You Can't Not Support Israel - The Two-State-Partition Conundrum

Not surprisingly the recent politics of Israel's support has turned to nonsupport-demagoguery. Inconsequentially that may be, because there's no way in America, when pushed to the brink -- or not, Zionism will not win strong-political favor --- unless maybe you are (were) a George C. Marshall. Marshall was essentially apolitical and unswayed by politics.
Five Star General George C. Marshall, largely forgotten for a highly successful role as Secretary of Defense in wining WWII, his callback to service as Secretary of State and administering the "Marshall Plan" to save a war-torn Europe from Communist encroachment, remains lesser-known history by a younger generation.
Marshall was fully supportive and loyal to President Harry S. Truman; Truman held Marshall in highest esteem, a steadfast belief in his capabilities, always revered him with the honorable greeting even in the most informal settings: "General Marshall." Yet - in the end, Marshall and Truman differed on one of the most crucial, essential humanitarian, decisions made post WWII. A new nation, a resolution conceived in the aftermath of Hitler's genocidal extermination of 6 million Jews would become the most confounding dilemma for a peaceful existence between Israelis and Palestinians. Now 63-years and counting, a disappointment of every U. S. administration.
The latest Mideast sticky situation calculated: Obama's discerning request for Abbas to rescind Palestine's request from the U.N. Security Council for immediate full membership status. Efraim Halevy writes from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "Unfortunately, the precedent for this type of overt pressure is not particularly encouraging, neither for Israel, nor for the United States. -------- It was in 2006 that President George W. Bush demanded that Hamas be allowed to participate in Palestinian general elections without it first having renounced the use of terrorism. It was an initiative that not only met resistance from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but also, in a rare meeting of minds, Israeli Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. All of them eventually surrendered to the diktat of the U.S. President. The immediate result was that Hamas won the election; the long-term aftermath, of course, has yet to be resolved. There is currently no end in sight to the deadly confrontation between Hamas and Israel."
Could General George Marshall have presaged Israel's precarious future to be a state partitioned adjacent to an Arab settlement? In David McCulloch's Truman, the account of President Harry Truman's defining role leading up to the United Nation's approval of Israel's official homeland was one in which Truman apparently, reluctantly reached a conclusion --- contrary to General Marshall.
Palestine was not the sole concern of Harry Truman in February 1948; in Czechoslovakia a violent coup backed by a Red Army had imposed a Communist Government, and it was feared that Italy and France was headed for the same fate. He wrote daughter Margaret on March 3rd, Russia had kept none of its agreements. A dramatic turnaround from "postwar" to "eminent war" was the atmosphere at the time.
All the while, the Jewish pressure on the White House did not diminish even after the 1947-partition vote in the U. N., Truman wrote years later. Hundreds of thousands of postcards flooded the White House mail, nearly all from Jewish interest groups, largely as a result of the American Zionist Emergency Council; thirty-three state legislatures passed resolutions; forty governors and more than half congress signed petitions to the President favoring a Jewish State. Ed Flynn who had run Roosevelt's successful 1940 campaign came down from New York to inform Truman that his renomination for presidency that July, 1948, was in jeopardy if he did not "give in" on Palestine. Some were labeling Truman as anti-Semite.
Truman's patience was wearing thin: Chaim Weizmann, a scientist, to be the new Israeli president, who Truman had been a friend and liked very much, had now sailed from London to New York to meet with Truman. Truman refused to met with him; all efforts to meet with Thurman had failed. From the strain of events, Weizmann at 74-years of age, already in failing health, had taken ill and lay in bed at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in NY. On his behalf, 20th February, Frank Goldman, President of B'nai B'rith (Jewish international service organization) put through a call to Eddie Jacobson in Kansas City, getting him out of bed. As Goldman told Jacobson, no one could budge the President, so his help was needed.
Jacobson, a former clerk in a Kansas City clothing store, was selected by Lt. Harry Truman as a partner in WWI to make a service-canteen enterprise financially successful. By this Jewish boy, Eddie Jacobson, working for Harry in this successful endeavor, some of Harry's fellow officers started kidding him, calling him a "lucky Jew" and "Trumanheimer." Truman embraced the kidding in good spirit, their friendship only grew, and out of that association came their well-known joint-haberdashery business in Kansas City.
