1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (14 page)

The key, of course, was in Washington. Early on, Zionist officials commented, "Everything depends upon which way they decide to turn it." 124 Or, as AHC representative Jamal Husseini put it: "America is our greatest enemy." 12' But Washington's behavior, until the final seventy-two hours, was "never satisfactory" and "at times [downright] disheartening," reported one Zionist official. The Americans had waited weeks before publicly endorsing the UNSCOP majority report and in the Ad Hoc subcommittees "were the delegation most insistent on changes to our detriment." At the General Assembly, the American refusal to pressure other countries "did us great damage." The climax of this "policy of indifference" was on z6 November, when Greece, the Philippines, and Haiti, all "completely dependent on Washington-suddenly came out one after another against its declared policy." It was only then, after frantic Jewish lobbying, that Washington "exerted itself to rally support and the situation improved.... It was only in the last 4.8 hours ... that we really got the full backing of the United States." 126

From September, the Jewish Agency began applying pressure, directly and through American Jewish organizations and prominent public figures, on Washington to firm up its commitment to partition and to persuade its allies to fill into line. The Zionists were fairly certain that Truman and the White House would stay the course, but they worried about members of the American UN delegation and, even more, about certain State Department officials in Washington: "Men like [Loy] Henderson [director of State's Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs] and those behind him are monazerim [bastards] of the first order," as Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, chairman of the American Zionist Emergency Council, put it. 117 Another bete noire was State's Arabist George Wadsworth, a former ambassador to Iraq-"[our] bitterest enemy ... a slinky, suave man," as Rose Halprin, a member of the JAE, put it. 128

During September-early October, and despite Secretary of State George C. Marshall's endorsement on 17 September of the majority report, Zionist hearts fluttered. With some State Department officials still privately proclaiming opposition to partition, the Americans projected irresolution-certainly in all that related to partition's implementation-and this sowed irresolution among the other delegations. 129

Once Marshall had publicly endorsed partition, the Jewish Agency began pressing Washington to push or at least nudge other countries in the same direction. "I am not suggesting that the United States should convert itself into a steamroller and flatten them all out," Shertok told Henderson. But "a friendly word spoken in good time by United States representatives can do a great deal and can decide the issue." Shertok gave Henderson a list of Latin American governments he thought the United States should speak to.130

The United States maintained that it was "canvassing discreetly" but was avoiding any semblance of pressure so as not to put "up the backs of the other states." Or so Assistant Secretary of State Robert Lovett told Shertok.131 Down to 25 November, the Americans declined to twist arms. Part of the explanation is that almost all the relevant State Department officials were either critical of or opposed partition. But it was also a matter of policy. As late as 24 November, Truman instructed Lovett not "to use threats or improper pressure of any kind on other Delegations to vote for the majority report."'32

Some Zionist officials empathized with the American reluctance to twist arms. In private, several Latin American diplomats complained "very bitterly of the high-handed and brutal methods used by American[s] generally in regimenting the Latin American countries."133 And American diplomats argued that "the US can't say you [do] this, this and this.... We are not in a position to say, do this." 134

But following the Ad Hoc Committee vote of 25 November, the Zionist officials became desperate. Only a direct order from Truman, it was understood, could move the State Department-its officials in Washington and New York and its diplomats abroad-to exert real pressure. Weizmann, the Zionist big gun, was wheeled out. Twice he cabled Truman that he was beset by "grave anxiety lest [the partition] plan fail" to obtain the two-thirds majority and he reminded the president of his past "assurances" that the United States would "rally necessary support for UN endorsement partition plan." Specifically, he asked Truman to see what could be done about "France, China, Greece, Turkey, India, Siam, Philippines, Liberia, Ethiopia, Mexico, Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Paraguay, Colombia, El Salvador, Ecuador." Without at least some of these states, the resolution would not pass, he warned. 135 Weizmann also appealed directly to Secretary of State Marshall. 136

