American President Harry S. Truman recognized Israel out of morals and against State Department advice, which sided with Arabs because it outnumbered Israel and possessed oil, according to Richard Holbrooke, writing in the Washington Post. He reviewed historical records when he helped write a government official's memoirs 20 years ago. President Truman promised Chaim Weizzman, who would become Israel's first president, that he would back a United Nations partition plan dividing the British mandate between Arabs and Jews. The State Department convinced the ambassador to the U.N. to vote for a U.N. trusteeship.
"The State Dept. pulled the rug from under me today," President Truman wrote in his diary. "The first I know about it is what I read in the newspapers! Isn't that hell? I'm now in the position of a liar and double-crosser." He blamed State Dept, officials and foreign policy advisors for the double-cross, based on their assessment that the U.S, should side with the Arabs because of their numbers and oil. The president went head-to-head with his revered Sectary of State, George C. Marshall, who threatened to vote against President Truman in elections if he recognized Israel. Marshall finally agreed to stay silent on the matter, and the U.S. recognized Israel 11 minutes after Israel, which still did not have a name, proclaimed the Declaration of Independence.
However, Holbrooke wrote that the real reason for President Truman's support was based on morals because Israel was going to become state even without American support but would be more likely to be defeated in war without it. A defeat because of lack of American support would be disastrous morally, considering the mass murder of Jews in Nazi Germany that ended three years before the re-establishment of the Jewish state.