Please refer to my previous postings (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180403)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180404)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180405)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180406)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180407)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180408)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180410). (Lily)
Mosaic（https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/）
by Martin Kramer
April 2018
The May 1948 Vote that Made the State of Israel
VII. The Declaration’s Final Draft
In the early afternoon of May 14, Ben-Gurion presented the final draft of the declaration of statehood for approval by the People’s Council, the precursor of the Knesset, meeting in the same Tel Aviv headquarters of the Jewish National Fund. Mention of the partition borders had disappeared from the draft. But the decision to omit them had been carried by a narrow vote, and there was some chance that the issue might become a bone of contention in the larger body.
To forestall that, Ben-Gurion placed an unexpected spin on the May 12 decision:
There was a proposal [in the People’s Adminstration] to determine borders. And there was opposition to this proposal. We decided to sidestep this question (I use this word deliberately), for a simple reason: if the UN upholds its resolutions and commitments and keeps the peace and prevents bombing and implements its resolution forcefully—we, for our part (and I speak on behalf of the entire people), will respect all of its resolutions. Until now, the UN hasn’t done so, and the matter has fallen to us. Therefore, not everything obligates us, and we left this issue open. We didn’t say “No to the UN borders,” but we also didn’t say the opposite. We left the question open to developments.
This was a masterstroke of wording. The question of whether to commit to the partition borders in the declaration hadn’t been sidestepped at all. It had been decided by a vote. But the vote itself substituted ambiguity for certainty. Until May 12, the state-in-waiting had been committed to the partition map. After May 12, that commitment depended on the UN doing something it should have done, but hadn’t done, and likely wouldn’t do. Ben-Gurion had created a new consensus—“of the entire people”—that the partition map might be revised.
Ben-Gurion had created a new consensus—“of the entire people”—that the partition map might be revised.
The members of the People’s Council passed the draft declaration of statehood on the first ballot by a large majority, and on the second ballot unanimously. They then rushed to the Tel Aviv Museum (today, Independence Hall), where Ben-Gurion proclaimed the state of Israel.
VIII. An American Footnote
There is an American footnote to this story. The world had been led to expect that Israel would fill only the space on the map allotted to it by the partition plan. Washington was no exception; as Jewish statehood drew near, the U.S. government sought reassurances.
On May 13, the Jewish Agency’s “ambassador” to Washington, Eliahu Epstein (later Eilat), received a phone call from Clark Clifford, special counsel to President Truman and a keen supporter of Zionism. Clifford was working to persuade Truman to recognize the Jewish state immediately upon its birth. He instructed Epstein to write formally to Truman and ask for U.S. recognition as soon as the state was declared.
Clifford would later recall telling Epstein that “it was particularly important that the new state claim nothing beyond the boundaries outlined in the UN resolution of November 29, 1947, because those boundaries were the only ones which had been agreed to by everyone, including the Arabs, in any international forum.” Epstein also received a phone call from Loy Henderson, director of Near Eastern affairs at the State Department, and no friend of Zionism, wishing “to ascertain [the] boundaries of [the] new state.”
In replying to Henderson, Epstein, who probably hadn’t heard Ben-Gurion’s new formula, adhered to the previous policy line of the Jewish Agency: unconditional acceptance of the UN map. Similarly, in his letter to Truman seeking recognition, he informed the president that Israel had been declared “within frontiers approved by the [UN] General Assembly.” Washington’s de-facto recognition of Israel followed almost immediately.
In reality, the state of Israel hadn’t been declared in any borders, giving its critics a basis for later claims that the United States had been misled into recognizing the state based on a false representation. But who could blame Epstein for not knowing that Ben-Gurion had shifted Israel’s position at the last moment? Amid the political and practical preparations for the declaration, Tel Aviv was in turmoil and Epstein had no contact with Shertok, his superior—to whom he would apologize that same day for writing to Truman on his own accord.
Ben-Gurion hoped that the partition map would be revised by Israeli victories; Loy Henderson and others hoped it would be redrawn by Israeli defeats. It was Ben-Gurion who would be vindicated.
But on May 14 the United States hadn’t recognized Israel’s borders, either. It simply “recognize[d] the provisional government as the de-facto authority of the new state of Israel.” That formula actually consoled some, like Henderson, who opposed American recognition altogether. They could now hope that the Jewish state, following invasion by Arab armies, might be reduced to narrower borders than those of the partition plan, especially in the Negev. If the Arabs took Jewish territory—well, so be it: the United States hadn’t recognized Israel’s borders and certainly wouldn’t guarantee them. So while Ben-Gurion hoped that the partition map would be revised by Israeli victories, Henderson and his kind hoped it would be redrawn by Israeli defeats.
In the end, Ben-Gurion would be vindicated, just as he would be vindicated in an ensuing contest with his own diplomats. The latter struggle was occasioned by the fact that the declaration’s lack of a reference to borders did not pass without notice at the UN—and Abba Eban, then representing the new state at Lake Success, thought the lack should be rectified. On May 24, he messaged Shertok from New York:
Ambiguity in [independence] proclamation regarding frontiers much commented [by] delegations and exploited [by] opponents, possibly delaying recognition and restricting those received. We urge official statement defining frontiers [of] Israel in accordance with November [1947 UN] resolution.
Needless to say, this plea fell on deaf ears—fortunately so, as most Israelis today would agree. By the end of the war, Israel’s territory had grown from 55 percent of mandatory Palestine (its share under the partition plan) to 78 percent. (See the accompanying map; the area in pink was apportioned to the Arab state by the UN in 1947, but annexed by Israel as a result of the 1948 war.)
(To be continued.)
