Cuba's Opposition to Jewish Statehood in Palestine, 1944-49: A Critical Review of

Varying Interpretations
Author(s): Ignacio Klich
Source: Middle East Journal , Summer, 1997, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Summer, 1997), pp. 405-417
Published by: Middle East Institute

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4329088

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Middle East Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Middle East Journal

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CUBA'S OPPOSITION TO JEWISH
STATEHOOD IN PALESTINE, 1944-49:
A CRITICAL REVIEW OF VARYING
INTERPRETATIONS

Ignacio Klich

Despite Latin America's majority support for the partition of Palestine, the UN
General Assembly witnessed a minority of the region's players cast non-affirmative
votes in November 1947, with Cuba the single consistent opponent of such a plan.
Cuba's refusal to budge has since been the source of numerous interpretations,
especially on the part of representatives of the island's then ruling party, the
Autenticos, as well as the Jewish Agency and the Palestine Arab Higher Committee.
On the strength of an array of archival materials, as well as published and oral
sources, this article seeks to review these interpretations. Their deconstruction is
attempted by way of exposing the gap between historical fact and the natural
deficiencies of politically inspired explanations.

IN~early half a century after the plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states
received the support of 13 Latin American countries at the United Nations, Cuba's
presence among the seven who cast non-affirmative votes, on 29 November 1947,1 as well

Ignacio Klich is a lecturer on Latin American history at the Faculty of Law, Languages and Communication of
the London-based University of Westminster. Research for this paper was supported by the Foundation for
Canadian Studies in the United Kingdom, and the Rockefeller Archive Center. The author would like to thank
Margalit Bejarano for supplying transcripts of interviews she recorded for the Hebrew University's Institute of
Contemporary Jewry, and Elisa M. Belt for data on her late husband's English ancestry. Thanks are also due
to Eduardo Azize, Alejandro Hales Jamarne, Robert Levine, Gladys Perdomo Lorenzo, Rosa Perla Raicher and
Jacobo Serruya for six other items, and to Maurice Halperin (now deceased), Maria Encarnacion Varela and
Lawrence Whitehead for their comments on this paper.
1. The Latin American supporters of partition included Brazil, Bolivia, Costa Rica, the Dominican
Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The

MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL M VOLUME 51, NO. 3, SUMMER 1997

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
406 U MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

as the consistent opposition of its government to the scheme, have begun to receive more
detailed scholarly attention.2 A comprehensive answer to the contradiction between
Cuba's anti-partition vote and the otherwise favorable attitude towards Jewish statehood
of important sections of its ruling coalition and society cannot, however, be reached
without consulting Cuban archives. Nevertheless, other diplomatic documents, as well as
oral and published accounts-whether Arab, Israeli, British, US, or Latin American-
certainly yield sufficient material for a richer and more factual explanation than that based
exclusively on the anecdotal stories of some of the actors of the day.
Whether happy or bitter, most such reminiscences tend to pin responsibility for
Cuba's opposition to partition on the country's top diplomat in Washington and at the
United Nations, Guillermo Belt y Ramirez, a man of distinguished Yorkshire ancestry.
Paradoxically, there is no dispute as to Belt's front seat role between two such former
antagonists as 'Issa Nakhla, a member of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee (AHC)
observer delegation at the United Nations, and Moises Toff (later Moshe Tov), the Jewish
Agency for Palestine's Latin American department head, charged with gaining the
region's support for Jewish statehood.3 Seduced by oral accounts of Belt's lack of
enthusiasm for Zionist aspirations, Edward Glick, a one-time aide with the Israeli
delegation to the United Nations, postulated that Cuba voted against partition because of
Belt's absence of enthusiasm, together with the "individual discretion on [the Palestine
question on] the part of Latin American diplomats."4 Belt's unbending attitude towards
partition has also been explained by some of the major political actors at that time as the
result of an alleged anti-Jewish animus which he reputedly shared with Ramon Grau San
Martin, the island's then head-of-state, a well-rewarded bias in favor of the Arabs, and his
pro-American inclinations.
Other Cubans, such as Manuel Antonio de Varona Loredo, a legislator of president
Grau's Cuban Revolutionary Party (Autentico), and prime minister in the Autentico
government that recognized Israel's independence in January 1949, ascribed "our party's
opposition [to partition] to [the principle ofl non-intervention and the rejection of any
country's division just to please a minority."'' Finding a territory for the establishment of

non-affirmative votes-all, except Cuba's, were abstentions-came from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, El
Salvador, Honduras and Mexico.
2. Ignacio Klich, "Cuba and the Partition of Palestine: A Contribution to the History of Latin America's
Single 'No' to Jewish Statehood," paper presented at the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem,
1989. See also, Margalit Bejarano, "Antisemitism in Cuba under Democratic, Military and Revolutionary
Regimes, 1944-1963," Patterns of Prejudice (London) 24, no. 1 (1990), pp. 33-36; Robert M. Levine, Tropical
Diaspora: The Jewish Experience in Cuba (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993), pp. 219-20.
3. The author conducted a number of inteviews over a decade but did not have the exact dates of these
interviews. Author's interview with 'Issa Nakhla, New York, 1987; Moshe A. Tov, El murmullo de Israel:
Historial diplomdtico (Israel's Murmur: A Diplomatic History) (Jerusalem: Semana, 1983), p. 152. On Belt's
English ancestry, see "Account of the Belt Family, of Bossall, in the County of York," Gentleman's Magazine,
June 1828.
4. Glick's assessment is part of the first academic study on Latin America and the partition of Palestine.
Edward B. Glick, Latin America and the Palestine Problem (New York: Theodor Herzl Foundation, 1958), p.
110; by the same author, "Latin America and the Palestine Partition Resolution," Journal of Interamerican
Studies and World Afairs 1, no. 2 (1959), pp. 215-16.
5. Author's interview with Manuel de Varona Loredo, Miami, 1989. A pro-Zionist Cuban publicist,
Emilio Nufiez Portuondo, is mentioned as explaining that Cuba did not support partition because it was

