Private War: Illegal Actions, Private Citizens, and the Origins of the U.S.-Israel Special Relationship

The U.S.-Israel “special relationship” receives vast attention from scholars seeking to trace its origins and implications, yet the focus consistently remains on Washington, D.C. as the birthplace and nerve center of an ironclad pro-Israel foreign policy. The consensus found in historical scholarship is that from 1945 to 1949, the Truman administration made a series of commitments to the Jewish state, primarily out of political expediency, which defied the pro-Arab sentiments of the State Department and set U.S. foreign policy on a pro-Israel course. This study examines early U.S.-Israel relations from outside the sphere of Washington by recovering an illegal, clandestine arms movement undertaken across the United States that violated the U.S. arms embargo, supported the Jewish war effort, and ultimately forced the hand of a conflicted president. The examination begins with the emergence of American involvement in the Palestine problem and explores how the processes of demilitarization and asset liquidation after World War II created the opportunity for American Jews to procure war materiel and smuggle it to Israel during its war of independence. The study then depicts two stories of asset procurement that operated out of California between 1947-1948 to demonstrate the extent of this clandestine activity, the impact it had on the outcome of the First Arab-Israeli War, and the influence it had on the views and foreign policy decisions of the White House and Department of State.