Weizmann's intervention was probably a major contributor to the lastminute policy switch in Washington. In addition, the White House and various officials were bombarded with "letters, telegrams and telephone calls" from the American public. 1-37 Truman later recalled that he had never been subjected to "as much pressure and propaganda ... as I had in this instance";'-38 it had all left him "very upset."'-39 On 25 November Truman's special assistant, David Niles, instructed the delegation in New York, in Trump's name, "to get all the votes they could, that there would be hell to pay if the voting went the wrong way."140 And Niles and another presidential aide, Special Counsel Clark Clifford, appear to have intervened directly with several countries.141 Particular pressure was put on Haiti and the Philippines (both in the end voted "aye") and Greece (which remained a "nay").

Senators and congressmen also interceded. Twenty-eight senators cabled a dozen wobbling governments to vote for partition, copies going simultaneously to the heads of the delegations to the United Nations and their representatives in Washington. 142

Lebanon's delegate, Camille Chamoun, condemned American influence in the General Assembly as a "dark and obscure tyranny," and the Arabs were later to denounce the Zionists methods of "promising and threat, temptation and deception" in mobilizing the two-thirds majority.143 Had the vote been taken secretly, as demanded by the Arabs, the Jews, said Iraq's leading politician Nuri Said, would have won "no more than three or four votes. 11144

But the Arabs had failed to understand the tremendous impact of the Holocaust on the international community-and, in any event, appear to have used the selfsame methods, but with poor results. WasifKamal, an AHC official, for example, offered one delegate-perhaps the Russian-a "huge, huge sum of money to vote for the Arabs" (the Russian declined, saying, "You want me to hang myself) ").14s But the Arabs' main tactic, amounting to blackmail, was the promise or threat of war should the assembly endorse partition. As early as mid-August 1947, Fawzi al-Qawugji-soon to be named the head of the Arab League's volunteer army in Palestine, the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) -threatened that, should the vote go the wrong way, "we will have to initiate total war. We will murder, wreck and ruin everything standing in our way, be it English, American or Jewish." 146 It would be a "holy war," the Arabs suggested, which might even evolve into "World War III." Cables to this effect poured in from Damascus, Beirut, Amman, and Baghdad during the Ad Hoc Committee deliberations, becoming "more lurid," according to Zionist officials, as the General Assembly vote drew near.147 The Arab states generally made no bones about their intention to support the Palestinians with "men, money and arms," and sometimes hinted at an eventual invasion by their armies.148 They also threatened the Western Powers, their traditional allies, with an oil embargo149 and/or abandonment and realignment with the Soviet Bloc.

Zionist officials, aware of the potency of the fear of the outbreak of war, tended during September-November to pooh-pooh these threats. "There is a very great deal of bluff in it," Shertok told American Zionist leaders. "These countries have much more serious worries in their own homes than to start hazardous military operations ... [in] Palestine. [And] the Arabs of Palestine are extremely unwilling to engage in any new adventure."1S0 At the end of September, the American Zionist Emergency Council even issued a four-page memorandum analyzing, and discounting, the threats: "John D. Rockefeller would sooner turn to Stalin to ask for aid in the reduction of his income tax than Ibn Saud and other Arab kings would call for Soviet intervention in the Middle East.... An analysis of the military situation ... will prove that there is no danger of any large-scale Arab attacks upon public order in Palestine.... The military potential of the different Arab-speaking states is notoriously weak.... Saudi Arabia's troops are picturesque horsemen.... It is inconceivable that any of these forces could interfere in Palestine without the consent and active cooperation of Great Britain.... Ridiculous is the assumption that an armed conflict between Arabs and Jews ... would lead to World War IIL `-51

