320
tias would provide a match for the
Arab armies. On the contrary, U.S.
predictions for Israel's chances of
survival were gloomy."
Professor Gazit need not have
speculated about intelligence esti–
mates, since evidence on this matter
has long been available . After Israel
made substantial gains in the fight–
ing between July 9 and July 18,
1948, the Central Intelligence
Agency estimated the total Arab
forces in or near Palestine at 46,800
and the Israeli forces at 97,800. In
view of the Arabs' low ammunition
supply and poor logistical position,
it concluded that "the Jews may
now be strong enough to launch a
full-scale offensive and drive the
Arab forces out of Palestine."
(For–
eign Relations of the United States,
1948, Vol. 5, part 2, pp. 1240-48).
Perhaps Israel did not request the
intervention of U .S. military forces
because it didn't need them.
Professor Gazit thinks that
only time will heal the wounds that
U.S. policies have inflicted on the
"Israeli psyche"; I hope that get–
ting the facts straight can accelerate
the recovery.
Wallace Martin
Toledo, Ohio
Mordechai Gazit replies:
I am afraid that Mr. Wallace
Martin misses the point I made.
Israel's chances of survival were
rated very low indeed, not in July
1948, but in the early months of
1948. SiI)ce Mr. Martin quotes a
Central Intelligence Agency report
of 27 July 1948, let me refer him to
an earlier CIA report, dated 28
February 1948
(Foreign Relations of
the United States,
1948, Vol. 5, part 2,
p. 666): "Recruiting and training
for Hagana, the [Jewish] Agency ' s
military arm, have been in–
creased . . . . The Jewish effort,
PARTISAN REVIEW
however, will not be sufficient to
enable the UN Commission [on
Palestine] to carry out partition as
envisaged by the UN General
Assembly." Further down (p. 672)
the report noted that the Jewish
state could be established " only in
the event that the UN Commission
[was] given a police force suffi–
ciently strong to withstand Arab
aggression or that the Jews in
Palestine [be] provided with enough
military support from outside to
overcome Arab opposition."
Clearly, then, the CIA report
estimated that the Jews, unaided,
could not hold their own, not even
against the Palestinian Arabs sup–
ported by Arab irregulars sent by
the surrounding Arab countries, let
alone against five regular Arab
armies. Even if the CIA report did
not speculate on how many casual–
ties the Jewish community in
Palestine, if defeated, would suffer,
the implication that they would face
tragedy was inescapable.
I agree with Harvard Professor
N. Safran in his book
Israel: The
Embattled Ally
(Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1978,
p.43) that "at stake was .. . the
question of survival or destruction
of the entire Zionist endeavor and
perhaps even the physical survival
of the Jews of Palestine as individu–
als." He goes on to say that since
Israel won , such characterization
may appear overly dramatic, but
points out that " retrospective wis–
dom does not accord with the record
of the events. ... Israel's victory
was by no means a foregone conclu–
sion."
It
is, as Mr. Martin says, very
important to get one' s facts straight,
but this means, of course,
all
the
facts and not just the convenient
ones.
Mordechai Gazit
Jerusalem, Israel
