Truman Papers, President’s Secretary’s File
The President of the Provisional Government of Israel (Weizmann) to President Truman
Dear Mr. President, Permit me to extend to you most hearty congratulations and good wishes on your re-election. We in this country have been watching the progress of the Presidential contest with bated breath and I am sure that I am speaking the mind of the bulk of my people when I say that we feel deeply thankful that the people of the United States have given you the opportunity of shaping the policies of your country and the affairs of humanity at large during the next critical four years. We interpret their vote as an emphatic endorsement of the policy of peace, security and ordered progress in world affairs for which you have stood since you assumed your high office and for the continued prosecution of which men and women in every part of the globe pray with all their hearts. May you be granted health and strength to carry out your noble purpose.
We have special cause to be gratified at your re-election because we are mindful of the enlightened help which you gave to our cause in these years of our struggle. We particularly remember your unflinching advocacy of the admission of Jewish refugees to Palestine, your determined stand against the attempts to deflect you from your course, your staunch support of our admission to statehood at Lake Success, and your recognition of the fact of its establishment within an hour of our proclamation of independence. We pray that your assistance and guidance may be extended to us also in the coming years. We have succeeded in the past twelve months in defending our independence against enemies from every quarter—north, south and east, as in Biblical times—and in setting up the framework of our State. Enemy armies are still on the borders of our country, maintained there, I regret to say, by the vacillating attitude of the United Nations which have imposed a truce that is becoming ever more, not a forerunner of peace, but an instrument of war. Our essential aim is peace and reconstruction. While the eyes of the world have been turned on to the battlefields in the south and the north, we have succeeded in liquidating one refugee camp after another in Europe and bringing the chance of a new life to thousands of ruined men and women whom the world has all but forgotten. We have brought over 62,000 since we attained independence. To develop this great effort at human rehabilitation we need, above all, three things: first peace; second recognition; and third financial and economic support for the execution of those large projects of agricultural and industrial development which are essential for the absorption of newcomers and the economic progress of the country.
The most important requirement at this moment is that this unreal [Page 1550] and untenable truce be brought to an end and be supplanted by a speedy and enduring peace. Over two months ago we asked the Mediator to call both sides to the conference table, but the other side rejected our offer. We have no aggressive designs against anyone and we are at any moment ready to negotiate a peace settlement. Our enemies have failed in their efforts to beat us by brute force although they outnumbered us by 20 to 1. They are now endeavouring through the medium of the Security Council to undermine the decision taken by the General Assembly last November and to deprive us of the undeveloped areas of the Negev which offer space for new homes for many thousands of our uprooted people, and which will remain a desert land if they are annexed by the neighbouring Arab States, as is evidently intended. This is the real purpose behind the Security Council’s Resolution introduced by Great Britain which to my deep regret was supported by the American Delegation. We have no choice but to oppose this design which would destroy last November’s decision of the General Assembly and would reduce us to a state of permanent insecurity and vulnerability.
I pray with all my heart that you, Mr. President, may use your high authority to put an end to these hostile manoeuvres. We have successfully withstood the onslaught of the Arab States, who were sent against us by the British, almost like a pack of hired assassins. I am saying this with deep pain because I have throughout my life been deeply attached to Great Britain and have suffered for that attachment. But the evidence unfortunately all points in this direction, and even as I write we are receiving constant reports of Great Britain rearming the Arabs to enable them to re-start hostilities against us. Having failed in her efforts to wipe out our young commonwealth, she now appears bent on detaching the Negev from our State. I feel emboldened to ask for your intervention in this matter, remembering the deep sympathy and understanding which you displayed when I had the privilege of stating to you our case on the Negev and displaying to you maps showing its potentialities for settlement. It was with a deep feeling of elation that I left you on that day and it is this which now encourages me to plead for your intervention to prevent this part of the country, which was allotted to us last November, from being detached from our State. Sheer necessity compels us to cling to the Negev. Our pioneers have done yeoman work in opening up this semi-arid country; they have built pipe lines through the desert, set up agricultural settlements, planted gardens and orchards in what was for many centuries a barren land. They will not give up this land unless they are bodily removed from it.
I venture to hope that clear and firm instructions be issued on this vital matter to the American Delegation in Paris which has of late, apparently, not received directives corresponding to the views which, [Page 1551] I know, you hold on the subject. I would further plead that you may find it possible to direct the competent authorities to enable us to secure that long-term financial assistance which is urgently needed of the execution of the great scheme of reconstruction which I had the privilege of submitting to you in the Summer.
With every good wish,1
Sincerely yours,
- President Truman sent this letter to Mr. Niles on November 22 under cover of a memorandum which read: “Attached is a letter from President Weizmann of Israel. I wish you would analyze it and suggest an answer.” (Truman Papers, President’s Secretary’s File)↩