To the Gates of Jerusalem: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1945–1947 ed. by Norman J. W. et al. (review)

In June 1945, United States president Harry S Truman dispatched Earl Harrison into Allied-occupied Europe to report on the conditions affecting Jewish refugees being held in displaced persons (DP) camps. On the basis of Harrison’s report, Truman began in late August pressing the newly elected Labour government in London to immediately grant immigration certificates for 100,000 Jews to enter Palestine. By this time Mandatory Palestine was becoming a war zone, with Zionist militias engaging in anti-British rebellion and terrorism. This activity, together with the growing traffic in ships running the British blockade with their “illegal” immigrants, led many Palestinians to fear an imminent Zionist takeover of the country in pursuit of their declared aim of a Jewish state. Would post-war Palestine become the prime, internationally approved destination of these Jewish survivors, alleviating their humanitarian plight while solving the European “Jewish question” through the creation of a Jewish state? Could mass immigration of Jews be brought into strife-torn Palestine, whose population was almost 70% Arab at the time, without provoking the violent opposition of the entire Arab world?

Anyone interested in the origins of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the impact of the Holocaust on the creation of Israel, and American post-war policy in the region will have many reasons to welcome this fine new publication, the third in a series devoted to the writings and activities of a little-known American diplomat.¹ James G. McDonald (1886–1964), a quirky, quintessential maverick hailing from the Midwest, was a man of humanitarian bent who had already made a name for himself as the League of Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees (Jewish and Other) Coming from Germany — resigning in late 1935 in protest against the impossibility of fulfilling his task.² After serving as chairman of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s advisory committee on refugees and becoming a confidant of the president, McDonald was one of six Americans whom Harry Truman appointed in late 1945 to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine (hereafter AACI).

To the Gates of Jerusalem takes readers back through the crucial stages in the run up to the historic United Nations vote recommending the partition of Palestine on November 29, 1947. Perhaps the most useful revelations in McDonald’s diaries are the intimate and colorful behind-the-scenes portraits he paints of the AACI: its main players, their maneuvering, and his impressions of many of the witnesses who testified before the committee and several whom he also met informally. Until now, the prime insider perspectives on the AACI came from US member Bartley Crum (to some, a “loose cannon”) and from distinguished British member Richard Crossman, whose personal accounts were published shortly after their mission.³ McDonald’s diaries and letters are no less important as a source for historians, and until now have been accessed in their archival locations by only a handful of scholars.⁴

With the publication of To the Gates of Jerusalem, many readers can now add new depth and detail to their understanding of the inner workings of the underappreciated AACI. Especially fascinating is McDonald’s account of how such a diverse crew of 12 managed in April 1946, to produce a unanimous set of 10 recommendations — including radical proposals for the immediate admission of 100,000 Jewish wartime refugees to Palestine, an end to land-sales restrictions imposed by the 1939 White Paper, the termination of British rule, and the establishment of an independent binational state.

These imaginative but unworkable proposals were soon abandoned, despite energetic lobbying on the part of McDonald and others who tried to get Truman to follow through, especially on the immediate admission of the 100,000. McDonald did...