Mark Perry: Petraeus Wasn't the First General Critical of Israel
[Mark Perry's most recent book is Talking To Terrorists. He is also the author of Partners In Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace and Four Stars: The Inside Story of the Battle between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and America's Civilian Leaders.]
In early February of 2006, I submitted a book proposal about the wartime relationship between Generals George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower to a group of New York publishers. I had worked on the proposal for nine months and believed it would garner significant interest. Two weeks after the submission, I received my first response - from a senior editor at a major New York publishing firm. He was uncomfortable with the proposal: "Wasn't Marshall an anti-Semite?" he asked. I'd heard this claim before, but I was still shocked by the question. For me, George Marshall was an icon: the one officer who, more than any other, was responsible for the American victory in World War Two. He was the most important soldier of his generation - and a man of great moral and physical courage.
That Marshall was an anti-Semite has been retailed regularly since 1948 - when it became known that he not only opposed the U.S. stance in favor of the partition of Palestine, but vehemently recommended that the U.S. not recognize the State of Israel that emerged. Harry Truman disagreed and Marshall and Truman clashed in a meeting in the Oval Office, on May 12, 1948....
The Truman-Marshall argument over Israel has entered American lore - and been a subject of widespread historical controversy. Was Marshall's opposition to recognition of Israel a reflection of his, and the American establishment's, latent anti-Semitism? Or was it a credible reflection of U.S. military worries that the creation of Israel would engage Americain a defense of the small country that would drain American resources and lives?...
...In the period between the end of World War Two and Marshall's meeting with Truman, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had issued no less than sixteen (by my count) papers on the Palestine issue... In late 1947, the JCS had written that "A decision to partition Palestine, if the decision were supported by the United States, would prejudice United States strategic interests in the Near and Middle East" to the point that "United States influence in the area would be curtailed to that which could be maintained by military force." That is to say, the concern of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was not with the security of Israel - but with the security of American lives.