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CUBA AND PALESTINE * 407

Israel, De Varona argued many years later, could not be done at any cost, otherwise "an
indefinite state of war, as actually occurred, would ensue."6 Despite its attractiveness, De
Varona's explanation is also problematic. For one thing, it conceals the fact that the ruling
Autenticos had no party policy on Palestine. For another, it fails to acknowledge that in
the absence of such a policy some Autentico politicians saw no conflict between their
party allegiance and support for the Zionist cause. Thus, De Varona and other Autentico
politicians may legitimately have viewed partition as an infringement of the principle of
non-intervention, and even have proclaimed as much, with praiseworthy integrity, when
living in exile in Miami. But the Grau government was apparently ready to countenance
Cuban leadership at the inter-American conference in Chapultepec when seeking the
meeting's approval for a pro-Zionist statement in February-March 1945, while Autentico
politicians supported similar pronouncements by the Cuban Senate in October 1945 and
September 1947.7
Like other Latin American diplomats of the day, whether those who at the outset
were not supportive of the Zionist cause or others who later appear to have reconsidered
their earlier pro-Zionist stance,8 Ambassador Belt was unenthused by the Zionist solution
to the Jewish question. Moreover, once the United Nations came to consider the Palestine
question in 1947, Belt steered Cuba into teaming up with Colombia and El Salvador in
support of a formula conciliatory to the Arab side with respect to the terms of reference
of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). According to this formula, one of
the subjects UNSCOP would have had to study was "the termination of the mandate over
Palestine and the declaration of the independence of that country,"9 as pressed for by the
Arab states. Moreover, together with the representatives of Argentina, the Dominican
Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua, Belt supported a resolution granting a hearing to the AHC,
thereby affording an international platform to the representative body of Palestinian Arab
nationalism. Later, in line with his reputation for sincerity and outspokenness,'0 Belt made
no bones about his views on partition, and on UNSCOP's majority recommendation,
which he described as "unjust and inequitable."" ' He also sought to win over other Latin
American delegates to his point of view. Finally, Belt told those who solicited Cuban
support for partition that the proposed map for the Jewish state represented a threat to its

inconvenient, a more succinct version of the same, in Domingo Amuchastegui Alvarez and Emilio Arias Castillo,
"Posici6n de los paises de America Latina y el Caribe en la ONU ante la crisis del Medio Oriente (1947-1982).
Condicionamiento y variaciones," (The Latin American and Caribbean States' stand at the UN on the Middle
East Crisis [1947-1982]: Conditioning Factors and Variations) in Domingo Amuchastegui Alvarez, Emilio Arias
Castillo, Olga M. Rufins Machfn and Jorge Manfugas Lavigne, eds., Problemas actuales del mundo drabe
(Current Problems of the Arab World) (Havana, 1988), p. 7.
6. Author's interview with De Varona, Miami, 1989.
7. Central Zionist Archives (CZA), Jerusalem, Z5/11160, Ram6n Zaydin to Natan Bistritzky, 3
February 1944.
8. Desaffo (Buenos Aires/Montevideo), 21 December 1985; Benno Weiser Varon, "I Might Have
Given the World Another Spin," Midstream, November 1982, p. 40.
9. Jacob Robinson, Palestine and the United Nations: Prelude to Solution (Washington, DC: Public
Affairs Press, 1947), pp. 79-80.
10. Nelson A. Rockefeller papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, North Tarrytown, N.Y. Coordinator of
Inter-American Affairs (CIAA) Background Material-Latin America 1943-1944 Sub-Series, Political Data on
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Venezuela (Including Biographies of Prominent Men), November 1944.
1 1. Robinson, Palestine and the United Nations, p. 135.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
408 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

people. Put differently, he foresaw, quite accurately, that a partition scheme that
make the Jews live in three triangular pieces of Palestinian territory would be v
to Arab attack, and lead in turn to a blood bath and/or protracted conflict.'2
Nevertheless, a review of the considerable evidence that has since entered the
domain suggests that if reports of Belt's inimical attitude towards a Zionist homeland in
Palestine cannot be ignored, no convincing explanation for Cuba's opposition to partition
can be based solely on this indubitable fact. This article argues first, that President Grau
was primarily responsible for the decision to cast Cuba's negative vote; and second, that
as far as Grau and Belt were concerned, anti-Jewish and pro-Arab considerations, or for
that matter sheer venality, are not convincing explanations for a far more complex
situation that included such factors as the state of US-Cuban relations, anti-communism
and the health of the Autentico ruling party. The focus here, however, will be on a critical
evaluation and unravelling of the aforementioned Arab, Cuban and Israeli myths about the
reasons behind Cuba's position on partition.

