Ethnic Politics and National Struggle: The American Political Arena and the Eretz-Israel Question in the 1940s

Abstract

Using American Zionist documents to show how the Jewish vote was brought to bear on the 1944 presidential elections and mid-term elections in 1946, the article broadens broaden the background in earlier research. It also reveals the basic difficulties that American Zionist leaders faced in mobilizing the Jewish vote, and how they coped with the complex challenges of American ethnic politics in the 1940s.

Documents of American Zionist leaders from this period show that the political use of the Jewish vote, which was so simple and natural to the WZO and Zionist establishment in Palestine, put the Americans in predicament. It began with the need to conceal its political agenda and went on to put the political and social identity of some of the American Zionist leaders on a collision course with the ethnic vote in the United States political arena. Despite these reservations, the American Zionist leadership had to unite the Jewish vote, which played a major role in influencing government activity on Palestine.