The United States and the State of Israel (review)

132 SHOFAR Summer 1994 Vol. 12, No.4 pressure and public climate that enabled the Treasury staff to "force the President to appoint" the War Refugee Board. 10 Reluctant Ally concludes with an "Afterword" in which Brecher launches into a vitriolic assault on the alleged bias of historians who have criticized U.S. inaction during the Holocaust. Brecher cites the fact that Wyman supports the existence of Israel as proof that he "brings to his work deeply held views." Brecher then suggests darkly that Feingold, Penkower, and Saul Friedman must likewise be biased, because their common "personal background" inevitably influences them to be suspicious about how "Christians [behaved] toward the Jews during the Nazi persecution." If by "personal background" Brecher is referring to the fact that those three historians are Jewish-and since he does not provide any other explanation, that is the obvious interpretation-it seems Brecher has stooped to implying that some of the most important scholarly studies of America's response to the Holocaust are actually the product of something resembling a Zionist conspiracy. This is not merely poor scholarship; it is plain foolishness. Rafael Medoff Ohio State University The United States and the State of Israel, by David Schoenbaum. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. 404 pp. $45.00. David Schoenbaum, a member of the Department of History at the University of Iowa and a former journalist, has produced a detailed and well researched study on the United States and Israel's relationship from some materials on the pre-state period down through a melange of contemporary developments and issues. It is not, however, an unplowed field; Steven Spiegel in his 1985 study The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America's Middle East Policy, from Truman to Reagan has been there within a somewhat broader context and has a somewhat easier style and format to follow. Nevertheless, Schoenbaum's work is a worthwhile addition to the study of U.S.-Israeli relations over time. It is systematically documented, and the sources cited cover a wide range of materials. The lOMorgcmhau Diaries, Vol. 707, pp. 220-221, Franklin D. Rooscvelt Library, Hyde Park, NY. Book Reviews 133 author is clearly very competent in the field and at ease with his materials (perhaps sometimes too self-assured). The journalistic background of Schoenbaum perhaps somewhat explains the presence from time to time of rather flowery language, metaphors (sometimes mixed), and curious comparisons: "Eyes turned heavenward ..."; "proved both a tar baby and a Pandora's box ..."; "the secretary of state moaned into the phone ..."; "For all the huffing and puffing. . ."; "Meir tooded along. . ."; "the Americans dropped the third shoe ..." (?); "a cast of characters who sometimes recall Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy [the author dates himself here!], and sometimes an odd combination of Damon Runyan's Nathan Detroit and Isaac Babel's Benya Krick, the Gangster" (this latter for some of the cast of characters who in private initiatives were participants in Israel's War of Independence ). The above items should not detract from the value of this scholarly and detailed book. Schoenbaum well delineates the ongoing relations, including tensions that have been present over time between Israel and the United States, frequently with a human touch. '''Let's cut out the crap and have a good talk,' a shirt-sleeved Truman told a morning-coated Eban as he accepted his accreditation." A point may be made of a few minor inaccuracies. Abdullah of Transjordan in May of 1948 held the tide of emir and had not yet assumed the designation of King of Jordan. As a minor caveat of what Schoenbaum presumably would not know otherwise, U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis received for his government a harsh scolding in the Prime Minister's bedroom in his official Jerusalem residence and not in his office concerning the American withdrawal of a Memorandum of Understanding on military cooperation. (Lewis in a conversation with this reviewer located the 55-minute session in Begin's bedroom with English and Hebrew translators writing down the 53 minutes of Begin's remarks and the one time Lewis spoke for two minutes.) Schoenbaum asserts vis-avis the Israeli War in Lebanon that with the Israeli arrival...