Milestones: 1945–1952 - Office of the Historian
Milestones: 1945–1952
Creation of Israel, 1948
On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish                     Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same                     day.
Eliahu Elath presenting ark to President Truman
Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which                     favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945                     that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and                     the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine                     until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in                     Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region.                     Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its                     vital political and economic interests in Palestine.
Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study                     the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special                     cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady ,                     an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel                     British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman                     announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons                     into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of                     a Jewish state. Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on                     Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of                     Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United                     Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that                     would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab                     states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the                     resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would                     remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United                     Nations.
Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State                     recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish                     immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces                     but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an                     increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by                     Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against                     U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British                     departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about                     the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to                     attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.
Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and                     despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman                     ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel.