This new book by Jeffrey C. Herf, a prolific historian of modern European politics and societies at the University of Maryland, examines an early and important post-1945 geopolitical question facing governments: whether to favor or oppose the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state on the eastern rim of the Mediterranean Sea. This issue deeply divided Western governments, Western publics, and international bodies, whereas Soviet-bloc governments were unified on the matter. From May 1947 to May 1949, to the surprise of many, the United States and the Soviet Union cooperated for one remarkable moment in facilitating the launch of the nascent state of Israel onto the regional and world scene.This is the story Herf heavily documents and tells in Israel's Moment: International Support for and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945–1949. He magnifies the centrality of European affairs in the first half of the twentieth century and highlights what occurred when international rivals collaborated on a complicated and controversial issue amid a deepening Cold War.Even though the United States and the Soviet Union converged to recognize the independence of the Zionist entity, a motley group of governments, political parties, and private and non-profit entities strongly opposed bringing Israel into legal existence. The latter included Great Britain's Labour government and a political hierarchy clinging to empire in its Palestinian Mandate and beyond, including defending its access through the strategic Suez Canal. The sweep of Arab leaders included authoritarian strongmen and quasi-governments such as Arab League members and the Arab Higher Committee in Palestine led by Haj Amin al-Husayni, the grand mufti of Jerusalem who had been a leading Nazi collaborator. Opposition inside the United State included the Truman administration's top diplomatic, military, and intelligence brass, plus corporate energy and industrial board heads who were invested in cultivating the Arab Middle East and its petroleum—with or without President Harry S. Truman.Herf makes clear his admiration of the extraordinary efforts of post-Holocaust Jews in Palestine, a patchwork of groups under the aegis of Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. Herf consistently praises Ben Gurion, who understood there was only a brief window of opportunity for a U.S.-Soviet agreement to support partitioning British Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab sections. But only the Zionists agreed to the United Nations (UN) partition plan; Egypt did not recognize Israel until 1979. Herf reminds the reader many times that the Jews of Palestine won respect by their willingness to fight and their ability to win. After Ben Gurion declared Israel's independence in Tel Aviv, Palestinian irregulars and seven national armies invaded the nascent Zionist state. Armistice agreements were subsequently signed with four Arab states in 1949.The Israeli part of the independence drama has been widely covered in historical literature. Herf's fresh scholarship focuses on the 1947–1949 “moment” when a new state was born and defended because of a contingent, short-term, and unexpected agreement between President Truman and the highest leaders of the Soviet bloc, including Joseph Stalin of the USSR and the Communist rulers of Poland and Czechoslovakia, who knowingly violated British trade and arms embargoes by transferring air and ground weaponry to the emerging Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on a timely basis.Throughout, Herf deepens and fine-tunes his historical probe by using extensive archival evidence, including UN General Assembly and UN Security Council records, declassified U.S. Central Intelligence Agency reports and U.S. State Department and Defense Department files, declassified French Foreign Ministry and Interior Ministry collections, declassified Soviet and British documents, U.S. congressional committee holdings, and the records of various non-government organizations in New York City.Herf draws four conclusions. First, for two years, the United States was far less willing than the Soviet bloc to support an independent Israel. Truman himself did back the formation of Israel and believed that the Holocaust had confirmed the basic Zionist argument of the need for a Jewish state to ward off constant threats from anti-Semitic forces. He understood that, as long as the Jews remained without a state, they would face the prospect of elimination, as had nearly happened under Nazi Germany.At the forefront of U.S. opposition to Israel was Secretary of State George Marshall, who had played an important role in World War II. His overriding concern, which he shared with his chief policy planner, George Kennan, was to contain Communism as articulated in the Truman Doctrine regarding Greece and Turkey. Herf exposes how work strains and pressures caught up with Marshall. On 14 May, a day ahead of Israel's declaration of independence, Marshall became scrambled in his thought processes. Responding to a press inquiry that he had sent a “personal message” to Ben Gurion about the Jewish agency becoming the structure of a new sovereign state, the secretary of state rambled that “in actual fact, no message had been sent to Mr. Ben Gurion, and I did not know that such a person existed” (p. 334).Thus it was Stalin and his comrades, Herf makes clear, who were up front about pushing for Israel's independence. The Soviet dictator recognized an opportunity to “eliminate or certainly reduce British and American presence as powers in the Middle East.” The Soviet Union's backing for the creation of Israel was thus “more consequential” (pp. 1, 334, 364, 368). Soviet leaders were emphatically clear in their support for Israel, whereas the United States maintained its “cool reserve.” Herf reveals the hostile language used by U.S. State Department officials in secret cables and messages. One in particular stands out: the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Warren Austin, labeled Israel a “threat to peace” in the Middle East (p. xx).In contrast, the Soviet diplomat Andrei Gromyko reiterated his support for the partition of British Palestine into two independent states. On 21 May 1948, after Great Britain supported the actions of Transjordan and prevented the UN Security Council “from taking effective action to suppress the existing threat to and breach of the peace in Palestine” (i.e., the Arab League invasion), Gromyko bluntly criticized British policy (p. 361). On 29 May, speaking before the UN Security Council, Gromyko clearly placed blame for hostilities on the Arabs and described Israel as a victim of aggression.As the war dragged on, Israel gained the advantage thanks to the willingness of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia to do what the United States and its allies refused to do. The Czechoslovak government armed the IDF with substantial amounts of heavy and small firearms plus ammunition, combat aircraft and bombs, and much needed training. Israel's weapons purchases from Czechoslovakia during the 1948–1949 war are estimated to have amounted to $28 million (more than $300 million at current rates). Czechoslovakia also trained 70 ground personnel to operate tanks and 1,300 infantry fighters, personnel for the new Israeli air force, and 24 paratroopers, while also encouraging immigration from Europe and North America to the Holy Land. Herf quotes a 1968 interview on Israel Radio in which Ben Gurion credited “Czech weapons” for “truly sav[ing] the state of Israel. Without those weapons, we would not have remained alive” (p. 417).Herf's second conclusion is that passions in France and the United States for an independent Israel came not from anti-Communist conservatives but from liberal and left-wing intellectuals, socialists, Communists, and those who still had strong anti-fascist memories of the recent global war. On issue after issue, as is the case three quarters of a century later, members of Congress took the lead to authorize the divided administration to spend government funds, issue credits, and buy goods and services. During the two-year “Moment,” at least 41 members in both houses of Congress and both political parties actively supported Israel's position. The most prominent senators were Robert Wagner (D-NY) and Robert Taft (R-OH), and from the House of Representatives the busiest and most sophisticated were Emanuel Cellar (D-NY) and Jacob Javits (R-NY). In both cases, bipartisanship worked.Herf's third conclusion is that Zionist aspirations were actively opposed by the British Labour government starting with Prime Minister Ernest Bevin and his ministers and reinforced by Arabists in the UK's international and security bureaucracies. Similar opposition to Zionism developed in the United States among leading cabinet and sub-cabinet secretaries plus Arabists in the State Department's Near Eastern and African Affairs Bureau, in U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East, and in the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency.Herf's final conclusion is that between the passions of two eras—World War II, including the Holocaust, and the intensification of the Cold War—there was a sliver of time when Truman and Stalin found themselves helping to midwife Israel's long-awaited moment. In mid-1949, however, as the Cold War came into full bloom and Stalin pursued a murderously anti-Semitic campaign in the USSR, the Soviet regime turned vehemently against Israel. That dismal turn of events stood in notable contrast to the remarkable story that preceded it.This is a first-rate book and deserves a wide readership.