In the 1950s, the Egyptian thinker Abbas Mahmoud Al-Akkad wrote his book “World Zionism” in which he monitored the emergence and influence of this movement. The man doubted the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which are the recommendations of the most influential Zionists in which they plan and conspire against the world.
Al-Aqqad was convinced that the Zionists did not need these protocols, because they had strong supporters who sincerely sought to implement their agendas, headed by the major Western countries that undertook this task not out of love for the Jewish Zionists, but rather in service of colonial interests and genuine hostility to Islam. He gave striking examples of this that the man realized early on, shortly after the establishment of Israel.
This perception of Al-Aqqad is confirmed by the strength of the ties between American relations and Zionism since the early 19th century, before it crystallized into a practical project with the journalist and founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl (d. 1904), and later turned into an organized immigration and then a tight occupation.
Early Zionism in the United States
The Zionist movement began in the United States with non-Jewish Zionist groups that called for the settlement of Jews in Palestine or abroad. US President John Adams, who was in power between 1797 and 1801, called for the Jews to become one nation.
At that time, the number of Jews in the United States did not exceed 4,000, and there was no Jewish or Zionist lobby, which indicates that Zionism in the United States was authentic and deep-rooted.
One of the most important Christian Zionist figures of that period was William Blackstone, who was keen to participate in the American Zionist Federation conference in Philadelphia, and it was announced at that conference that he was the “Father of Zionism.” As Abdel-Wahhab El-Messiri points out in the “Jews, Judaism and Zionism” encyclopedia, former American President Woodrow Wilson is also described as the “Father of Zionism”!
The ideas of the Zionist movement began to take a different direction with the arrival of tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe since the 1880s, bringing with them their traditions, ideas, beliefs, and intellectual and political organizations, among which was the “Society of Lovers of Zion.” By 1890, there were branches of this society in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.
Al-Masry mentions that in 1896 AD, Professor Paul Haupt of Johns Hopkins University in the United States proposed an idea aimed at directing Jewish immigrants coming from Eastern Europe to Mesopotamia and Syria, and he was supported in this by many prominent Jewish figures at the time, such as Cyrus Adler and Oskar Strauss.
The following year, 1897 AD, Herzl held the first Zionist movement conference in Basel, Switzerland, which was attended by 4 American Jews. The following year, 1898 AD, more associations and groups were formed that began working to support the activities of the Zionist movement, achieve its goals, and collect donations for it, such as the “League of Zionist Associations in the United States of North America.”
The Zionist Labor Organization of America, founded in 1897, was the first American Zionist organization, and focused its efforts on educating the American Jewish community about the goals of the Zionist movement.
Although the movement initially faced opposition from some American Jews, especially secular Reform Jews who saw integration into American society as the best and most successful solution to Jewish problems, it began to gain support for its goals over time.
After the Allied victory in World War I, the Zionist groups, whose number had risen to 150,000 people in the United States, held a major conference on December 15, 1918, specifically in Philadelphia, in which they announced their adoption of the League of Nations decision to assign Britain the mandate over Palestine.
Within the next twenty years, Jewish groups in the United States became the primary contributor to the development of settlement plans in Palestine. Donations made by the American Zionist Organization amounted to approximately $100 million between 1929 and 1939, as Al-Masry notes in his encyclopedia.
The Hidden Figures Who Supported Zionism in the United States
But what is striking is that during the first five decades of the 20th century, many Jewish figures emerged who led the Zionist movement in the United States and contributed to strengthening its influence on American foreign policy to support and establish Israel.
These figures, who are almost unknown to us in the Arab region, played a huge role in public relations, getting close to American presidents and influencing them, as well as American society and institutions.
Louis Brandeis
At the forefront of these was Louis Brandeis (d. 1941), who joined the Zionist movement in 1914, and two years later was appointed the first Jewish judge to the US Supreme Court. He always considered the Zionist movement to be consistent with American principles of democracy and social justice.
Brandeis sought to convince Americans, both Jews and non-Jews, that establishing a Jewish state was consistent with American values. He even tried to convince the United States government during World War I (1914-1918) to enter the war alongside the Allies to eliminate and overthrow the Ottoman Empire in order to facilitate and accelerate the process of controlling Palestine and handing it over to the Jews.
It is well known that during World War I, the Zionist movement received pivotal international support from Britain through the famous Balfour Declaration in 1917, which supported the establishment of a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine. This promise was greatly welcomed by the Zionists in the United States, and strengthened their role in influencing American foreign policy.
Brandeis was a strong supporter of this promise, and worked to market it in an excellent way to the American president at the time, Woodrow Wilson, who expressed sympathy and support for Britain and the Balfour Declaration.
It was noteworthy that Wilson’s support for Zionism represented a turning point in American policy during his era and during the eras of subsequent presidents, as the United States gradually began to adopt positions supporting Zionism in its foreign policy.
In fact, Brandeis’ influence was extremely dangerous and important because of his high position on the Supreme Court and his appreciation in American political and legal circles, as he used this position to create political alliances within the American government in favor of Zionism.
He was able to gain the support of new, non-Jewish American influencers for the Zionist project, and he also supported fundraising efforts to support Jewish settlements in Palestine, and directed many media campaigns. Thanks to his political and social standing, Brandeis contributed to making Zionism part of the mainstream in the United States.
Henry Morgenthau
Among the most important and famous Jewish Zionist figures who worked to influence American political circles from World War I until after World War II in favor of the Zionist project, we find the American Jewish ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr. (d. 1946 AD), a businessman and politician who was also close to Wilson.
Wilson chose him to be the US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire between 1913-1916 AD, during the critical period of World War I, and he was one of the most vehement opponents of the Ottoman Empire.
After the war, Morgenthau became more committed to supporting Zionism through his extensive relationships with American government leaders, where he used his influence to influence political decision-making. In his memoirs, he indicated that the horrific experience of the Holocaust and the atrocities committed against the Jews in Europe made him realize that Zionism was no longer just a nationalist movement, but a moral necessity to ensure the future of the Jews.
Rabbi Stephen Wise
Rabbi Stephen Wise (d. 1949) is one of the most important Jewish figures who played an influential role in supporting the Zionist movement in the United States. He founded the American Jewish Congress in 1922, a Zionist organization that had a major impact in mobilizing popular and political support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Wise was a charismatic figure and an eloquent orator, which made him able to influence American public opinion in favor of the Zionist movement project.
Weizmann and Truman
Among the Jewish Zionist figures who also influenced American policy at that time, we find Chaim Weizmann (d. 1952), the leader of world Zionism and the first president of Israel, who played a very important role in influencing the United States of America before and after recognizing the occupying state in November 1947 and then in May 1948.
Weizmann, who was a powerful chemist and politician, succeeded in establishing close diplomatic relations with many American political figures of all stripes, including American presidents.
During and after World War I, Weizmann visited the United States several times to work on gathering financial and political support for Zionism, and his efforts contributed to the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration by Britain in 1917.
Weizmann played a major role in pressuring the American administration to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. He had a close relationship with President Harry Truman, who was President of the United States between 1945 and 1953, which contributed to supporting American recognition of Israel immediately after its declaration in 1948.
Mysterious Trader Mediation
But there was an influential, pivotal, and almost invisible figure who played a major role in bringing Weizmann and Truman closer together, and that was the American Jewish merchant and businessman Edward Jacobson, known as Eddie Jacobson (d. 1955).
This man, a partner and close friend of Truman since the days of World War I, was able to convince him of the necessity of meeting Weizmann and listening to him, despite the objections of many US State Department employees and their recommendations of the necessity of neutrality and avoiding direct and strong support for Israel if America wanted to have influence in the Middle East.
Eddie Jacobson described his friend, the leader of world Zionism, Weizmann, as “the Moses of his time,” a religious metaphor that had a direct impact on Truman’s conviction and eagerness to meet him.
In that interview, Weizmann played very calmly on the human suffering that the Jews were subjected to in the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, and how he seeks to bring peace to the Middle East and solve the Jewish problem radically.
As Truman recalls in his memoirs, he was deeply moved by Weizmann’s logic and his emotional and humane language, even describing him as “able to move men’s hearts,” given the absence of an influential Arab voice and the play on the closely related religious and political relations between Jews and Americans.Truman was the first to recognize the establishment of the State of Israel, only 11 minutes after its declaration.
In his memoirs, Weizmann noted with great appreciation the enormous role and remarkable sympathy that Truman showed for the Zionist cause and his support for it in the face of the objections of some of his advisors and State Department employees who were seeking to spoil the matter at the United Nations and in the corridors of government, and even before the representatives of other countries.
Weizmann says in his memoirs, “Whenever the (Zionist) issue clashed with something, I moved from one delegate to another of the countries’ delegates (at the United Nations), or I contacted President Truman to resolve the crisis before it escalated.”
These are the most important Zionist paths and figures who played decisive roles in shaping American foreign policy, making it lean towards the Israeli side at the expense of the Palestinian cause. We see that the public and personal relations, and the prestigious positions held by these American Jews, had a great role in Washington’s decision towards Tel Aviv!
