‘Forthcoming three months represent best remaining opportunity for accomplishment’: Israeli diplomacy and the 1948 US presidential election (part II)

Abstract

President Truman's de facto recognition of Israel on 14 May 1948 did not resolve the critical issues of de jure recognition, the new state's boundaries, the arms embargo, and financial assistance. In an ironic convergence with their frequent adversaries in the US State Department who often alleged that politics was driving Palestine policy, Israeli diplomats anticipated that favourable action from the Truman administration on these issues would be forthcoming in the course of that year's presidential election campaign. This article examines Israel's efforts to secure those objectives in the context of that year's presidential politics and the ongoing tug of war between White House and State Department. Despite persistent and determined advocacy, the mobilization of considerable support from American Zionists, and an apparently favourable political environment, Israel diplomacy was unable to overcome Truman's deference to State Department resistance to Israeli aspirations in the months leading up to his unexpected victory at the polls on 2 November 1948. It would be the success of Israeli arms, not the quest for Jewish votes, that proved to be the key to realizing the unfinished agenda of 14 May.