Zionism at the UN: A Diary of the First Days

About the Book

This book records in diary form the events [the author] was involved in, the activities in which [he] participated, and the impressions [he] gathered as an emissary of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine to the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), meeting in San Francisco in the late spring and early summer of 1945. The conference was convened to...

About the Author

Eliahu Elath ---

Eliahu Elath was a Jewish diplomat who, shortly after David Ben-Gurion declared Israel an independent Jewish nation in 1948, became the first Israeli ambassador to the United States. Elath immigrated in 1925 from the Soviet Union to Palestine because he was interested in helping establish a free Jewish state. Upon his arrival he held a variety of manual labor positions, studied Arab culture in college, and worked for a time as a journalist in Lebanon. In 1934 he was placed in charge of the Middle East department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and, beginning in 1945, served as director of the agency bureau in Washington, D.C. In addition to his work in the United States, he was also an ambassador to England during the 1950s and served as president of Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the 1960s. Elath’s books include Israel and Her Neighbors, The Struggle for Statehood, Britain’s Routes to India, and Zionism and the Arabs.

Contents

Foreword by HOWARD M. SACHAR

I  In the Corridors

II  The "Unholy Alliance"—Russia and the Arab League

III  Politics and Public Relations

An Excerpt from the Book

Monday, June 11 Because of a shortage of hotel accommodations, I am staying in the apartment of Dorothy Thompson, who is abroad. The first of us to be put up here was Eliezer Kaplan, and I have now joined him. It is a beautiful place, packed with books and pictures of her friends. She seems to be on familiar terms with scores of famous people in different walks of life, to judge from the warm dedications written on their photographs. One such friend was the late President Roosevelt, whom Doro...