ON THE ROLE OF PRESIDENT GRAU

Ramon Grau succeeded General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar in October 1944.

Cuban workers, peasants and professionals had good reason to be enthusiastic about the
change, as during Grau's earlier presidency (September 1933-January 1934), a large
number of measures favorable to them had been introduced. Once inaugurated Grau
sought to differentiate his second government from the more unsavory practices of Batista.
Nevertheless, for all his good intentions, his record in office eventually revealed some of
the worst traits of his predecessor. Two years after Grau's inauguration, various
newspaper and diplomatic analysts concurred in emphasizing that whatever changes Grau
had introduced in the handling of public affairs had been for the worse: the regime seemed
to them more presidential than ever. Overriding the legislative and judicial powers, and
ignoring the constitution, Grau tended to rule in an autocratic fashion. Consequently, the
president appeared to head the state as well as the government while his prime ministers
seemed to play a smaller part in the cabinet than their predecessors under Batista.'3
Of particular importance in ascertaining the president's role in the formulation of
Cuba's position on Palestine is the fact that early on, Grau assumed the conduct of the
country's foreign affairs. This prompted the resignation, in October 1945, of his foreign
minister, Gustavo Cuervo Rubio. Cuervo alleged that his situation had become untenable
as the president never consulted him. Later events confirmed that despite filling the
vacancy with Alberto Inocente Alvarez Cabrera first and Rafael Gonzailez Munioz
thereafter, Grau continued to be Cuba's de facto foreign minister. Hence, two years after
Cuervo's resignation, the US ambassador in Havana contended that Cuban foreign policy

12. CZA, Z5/1335, Adelson to Toff, 13 March 1947; Z5/11056, Domfnguez to Toff, 26 April 1947; ISA,
2276/7, Sefaradi to Domfnguez, 18 November 1946; author's interview with Sender Kaplan, Miami, 1985.
13. Diario de la Marina (Havana), 15 and 16 October 1946; Carteles (Havana), 20 October 1946; Public
Record Office (PRO), Kew, Foreign Office (FO) 371/51535/AN 3292. J. Dodds to Ernest Bevin, 22 October
1946.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CUBA AND PALESTINE * 409

was not directed by the foreign minister, but handled, "certainly insofar as its mai
are concerned, by President Grau himself and Ambassador Belt."'94 This prompts two
conclusions: One, that Grau's personal role in foreign policy decision-making was
certainly undiminished in 1947, by the time Cuba was asked to take a stand on Jewish and
Arab statehood in Palestine; and two, that Belt played a very important role in the
management of the country's foremost diplomatic priorities.
The question, though, is whether Palestine was one of the issues which Grau and Belt
coordinated among themselves, or whether it was an issue that the president was only too
happy to leave to his diplomats. Although documentary evidence of Grau's involvement
in the Palestine question in general, and the decision to oppose partition in particular, is
relatively scanty, what we do know seems to show that the president himself intervened
and did not leave the matter entirely to Belt's individual discretion. There are several
elements in support of the notion that Grau had his say and could have steered Cuba in a
different direction had he wished to do so.
First, a March 1947 report by a Zionist campaigner, Sender Kaplan, advised the
Jewish Agency that Cuban stances at the United Nations were coordinated by Grau and
Belt exclusively.'" It follows that the island's foreign minister had little or no input in
determining the position on Palestine. Indeed, the foreign minister's near complete
exclusion from the decision-making process was spelled out by another Zionist envoy,
Charles Chapler, who visited Havana on behalf of the Jewish Agency in April-May 1947.
After having met with Foreign Minister Gonzailez, Chapler argued that Gonzailez did "not
have much influence in the present government."'96 Unfortunately for the supporters of
Jewish sovereignty, Gonzailez and Angel de la Solana, Cuba's Foreign Under-Secretary,
appeared to be friendlier to the Zionist cause than Belt.
The Chapler mission also points to the fact that, once the Palestine question was put
on the UN agenda, the Jewish Agency appealed to Grau directly. As a result, the president
reportedly conferred with Belt, his ambassador at the United Nations, more than once
during the UN debates on Palestine, in particular during September-November 1947.
Moreover, owing to Zionist pressures and/or Belt's unwillingness to be held solely
responsible for Cuba's negative vote, the ambassador returned to Havana for consultations
on 27 November 1947, and failed to return to New York before the partition vote took
place, two days later.
Furthermore, in the lead up to the crucial ballot, Grau was approached by influential
Cuban and US supporters of partition who sought to persuade him to cast his country's
vote in favor of partition, or at the very least abstain from voting. This, and the Cuban
delegation's alternate envoy Ernesto Dihigo's unwillingness to be out on a limb, are
intimations that, directly or indirectly, Dihigo's final instructions on the partition vote

