Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Obama … America First

When King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz presented U.S. President Barack Obama with King Abdulaziz al Saud’s necklace, he said, “I also want to express my best wishes to the friendly American people who are represented by a distinguished man who deserves to be in this position.” This raises the question: Which U.S. presidents have not deserved to be in this position?

The news of President Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945 and his Vice President Harry Truman’s succession was a great shock to all — the American people, Congress, administration and armed forces. For many, the disaster was not just that a great president had died, but also that a weak one had taken his place.

When Truman became president, he lacked experience in foreign relations, especially in dealing with great powers like the United Kingdom and Russia. He had not had the opportunity to meet grand leaders like Churchill and Stalin. In addition, he did not have any expert and experienced aides who could compensate for his lack of experience. The difference between Truman and Roosevelt — who had not involved him in planning and making important decisions — was colossal.

After Truman took office, his administration included two of the most extreme Jews when it comes to protecting Jewish interests. They were Clark Clifford, a Navy officer, and David Niles, Truman’s aid in minority affairs. Niles had worked with Roosevelt and continued working with Truman. He said that, in Truman, he glimpsed “a sympathy with the Jews” that he had not seen in Roosevelt. On another occasion he said, “If Roosevelt had remained living, things would not have gone in the Jews’ favor in the way that they did.”*

On a number of occasions, Roosevelt had expressed to Henry Morgenthau, his Jewish secretary of the Treasury, his desire to avoid antagonizing the new Arabs. When Rep. Emanuel Celler asked Roosevelt to give him the opportunity to talk to Stalin and Churchill about the requests of the Jews at the Yalta Conference, the president did not promise him anything. Roosevelt said, “I don’t want to see a war occur between 1 or 2 million Jews and 7 million Muslims in Palestine.”*

President Roosevelt made the same comment to Sen. Robert Wagner, Rabbi Stephen Wise and the Zionist delegation accompanying them before he left the country, bound for Yalta, in December 1945. With doubt, he wondered, “How can a poor land like Palestine absorb the reality of this great number of Jewish immigrants?”* He also wondered how the Jews could assure the Arabs they would not extend their control over neighboring Arab lands. A shiver shook Rabbi Wise as he listened to these comments by Roosevelt for the first time.

As for Truman, intense and repeated warnings about the importance of Arab oil from U.S. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal put pressure on his nerves but without avail. In the end, Forrestal realized that — in his own words — “no gain can be expected to come from a president who looks to acquire political gains using a lowly method.”* The political gain that Forrestal was referring to was Truman’s aim to win the presidential elections with the help of Jewish powers in America. The lowly method was the gamble with the U.S. and oil interests of the West in a climate of impending confrontation in Europe between the West and the Soviet Union.

So that our discussion of U.S. politics does not turn into fables or political sophistry — like what dominated the front pages of newspapers and television screens in Western homes following U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech at Cairo University on Thursday, June 4, 2009 — we want to proceed on solid bases. One of the most important keys to political and economic U.S. dominance in the world is the guarantee of Middle Eastern oil supply, for itself and its allies, in the required amounts and at appropriate prices. This important task began and became a clear and permanent fixture in U.S. politics following World War II. Through this gateway into the issue, we will resume our discussion of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The factors that influence this policy include: the situation inside America, where the organized Jewish powers are one of the key movers; the situation in the Arab world, which is connected to circumstances inside each Arab country and the extent to which the Arabs are connected to one another; and last, international competition, which became much weaker after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its replacement by what America calls the rogue states.

When we examine the influence of the situation inside the U.S. on foreign policy in the Middle East, we see that it oscillates up and down in accordance with the strength or weakness of the president occupying, or nominated to occupy, the White House. Roosevelt became a national hero because of his leadership of the American people during World WarII and because, prior to that, he had saved the U.S. from the Great Depression. Thus, he did not care at all about the influence of Jewish power.

Similarly, Gen. Eisenhower, who led the Allied armies to victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, was a national American hero. He was not concerned about Jewish votes when he lost his temper because he saw the 1956 Suez War as a conspiracy — between the United Kingdom, France and Israel — that occurred behind his back. Because of the conspiracy, he aimed to abolish the war’s effects, a move that included forcing Ben Gurion to withdraw from the Sinai and Gaza Strip. Despite this, he won a second term in office.

In comparison, the weak candidate, Harry Truman, appropriated the larger part of Palestine for the Jews to establish Israel, in exchange for victory in the elections for a second term, and President George W. Bush destroyed Iraq and the U.S. economy and reputation around the world, in exchange for a similar victory.

Today, we do not want to underscore what does not need to be underscored — that president of the United States of America Barack Hussein Obama, who swore to defend the U.S. and protect its interests, will not do what some Arab and Palestinian leaders have not even done. He has not yet become a national U.S. hero, so he is unable to enter into a decisive confrontation with the Jewish powers in American society.

However, Obama, as it seems from his political approaches, is a promising and capable U.S. president within the limits of the opportunities available to him. He is promising because he began his dispute with Israel’s rulers during his first term, and he is capable because he challenges the Jews of America on the interests the U.S. has in the options of war and peace.

As for the situation between us as different groups of Arabs and different groups of Palestinians, God help us!

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.