It was a prolonged, dogged exertion of Jacobson's efforts, culminating in Jacobson going unannounced to visit President Truman. (Truman was recalcitrant, felt abused and insulted by some of the American Jewish leaders.) Alone in the West Wing of the White House - after an impassioned speech by Jacobson: "Truman began drumming his fingers on the desk. He wheeled around in his chair and with his back to Jacobson sat looking out the window into the garden. For what to Jacobson seemed 'like centuries,' neither of them said anything. Then swinging about and looking Jacobson in the eye Truman said what Jacobson later described as the most enduring words he had ever heard: 'You win, you baldheaded son-of-a-bitch.' I will see him."
If not yet in concrete, at least, Jacobson's pre-die cast for Jewish homeland had been set, and Chaim Weizmann would be received to make his case. On March 18th, shortly after dark to avoid newsmen, Weizmann was ushered quietly into the White House by way of the East Wing to a 3/4 hour meeting with Truman that went well. Truman assured Weizmann that the United Sates would support partition. Whatever the turning tide, ... " for Truman unquestionably, humanitarian concerns mattered foremost."
General George Marshall, along with others, may have been right. In fact --- the divisive issue continued, "more and more in Washington threatening to divide the White house from the State Department, where it was strongly felt the Arabs would never accept partition except under force, and might very well turn to the Soviets for help ....." But what could Marshall's, and others', long-term resolve have been for millions of Jewish refugees without a homeland? Was Diaspora the better answer?
The Israeli/Arab adversity has continued over the years generating political groundswells of disdain and hate, rendering inept chances for cogent, reconcilable dialog. (Truman said, "The actions of the United States Zionist will eventually prejudice everyone against what they are trying to get done. I fear very much that the Jews are like all underdogs. When they get on top they are just as intolerant and as cruel as the people were to them when they were underneath.") Having given this politically-aggravated-disdain attributer for the environment in Israeli/Palestinian lands, there are those politically detached from the hardcore Zionist that politicians "pander to": those who have goodwill, willing to cooperate for real solutions.
Subsequent to President Jimmy Carter speaking at Brandeis University in 2007, in defense of his book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, he challenged a group of students to go into old Palestine to assess the situation for themselves. Twelve students made the trip in 2008 and wrote their summations. (attached Brandeis-Palestine-Reports.pdf) One student said, "Have I really challenged myself to fully understand what it is like to be a person who is oppressed? --- If people care about the future of Israel, they have to care about the Palestinians; our fates are intertwined."
The challenges and frustrations for our leaders today in Palestine's "conflict resolution" are no less or more than it was in Truman's soul-searching, mindful partition-decision. Some of the current difficulties come from politics that inevitably default to Israel's favor. But somehow, it seems to me, a George Marshall apolitical-realm is where the Palestinian conflict might be solved. To rise above the politics is the real challenge; a conscientiousness that all people are created with inalienable rights, a love thy neighbor ethos has to be the healing climate.
No, I'm not forgetting the unconscionable nature of those who want to "fight Jews to death" and would give them no place to live on this earth. While there are those who will spout these despicable mantras, here again, it is widely vitriolic-political-forces that undermine social order, for political gain. More often it's not the politician's "overt word" but a "silence of denial," not taking responsibility to rebuke scurrilous messages. These actions/inaction acerbate unrest of the social climate. The politicians such as Ahmadinejad, and Netanyahu, who play to their extreme, libelous hard-core-prejudicial base to get elected, undermine their own credibility for rational diplomacy. One might say, "You don't understand politics." That's true, I don't but know if there are "politics in play for peace" it will have to born of ethical, moral values. We may be assured these are core issues that must be dealt with to negotiate sustainable peace in the Mideast.
President Harry Truman and General George Marshall were both right, even though they came to different decisions. To resolve the relationship of these "two opposing rights," Israel's entitlement to a peaceful homeland and Arab's acceptance of "partition under force" to be recognized an autonomous state, is the big question. The answer may be with a younger generation of Israelis and Palestinians -- given some years henceforth. Could that be more imminent, if negotiation can once again open? Will there begin an Arab Spring in Palestine? (To get a sense of a turning course, balance of Israeli/Palestinian influence, for the Mideast listen to Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey.)