My Struggle for Peace by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2019-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

Moshe Sharett, General Bennike, Yosef Tekoah, General Burns and Henri Vigier (Left to right) Sharett’s office, Jerusalem

1 In April 1955, before the Bandung Conference, U Nu had informed Minister David Hacohen of his decision to visit Israel on his forthcoming trip to the US. While in Bandung, the Arabs participating in the conference, aware of this plan, invited him to visit Egypt too. Since this was found impossible technically, he decided to cancel visiting Israel. On April 29 Hacohen was invited to the PMO in Rangoon, along with the ambassadors of Japan, Britain, Yugoslavia and the US chargé – all the countries on U Nu’s itinerary. In the presence of all these, the Burmese Prime Minister told Hacohen of his decision to cancel his visit to Israel. Hacohen decided on the spot – against all the rules of correct diplomacy – to castigate U Nu. In a long impromptu speech he accused U Nu point-blank of succumbing to unfair Arab pressure. When he had finished, a long silence ensued and then U Nu raised his reclined head and said to Hacohen that he could inform his government that the visit would take place after all. Hacohen, Time to Tell, 214-18; also David Hacohen, Yoman Burma: Rashmei Shelihut [Burmese Diary], 1953-1955 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1963 – in Hebrew), 458-65. The visit of a Prime Minister – the first of its kind in Israel’s history – was considered a major psychological boon for the beleaguered country at the time.

2 A different translation of the above discussion is presented in Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present, 2nd ed., Eds. Itamar Rabinovich and Jehuda Reinharz (Waltham MA: Brandeis University Press, 2008), 127-29.

3 ISA FM file 130.02/3 5936/25 contains several notes from Tekoah to Eban following the acrimonious discussion on reprisals.

4 “During the consultations Moshe Sharett had been quite nervous. He had the feeling that the ambassadors and the Foreign Ministry people did not properly understand the difficulties he was facing in the battle against certain reprisals, and they were expecting from him results that he would not be able to deliver.” Kollek to Shiloah, May 31, 1955, ISA FM 130.19/4374/7.

5 Allon’s speeches in Tel Aviv and Haifa (“There has never been a government which wasted a military victory as did the Ben-Gurion government”) were reported in Lamerhav, May 8, 1955.

6 For Kollek’s perspective on the ambassadors’ consultations, Sharett-Ben-Gurion-Eban relations, and U Nu’s visit to Israel, see Kollek to Shiloah, May 31, 1955, ISA FM 130.19/4374/7.

7 For details on the fighting near Nirim, see Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 336.

8 On the meeting with Lawson, see below, entry for June 3 and DFPI 10, doc.242. On the meeting with Nicholls, see DFPI 10, doc.243.

9 David Dubinsky (1892-1982), American labor leader, served as President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), 1932-1966; a founder of the Council of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

10 In the course of their tense meeting on June 1, Sharett had

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