The Impossible Takes Longer

If Franklin D. Roosevelt will have it his way, he will "do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people." This promise of the American President to King Abdulaziz of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy in Egypt's Great Bitter Lake was even made in writing on April 5, 1945. However, a week later, Roosevelt died with cerebral hemorrhage and Vice President Harry S. Truman succeeded as President. This milestone would greatly change the course of American policy on the partition of Palestine which facilitated the creation of the State of Israel.

Vera Weizmann, widow of the first President of Israel, in her memoirs "The Impossible Takes Longer" opined that President Harry Truman will always be remembered as one of our 'founding fathers'.

Before the drama over partition was played to a finish in the General Assembly of the U.N., Chaim, who suspected that the French delegation was wavering in its support, cabled our old friend Leon Blum, asking him, 'Does France really wish to be absent from a moment unfading in the memory of man?' On 29 November, when the vote was taken in the Assembly, thirty-three nations voted for partition, thirteen against, ten abstained, and there was one absentee, the last somewhat unaccountably, being Siam. Among those who abstained was the United Kingdom. France, the United States, and the U.S.S.R. were among those who voted in favour. It was a rare spectacle, rarely repeated, to see the two great rival powers, the Unites States of America and Russia, voting together, for motives, of course, which were entirely different. I promptly left the Assembly room to be the first to inform my husband of the decision.

Chaim had decided not to attend this fateful meeting of the U.N. Assembly. He was too tired and too overwrought. Just before the Jewish Agency repressentatives, Sharett, Sprinzak, and Shazar, left our suite in our New York hotel for Lake Sucess, Chaim had broken down in a fit of uncontrollable sobbing. By the time they returned with the great news, he had recovered completely. The emotional storm which had swept through him so unexpectedly had spent itself in the moment of victory which he himself shared.

The news of the UN resolution spread like wildfire throughout New York, and tens of thousands gathered spontaneously at the St. Nicholas Skating Rink, the only place avaiable for assembly at a few hours' notice. Chaim was prevailed upon by his friends to go to this meeting, and when he finally arrived, tired, sick and exhausted, he was carried forward on the shoulders of the masses. There had never been such pandemomonium, such enthusiasm and exhilaration as that moment when Chaim made his appearance on the shoulders of the surging crowd. The Hatikvah was sung with a fervour never before or since repeated.


Vera Weizmann. The Impossible Takes Longer. 1967. (pp 220-221)