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as soon as tha t country came in to be in g. It was ha rdl y conce ivable
th a t the United Sta tes would le t itself be bea ten by the USSR in thi s
contest. Although T ruma n was fed up with "Zioni st pressures," his
weariness was no t enough reason to refu se recogni tion to a state
whose creation had been dec ided upon by a two-thirds maj ority of
the U .N ., a nd whose efforts to ove rcome Ara b milita ry oppos ition to
its establishment we re sympa the tically foll owed by the U .N .
Secretary-General himself. And nothin g in the U .S . doct rine of
interna tional jurisprude nce milita ted against recognition .
Gove rnments ofte n lack hi sto rical pers pec ti ve in their decision–
making p rocesses. Bu t if the Truma n administra ti on ha d fa il ed to
gras p tha t a decla ra tion of indepe ndence by the J ews re turning to
the la nd of their forefathers a fte r two thousand years o f ex il e a nd the
Naz i holocaust was a n epoch-ma king event , it would have com–
mitted an e rror of colossal proporti ons.
Another incident that must have made Israeli leade rs keenly
awa re tha t a n American pres ide nt , even one considered fri endl y,
will always pu t the protec ti on o f na ti ona l interes ts before a nything
else was the El-Ari sh incident o f December 1948 . The Israe li a rmy
was fin all y strong enough to uproot the invading Egyp tia n a rmy
from the egev a nd drive it into the Sina i, ac ross the old inter–
nat iona l boundary. Soon some Israe li uni ts reached the outski rts of
El-Ari sh . U .S . react ion came swiftly. T he U nited Sta tes was as ked
by Brita in to convey to Israel wha t amounted to a Bri tish
ultima tum - namely, tha t Brita in would invoke its obli gation under
the Anglo-Egyptia n treaty o f 1936 a nd come to Egypt's ass istance,
thereby ge tting involved in the fi gh ting, if Israel did no t w ithdraw. It
is inte res ting to note tha t Egypt had not invoked the trea ty a nd
probabl y would not have invoked it at a ll .
Egypt was hoping to ge t rid o f the British prese nce on Egyptia n
so il , which was a nchored in the 1936 treaty. T he Egy ptia n rel uc ta nce
was p robably viewed by Was hington as a n added factor in favo r of
suppor ting the Briti sh move.
If
the Briti sh , who we re res ponsible for
the defense of the Suez cana l, a stra tegic Weste rn asse t o f great
value, fel t tha t they could prove their fri endship to the Egy ptia ns by
voluntee ring to ente r the war on their side, how could the U nited
Sta tes not go a long? Conseque n tly, the U nited Sta tes strongly
supported the Briti sh dema nd th a t Israe l withdraw its troops from
E l-Ari sh a t once, if the war was not to spread a nd if Israe l did not
des ire a reconside ra ti on of Ame ri can policies towa rd it. T he most
bewilde ring as pect o f thi s incide n t is the a lac ri ty with which the
United States backed the British th reat of waging war on Israel.