14. Spruille Braden papers, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. Correspondence Diplomatic 1944
(file A-Bo), Spruille Braden to Norman Armour, 29 November 1944; Rockefeller papers, Political Data on Cuba,
November 1944; PRO, FO 371/51535/AN 492/28/14, Dodds to Bevin, 23 February 1946; NA, 501.BB/1 1-1447,
Norweb to Marshall.
15. CZA, Z5/11143, Kaplan to Toff, 23 March 1947. Kaplan was the editor of the Yiddish-language
Havaner Lebn and later Israel's first Honorary Consul in Havana.
16. CZA, Z5/1347, Charles Chapler to Toff, 5 May 1947. El Pais (Havana), 15 May 1947.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
410 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

came from Havana when Belt was already there, and emanated from the highest auth
in the island.
Unless one assumes that Kaplan and Chapler were utterly wrong, it is reasonable to
deduce from the above that the president neither left the decision completely to Belt nor
washed his hands from the Palestine question. At the same time, though, Grau could not
have given his undivided attention to Palestine because of his other commitments, a fact
that gave Belt considerable leeway to make his own decisions. However, until such time
as it can be established, conclusively, that the ambassador strayed from presidential
guidelines, reports by pro-Zionist Cubans that Belt was directed not to adopt a negative
stance towards Jewish national aspirations in 1947, are only evidence that Grau and Belt
had discussed the issue of Palestine, while the content of such discussions cannot as yet
be ascertained.'7

Hence, it is unavoidable to deduce that Grau was "the foremost culprit" of Cuba's
anti-partition vote, as colorfully posited by Kaplan.I8 Unlike other oral history based
evidence, Kaplan's argument is not only a logical extension of the 1947 reports, but also
consistent with the president's performance after being voted into office, and in particular
his vast accumulation of powers and the watered down roles of his ministers. De Varona
maintained that "Grau delegated nothing."'9 Hence, even if such supporters of Zionism as
Carlos Prio Socarras and Cuervo, both of them enrolled in the Jewish Agency-inspired
Cuban pro-(Hebrew) Palestine Committee, had stayed on as Grau's respective Prime
Minister and Foreign Minister, and steadfastly argued in favor of a less antagonistic
attitude toward Jewish statehood, the outcome would not necessarily have been very
different.20

ON THE ARAB DIMENSION

Soon after the passage of the resolution on partition, Benno Weiser (later Varon),
the time of the voting the Bogota-based Jewish Agency representative for South
America's Northern Cone countries and Panama, wrote perceptively that the political an
economic power of the Arabs in Chile, Cuba and Mexico was decisive in explaining these
countries' non-affirmative votes. Decades later, a Chilean actor of Transjordanian descent,
Alejandro Hales Jamarne, who was familiar with Arab efforts to sway Chile's President
Gabriel Gonzalez Videla's government to abandon the supporters of partition, quite
independently concurred with Weiser's early judgment. Hales ascribed the unwillingness
of Latin American states to take sides "to actions largely undertaken by the Arab

17. CZA, Z5/11063, Jos6 Kates to Adolph Kates, 23 October 1947; Z5/11056, Statement by Domfnguez
upon her return from Lake Success, 24 November 1947. Alerta (Havana), 28 October 1947.
18. Author's interview with Sender Kaplan, Miami, 1985.
19. Author's interview with De Varona, Miami, 1989.
20. CZA, Z5/11063, On Prfo's intercessions on behalf of the Zionists, Abba Silver, Chaim Weizmann,
Stephen Wise and Toff to Prfo, 20 October 1947; Adolph Kates to Toff, 26 November 1947.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CUBA AND PALESTINE * 411

communities." This was an oblique, yet critical reference to deficient lobbying on t

of the Arab states.21
Evidently, in some Latin American states the Zionists faced Arab competition fr
prominent members of the Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian communities in the re
including Juan Yarur in Chile, Moises Azize in Honduras, and Miguel Simon Abed in
Mexico, who used their connections in government and/or opposition circles, to counter,
as best they could, Zionist efforts. In Cuba's case, the Arab dimension to its opposition to
partition is suggested by a coincidence of Arab-Cuban stances at the United Nations, as
well as by Lebanon's Arab League-inspired anti-partition lobbying of Grau, especially
after July 1946, when Charles Malik, the Lebanese Minister to Washington and UN
delegate, was accredited as the non-resident Lebanese minister to Cuba.' There was also
the belated agitation of an activist minority within Cuba's Arab community.22 Neverthe-
less, Arab efforts on behalf of Palestine, as noted by Hales, were "not too skilful."23 For
example, an Arab League-sponsored delegation, in Latin America since July 1947, arrived
in Havana in February 1948, two months after the crucial vote on partition. Although the
delegation's primary purpose was to rally the support of Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian
expatriates for the Arab cause, rather than that of the Latin American countries' leaders,
nevertheless, wherever possible, the Arab League envoys also engaged in diplomatic
contacts with Latin American governments.24 Because Arab League efforts, as well as
those of the Arab community on the island, took off rather late and were, more often than
not, inadequately followed up, their effectiveness appears to have been largely dependent on
other factors, including the setbacks encountered by their Zionist adversaries. Attesting to this
are both diplomatic and public relations initiatives on the Cuban scene by both sides.
Whereas the first Zionist envoy, who tried to secure Cuban support for Jewish
statehood in the crucial post-war period, was received by Batista' s Prime Minister, Ramon
Zaydin, in 1944, it was not before August 1947 that Victor Khuri, the Spanish-speaking
Lebanese Minister in London, arrived in Havana on an Arab League-sanctioned mission
(not to be confused with the League delegation that visited Cuba in February 1948).
Accompanied by Malik and another Lebanese diplomat, Khuri was seen by Grau.
Officially described as a goodwill tour of the various Latin American countries, Khuri's
main aim, nonetheless, was to familiarize the region's governments with the Arab
consensus position on the Palestine question.25 Not only was this suspected by British and
US diplomats of the day, and also by their Zionist interlocutors, but the accuracy of such

