A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel – The Dramatic Story of a Controversial Presidential Decision in 1948

by Ronald Radosh, Allis Radosh

“[This] revelatory account of Truman's vital contributions to Israel's founding. . .is told. . . with an elegance informed by thorough research."
—Wall Street Journal

"Even knowing how the story ends, A Safe Haven had me sitting on the edge of my seat.”
—Cokie Roberts

A dramatic, detailed account of the events leading up to the creation of a Jewish homeland and the true story behind President Harry S. Truman’s controversial decision to recognize of the State of Israel in 1948, drawn from Truman’s long-lost diary entries and other previously unused archival materials.

Genres: History, Israel, Nonfiction, Middle East, American History, Book Club, Presidents

464 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2009

Reviews

[Darryl Mexic · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel”, by Allis Radosh and Ronald Radosh -- After World War I, the League of Nations gave Great Britain a mandate over Palestine, one of the Arabian territories liberated from the Turks. By that time, there was already a substantial Jewish presence in Palestine agitating for a National Jewish homeland. In the Balfour Declaration, Britain promised the Jews such a homeland in the territory of Palestine. Years later, Britain issued its so called White Paper, in which it effectively reneged on its promise. After World War II and the Nazi extermination of millions of European Jews, the incentive for Jews to emigrate from Europe to Palestine was great and it was accompanied by world wide sympathy for their plight. However, Britain was dead set on enforcing an embargo on immigration of Jews to Palestine, even though hundreds of thousands of Jewish concentration camp survivors remained in displaced persons’ camps in Europe run by the allies under conditions that were only somewhat better than the German concentration camps, sans the killing of the Jews. Britain was getting no help in Palestine and grew weary of the cost in sterling and in adverse public opinion, so decided to throw the entire issue of what to do about Palestine to the newly created United Nations. Should it be split between a Jewish homeland and an Arab state, should it be some sort of a confederation of a Jewish part and an Arab part, should it be an Arab state with a Jewish minority, or should the U.N. effectively extend the mandate with the U.N. in charge, rather than the British? Only a separate state would insure unlimited Jewish immigration and would be satisfactory to the Jews. Only an Arab state throughout Palestine would be acceptable to the Arabs. Britain and the U.S. state department were adamant in not wanting a Jewish homeland anywhere in Arabia. “Safe Haven” tells the blow by blow story of how Truman decided to accept partition of Palestine, approve a Jewish homeland, and immediately recognize the new state once the British left and the Jews declared the state of Israel. Truman’s wavering, the state department’s efforts to thwart Truman’s agreement to accept partition, and the dispute and almost schism between Truman and General George Marshall, whom Truman considered the most important official in his government, are described in great detail in the book. It is absolutely fascinating and reads like a mystery. I could not put it down, even though I knew the ending.

[Blaine Welgraven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent. Beautiful. Poignant. Historical.

I've read a lot of articles, white papers, and books on the Middle East, but nothing that compares with this tightly woven, thoroughly detailed, and completely absorbing work by Dr. Radosh on the foreign policy and political intrigue surrounding the 1948 founding of the State of Israel. Starting with the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Haven proceeds to weave an intense narrative that is smoothly paced, even as it contains an abundance of primary sources (telegrams, meeting notes, diary entries) balanced again traditional autobiographies and current affairs pieces (mostly from the era). Despite the massive amount of data and source material, Dr. Radosh never allows Haven to feel forced or pedantic. Even a minor history buff knows the outcome of this seeming diplomatic impasse in history, but I found myself totally enveloped in the urgent drama Haven accurately recreates. Highlights include:

--First, Safe Haven effectively illustrates the political tension between a post-World War II Britain and the United States government, contrasting their opposing visions for the Middle East.

--Second, Haven does an effective, if minimalist job of recreating the mindset of the American landscape (including Truman) in regards to the "Israeli question." Another book could be written on this subject--but as Dr. Radosh notes--it already has been (Israel in the Mind of America, 1983).

--Third, Haven does an amazing job recreating the intrigue surrounding UNSCOP and the various maneuverings by U.N member states during the days leading up to the critical vote for independence.

--Fourth (and perhaps most intriguing), Haven presents startlingly vivid evidence as to the manipulations and machinations of the U.S. State Department, which effectively functioned as Truman's behind-the-scenes opponent for much of the Israeli-Arab debate (earning his permanent distrust in the process). The crystalline picture that emerges is one of a U.S. government in conflict with itself, resulting in several instances of severe international uncertainty as to where the United States actually stood on the Israeli issue. The dynamics between Truman's Oval Office and Gen. Marshall's State Department are some of Haven's most fascinating moments.

--Finally, Haven establishes a nuanced overall picture of a decidedly straight-forward man--President Harry Truman himself. Neither hagiographic nor antagonistic in tone, Haven portraits a human with decided beliefs, swayed and shaped by political circumstances, but ultimately remaining constant to those core principles.