But in general, until the last three days before the vote, Arab diplomats at the United Nations, and their governments, refused to believe that partition would gain a two-thirds majority and made no concerted effort to mobilize votes. Clear evidence of Arab desperation exists only for 27-2g November. The old Foreign Office Middle East hand Harold Beeley tried to orchestrate a last-minute postponement and compromise.152 But the AHC declined to "consider ... any concessions" after replacing their more moderate spokesmen, such as Henry Kattan, Albert Hourani, and Musa al- Alami, with hardliners. I,' And the Arab states, given the shortness of time, their varying agendas, the poor communications between New York and their capitals, and fears of being branded soft on Zionism, failed to rally around a unified proposal. The Lebanese delegate, Chamoun, independently put forward a five-point "federal" proposal based on the minority report but won no kudos, or agreement, from his fellow Arabs.'-` And Pakistan's delegate, Foreign Minister Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, who had led the Arab camp in the previous weeks' deliberations-"one of the ablest and most impressive delegates present from any country," according to a Zionist diplomat IS5-made himself scarce during those final days. 156

One last point: delegates with no firm instructions from their governments were no doubt influenced by the prevalent atmosphere in New York and Flushing Meadow, where the media broadcast "that an opponent of partition was an enemy of the American people.... [At Flushing Meadow the] almost exclusively Zionist audience . . . applauded declarations of support for Zionism. They hissed Arab speakers. They created the atmosphere of a football match, with the Arabs as the away team."157

On the afternoon of z9 November, the General Assembly presidium at last put draft Resolution 18 i to the vote. The hall was packed. In alphabetical order each country was asked "yes," "no," or "abstains." The procedure was broadcast live on radio around the world. When the tally was complete, thirty-three states had votes "yes," thirteen "no," with ten abstentions. 158 Partition had narrowly passed with a two-thirds majority. The "nays" consisted of the Arab and Muslim states, Greece, Cuba, and India, the "ayes" of the United States, the Dominions, Western Europe, the Soviet Bloc, and most of Latin America. Among the abstainers had been Britain, Chile, and China. The Chilean delegate resigned in protest.'-"

Resolution 181 [II] called for the partition of Palestine into two sovereign states, one Jewish, the other Arab. The Mandate was to terminate and the British pullout to be completed "not later than i August 1948." The two countries were to be bound in an economic "union." The Jewish state, on about SS percent of Palestine's territory, was to consist of the bulk of the Negev, the central and northern Coastal Plain between Rehovot and Haifa, and the Jezreel and Jordan Valleys, including the Galilee Panhandle. The Arab state, on about 4z percent of Palestine, was to consist of the northwestern corner of the Negev and the southern Coastal Plain around Gaza, the hill country of Samaria and Judea as far south as Beersheba, and central and western Galilee. The Jerusalem area-including the city itself, outlying villages (Tin Karim and Abu Dis), and Bethlehem-was designated a "corpus separatum," to be governed by the UN Trusteeship Council. The borders were set out in adjoining maps. The resolution provided for the establishment of a five-member "Commission," which, under "the guidance of the Security Council," would "take over and administer" the areas progressively evacuated by the British authorities. The British were specifically enjoined not to "prevent, obstruct or delay" the commission's work. The commission was to delineate and finalize the borders and help in the establishment of the two provisional governments, which would transitionally operate under the commission's supervision. The commission was also to oversee elections in the two states. The resolution assured all of access to religious sites and provided for the fair treatment of minorities.

The Zionists and their supporters rejoiced; the Arab delegations walked out of the plenum after declaring the resolution invalid. 16() The Arabs failed to understand why the international community was awarding the Jews any part of Palestine. Further, as one Palestinian historian later put it, they could not fathom why 37 percent of the population had been given SS percent of the land (of which they owned only 7 percent).161 Moreover, the Jews had been given the best agricultural lands (the Coastal Plain and Jezreel and Jordan Valleys) while the Arabs had received the "bare and hilly" parts, as one Palestinian politician, 'Awni Abd al-Hadi, told a Zionist agent. 162 More generally, "the Palestinians failed to see why they should be made to pay for the Holocaust.... [And] they failed to see why it was notfair for the Jews to be a minority in a unitary Palestinian state, while it was fair for almost half of the Palestinian population-the indigenous majority on its own ancestral soil-to be converted overnight into a minority under alien rule." 163