21. Benno Weiser, "The Pro-Zionism of Latin America," Jewish Frontier (New York), October 1948,
p. 18; Alejandro Hales Jamarne, "America Latina y la causa palestina," (Latin America and the Palestinian
Cause) paper delivered at the Seventh Congress of FEARAB Chile, Concepci6n, 12-14 October 1984, pp. 3b
and 8.
22. Eliahu Elath, Zionism at the UN: A Diary of the First Days (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society, 1976), p. 173. NA, 701.90E37/7-3146, Robert Woodward to James Byrnes.
23. Hales, "America Latina y la causa palestina," p. 3b
24. CZA, Z5/11054, Kaplan to Toff, 8 February 1948. Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), Havana, 8
February 1948.
25. NA, 701.90E41/9-247, Thomas Maleady to Marshall; Israel State Archive (ISA), Jerusalem,
2267/20, Shabtai Rowson to Eliahu Epstein (later Elath), 17 July 1947; PRO, FO 371/60846/AN 2882, Dodds
to Bevin, 12 August 1947.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
412 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

perceptions has since been confirmed by two Lebanese diplomats, Nadim Dimishqiya and
Joseph Shadid. At the time, the former served under Khuri as Lebanon's Commercial
Attache in London, while the latter, a junior diplomat, accompanied Khuri throughout
Latin America.26
Whereas the Jewish Agency-inspired Cuban pro-(Hebrew) Palestine Committee was
set up in 1944, a rival Pan-Arab Committee only came into being some three years later,
in September 1947. Unlike the Zionist body, which was almost exclusively made up of
front line non-Jewish public opinion molders, its Arab counterpart included distinguished
members of the Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian communities.27 In a country with a
government relatively impervious to public opinion, however, it mattered little that the
Pan-Arab Committee was nowhere near as articulate and successful with Cuba's more
than 200 media outlets as its pro-(Hebrew) Palestine opposite number.28 One of the
Pan-Arab Committee's leading members, Havana University Professor Pedro Kouri,
described by Cuban youth leader, Max Lesnick, as a former colleague of Grau's at
medical school,29 was better placed than any pro-Zionist campaigner and could have
brought the Arab viewpoint to the president's attention. Such connections were probably
more significant than the suspected Spanish Falangist affiliation of some Pan-Arab
Committee members.
In summary, despite the early start of Jewish Agency efforts, among other things to
assess and counter the lobbying potential of Cuba's Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians,
some prominent Arab community members, once roused, gave the Arab viewpoint an
edge over that of the Zionists. They helped to erode the comparative advantage garnered
by the latter since 1944. Whether their exertions were decisive in securing Cuba's vote
against partition at the United Nations, is an altogether different matter.
During his August 1947 meeting with the Lebanese delegation, the Cuban head-of-
state let it be known, according to Shadid, that his country would oppose partition.30 It is
worth stressing that the meeting predated the Pan-Arab Committee's establishment. If, by
then, Grau had already made up his mind-something which has yet to be verified by
Cuban and Lebanese diplomatic records-Shadid's evaluation of the achievements of the
Khuri mission, like the importance of the Arab committee's later activities, needs to be
reassessed. Without belittling their achievements for the Arab cause, their main success
was undoubtedly to have helped to strengthen Grau's resolve.
As a mark of gratitude, the Pan-Arab Committee called on Cuba's Lebanese,
Palestinian and Syrian voters to support Prio, Grau's candidate in the 1948 election.
Although not one of the most active pro-(Hebrew) Palestine committee members, Prio,

26. Author's interview with Ambassador Nadim Dimishqiya, London, 1986; letter to author from
Ambassador Joseph Shadid, 2 June 1988.
27. For the Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians in Cuba, see, for example, NA, OSS Report, 1 January
1944. Euridice Char6n, "El asentamiento de emigrantes arabes en Monte (La Habana, Cuba), 1890-1930," (The
Arab Emigrants' Settlement in Monte [Havana, Cuba], 1890-1930) Awrdq (Madrid) 13, (1992).
28. On the Cuban press and radio, see the Rockefeller papers, CIAA Coordination Committee
1942-1945 Sub-Series, Coordination Committee for Cuba: Operations as of October 1944.
29. Institute of Contemporary Jewry (ICJ), Jerusalem, Oral History Interview with Max Lesnick.
30. Letter to author from Shadid, 17 October 1988.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CUBA AND PALESTINE * 413

nonetheless, had been part of that body's leadership. Once elected, however, his
government recognized de facto, rather than de jure, Israel's independence, a move meant
among other things, to smooth the transition between both Autentico administrations.

