ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the debate that slowly, but persistently, developed regarding the Palestinian right of return, and demonstrates Eleanor Roosevelt's bias – she contrasted Israeli development with Arab 'backwardness' as justification for Israeli refusal of repatriation. It discusses the volte-face performed by an esteemed colleague, Dorothy Thompson, a journalist who had been initially committed to the Zionist cause. By stabilising economies and erecting military defences, relief had left the 'free world braced' so that 'nations menaced by subversions were enabled to maintain their freedom'. Between 1949 and 1956, for example, Israeli security forces killed between 2,700 and 5,000 Arab infiltrators, the overwhelming majority of them unarmed. Thompson's openness to reviewing her position on Israel, because of her concern about its integrity, starkly highlights the closed approach chosen by Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt's views remained fixed throughout this period; she appeared to have been unperturbed by the discordant voices around her.
