Press Release Announcing U.S. Recognition of Israel

Impact

The immediate impact of Truman's recognition of Israel was profound, particularly for the Israelis. Truman received Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, in the White House in May 1948 within a few days of Israel's declaring its independence. Weizmann's presidential status was fully honored, and Truman promised him a loan of $100 million for the economic development of the new Jewish state. Two years later, Israel and the United States agreed on a Mutual Security Act, which included a second grant of $65 million.

But beyond the symbolism and much-needed financial support, the U.S. position on Israel was often ambivalent and sometimes even contradictory for several years. Truman was satisfied to leave an arms embargo in place against Israel after its establishment and similarly supported United Nations mediation efforts in the 1948 Arab-Israel War (also known as the War of Independence) at the very moment that Israel was pressing a military advantage on the battlefield. The lack of a general alignment in America-Israeli interests persisted throughout the 1950s and much of the 1960s. Like the vast majority of countries in the world, the United States steadfastly refused to recognize Jerusalem as the legitimate capital of the state of Israel and continues to maintain its embassy in Tel Aviv.

Remarkably, Israel also enjoyed the initial support of the Soviet Union in May 1948. Seeking to counter British imperialism in the Arab world, Moscow expressed its support for Jewish armed resistance in the War of Independence and transmitted arms to Israel through Czechoslovakia and economic assistance through Polish channels. Limited Jewish immigration was allowed from Eastern Europe, and Golda Meir was welcomed as Israel's first ambassador to the Soviet Union. Relations with the Soviets, however, quickly deteriorated after 1949, and by 1953, with state-sponsored anti-Semitism rising at home, the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Israel.

At first, Israel attempted to steer a neutral course between the Soviet Union and the United States as it needed to defend itself against invading Arab armies and continued British support of the Arabs. Indeed, more than three dozen British officers resigned their commissions and led Arab troops in fighting in the Jerusalem region. The United Kingdom actually delayed until 1950 before it fully recognized the Jewish state. The failure of Britain's pro-Arab policy, the Soviet Union's attempt to exploit that failure along with its domestic sponsorship of state anti-Semitism, and the U.S. commitment to thwart Soviet influence rapidly reshaped the role of the outside powers in the Middle East by 1950. In May of that year the United States, France, and the United Kingdom agreed to a Tripartite Declaration to maintain a balance of arms between Israel and its Arab neighbors. With the outbreak of the Korean War in December 1950, Israel moved closer to the West, and Egypt, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, embraced the Soviets, Nasser's principal military and economic backer in his unsuccessful 1956 and 1967 wars against Israel.

At the same time, Israel became increasingly isolated at the United Nations, which, ironically, Israelis had at first viewed as the international guarantor of the moral legitimacy of the Jewish state. United Nations–sponsored negotiations led to a series of armistice agreements early in 1949 but not to the demarcation of political borders. Also, in 1949, at the fourth session of the General Assembly, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency was established to deal with the complex issue of the Palestinian refugees, many of whom settled in Jordan, which annexed the West Bank in 1950, and the Gaza Strip, which was occupied by Egypt.

American recognition of Israel, the eventual alignment of American and Israeli strategic interests, the vast increase in American economic and military aid to Israel, the continued political support for Israel in the United States, and the collapse of the Soviet Union all combined to compound the historical significance of Truman's quick recognition of Israel in 1948. Despite several significant, unresolved differences between Israel and the United States, the two countries enjoy a special relationship to the delight and consternation of millions of people around the world to this day. In the last analysis, as the Norwegian diplomat Trygve Lie, the first elected secretary-general of the United Nations, maintained, “If there had been no Harry S. Truman, there would be no Israel today.”