Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Arekat's attempted distortion notwithstanding, the record on Truman is revealed by Clifford and Holbrooke.

http://tinyurl.com/d4vs69
President Truman's Decision to Recognize Israel
Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke

* President Truman regarded his Secretary of State, General of the Army George C. Marshall, as "the greatest living American." Yet the two men were on a collision course over Mideast policy. Marshall firmly opposed American recognition of the new Jewish state.
* Officials in the State Department had done every­thing in their power to prevent, thwart, or delay the President's Palestine policy in 1947 and 1948. Watching them find various ways to avoid carrying out White House instructions, I sometimes felt they preferred to follow the views of the British Foreign Office rather than those of their President.
* At a meeting in the Oval Office on May 12, 1948, I argued: "In an area as unstable as the Middle East, where there is not now and never has been any tradition of democratic govern­ment, it is important for the long-range security of our country, and indeed the world, that a nation committed to the democratic system be established there, one on which we can rely. The new Jewish state can be such a place. We should strengthen it in its infancy by prompt recognition."
* Since at the time a significant number of Jewish Americans opposed Zionism, neither the President nor I believed that Palestine was the key to the Jewish vote. As I had written in 1947, the key to the Jewish vote in 1948 would not be the Palestine issue, but a continued commitment to liberal political and economic policies.
* The charge that domestic politics determined our policy on Palestine angered President Truman for the rest of his life. In fact, the President's policy rested on the realities of the situation in the region, on America's moral, ethical, and humanitarian values, on the costs and risks inherent in any other course, and on America's national interests.

To commemorate Israel's 60th anniversary, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is publishing excerpts from "Showdown in the Oval Office," the first chapter of Counsel to the President, the memoirs of Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke, published in 1991, that describes in detail the drama in Washington surrounding the Truman administration's then-controversial decision to recognize Israel. This text is being reproduced with the permission of Ambassador Holbrooke....

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