Regardless of your current political stance on the Middle East, Safe Haven delivers a strongly historical, well-researched, and entirely enjoyable read. Your base of knowledge will certainly be improved for having taken this journey.

[Omar Amer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I went into this book knowing it will be an attempt to whitewash what is a settler colonialist state. I wanted to know how this would be justified by Allis and Ronald.

The book focuses on Truman's assent to power due to the sad demise of Roosevelt and how this changed the course of history in creating a new state. From here the book talks about how witnessing the Jewish people's terrible suffering and genocide led many key people in the States watching from afar to want to help give these people a home. New York becoming the home of the world's largest Jewish population managed to exert enough pressure on Truman and key people in the US government to pick Palestine as the state to offer them a 'safe haven' as no other people could be trusted to host the Jewish people.

The paints the British in a poor light as they did not want to destabilise the area by offering what is essentially settler colonialism under the guise of religion predicting that it would be the hotbed it is today.

Ronald and Allis also do not provide a single line for the Arab viewpoint in what was essentially losing their land and homes for centuries to cater to the Eastern Europeans 'because they had been persecuted by fellow Eastern Europeans for centuries'.

They also fail to cover the human suffering of the Palestinians, especially after the 'nakba' in 1948 where Palestinian society was decimated and a staggering 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly exiled from their homes until today. This suffering continues in what has turned out to be an apartheid state. The Zionist project failed and was a disaster from start to end. There is no solution to what is now a 50/50 split between Palestinians and Jews without another Nakba ethnically cleansing at least 4 million. Instead, the book hails the entire project as a success in providing the Jews with a 'safe haven' at the expense of those already living on the land. Even today, the majority of Jews do not live in Palestine, and it is not a Jewish Utopia but a settler colonial state turned into apartheid.

This attempt to whitewash history will be placed into the dustbin of history.

[Doug Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April 1945, new U.S. president Harry Truman suddenly had the weight of the world on his shoulders. At a pivotal time in history, he had to oversee the end of World War 2, the beginning of the Cold War and post-war reconstruction, and in general a transition to a more active role for the U.S. in the world.

The future of Palestine was an issue that was particularly challenging for Truman. FDR had postponed decisions on the issue and basically just told each side what it wanted to hear. Truman felt strongly that the world should honor the spirit of the Balfour Declaration and find a home in Palestine for the Holocaust survivors in Europe. In this he was backed by American popular opinion but strongly opposed by the State Department, which was more concerned with U.S. relationships with Arab countries, access to Saudi oil and military bases in the region, and possible Soviet intentions for the region.

This book gives a clear, detailed account of Truman's struggles with the Palestine issue, culminating in his bold decision to recognize the new state of Israel just minutes after its founding. As a Christian Zionist I found it to be a gripping and moving story.

[Kenneth Barber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows the events that led to the founding of the state of Israel. Truman had come to the presidency after the death of FDR in April,1945. One of the problems he inherited was the question of the Jews displaced by the war and their quest to migrate to Israel and form their own country. This situation had been debated and wrestled with for years. After WWI, the Balfour agreement had been decided on which promised a Jewish state. The British were installed as the power responsible for administering a protectorate over the Palestine area. The British issued s white paper in 1939 to limit Jewish migration to Palestine. The British didn't want to risk alienating the Arab countries because of the oil.
When Truman became president, he was sympathetic to the Jewish cause. As a senator, he had joined several organizations sympathetic to the Zionist cause. He was pressured by many factions, each with different agendas as to how to handle the issue. The British and his own state department were against the formation of the new country. The author does a good job of sorting out all the events and pressures surrounding the issue and Truman's decision to recognize the new state.

[Zhelana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was old fashioned political history, and as such not very interesting to me as a history book. I mean, the author managed to make warfare boring. Or rather if you didn't know there was a war going on at the time you'd hardly pick that up from this book. He talks about a few specific instances of violence, but you'd really think the entire thing was settled in Truman's office. Sure, there was the fact that the FBI turned a blind eye to them selling guns to the Israelis from American ports, but you wouldn't think those guns were ever used from this book's description of events.

[Allison Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good historical account of the founding of Israel and all the involvement (good and bad) of the major countries and the UN. Lots of excerpts from letters, diaries, and other documents from government libraries.

[Will Eaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This monograph ought to be a required reading in international affairs classes. It exposes and then fleshes out so many of the issues that led to modern-day Israel.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent narrative recounting the much more fragile path to the creation of Israel than one supposes. The authors painstakingly compile the record beginning back in the 1917 British Balfour declaration, and follow the Zionist rebuilding of the arid wastes of Palestine for the next 30 years - WWII and the Jewish extermination - into the final years of diplomatic advances and retreats with the spotlight on US President Harry Truman.

