Behind the Diplomatic Scene

This is from Monty Penkower's latest book, Israel: As A Phoenix Ascending (I will be reviewing it in depth) on page 203. Explanation follows below.

The meeting took place in London on April 28, 1948.

Playcard:

Douglas is Lewis Williams Douglas, American Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Rusk is Dean Rusk, director of the Office of Special Political Affairs in the State Department.

Attlee is Clement Attlee, UK Prime Minister.

Bevin is Ernest Bevin, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

HMG is His Majesty's Government.

Source here.

From the original document:

Background:

After the US had reneged on support for partition at the UN, which recommended a Jewish state be established, by suggesting a trusteeship, President Harry Truman came around to supporting the original vote. Tasked by Rusk, Douglas meets Attlee and Bevin in London.

As the minutes show, the two most senior British politicians display bias, prejudice, antisemitism and anti-Zionism in their thinking about the future Jewish state.

Jews, attacked ever since on the morrow of the November 29, 1947 Partition Plan vote, not to mention the terror from 1920 on, are the "aggressors".

Palestine, the land the League of Nations recognized as having a long historical connection with the Jewish people, is an "Arab country".

They justify the invasion of the Mandate territory.

Jews who arm themselves, after coming in as refugees from Hitler's Holocaust, are following "Hitler' method".

This was the behind-the-scene thinking of the top British diplomats directing the Mandate just prior to Israeli statehood.

^

The Jews to Go into the Sea

Tracking down statements can be difficult at times. Everyone "heard"/"read" it but years later, no one can find its source.

One such issue is, did Arabs threaten to throw the Jews into the sea, and when?

EOZ had this published tracing the history whether in 1948 or during the 1950s or on the eve of the 1967 war.

Of course, the "Palestine from the River to the Sea" chant basically means destroying Israel but it is not the same as actually throwing Jews into the sea. I noted previously a caricature of Israel as a ship sinking. Still, not exactly the same.

Well, we now have a testimony in real time, from August 1948*.

In this academic article on the machinations of British Intelligence Services during the 1940s, I read, on page 14, that England's Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, "After being notified that the Arab leaders were blaming Britain for their defeat", instructed his diplomats in the Arab capitals, as well as in Washington and the UN, to respond that:

It is quite untrue to suggest that we have let the Arabs down or failed in any obligations towards them. We did not urge them to intervene by force in Palestine, nor did we promise them support if they did so. They went in of their own accord, in most cases without telling us beforehand. Very small measure of military successes which they achieved shows that their forces, while capable perhaps of occupying friendly territory, were not prepared for and incapable of undertaking major military operations, which would have been necessary to achieve the announced object of the Arab states, namely to drive the Jews into the sea.

I think that should settle matters.

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* The footnote reads: 

TNA, FO141/1247, no. 1454, London, 25 August 1948, Bevin to Cairo, and no. 821, August 21, Bevin to Kirkbride; Louis, Ends of British Imperialism, 635-6, 694-8 

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UPDATE

EOZ in a follow-up.

A Churchill Moment

Patrick Kinna, who died on March 14 aged 95, was Winston Churchill's confidential assistant during the Second World War and saw the great man in some of his most private moments.

At Christmas 1941, while Churchill was staying at the White House, Kinna was summoned to take dictation by the prime minister, who was soaking in his bathtub, planning the speech he would make to Congress on Boxing Day. Finding the muse, Churchill stomped in and out of the tub, evading the ministrations of a valet with a bath-towel.

As the prime minister paced the room "completely starkers", Kinna recalled, there was a knock on the door and Churchill went to open it. It was Roosevelt in his wheelchair. Mortified at finding his guest with nothing on, the president prepared to make his excuses, but was prevented by Churchill. "Oh no, no, Mr President," he said. "As you can see, I have nothing to hide from you."

Nice, but if he worked with Bevin:

news of Kinna's skills had reached the ears of Ernest Bevin, now foreign secretary. "If he was good enough for Winston, he's good enough for me," Bevin is supposed to have said. Kinna worked with Bevin until his death in 1951,

I'd love to know things about the end of the Palestine Mandate.


Source