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On May 14, 1948, the President of the United States granted the world's first recognition of the new Jewish nation of Israel, the first Jewish state in 2000 years, that came in to existence at midnight in Jerusalem which was 6 P.M. in Washington. President Harry S Truman signed the document at 6:11. When Truman had requested the officials papers from the Jewish Agency in Washington, the document arrived with the name of the country left blank because it had not been decided. "The State of Israel" is hand-written above the scratched out "Jewish State."

From the late nineteenth-century and throughout both world wars, Zionists campaigned for the formation of a Jewish homeland. Britain had received a special mandate over Palestine from the League of Nations after World War I with the understanding that an independent home for Jews in Palestine would be created. By 1947 Palestine was a major trouble spot in the British...