Several points stick in my mind.

*The intransigence of the Arab world to cede one inch of ground to the Jews - over the space of 30 years, their unyielding opposition to the barest of concessions, in many cases backfired.

*The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the de facto speaker for the Palestinian Arabs, was a well known collaborator and partisan of Adolf Hitler, (and was under considerable clamor to be tried as a war criminal). The neighboring Arab world demanded that he be the ruler of the Palestine lands, including the Jews already living there, as pressure built to find a home for the million or so Jews mainly being held in concentration camps as the war concluded.

*Each party could build a case for ownership of the land of Palestine ... Husseini's case was "simple and self evident. It is that of a people woho desire to live in undisturbed possession of their country in which they have lived continually existed, and with which they have become inextricably interwoven"

The Jew's case was "in 1917, when the Allies liberated Palestine along with other provinces of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine had been just 'a segment of a Turkish province.' There was no politically or culturally distinct or distinguishable Arab nation in that province. When the Arabs had conquered Palestine in AD 634, the country had contained a heterogeneous population, and then after AD 1071 it had been conquered by various non-Arab peoples, including the Kurds, the Crusaders, and finally the Ottoman Turks." (Page 256)

*Ultimately, the development of settlements, orchards, irrigation, and a greening of the desert by the Zionists, and the fact that UN investigators found the overwhelming majority of European Jews wanted a homeland rather than attempting to be re-integrated into the nations that had sent them to death camps, spoke more loudly for the Zionists than did the occasionally grazed lands of the pastoralist Arabs.

*Israeli Zionists already on the land, accepted and welcomed Jews from across the Arab territories and sheikhdoms before, during, and after WWII, as these groups fled hostility and persecution from their own ancestral homes. "As a result of the creation of Israel and the war, an almost equal number of Jews had been forced out of the Arab countries as there had been Arab Palestinian refugees who fled Israel. Most of these new Jewish immigrants from the Arab lands arrived in Israel without money or resources, which they had been forced to leave behind. Israel had absorbed them and granted them citizenship. The Israeli leadership argued that the Arab countries should do likewise by admitting and integrating the Palestinians into their own societies." (Page 353)

The intrigues, the unexpected support by Russia for the Israeli homeland, and Truman's immediate recognition of the new nation after its declaration all feed into a complex, fascinating, and tense read, even when we know the outcome.



The state department and the White House were in deep disagreement over its Palestinian/Zionist policies, and at times erupted into nearly open conflict and often in subterfuge.

[Michael Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Looks at the founding of the State of Israel through the lens of Harry Truman and US political and foreign affairs interests. It is an unflinching review of Truman who is often lionized as a hero of Israel for his decision to be the first to formally recognize the new nation diplomatically. The book resets Truman's image in the light of what appear to be his decidedly mixed feelings about Israel and the US zionist movement. Although his feelings were conflicted, it does seem clear that Truman felt a moral obligation to help find a safe haven for the displaced Jews of Europe and tried to move US foreign policy in support of that goal. Interestlingly, the authors imply that the State Department (which opposed the founding of a Jewish state) actively sabotaged Truman's intent at every turn. It is a little scary to consider the prospect that a department of the US government was actively working against the expressed wishes of the President, but it makes for a fascinating story of political intrigue. If you are interested in the history of the US presidency or the founding of the State of Israel this is a fascinating addition to the lexicon.

[Sammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great insight into the behind the scenes of the founding of the State of Israel! As someone who lovesw history and knowing how it was going to end from a historical perspective, I still found myself in suspense, wondering what actions would eventually be taken. The book is well researched and well written.

[Bernie Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more I read about the end of WW2 and the creation of modern Israel the more the Brits look bad. If it weren't for the US and Truman there would have been a second holocaust of displaced Jews dying in camps while the Brits looked for a place for them to go. Palestine was a barren wasteland before the Jews went there, the Arabs should be thankful.

[Daniel Hennessey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it for school

I read this book for a university class, and I really feel like I came away with something. The authors capture the narrative of several key characters very well, and I'm satisfied knowing that I know more because of this. It's not a light read, but it's definitely not heavy-- considered the subject matter, I'd say it's just right.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truman is so overlooked yet stands out as one of our finest presidents. Not flashy. Not filled with himself. Not afraid to make a decision and stand by it. Loyal almost to a fault. He should be an exemplar rather than a non-entity.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent historical background on the creation of the state of Israel.

[Sara-Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrific information but an editor needed to intervene and arrange it to make it easier to read. I'm gradually getting through it.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filled with history. Neat to see God work a fine line through some complicated decisions. Truly, God works in the affairs of men for His purposes.

[Erika Dreifus]

Excellent reading assigned for a class.