David Ben-Gurion and the American Alignment for a Jewish State (review)

Book Reviews 131 Temple unavoidable, Israel's nuclear weapons must (and surely would) ensure that the Temple pillars also fall heavily upon its enemies. Yet, the essential object ofJerusalem's nuclear forces must remain thepreseroation of Israel from enemy attack by credible deterrence and, if necessary, by enhanced warfighting capability. These particular prescriptions are mine, not the author's. For the future, anyone seeking to extrapolate prescriptions about war and peace in the region would be well advised to read The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East. It is an outstanding addition to the literature. Louis Rene Beres Department of Political Science Purdue University David Ben-Gurion and the American Alignment for a Jewish State, by Allon Gal. Bloomington: Indiana University Press in association with the Ben-Gurion Research Center, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 1991. 280 pp. $29.95. David Ben-Gurion and the American Alignment for a Jewish State, originally written in Hebrew and published in Israel under the title David Ben-Gurion-Preparing for a Jewish State . .. 1938-1941, has now been reedited and chronologically expanded for its American version. The book retells a familiar story in great detail. But, like the English who never seem to tire of reading about World War II, or Civil War buffs who quickly buy up everything written on the American war between the states, 1861-1865, there are still Israelis and Americans who absolutely devour works on the circumstances leading up to the formation of the Jewish state in Israel. For these people, Allon Gal has mined the Ben-Gurion archives and manuscript collections elsewhere and has reexamined the endless arguments, meetings , controversies, travels, and marching orders that dedicated Zionists engaged in to accomplish their goals. Well-known names like Jabotinsky, Weizmann, Silver, Brandeis, Wise, and of course, Ben Gurion are brought to center stage as the familiar events of yesteryear are replayed. But if all were familiar there would be no need for this book. Allon Gal is too fine an historian merely to rework old details and place them between new covers. His focus is on the prescience of Ben-Gurion as he came to 'realize between 1938 and 1942 that not only was the locus of world power beginning to shift from England to America but that strong 132 SHOFAR Spring 1993 Vol. 11, No.3 American support would be needed to establish a Jewish state. As he embarked on journeys from Palestine to London to America he deftly separated himself politically from Weizmann whose focus never left England. As a tireless preacher for the Zionist cause Ben-Gurion tried to educate Americans and to make them understand their responsibilities for achieving the goal of a Jewish state. To be sure, the atrocities committed during World War II and America's entrance into the war hastened the overwhelming American Jewish response for a Jewish Palestine. Yet Ben-Gurion realized before the war that in the United States power emanated from the bottom up and not from the top down. He understood that President Franklin Roosevelt would not be moved to aid Jews in Europe or Palestine without sensing that that was what the American people wanted. At a meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive in February 1941, Ben-Gurion explained, "I have come to the conclusion that the way to win the American government is to win the people, win public opinion; and the American people can be won.... The road to Roosevelt is via the American people" (p. 176). Roosevelt, of course, did not respond to the demands of humanity and help European Jews avoid the Holocaust because he sensed no desire of the American people to pursue such a course. Truman acted favorably because the Zionist movement had gained power by the end of the war and other Americans were happy to give Jews a homeland in Palestine rather than welcome them to the United States. Domestic political opportunism and the desire to win election in his own right in 1948 propelled the President to recognize the new state of Israel. What Gal has accomplished in this book is to focus sharply on BenGurion 's inSights and efforts in regard...