Upon the 40th anniversary of Prime Minister Ben Gurion’s death, Israeli and American policy-makers should study the 1948 legacy of Israel’s Founding Father: Defiance of disproportionate US pressure forged Israel into a national security producer rather than a national security consumer, catapulted the Jewish state into the most productive US strategic ally, enhanced the long-term US-Israel mutually-beneficial ties (following short-term tension), and advanced the national security of both the US and Israel.
On May 29, 1949, toward the end of Israel’s War of Independence, which consumed 6,000 Israeli lives (1% of the population!), the US Ambassador to Israel, James McDonald, delivered a scolding message from President Truman to Prime Minister Ben Gurion. According to McDonald, Truman “interpreted Israel’s attitude [rejecting the land-for-peace principle; annexing West Jerusalem; refusing to absorb Arab refugees; pro-actively soliciting a massive Jewish ingathering] as dangerous to peace and as indicating disregard of the UN General Assembly resolutions of November 29, 1947 [the partition plan] and December 11, 1948 [refugees and internationalization of Jerusalem], reaffirming insistence that territorial compensation should be made [by Israel] for territory taken in excess of November 29 [40% beyond the partition plan!], and that tangible refugee concessions should be made [by Israel] now as essential, preliminary to any prospect for general settlement. The operative part of the note was the implied threat that the US would reconsider its attitude toward Israel (My Mission in Israel 1948-1951, James McDonald, Simon and Schuster, 1951, p 181).”
Ben Gurion’s response – with a population of 650,000 Jews, a $1 billion GDP and a slim military force in 1949, compared with 6.3 million Jews, a $260 billion GDP and one of the world’s finest military forces in 2013 – was resolute: “[Truman’s] note was unrealistic and unjust. It ignored the facts that the partition resolution was no longer applicable since its basic conditions had been destroyed by Arab aggression which the Jews successfully resisted…. To whom should we turn if Israel were again attacked? Would the US send arms or troops? The United States is a powerful country; Israel is a small and a weak one. We can be crushed, but we will not commit suicide (ibid, p. 182).”