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JEWS and ARABS from WW2 to 1967 (2 of 10)

During World War II the United States wanted assurance from Saudi Arabia concerning supplies of oil needed to wage war. In February 1945, following the Yalta Conference with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt and King ibn Saud met aboard a ship docked in the Suez Canal. There, Roosevelt and Saud concluded a secret agreement in which the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia military security -- military assistance, training and a military base at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia -- in exchange for secure access to supplies of oil. Regarding Jews, Saud expressed sympathy for their plight, but he argued that a homeland for Jews in Palestine would be unfair to Palestinians. Roosevelt responded in April, just before he died, sending Saud a letter stating: "I will take no action which might prove hostile to the Arab people."

With the end of war in Europe in May 1945, Churchill's government was replaced by a Labour government led by Clement Attlee. The new foreign minister, Ernest Bevin, maintained a strict blockade against "illegal" entry of Jewish refugees from Europe. And Jews in Palestine stepped up their opposition to British rule.

The socialist-oriented Haganah was helping refugees run the British blockade and defending Jews from Arab attacks, and they were interested in acquiring "illegal" arms. Menachem Begin's Irgun made war on British rule in Palestine but took pride in giving warnings where innocent lives were endangered. The Stern Gang was too extreme to win financial backing from mainstream Jews. Instead they robbed banks and coerced Jews to support them financially, and they were careless about injury to civilians.

Between 1945 and May 1948, 70,000 Jews reached Palestine, including those on a ship called Exodus. They were part of what had been an increasing population in Palestine. Arabs had increased from 759,952 counted by the British in 1931 to around 1,360,000 -- some of them from surrounding Muslim lands attracted by economic opportunity. Jews between 1931 and 1948 increased from 175,006 to 806,000. According to these figures, the increase was about the same for Jews and Arabs: around 600,000 for the Arabs and 630,994 for the Jews.

Fighting between British soldiers and the Jewish underground grew bitter. The British cracked down on the Haganah for their support of blockade running. They hanged some Jewish underground fighters and deported some to a camp in Eritrea.

The Palestinian Arabs were also fighting the British. The British wanted to free themselves of the burden of rule in Palestine and took their problem to the United Nations. The UN drew up a plan to create two separate states in Palestine. The Arab state was to have 100,000 Jews and the Jewish state was to be equally divided between Jews and Arabs. Jerusalem was to be a free city under UN trusteeship. And the two states were eventually to be united economically.

Palestinian communists officially accepted the plan. The official position among other Palestinian groups is reported to have been opposition, but there are claims that unofficially Palestinians accepted the independent Palestinian state that was part of the plan. But power lay with the Arab League. The Palestinians asked the Arab League to establish a Palestinian government on July 10, 1947, but the Arab League refused. The request would be repeated in February, 1948, and would again be refused. [note]

With strong support from President Truman -- and little from the U.S. State Department -- the UN's partition plan won a majority in the UN General Assembly. Truman had chosen the interests of Jews rather than give precedence to Saudi oil, and King Saud's second son, Prince Faisal, in New York for the vote, felt betrayed. He had been promised by one of Truman's top aides, General George Marshall, that the U.S. would vote against the plan.

On the day of the partition vote, November 29, 1947, an Arab "liberation army," aided by civilians, initiated war against the Jews across Palestine. The Arab "liberation army" surrounded the old Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, threatening the 1,700 people there with starvation. An on-again off-again war between Jews and Arabs that was to last through the rest of the century and beyond had begun. And the Jews were not to go passively to their deaths as they had in Europe.

British troops were scheduled to leave Palestine by August 1, 1948, and British policy was opposed to violence by either side. The British blocked the sending of arms that Jews could have used to defend themselves. This was the position also of the U.S. government. The United States had a vast reservoir of weapons left over from World War II but refused to allow any of it to be sent to the Jews of Palestine.