Separated by nearly 70 years, a Democrat and Republican President transformed the political landscape of the Middle East
There is a street in Israel named after President Harry S. Truman, not after F.D. Roosevelt, will probably never be for Barak Obama and most assuredly will be one after President Donald Trump.*
As Jews for 2000 years have had few friends, so Israel on its seventieth year has few genuine friends. However, Israelis are “street-smart” and recognise which US Presidents had Israel’s interests at heart – not by what they said but by what they did. It is true, there was no state of Israel under FDR who died in 1945, but then again, there would have been many more Jews alive today in Israel had he opened America’s door to Jewish refugees fleeing from the Nazis or bombed the Nazi extermination camps.
He did neither!
The first shared characteristic of Presidents 33 and 45 was and is the occupation of the premises at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington. We are all too acquainted of how Trump was thought to be totally unfit for the highest office of the land or what his predecessor Truman referred to as “the loneliest job in the world.”
The American voters of 2016 thought otherwise. So did the American voters of 1948.
Polls Apart
Truman even more than Trump, defied the odds.
Fake News! President Truman holding the erroneous issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune of 1948, telling the press, “That ain’t the way I heard it!”
So unlikely was Truman expected to be elected president in the 1948 election against the Republican Governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey, that the Chicago Daily Tribune on November 3, 1948, published the banner headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman”. The paper thought Dewey was a dead cert that they took a chance and published their headline before waiting the final announcement of the results. “Fake news” a term popularised by Trump, was all too familiar to Truman.
The lesson from both these presidents is do not be duped by pre-election TV polls or pundits – the accompanying ads are more reliable!
Shapers of History
If the arrivals of Truman and Trump to office was unexpected, no less unexpected was how they both turned out in their pivotal support of Israel at critical moments in history.
Shakespeare said it best in Julius Caesar:
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
To be sure, it all depends on whose definition of “fortune” and the Muslim world are just as likely not to be naming their streets after Truman and Trump!
While President Truman regarded his Secretary of State, George C. Marshall, as “the greatest living American” the two were polls apart over Mideast policy. Marshall firmly opposed American recognition of the new Jewish state, while his boss felt that the Jews derived a legitimate historical right to Palestine from the Old Testament and was known to cite in support of this belief, Deuteronomy 1:8:
“Behold, I have given up the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the Lord hath sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”
On the issue of Palestine, Truman was at war with his State Department whose officials were doing everything in their power to prevent, thwart or delay the President’s Palestine policy in 1947 and 1948. Finding various ways to avoid carrying out White House instructions, they preferred to follow the views of the British Foreign Office rather than those of their President.
Sparring Partners. No friend of Israel, Secretary of Defense, James V. Forrestal (left)with President Harry Truman
Marshall’s opposition to a Jewish state was shared by almost every member of the group – later referred to as “the Wise Men” – who were then in the process of creating a postwar foreign policy that would endure for the next forty years. With the seeds of the Cold War being planted, it was Jews who might have first felt its chill were it not for President Truman!
Truman’s mounting opposition to recognising a Jewish state included his Secretary of Defense, James V. Forrestal who spoke persuasively. For Jews struggling in the wake of the Holocaust and trying to forge a state, he was like a conniving Iago in the ear of his Othello, president:
“You fellows over at the White House are just not facing up to the realities in the Middle East. There are thirty million Arabs on one side and about six hundred thousand Jews on the other. It is clear that in any contest, the Arabs are going to overwhelm the Jews. Why don’t you face up to the realities? Just look at the numbers!”
It was a silver-tongued message that resonated resoundingly with his colleagues but not with the one person who mattered most – President Harry S. Truman!
White House vs the “Wise Men”
What Forester and his “Wise Men” armed with their verbal rapiers at the State Department did not grasp was that Truman was acquainted with these “numbers” as well as the Book of Numbers from the Bible. Truman’s support for a Jewish homeland was unshakable.
With the President’s sheer grit, determination and perseverance, the day and the hour arrived when on May 14, 1948, just after 6.pm, Charlie Ross, the President’s press secretary read aloud the following:
“Statement by the President. This government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine….The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.”
Friend in Deed is a Friend Indeed. President Harry Truman with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion (right), with Israeli Foreign Minister, Israeli South African-born Abba Eban (center).
At the UN, the situation unraveled. Unaware of the White House announcement, the delegates continued to debate trusteeship status for Palestine. Suddenly a rumor swept the floor of the General Assembly of the UN that the US.had recognised the Jewish state!
Horror of horrors; how dare the President!
First angered were the U.S. delegates and top-ranking State Department officials that their President had released his ‘recognition statement’ to the press without notifying them first.
In the ensuing chaos, American delegates had to restrain physically the Cuban delegate, who tried to march to the podium to withdraw his nation from the world assembly!
Cuba to this day still does not recognise the state of Israel!
There was such disbelief that the New York Times reported the next morning that “the first reaction was that someone was making a terrible joke, and some diplomats broke into skeptical laughs.”
To the New York Times of 1948, Israel was a “terrible joke”!
As for the Arab world, none were laughing. As with the Trump 2017 recognition of Jerusalem, the 1948 sovereign state recognition was met with instant OUTRAGE. This outrage found immediate martial expression in their armies invading the next day – and so began the first of the Israel-Arab wars.
“Jerusalem of Gold”
Up Against A Wall. Trump is the first sitting President to visit Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Almost exactly 70 years after Truman’s recognition of the ‘body’ of the Jewish People – the State of Israel, President Trump recognised its ‘soul’ – Jerusalem. With the USA being the first nation in the world to acknowledge Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, its significance cannot be overstated that the most powerful nation on earth – following in the inspiring footsteps of Trumann – finally recognised the city as Israel’s capital.
As Israel will soon mark its 70th birthday what finer present could it receive than, for the first time in two millennia, a superpower recognised the Jewish state’s claim to its ancient capital.
Now that the principle has been established, for Trump now, it is simply a ‘Real Estate’ issue, something of which he is an expert on. The only outstanding question is that of LOCATION – where to establish the US embassy in Jerusalem.
Following the US recognition, Arabs and Muslims across the Middle East immediately condemned its president. Hot on the same track as hounds following the hare, the European Union and United Nations also voiced alarm followed by the US’s ‘friends’!
Was the outrage unexpected? Hardly; the punchline of the New York Times “terrible joke” of 1948 still resonated in 2017.
Changing the Rules of the Game
Asked about the significance of US President Donald Trump’s declaration on December 6, Israeli Prime Minister immediately responded with:
“I think what it does is finally recognise a historical truth. Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel for 3,000 years from the time of King David. It has been the capital of the state of Israel for 70 years, and it’s about time that the United States said — and I’m glad they said it — ‘This is the capital and we recognise it,’ and I think that’s going to be followed by other countries.”
How right Netanyahu was.
Guatemala’s president, Jimmy Morales
Guatemala’s president, Jimmy Morales, announced on Christmas Eve that the Central American country will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, becoming the first nation to follow the lead of President Trump.
As with Truman and now with Trump, Shakespeare’s line – “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune” – resonates as we hear the day after Christmas, that Israel is in contact with several countries “seriously considering” following in the footsteps of the US and Guatemala – of moving their embassies to Jerusalem.
That “tide” referred to by the great Barb is turning, and it will be turning even more during May 2018 when over a billion people will have their eyes riveted on Jerusalem!
The Road Ahead
In May 2018, after 2000 years since Rome sacked Jerusalem and sent its surviving Jewish citizens into slavery or exile, it returns not on chariots but on bicycles as the famed Giro d’Italia – one of cycling’s top three most prestigious events, along with the Tour de France and the Spanish Vuelta – begins in Jerusalem.
Throughout the month of May each year, the focus of the cycling world centers on Italy, as the Giro courses the length and breadth of that picturesque country, turning its villages and cities pink as la corsa rosa heads towards the finish line.
Come the 4 May 2018, history will be made when the legendary Tour, which began in 1909, will start in Israel’s capital – Jerusalem. It will be the first time in history that the Giro will begin outside of Europe.
The eyes of the world will be focused on Jerusalem – and for a change – not through the prism of politics but sport as 176 of the world’s top cyclists, kick-off the 2018 Giro d’Italia with a 10.1-kilometre individual time trial that will start, and finish close to the ancient walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.
Sites from the Saddle. Promoting the upcoming Giro d’Italia starting in Jerusalem is former Giro winners Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso, the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, and entrepreneur and fervent cyclist, Sylvan Adams with David’s Tower (left) and the King David Hotel (right) in the background.
While there is much history ‘riding’ on the 2018 Giro d’Italia, there is more ‘riding’ on the future of world recognition of Israel’s capital. With the entire world watching the start of Italy’s premier sporting event outside the walls of the very city sacked by Roman Emperor Titus in 70 AD, Israelis will feel that they too are wearing the Maglia Rosa (Pink Jersey) as they set their sights on the road ahead.
The late Teddy Kollek who had been mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993 would be smiling today from his celestial perch.
“For three thousand years, Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish hope and longing. No other city has played such a dominant role in the history, culture, religion, and consciousness of a people as has Jerusalem in the life of Jewry and Judaism. Throughout centuries of exile, Jerusalem remained alive in the hearts of Jews everywhere as the focal point of Jewish history, the symbol of ancient glory, spiritual fulfillment, and modern renewal. This heart and soul of the Jewish people engenders the thought that if you want one simple word to symbolize all of Jewish history, that word would be – ‘Jerusalem’.”
The late Teddy Kollek who had been mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993
Two US presidents understood this.
They are “The Gamechangers”.
Who knows, when future international cycle races occur in Israel in the future, how fitting if the route would include the existing President Harry S. Truman Street and a future President Donald Trump Boulevard.
* Since this article “The Gamechangers” was posted on Tuesday, it has been announced that the Western Wall train station will be named after US President Donald Trump.
