Palestine

Palestine enters the narrative as the destination at the center of a postwar refugee proposal and a contest for political support. The account identifies it as a British protectorate but offers no broader description of the territory; its significance here lies in the proposed admission of Jewish refugees and the political debate that followed.

Palestine and the refugee proposal

On the eve of Yom Kippur, Harry S. Truman called for 100,000 Jewish refugees to be admitted to Palestine. The timing led many to see the statement as an appeal for the Jewish vote in New York. The account adds an important qualification: Truman had made the same proposal months earlier, so the appeal was not new on that occasion.

Electoral competition over migration

Thomas E. Dewey, then seeking reelection as governor of New York, quickly called for several hundred thousand Jews to be permitted to migrate to Palestine. His larger figure turned the destination into a point of comparison between the candidates’ appeals. In this passage, Palestine is presented not through local events or description, but through the competing proposals about refuge and migration attached to it.