ON BELT'S AMERICANOPHILIA

There have been claims that the United States did very little to line up Latin
American support for partition, and that, therefore, Belt, who was an Americanophile, felt
under no pressure to vote against partition.31 According to a State Department biograph-
ical sketch, Belt had done "yeoman service ... to have our views accepted by the [Cuban]
delegation" at the inter-American conference of Chapultepec, as well as on other
occasions.32 His inimical attitude towards Zionism might have received a shot in the arm
from certain US diplomats, such as H. Bartlett Wells who believed in "the political and
social assimilation of Jews into the life of the communities in which they reside."33 Wells
was the State Department's political liaison officer with the Cuban delegation at the United
Nations in 1946. However, Belt was known to carry out his president's instructions
faithfully. Having served as Grau's election campaign manager in 1944, Belt was seen as
"thoroughly loyal."34 Presumably because of his adherence to presidential guidelines,
during the second part of the UN General Assembly in 1946, Belt had allowed one of his
aides, Enrique Perez Cisneros, to hold positions on a number of issues that "did not agree
with" those of the United States.35 If this is anything to go by, it demonstrates that,
however personally sympathetic to the United States Belt was, he was a professional man
who obeyed his govemment's instructions, even if it meant voting against the US-
supported partition plan.

ON THE PURPORTED ROLE OF BELT'S ANTI-SEMITISM

The claim that Belt was anti-Jewish, whether made by Senator Eduardo Chiba's Ri
or US businessman Lawrence Berenson, is a priori inconsistent with the ambassador's
record. In September 1935, for instance, while he was mayor of Havana, he played a
leading part in the capital city's celebration of the 800th anniversary of the birth of Rabbi
Moshe ben Maimon, the famous Iberian philosopher, theologian and physician, better
known as Maimonides. While Belt may subsequently have changed his stance, at the time,
Cuban Jews viewed his participation at these events as a definite mark of friendship

31. The different phases of US intervention in support of Zionism among the Latin Americans are
discussed in Ignacio Klich, "Latin America, the United States and the Birth of Israel: The Case of Somoza's
Nicaragua," Journal of Latin American Studies 20, no. 2 (1988), pp. 409-13. See also Martin Jones, Failure in
Palestine: British and United States Policy after the Second World War (London: 1986), pp. 303-307.
32. ISA, 2277/36, Sefaradi to Adelson, 28 June 1946; CZA, S25n502, Toff to Shertok, n.d.; NA,
710.ESC/1-2546, Biographic Report on Belt; author's interview with Sir Harold Beeley, London, 1989.
33. Braden papers, Correspondence Diplomatic 1946-7 (file W-Z), H. Bartlett Wells to Braden, 30
October 1945.
34. Rockefeller papers, Political Data on Cuba, November 1944; NA, 710.ESC/1-2546, Biographic
Report on Belt; 501.BB/2-747, Braden to American Diplomatic Officers in the Other American Republics.
35. Ibid.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
414 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

towards the Jewish community.36 Furthermore, during the UN Special Session on

Palestine (April-May 1947), principled and/or tactical considerations led Belt to table a
resolution supporting the Jewish Agency's right to be heard.
Grau also does not appear to have been anti-Jewish. In his post-inauguration speech,
in 1944, he declared his support for the struggle for political and economic self-
determination, and called on Cubans to support Jewish aspirations.37 He vowed, two years
later, to forward the reparation of the injustices "suffered by the Jewish people," whom he
described as "a respected and excellent community, and one which so often has been a
source of inspiration in our great works and those of mankind."38
Chibas interest in gaining supporters for his newly formed Cuban People's Party
(Ortodoxo), an offshoot of the ruling Autenticos, may have impelled him to make those
unfounded accusations and take advantage of his position as a prominent member of the
pro-(Hebrew) Palestine committee, to capitalize on Jewish distrust of Grau. The same
month that the Ortodoxos came into being, Chibas began interpreting Cuba's unsympa-
thetic attitude to Zionist requests as a manifestation of Grau's anti-Jewishness. Thus, as
political adversaries, Chiba's and other Ortodoxos must be viewed as too interested a party
for their picture of the president and his ambassador to be taken at face value. In fact,
earlier when Chiba's was part of the coterie of presidential insiders, and even when he
began to distance himself from Grau, he made no allegations about Grau's or Belt's
anti-Jewish inclinations.39
Although allegations of Grau's anti-Semitism were also made by Lawrence Beren-
son, the Jewish chairman of the New York-based Cuban-American Chamber of Com-
merce, his claim is no more credible than Chibas'. In fact, if anything, it may be even less
so because of Berenson's closeness to Batista and his distance from Grau. Considered by
the US embassy in Havana as someone involved in "lucrative and at times questionable
activities," and more bluntly as a "crook" by Kaplan, Berenson was not known to have any
first-hand knowledge of Grau. Hence, Berenson's accusations reflect more his resentment
at the loss of business and/or other advantages previously accruing from his close
association with Batista, than on Grau's attitude towards Jews.40
In summary, proofs of Belt's and/or Grau's anti-Jewishness remain, at least for the
time being, conspicuous by their absence. As a factor in Cuba's anti-partition stand at the
United Nations, the available evidence suggests that their anti-Jewishness is at best an
unsubstantiated possibility. Granted, the Jewish community had held back when ap-
proached by two Autentico campaigners seeking Cuban Jewry's support for Grau's

