that British officers under the anti-semitic Colonel John Glubb, AKA ‘Glubb Pasha’ oversaw the Jordanian Arab Legions’ ethnic cleansing of every Jew in Judea and Samaria as well as in the Old City of Jerusalem.
President Truman’s electoral victory in 1948 could likewise not have been due to his recognition of Israel. There were something like 4 million Jews total in America then, including children not of voting age and post-war refugees that were not allowed to vote because they were not yet citizens. even if Truman won every available Jewish vote ( and with Henry Wallace running a third party campaign, he assuredly did not) his margin of victory was greater than that. Among other things, American satisfaction at his handling of the Berlin Airlift played a major part.
The ‘Jewish Lobby’ as you call it( I refer to it as the average Jewish voter) for the most part is fairly disgusted with president Obama not just for his treatment of a loyal and valuable US ally but his feckless performance in foreign policy and economic management. They share that with the majority of Americans.In any event, a bit of research ( I recommend Mitchell Bard’s excellent book on the subject) will show you that Arab petrodollars have created a far more pervasive and well-funded Arab lobby than anything America’s Jews have come up with.
I must admit, is interesting to see a Briton who styles himself as a conservative plumping for a second Arab Palestinian State. To do so calls for the ignoring of the British unilateral establishment of Jordan as the Arab ‘Palestinian’ State in 1923, the fact that Jordan’s population is almost 80% self-identified as ‘Palestinian’ and that the Palestinian Authority itself has said that they intend to keep those people who identify themselves as ‘Palestinian refugees’ stateless as a continuing grievance and obstacle to any real peace.
http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2011/09/pa-palestinian-refugees-wont-be.html
Such an attitude also calls for ignoring the almost one million Jews who were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948, most of whom were resettled in Israel at that nation’s expense without a penny’s help from the UN.
Compassion, it appears, is a river that flows only in one direction with some people.
Best,
Rob Miller
Posted by Rob Miller @ Joshuapundit | October 10, 2011, 9:44 pmRob, thank you for your comment.
Your comments display an impressive knowledge of Britain’s conduct in this region. However, the points you make are by and large irrelevant to my article and rest on assumptions you make about myself personally – assumptions that are incorrect.
Firstly, I have no desire to “forget Britain’s own craven conduct.” I am extremely critical of Britain’s history in the region. I do not mention Britain as it is outside the scope of my article (my article of course being related to the current events: in this case Obama’s upcoming non-recognition of Palestine). I will be writing a Britain-focused article as and when David Cameron ceases to sit on the fence on the issue of Palestinian recognition.
I should also mention that in no way do I style myself as a conservative. My own desire to see a Palestinian State is not the subject of my article.
Your comments regarding the 1948 Presidential election seem to focus on the reasons behind Truman’s election victory which is again outside the scope of my article. My focus is the electoral motives behind Truman’s decision; not the extent to which that his victory is attributable to that decision.
I partially accept what you say about the average Jewish voter’s feeling towards Obama. The President has indeed appeared to come down hard on Israel on issues such as settlement expansion. I doubt this has done much to endear himself to the Jewish vote. However, the President’s hard-line approach only extends to his rhetoric and when it comes to actual policy, such as the issue of Palestinian recognition; Obama will be acting in accordance with the average Jewish voter’s wishes.
Regards
Nicholas Pentney
Posted by Nicholas Pentney | October 12, 2011, 8:38 amHello Nicholas,
Forgive my misunderstanding of the following statement on your part: “With five millions Jews living in the United States at the time of recognition, many of them concentrated in the key electoral states such as Illinois and New York, recognising Israel was the kind of policy decision that would make all difference to Truman in the election of that year.”
To a casual reader, it would appear from this and other statements you made that you were attributing Truman’s victory in 1948 to the Jews, and imputing that President Obama is acting from the same motives.Use of the term ‘Jewish Lobby’ also seems peculiar if that is not in fact what you meant.
By the way,a correction if I may…Truman was NOT re-elected in 1952. By then, he was decidedly unpopular, and chose not to stand for re-election. Dwight Eisenhower beat Adlai Stevenson like a gong in that year’s election.
I think you also misunderstand President Obama’s real reason for opposing a unilateral declaration of independence by ‘Palestine’. This president has a long history of having close fiends and allies with a decidedly anti-Israel and even anti-semitic bent – Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said, Khalid al-Mansour, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and Louis Farakhan, to mention just a few.He obviously has little friendship for Israel as evidenced by his actions during his term, although both Congress and the American people largely do.
The problem is that by going to the UN for a UDI, the ‘Palestinians’ are abrogating two treaties that both they and the United States are signatories to – The Road Map and the Oslo Accords.
The president thus has had a difficult choice – if he follows his ideology and supports what the ‘Palestinians’ are doing or even abstains, he breaks American law, would receive massive blowback from Congress and sets an unacceptable precedent for future treaties.U.S. Treaties, as you may know, are ratified by the Senate, so their credibility is on the line as well in this matter.
If he uses America’s veto, he comes across as a hypocrite to his Leftist associates and foes of Israel and gets accused of bending to the ‘Jewish Lobby’ which is rather what you seem to be accusing him of, if I read you right!
That’s why President Obama made such determined efforts to bribe/threaten Mahmoud Abbas into withdrawing the ‘Palestinian’ bid at the UN.
By the way, the issue and circumstances of a UN recognition of ‘Palestine’ today as opposed to the 1948 recognition of Israel couldn’t be more different.
First, Britain only had the Palestine Mandate in the first place with the provision that they would use it to create a Jewish Homeland and that was codified in the San Remo Agreement. Of course, the British never lived up to that promise, but Israel’s foundation in 1948 thus had a firm foundation in international law. There’s no such foundation for ‘Palestine’, and in fact the only claim they have on the land in Judea and Samaria is the Oslo Accords, which the ‘Palestinians’ have consistently failed to abide by and are now in the process of attempting to breach entirely.
Second, the UN’s recognition of Israel in 1948 was based on a partition plan recommended by a UN commission. The Jews reluctantly accepted that but the Arabs chose to attempt to seize the entire territory by invading and massacring the Jews, something the UK supported as I’ve pointed out.They simply failed, and lost territory as a result.
Unlike Israel in 1948, the ‘Palestinians’ today are not using the UN as a mediator, but attempting to gain by UN diktat what they failed to obtain by wars of aggression.
Third, unlike the ‘Palestinians’, Israel in 1948 was not violating any treaties or international agreements it had signed to have statehood declared.
There are a number of other differences I might point out, but those three should suffice.
I’m reasonably sure your David Cameron will nevertheless vote for ‘Palestinian’ statehood. It will cost him nothing, appease the UK’s restive Muslim population and gratify what appears to be a great many people in Britain who are convinced that Israel is the source of all turmoil and evil in the Middle East, and that creating a ‘Palestine’ that would soon be taken over by a genocidal Hamas just as Gaza was is somehow to Britain’s advantage.
Regards,
Rob Miller
Posted by Rob Miller | October 14, 2011, 12:44 pmHi Rob,
I’ve tried replying to your private email on a few occasions and it keeps getting bounced back.
Please let me know when this is fixed and I’ll re-send my email to you.
Many thanks,
James
PS. Apologies for hijacking this thread.
Posted by James Garry | October 14, 2011, 1:20 pm