1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris Page A
Authors: Benny Morris
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the major part in people's lives and minds. The number of tocheslecker [ass-lickers] surrounding Weizmann at present makes me sick."72 Nonetheless, the Zionists efficiently deployed their manpower, assigning an official with the appropriate language and diplomatic skills to "work" on each UN delegation: Eliahu (Elias) Sasson, the Aleppo-born Arabist, making contacts with the Syrians, the Yemenis, and the Iraqis; Moshe Toff (Tov), working with the Colombians, Ecuadorians, and Mexicans; the Russian-born Eliahu Epstein handling the Soviets; and the South Africanborn Michael Comay dealing with the South Africans, New Zealanders, and Australians.7s But there were ruffled feathers among officials assigned minor countries, such as "Luxemburg, Ethiopia and Liberia.... [They were] too foolish to realize that each of these countries has exactly as much of a vote as others with more important-sounding names."74
The Zionists suffered from violent mood swings. In late September it was "pessimism. 117S A fortnight later, they were buoyed by the American reiteration (on i i October) of support for the majority recommendations, despite a last-ditch struggle against partition by the State Department. The Soviet Union followed suit two days later. "We are not dissatisfied with the results achieved [so far]," reported Eytan, but he realistically cautioned: "I realize that there is many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, and we shall not start cheering until the whistle blows."76 On 13 November Britain announced that it would withdraw all its troops from Palestine by i August 1948.
It was Subcommittee One that translated the UNSCOP majority recommendations into the proposals that were approved by the General Assembly, as Resolution 18 i, on 29 November 1947. The prospective minorities in each state posed a major problem. The Zionists feared that the Arab minority would prefer, rather than move to the Arab state, to accept the citizenship of the Jewish state. And "we are interested in less Arabs who will be citizens of the Jewish state," said Golda Myerson (Meir), acting head of the Jewish Agency Political Department. Yitzhak Gruenbaum, a member of the Jewish Agency Executive and head of its Labor Department, thought that Arabs who remained in the Jewish state but were citizens of the Arab state would constitute "a permanent irredenta." Ben-Gurion thought that the Arabs remaining in the Jewish state, whether citizens of the Arab or Jewish state, would constitute an irredenta-and in the event of war, they would become a "Fifth Column." If they are citizens of the Arab state, argued Ben-Gurion, "[we] would be able to expel them," but if they were citizens of the Jewish state, "we will be able only to jail them. And it is better to expel them than jail them." So it was better not to facilitate their receipt of Jewish state citizenship. But Ben-Gurion feared that they would prefer this citizenship. Eli`ezer Kaplan, the Jewish Agency's treasurer, added: "Our young state will not be able to stand such a large number of strangers in its midst."77
Much of the lobbying and diplomacy surrounding Subcommittee One focused on the exact contours of the two states. In the end, Britain and the Arabs, assisted by the US State Department, managed to persuade the Ad Hoc Committee to reduce the size of the UNSCOP-proposed Jewish state.
The British and the State Department made vigorous efforts to consign the Negev-which the UNSCOP majority had earmarked for the Jews-to Arab sovereignty. The personal intervention of Weizmann with Truman, on 19 November, was required-as well, perhaps, as Truman's perception that the Negev represented for the Jews what "the Frontier" had represented for the Americans a century before78-to save the bulk of the desert for the Jews,79 though they had to give up Beersheba and a strip of territory along the Sinai-Negev border. In addition, Jaffa was removed from the prospective Jewish state and awarded to the Arabs as a sovereign enclave.
The Zionists suffered from violent mood swings. In late September it was "pessimism. 117S A fortnight later, they were buoyed by the American reiteration (on i i October) of support for the majority recommendations, despite a last-ditch struggle against partition by the State Department. The Soviet Union followed suit two days later. "We are not dissatisfied with the results achieved [so far]," reported Eytan, but he realistically cautioned: "I realize that there is many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, and we shall not start cheering until the whistle blows."76 On 13 November Britain announced that it would withdraw all its troops from Palestine by i August 1948.
It was Subcommittee One that translated the UNSCOP majority recommendations into the proposals that were approved by the General Assembly, as Resolution 18 i, on 29 November 1947. The prospective minorities in each state posed a major problem. The Zionists feared that the Arab minority would prefer, rather than move to the Arab state, to accept the citizenship of the Jewish state. And "we are interested in less Arabs who will be citizens of the Jewish state," said Golda Myerson (Meir), acting head of the Jewish Agency Political Department. Yitzhak Gruenbaum, a member of the Jewish Agency Executive and head of its Labor Department, thought that Arabs who remained in the Jewish state but were citizens of the Arab state would constitute "a permanent irredenta." Ben-Gurion thought that the Arabs remaining in the Jewish state, whether citizens of the Arab or Jewish state, would constitute an irredenta-and in the event of war, they would become a "Fifth Column." If they are citizens of the Arab state, argued Ben-Gurion, "[we] would be able to expel them," but if they were citizens of the Jewish state, "we will be able only to jail them. And it is better to expel them than jail them." So it was better not to facilitate their receipt of Jewish state citizenship. But Ben-Gurion feared that they would prefer this citizenship. Eli`ezer Kaplan, the Jewish Agency's treasurer, added: "Our young state will not be able to stand such a large number of strangers in its midst."77
Much of the lobbying and diplomacy surrounding Subcommittee One focused on the exact contours of the two states. In the end, Britain and the Arabs, assisted by the US State Department, managed to persuade the Ad Hoc Committee to reduce the size of the UNSCOP-proposed Jewish state.
The British and the State Department made vigorous efforts to consign the Negev-which the UNSCOP majority had earmarked for the Jews-to Arab sovereignty. The personal intervention of Weizmann with Truman, on 19 November, was required-as well, perhaps, as Truman's perception that the Negev represented for the Jews what "the Frontier" had represented for the Americans a century before78-to save the bulk of the desert for the Jews,79 though they had to give up Beersheba and a strip of territory along the Sinai-Negev border. In addition, Jaffa was removed from the prospective Jewish state and awarded to the Arabs as a sovereign enclave.
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