February 19, 2021
(JNS) — President Joe Biden’s foreign policy and national security team reflects a resurgence of the U.S. State Department’s worldview. To avoid past mistakes, an examination of this worldview and its track record is thus in order.
In 1948, the State Department-led Washington’s opposition to the recognition of the newly established Jewish state, contending that Israel would be helpless against the expected Arab military assault, would be pro-Soviet, would undermine U.S.-Arab relations, destabilize the Middle East, threaten the U.S. oil supply and cause severe long-term damage to U.S. interests. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Lovett claimed that recognizing the Jewish state prematurely would be “buying a pig in a poke.”