Analysis: Truman Statement on Immigration into Palestine

Date: October 4, 1946

Author: Harry S. Truman

Genre: government document

Summary Overview

In 1946, as the debate over whether Jews should be allowed to establish a homeland in Palestine raged, President Harry S. Truman advocated strongly in favor of the Jews' position. However, when a London conference on the issue abruptly ended without a clear series of recommendations for resolution, Truman issued a statement on the eve of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement in Judaism) expressing his disappointment about that conference's outcome. Truman reiterated his position that 100,000 displaced Jews should be allowed to immigrate to Palestine. He urged world leaders to endorse a peaceable solution to the Palestine issue and to create liberal immigration policies that would welcome Jews and other displaced groups to take up residence in their respective nations.

Defining Moment

When Adolf Hitler published his book Mein Kampf (1925, 1927), he outlined a personal philosophy that the Jews and other racial minorities were to be eradicated. Upon assuming power as chancellor (or Führer) of Germany in 1933, Hitler quickly moved to make this idea a reality. By 1945, about six million of Europe's nine-and-a-half million Jews (a 1933 estimate) had died as a result of the Holocaust, with hundreds of thousands more displaced before and during World War II. Most of the survivors moved to the Western Hemisphere, but a sizable population still sought refuge in Europe.

One option for them had been under consideration for decades. In 1917, Russian-born Zionist Chaim Weizmann convinced the British government to honor the Jews, who had supported Britain against the Turks during World War I, by calling for a Jewish state in Palestine. However, by the 1930s, Jews escaping Hitler's genocide began entering Palestine, inciting a political backlash from the Arabs living there. Because Arabs already enjoyed a strong relationship with Britain (which, after World War I, controlled the region), Great Britain withdrew its support of the Jewish state. Zionist coalitions, feeling betrayed by the British change of course, turned to the United States for support.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was supportive of the idea, particularly as the Holocaust showed the world the horrors to which the Jews were subjected. Near the end of World War II, Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman, also showed great sympathy for the Zionist cause. He was, however, cognizant of the political risks of dividing Palestine into two distinct, autonomous states. In 1946, Truman worked with the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to address the issue in two areas: first, the Palestine issue, and second, the travel arrangements for 100,000 Jews who would be taken there.

In the United States, Congress was increasingly in favor of the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine. However, the manner by which the state would be established—whether a singular, all-inclusive state or a divided nation (one for Jews, the other for Arabs)—could not be settled. Truman, himself an advocate of a single state, believed that the partitioned model invited conflict and war. In an election year, Truman made the difficult decision of turning down the partition plan in Congress. Nevertheless, he continued to call for a Jewish state, which would be essential to harboring the 100,000 Jewish refugees whose fate had yet to be decided.

In September 1946, a conference was held in London to bring a resolution to the Palestinian issue. However, the conference only lasted three weeks, as a large number of its participants looked to attend the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on October 23. The conference was adjourned abruptly, with its organizers planning to reconvene after the middle of December, though they did not ultimately meet again until February. Truman, in response, issued a statement in which he presented his thoughts on the adjournment and the issue as a whole.

Author Biography

Harry S. Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri. He spent most of his childhood living in Independence, Missouri, outside of Kansas City. He enlisted in the National Guard and served from 1905 to 1911, rising to the rank of captain by World War I. In 1922, he won election as judge in Jackson County, Missouri. In 1934, Truman was elected to the US Senate and won reelection in 1940. In 1944, he was nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt's running mate in the presidential election. In 1945, after Roosevelt's sudden death, Truman assumed the role of president, overseeing the end of World War II and introducing the Fair Deal domestic economic reform package. He won reelection in 1948, faced with the Cold War, and during this term helped form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After his second term, Truman retired to Independence. He died on December 26, 1972.

Document Analysis

Even prior to his first term as president, Harry Truman had a reputation as a Zionist advocate. Truman and the rest of the international community had an opportunity to reach this goal at the end of World War II, as millions of refugees (a large number of whom were Jewish) sought safe havens after years of Nazi persecution. However, Truman was surprised and disappointed to learn that the international community could not come to an agreement on whether to allow 100,000 Jewish refugees to immigrate to Palestine. On the eve of Yom Kippur, Truman issued this statement, underscoring his commitment to peaceably enabling Jewish refugees to settle in the predominantly Arab region.

Truman begins his statement by expressing regret that the September Palestine Conference in London adjourned with no resolution and would not reconvene until the winter. Truman suggests that such an impasse undid the groundwork that he and other leaders laid over the course of decades. The preceding year, he says, Earl Harrison (the US representative of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees and dean of the University Pennsylvania Law School) issued a moving report depicting the plight of the Jews immediately after the Holocaust. Given the treatment the Jews had received by the Nazis and their continuing misery, Truman and the British government looked to relieve at least some of this suffering by giving 100,000 Jews entry into Palestine. As part of a bilateral commission, the US and British governments worked to generate attention about the Jews; Truman says that that commission's report suggested that these 100,000 refugees and their potential entry into Palestine could not be made a separate issue from the larger issue of postwar refugees.

Truman acknowledges, however, that the notion of moving a large number of Jews into the predominantly Arab area of Palestine was politically charged. The initial plan, dubbed the Morrison plan, entailed the division of Palestine into either two federated parts or two autonomous states. Truman says that although he supports the Morrison plan in theory, neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party in Congress would agree to such a plan. He, therefore, begrudgingly abstains from supporting it. Nevertheless, he says, he will continue to advocate for the Palestine option. Other versions of the Morrison plan still existed, each of which calling for a Jewish state in Palestine and for the immigration of Jewish refugees to that state. Such proposals received a great deal of attention from the media and political leaders, he adds, ensuring that the issue itself remained highly relevant.

He argues that the US and other governments should liberalize their immigration policies to give safe haven to Jews and other wartime refugees. Second, according to him, the Palestine proposal should be immediately revisited and settled. Given the experiences of the Jews before and during the war, Truman says, it was only right that they be given prompt attention.

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Benson, Michael T. Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. Westport: Greenwood, 1997. Print.

“Jewish Population of Europe in 1945.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 20 Jun. 2014. Web. 2 Jan. 2015.

Judis, John B. “Seeds of Doubt: Harry Truman's Concerns about Israel and Palestine Were Prescient—and Forgotten.” New Republic. The New Republic, 15 Jan. 2014. Web. 2 Jan. 2015.

“London Conference on Palestine Suddenly Adjourns until after U.N. General Assembly.” JTA. Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 2015. Web. 2 Jan. 2015.

McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon, 2003. Print.

“The Recognition of the State of Israel.” Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, 2014. Web. 2 Jan. 2015.