of Holy Grail to enlightened opinion, even while almost no one gave a fig for the aspirations of the Kurds or Tibetans or numerous other bereft peoples. Whether this state would rise alongside Israel or in place of it was of secondary concern.
These two forms of suasion—on the one hand, the raw power in Muslim numbers and Arab oil wealth, and, on the other hand, and the moral claims of the Palestinians and the latter-day ideology of the Left—were to some degree contradictory, but in practice they reinforced each other and created an enduring threat to Israel that might yet trump its formidable military machine. How Israel’s enemies developed and deployed each of these methods of influence, and to what effect, is the story told in this book.
When Israel Was Admired (Almost) All Around
“God Almighty,” she whispered. “What have I done?” All the months of fighting him, all the carefully built-up resistance, collapsed in that mad second that had sent her rushing to his side.
Thus did Kitty Fremont—tall, blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful, and the quintessential WASP—fall in love with Ari Ben Canaan despite herself. Having lost her husband in war and her daughter to polio, she was not ready to love again. And Ari was not easy to love. Kitty was still grieving and Ari was inured to human suffering, seemingly to all softer feelings. He was single-minded—obsessed with rescuing the remnant of European Jewry that survived the Holocaust and creating a state for the Jewish people. She had come to Palestine as a nurse, tending to refugees. Despite her personal tragedy, the direct experience of Israel’s birth pangs filled Kitty’s heart, and she gave it to Ari and taught him to love in return.
The two lovers are, of course, the main protagonists of Leon Uris’s 1958 blockbuster, Exodus, the best-selling novel in America since Gone with the Wind. It became a major motion picture, was translated into scores of languages, and reached best-seller lists in numerous other countries.
Kitty was the invention of a Jewish writer, nurturing a wish that the gentile world should see the founding of the Jewish state as a story of heroism, sacrifice, and redemption. In this purpose, Uris succeeded beyond all measure. A romantic epic of deadly serious intent, Exodus framed the story of Israel for millions of Americans and other Westerners, helping to create a climate of opinion in the 1960s that was warmer to Israel than ever before and more convinced that the country’s birth had been both just and necessary.
During the decades before the events portrayed in Exodus, Western publics had neither known nor cared much about the Zionist project, although wellsprings of sympathy could be found among devout Christians. The Jewish bible constitutes a part of Christian scripture, and the Jews hold an important place in Christian eschatology. Thus, for some, as Conor Cruise O’Brien put it, Zionism resonated with “a power” that activated “moral, spiritual and aesthetic forces, rather than calculations of material interest.”1
Nonetheless, most of the time, such ephemeral “forces” were outweighed by raisons d’etat. With near unanimity, Arab leaders had denounced vociferously the idea of a Jewish state in their midst. Arabs outnumbered Jews many times over and, as the twentieth century unfolded, the world grew ever more dependent on oil from Arab lands. These considerations bulked large with the diplomats, generals, and others conducting the foreign affairs of Europe and America. When governments acted, as they usually do, primarily from motives of “realism,” that is, of simple self-interest, then the Arabs held trumps. The Zionists or Israelis managed to prevail only in those rare instances when “idealism” prevailed.
Without two such moments—born of the convictions of an English foreign minister and an American president—Israel would not have come into existence. The first of these was the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 pledging the British government to foster “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This took on the force of international law when it was incorporated in treaties that formally settled World War I, establishing new countries and borders and a fragile new international order.
Arthur James Balfour was foreign secretary in the government of David Lloyd George, whom historian Paul Johnson describes as “a philosemite and a Zionist . . . also a Bible-thumper.”2 Following an audience he had granted to Zionist spokesman Chaim Weizman, Lloyd George was quoted as commenting that “when Weizman was talking of Palestine he kept bringing up place-names which were more familiar to me than those on the Western Front.”3 The prime minister’s mind-set was mirrored in Balfour whose successor, Robert Vansittart, once said, perhaps in pique, that Balfour had cared for nothing but Zionism.4
To say that the two ministers acted out of unalloyed altruism would be an exaggeration. Historian Walter Laqueur notes that they “were aware that the goodwill of world Jewry was an important if intangible factor. The year 1917 was not a happy one for the Allies and they needed all the assistance they could get.”5 Yet, “by the time the Balfour Declaration was published, America had joined the Allies and there was no longer any urgent need to appease American Jewry.” Thus, Laqueur concludes, “self-interest by itself cannot provide a satisfactory explanation for British policy on Palestine in 1917.”6
Lloyd George’s pro-Zionism was opposed from many sides within his own administration. Less than two years after its promulgation, “General Money, head of the British military administration in Palestine, advised London to drop the Balfour Declaration,” writes Laqueur. “The people of Palestine were opposed to the Zionist program, and if Britain wanted the mandate [from the League of Nations to rule the territory] it was necessary ‘to make an authoritative announcement that the Zionist program will not be enforced in opposition to the wishes of the majority.’”7
When, in 1924, Labour was entrusted for the first time to lead a government, Zionists might have taken heart. In general, around the world, their vision enjoyed more sympathy from the Left than the Right. But the Labour government proved to be steely realists with respect to Palestine. The colonial portfolio was placed with Sidney Webb, the avatar of Fabian socialism. He was stone cold to the Zionist idea and indeed to the plight of the Jews.
Following Arab riots in 1929 that left 133 Jews dead, Webb appointed Robert Shaw to head an investigation. Shaw found that the Arabs were to blame, but recommended nonetheless that the solution was to choke off Jewish emigration into Palestine in order to assuage Arab anger.
This scenario was enacted again the following decade in more ominous circumstances. The “Arab revolt” of 1936 to 1939 was led by the mufti of Jerusalem and apparently financed by Adolf Hitler’s government. By the time it petered out, a few hundred Jews had died at Arab hands. Arab casualties were much higher, numbering thousands. Some of these were victims of Jewish retaliation but the large majority fell as the British suppressed the uprising or in Arab-on-Arab violence.
In response, London adjusted its policies. As the Los Angeles Times described it:
Just as Hitler’s cruelties were becoming apparent to the world, the British issued a white paper that partially reneged on the Balfour declaration’s promises. In deference to Arab feelings, the British established a limitation on Jewish immigration into Palestine. The Zionists were furious, but they were helpless to do anything about it.8
Even while the Arab revolt raged, some three dozen governments had convened at Evian in 1938 at the invitation of President Franklin Roosevelt. The first signs of Hitler’s “final solution to the Jewish problem” were already visible,
