Irene Gendzier: September 2011 and May 1948 – the great fear, now and then

[Jefferson23]

By Irene Gendzier, ZNet – 23 July 2011


What will the Palestinians do at the UN in September? The question appears to haunt Washington and Tel Aviv as they prepare to block Palestinian attempts to obtain UN recognition, as though the very idea of such action represents a form of political impudence that merits the harshest international rejection. Sober accounts by Palestinians of what they may expect from a trip to the UN have done little to allay the dark cloud of suspicion that is fostered in mainstream accounts. The same can be said of references to the refugee problem whose origins are regularly shrouded in distortions if not simply deleted. The combination is invariably offered by Washington and Tel Aviv as further proof of the efforts to ‘delegitimize’ the state of Israel. Admittedly from their perspective, opening of discussion of these questions is unacceptable since it constitutes a risk, the risk that the American public may discover that the problems at the root of the great fear that looms over September are not new. They have been part of the conflict over Palestine at least since 1948, as has the U.S.A.

It was in 1948 and not in 1967 that the ‘special relationship’ between the U.S. and Israel originated. That relationship, from the outset, was forged in the broader context of Washington’s oil interests and accompanying military ambitions in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East more generally. U.S. officials openly recognized that Palestine was an inseparable part of this. By 1948 they were on record as committed to the UN Partition Plan though wary of the effects of escalating violence in Palestine on U.S. interests. That wariness increased in direct proportion to the acceleration of conflict generated by UNGA Res. 181 and its plan to partition Palestine, which led U.S. officials to call for a reconsideration of the question.

What follows is an abridged account of what led to this point and away from it, a period in which then-President Truman and the policy-making elite confronted the Jewish Agency for Palestine’s expansionist policies and its violent attacks on Palestinians as well as Palestinian and Arab rejection of partition. The record was clear as to the nature of the aggravated causes of continued conflict, including the conditions that led to the refugee problem, which Washington criticized — at least ostensibly. This is one part of the history that is discussed in the pages that follow. The other, which I have elaborated elsewhere,<1> is that U.S. officials concluded that Israel’s triumph of force, which Washington lamented as inadequate for long term peace, was more than adequate for the protection of U.S. interests. The resulting policies trumped support for Palestinian refugees as well as the attempt to curb Israeli expansion.

As the date of Britain’s departure from Palestine as the Mandatory Power approached, the level of tension visibly increased in the White House, and between the White House and various government departments (the State Department, including its Policy Planning Staff, the Defense Department, the CIA, and the U.S. delegation to the UN. The great fear was that chaos would descend on Palestine as the colonial power made its exit, with obvious risks to U.S. interests in the Arab East where U.S.-controlled Saudi oil concessions fueled the Marshall Plan.

remainder: http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2011-07-23/irene-gendzier-september-2011-and-may-1948-the-great-fear-now-and-then/