36. Author's interview with Kaplan, Miami, 1985; Mundo Hebreo (Havana), October 1935, pp. 22-23.
37. CZA, Z5/11143, Statement by the Central Council of Jewish Institutions in Cuba, 27 October 1947;
author's interview with Kaplan, Miami, 1989; Cuban pro-Palestine Commitee, "Dos de noviembre, 1917-1946"
(Havana, n.d.), p. 5; Havaner Lebn Almanach 5707 (1946), p. 21.
38. Ibid.
39. CZA, ZS/11192, Arthur Lourie to Toff, 16 April 1947; Z5/11056, Ofelia Domfnguez to Toff, 10 May
1947; Z5/11063, unsigned memorandum on Cuba's position at the United Nations on the Palestine question, 17
November 1947; ICJ, Oral History Interview with Lesnick.
40. Braden papers, Correspondence Diplomatic 1944 (file A-Bo), Albert Nufer to Cordell Hull, 29
August 1944. ICJ, Oral History Interview with Lesnick; author's interview with Kaplan.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CUBA AND PALESTINE * 415

election in 1944. Indeed, the Jewish leadership had proclaimed that it would leave it to
conscience of every voting Jew to decide for whom to vote. Jewish anxieties about th
anti-foreign implications of Grau's earlier motto 'Cuba for the Cubans,' and ensuing
legislation, were not allayed by these emissaries' assurances that naturalized foreign
had nothing to fear.41 Nevertheless, until solid evidence to sustain the allegations of
anti-Jewishness is uncovered it would appear to be quite odd that at a time when the defeat
of Nazism and its genocidal policies had elicited considerable international sympathy for
the Jews, Cuban politicians, who had not shown their anti-Semitism earlier, should
become anti-Jewish overnight. And, it is curious that their supposed anti-Jewishness did
not affect the daily life of Cuban Jewry but expressed itself selectively, and in the
opposition to the partition of Palestine principally. Even if one assumes that Grau resented
the bias in favor of Batista of the voters among the island's estimated 10,000 Jews,42 the
notion that this alone would explain Cuba's anti-Jewish statehood vote seems simplistic,
if not patently absurd.

ON THE ACCUSATIONS OF BRIBERY

Zionist sources have long asserted that Belt's wife received an expensive piec
jewelery from the Saudis, implying that Belt's choice to vote against partition was
motivated by pecuniary interests. Probably the least important of all the accusations hurled
at the Cuban diplomat, this putative episode, however, must be addressed here precisely
because it figures as fact in the memoirs of two supporters of Jewish statehood-Moshe
Tov and Berta Singerman-as well as receives mention in the first volume of Political and
Diplomatic Documents, produced by the Israel State Archives.43
To begin with, the existence of such a jewel is contested both by the alleged recipient
and a Palestinian observer.44 Moreover, since there is no available press coverage of the
ceremony where the alleged gift,45 either a diamond or pearl necklace,46 was offered, it is
unclear whether such a gift was actually given and, if it was, what it consisted of. To make
matters more confusing, Singerman, an acknowledged player in Israeli efforts to secure
Cuban recognition of the Jewish state's independence, as well as Israeli diplomat Michael
Comay before her,47 described the recipient as Cuba's foreign minister Gonzalez.
Singerman also referred to the necklace as a gift to deprive Israel of recognition by the

41. Author's interview with Kaplan, Miami, 1991.

42. Ibid.
43. Michael Comay to Bernard Gering, 3 December 1947, in Political and Diplomatic Documen
December 1947-May 1948 (Jerusalem: 1979), p. 8.
44. Author's interview with Nakhla, London, 1988; author's interview with Elisa M. Belt, Washington,
1991.
45. For a hitherto elusive press clipping showing Saudi Prince Faysal al-Sa'ud bestowing the jewel on
Belt's wife, see Tov, El murmullo de Israel, p. 152.
46. For the pearl necklace version, see Berta Singerman, Mis dos vidas (My Two Lives) (Buenos Aires:
Tres Tiempos, 1984), pp. 263.
47. At the time Comay was in charge of the Jewish Agency's New York office. Nevertheless, it would
be imprudent to ignore Comay's remoteness from the Agency's Latin American affairs when considering some
of his comments on the region's voters at the UN session devoted to partition, as well as the fact that the
Agency's Latin American Department operated from New York.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
416 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

