Hamas supporters in the U.S.A. for political gain unfairly call President Joe Biden by the name “Genocidal Joe” and Trump is called “Cyrus” by some of his avid supporters for moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
This article is not about either of them.
It is about Joseph Stalin and Harry Truman.
Read the post: The Purim Downfall of the Soviet Communist Dictator, Stalin as Related by Political Prisoner, Rabbi Yitzchok Zilber for the background information to explain, why it is fitting to call Stalin by the name “Genocidal Joe”.
Regarding President Harry Truman, he himself explained to a Jewish audience, in New York, “I am Cyrus!”.
Truman did support the creation of Israel at the U.N. but he also supported an arms embargo against the state of Israel that nearly wiped out the state. Read the post: President Truman Put an Arms Embargo on The Newly Formed State of Israel that Nearly Wiped Out the Jewish State.
According to the web site Mosaic Magazine these are part of the contributions of “Genocidal Joe” that led to the establishment of the state of Israel.
As it turned out, Ben-Gurion’s caution was misplaced. For the next two years, the Soviet Union proved to be the steadiest great-power supporter of the Jewish state-in-formation and then of Israel. There were at least five major milestones in the evolution of Soviet support.
(1) When UNSCOP returned a recommendation of partition in September 1947, the Soviet Union quickly backed it. On November 26, in the general debate that preceded the historic vote, Gromyko made the Zionist case, brushing off as “unacceptable” the Arab objection that partition constituted “an historical injustice”:
After all, the Jewish people has been closely linked with Palestine for a considerable period in history. Apart from that . . . we must not overlook the position in which the Jewish people found themselves as a result of the recent world war. . . . The solution of the Palestine problem into two separate states will be of profound historical significance, because this decision will meet the legitimate demands of the Jewish people, hundreds of thousands of whom, as you know, are still without a country, without homes, having found temporary shelter only in special camps in some Western European countries.
The Soviet Union voted “yes” for partition, as did its satellites Belorussia, Ukraine, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. (Yugoslavia, another satellite, abstained.)
(2) In March 1948, with the United States retreating from the idea of partition, the Soviet Union stood firmly in favor of it and attacked the alternative American proposal of a UN trusteeship. On April 20, as the clock wound down on the British Mandate, Gromyko denounced trusteeship as an idea that would place Palestine “in a state of virtual colonial slavery.” Only partition into independent states would “satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the Jewish people, which had suffered so much under the Hitler regime.” If trusteeship were put to a vote, he warned, the Soviet Union would cast a “no” ballot.
(3) Also at the start of 1948, the Soviet Union, while sending no equipment on its own, gave a nod to crucial arms deals between Czechoslovakia and Israel, assuring the latter an advantage in the battle with the Palestinian Arabs that was already under way. The Czech motive was mundane: a need for foreign currency. But the deal depended on Soviet acquiescence (and, according to some accounts, on Stalin’s personal authorization).
The arms deliveries made it possible to provide every Israeli recruit with his or her own weapon and ample ammunition. And the guns arrived in the nick of time, allowing the Haganah to go on the offensive in the lead-up to independence (“Plan Dalet”).
At the start of 1948, the Soviet Union gave a nod to crucial arms deals between Czechoslovakia and Israel, assuring the latter an advantage in its war of independence. “They saved the country, I have no doubt of that,” Ben-Gurion said.“They saved the country, I have no doubt of that,” Ben-Gurion would say two decades later. “The Czech arms deal was the greatest help, it saved us and without it I very much doubt if we could have survived the first month.” Golda Meir, in her memoirs, similarly wrote that without the arms from the Eastern bloc, “I do not know whether we actually could have held out until the tide changed, as it did by June 1948.”
(4) In June 1948, as Israel gained the upper hand, the Soviets backed the most important Israeli objections to the plan for a settlement being pushed by the UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. Responding to Bernadotte’s proposal to transfer the entire Negev to Transjordan, foreign minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov advised Stalin that this would put four-fifths of Israeli territory into the hands of Transjordan—“i.e., into British control”—and should be rejected. (“Comrade Stalin agrees,” Molotov scribbled on the document.)
(5) The Soviets also supported Israel on the question of Palestinian Arab refugees. Instead of Bernardotte’s proposal that these Arabs be given the right to return to the territory of the Jewish state, the Soviets preferred that “the Jews be given the opportunity to come to an agreement with the Arabs on this matter in the course of peace negotiations.” Near the end of the war, in December 1948, the Soviet Union and its satellites voted against General Assembly resolution 194, later cited as guaranteeing a “right of return” for Palestinian Arab refugees. (The United States voted in favor.)
Translation based on Sefaria.org of Mishlei / Proverbs 21:1 (with one exception)
Like channeled water is the mind of the king in Hashem’s hand;
He directs it to whatever He wishes.
The Hebrew name for Hashem used in the Bible in this verse is the Tetragrammaton or the Tetragram. According to Ramban on Shmot / Exodus 6:2 this name alludes to a more miraculous intervention by the Creator of the World. See there for details. Hashem has a different type of Divine Providence for each of the different names used for him in the Bible.
Editor’s note concerning Mosaic Magazine: I am not familiar with Mosaic Magazine’s position on other issues. It was convenient to quote from their site in this article.