Besides, argued Forrestal, if the Jews attempted to create a homeland in Palestine, the Arabs would destroy them. “You just don’t understand,” Forrestal argued. “Forty million Arabs are going to push 400,000 Jews into the sea. And that’s all there is to it. Oil—that is the side we ought to be on.”
A Jewish homeland would likely require American troops to ensure its survival. A memo from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that summer to the heads of the State, Navy, and War Departments warned against the use of American troops in the region. “The Middle East could well fall into anarchy and become a breeding ground for world war,” the Joint Chiefs’ memo declared.
The main opposition to a Jewish homeland came from Truman’s own State Department. The department’s lead diplomat on Middle East matters, Loy Henderson, was virulently opposed to a Jewish state, and his voice was influential in the department. Truman summoned Henderson to the White House to grill him on his views. In the room at the time were two of Truman’s closest advisers on the issue—David Niles and Clark Clifford, both of whom supported a Jewish homeland. When Henderson arrived at the White House to state his case, he quickly realized he was outnumbered.
“After I set forth my reasons [for opposing Zionism],” Henderson recalled, “I was cross-examined. What were the sources of my views? . . . It seemed to me that the group was trying to humiliate and break me down in the presence of the President.” But Henderson held his ground. The Palestine problem “was one that would be sure to give rise to strife, hatreds, recriminations, intrigue, and political machinations on a domestic and international level for years to come,” he recalled, “and I did not want it to be also our particular problem.” He went on to explain that these were not his views alone, “but of all our legations and consular offices in the Middle East and of all the members of the Department of State who had responsibilities for that area.”
Leaders of Arab states knew that the future of the region was likely to depend on the opinion of a single man—Harry S. Truman. Such was the power of the American presidency in this new postwar world. The Egyptian prime minister, Nokrashy Pasha, wrote Truman promising that his people would “resist at all costs” the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Other Palestinian leaders warned that any Jewish homeland would result in immediate warfare.
A majority of American voters, however, stood behind a Jewish state. All the emerging 1948 presidential candidates—candidates not beholden to the wishes of the State Department—were happy to make promises of support to Jewish groups. On June 20, 1946, Truman received a petition backing the creation of a Jewish state from nine US senators. It pointed out that “in Hitler’s concentration and extermination camps, 6,000,000 Jews were tortured, gassed or burned to death . . . The 1,500,000 Jews still left alive in Europe are largely destitute, unwanted or homeless with a well-grounded need and want to migrate to Palestine.” Among the public figures speaking out in favor of the Jews were Eleanor Roosevelt, the film star Orson Welles, the labor leader David Dubinsky, and numerous liberal columnists such as the popular writer I. F. Stone.
Truman told his political aide Oscar Ewing, “I am in a tough spot. The Jews are bringing all kinds of pressure on me to support the partition of Palestine [into two states, one for Arabs] and the establishment of a Jewish state. On the other hand the State Department is adamantly opposed to this. I have two Jewish assistants on my staff, Dave Niles and Max Lowenthal. Whenever I try to talk to them about Palestine they soon burst into tears because they are so emotionally involved in the subject. So far I have not known what to do.”
Truman heard again and again from fellow Democrats: Prominent Jewish campaign donors were asking for assurance that he would support a Jewish homeland. If not, these powerful constituents would turn to the Republicans. Jews made up roughly 4 percent of the national electorate, but they held considerable influence in critical states, including California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maryland, and most notably New York, the nation’s most populous state. Truman grew resentful of the pressure Jewish organizations were putting on him to move against the wishes of his own State Department.
“Those New York Jews!” the president reportedly said in conversation with the publisher of the New York Post, Ted Thackrey. “They’re disloyal to their country. Disloyal!”
“Would you mind explaining a little further, Mr. President?” Thackrey demanded. “When you speak of New York Jews are you referring to such people as [the highly respected financier and statesman] Bernard Baruch? Or are you referring to such New York Jews as my wife?”
The Palestine problem was turning into a make-or-break issue in the 1948 election. At one point, Truman hosted four Middle Eastern diplomatic officials who told him that the prestige of the United States was declining rapidly in the oil-rich Arab world. Truman said, “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism; I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.”
Wherever he looked, Truman faced tough choices.
Should he support the Jews in a quest for a homeland, and please huge numbers of American voters in the process? Or should he side with his own State Department and the oil that was critical to national security?
Should he come out in support of black Americans and the NAACP for civil rights? Or should he side with the Democratic base in the South, led by powerful and popular white congressmen who would oppose any such notions, and without whom the future of the Democratic Party would be imperiled?
Should he support unions and workers in their right to strike and demand rights from big business?