Grau government.48 If Singerman's recounting of the event and its dating are correct, then
the implications are twofold. First, she implies that the Saudi present was made after 14
May 1948, and not before Israel's independence day, and was not meant primarily as a
reward for Cuba's opposition to partition. Second, Singerman's story rules out the
possibility that it was Belt who was being bribed and/or rewarded.
Lending a degree of support to Tov's version, however, is the acknowledged fact that
Cuban politics was permeated by corruption and that the Saudis offered lavish presents to
diplomats. UN Assistant Secretary General David Owen, for instance, received an
embroidered robe and a jewel-encrusted dagger at about the same time. Like Owen, Belt's
wife admitted that after the partition vote, the Saudi monarch presented her husband with
an embroidered robe and an accompanying headgear. There was even talk of pure-bred
Arabian horses.49 However, in the absence of conclusive evidence as to the date of the
necklace episode, or for that matter of its existence, it is quite possible that the allegations
may have been made to smear Belt for his position on partition.
Despite an initial unwillingness to exploit the venality of certain politicians, the Jewish
Agency's data bank on influential Latin Americans did accumulate information about their
foibles, among other things. This would eventually prove useful. For example, the card
on Alvarez, Grau's Commerce Minister and later his Foreign Minister until January 1947,
recorded that he was a businessman of doubtful integrity, with a "price tag."50 The usefulness
of such information on Alvarez's corruptibility is highlighted by his part in Cuba's
recognition of Israel's independence in January 1949, when he was serving as his country's
representative to the United Nations. The job earned Alvarez a handsome Israeli reward,
which he gladly accepted.51 Long before this, money also had changed hands to secure
Alvarez's approval of Cuban visas for a huge number of Jewish refugees.52
Dismayed at Belt's unhelpfulness during the UN General Assembly session in 1946,
the Jewish Agency first sought to find an important client of the ambassador's law practice
who would be willing to convince Belt to change his position. This proved to be difficult.
A few months later, Zionist envoy Chapler reported that he had "investigated all angles
concerning Mr. Belt and a possible source of influence on him. Strange to relate, such is
not to be found in Havana. He does not have any friends that could influence him at all.
Nor does he have any important clients in Havana as he never reached the stage of having
an important law office there." This was so, the envoy reported, because Belt had began
"to mix in politics at the early stage of his career."53
Unpleasant though the entire issue of bribery undoubtedly is, by May 1947 the
Jewish Agency had already countenanced the use of cash gifts to Cuban pressmen to
augment their not insubstantial friendly feelings towards Zionism. That the Agency was not,

48. Singerman, Mis dos vidas, p. 263.

49. Letter to author from Roger Owen, 13 October 1989; author's interview with Belt, Washington,
1991.
50. CZA, Z5/1359, Jewish Agency data card system.
51. Author's interview with a former head (name witheld) of the Jewish Agency's Latin American
department, Jerusalem, 1989.
52. For Alvarez's role in the visa affair, see author's interview with Kaplan, Miami, 1991.
53. CZA, Z5/1347, Chapler to Toff, 24 and 29 April, and 5 May 1947.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 CUBA AND PALESTINE * 417

however, yet prepared to offer financial inducements to Grau's inner circle is sugge
by that same envoy's reported difficulties in getting to "the people who do have power
at the present time." If one wanted to reach them, it would have to be done "in a manner that
we are against employing."54 Later, as the decisive vote drew nearer and a two-thirds majority
in favor of partition seemed elusive, the Jewish Agency shed its scruples.
Evidence of this change of track comes from, amongst others, the State Department's
Gordon Merriam, who reported Mrs. Belt's disclosure that her husband was promised "all
the money and other facilities necessary to bring about his election"55 as Cuba's president
in exchange for a pro-partition vote. For his part, Nakhla alleged that the Zionists sent
Mrs. Belt an expensive fur coat which she refused.56 Mrs. Belt's recollection is somewhat
different. Asked by a member of a Zionist delegation that visited her husband in New
York, whether she had a fur coat, Mrs. Belt answered she did not. Whereupon the visitor
retorted that such a situation ought to be remedied, to which the ambassador's wife
rejoined that her husband would not allow her to accept any such garment even if one were
presented to her.57 Likewise, Belt himself summoned Tov, early in 1948, to bring to his
attention an offer of $30,000, made in exchange for a shift from an anti-Jewish statehood
to an anti-Arab stand during the UN session in Paris. While this episode is derisively
portrayed in Tov's memoirs as a possible indication of Belt's asking price for such an
unexpected pro-Zionist volte-face, his robust and credible denial that such a reward had
been offered by the Jewish Agency clearly does not rule out the possibility that other
Zionist-inspired individuals may have been directed to do so.58

EPILOGUE

Irrefutable answers to the problem of what really motivated Cuban opposition to

partition at the decisive UN vote will possibly have to wait until Cuban archival material
is made available. While it has been said that all the relevant files of the Cuban mission
were destroyed before Alvarez took over Belt's position at the United Nations,59 further
research, nonetheless, is justified to achieve a coherent and conclusive picture of Cuba's
record on Jewish statehood in Palestine.
Meanwhile, the above discussion strongly suggests that Havana's anti-partition vote
was far from Belt' s exclusive responsibility. Moreover, undeniable as were the American,
Arab, and Zionist dimensions of Cuba's performance on the Palestine question, it is more
than apparent that explanations based solely on meshing together its ambassador's
well-established deference to leading State Department officials, as well as mutterings
about his being in the Arabs' pocket, or, like Grau, of being anti-Jewish, are, unfortunately
either unconvincing, or misleading or both.

54. Ibid.
55. Merriam to Henderson, 23 December 1947, in Policy Planning Papers, p. 47.
56. Author's interview with Nakhla, London, 1988.
57. Author's interview with Belt, Washington, 1991.
58. Tov, El murmullo de Israel, pp. 153-54.
59. ICJ, Partial transcript of oral history interview with Sender Kaplan.

This content downloaded from

54.190.231.70 on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:31:29 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms