The establishment of Israel in May 1948 was never a foregone conclusion. One might assume that, with the Holocaust so recent, it was almost inevitable: a tragedy-born fulfillment of the long-held dream of an independent Jewish state. In fact, a great deal of dramatic maneuvering was required, not least in the newly formed United Nations.

The central question was what to do about Palestine. The so-called British Mandate had been authorized in 1922 by the League of Nations, giving Britain political authority over Palestine but aiming, ultimately, to prepare the country for self-government. But now, amid growing unrest between Arabs and Jews, the Mandate was coming to an end and the British were poised to withdraw. The U.N.’s General Assembly had to decide how to divide—even whether to divide—the land between the two warring communities.

Israel’s Moment

By Jeffrey Herf

(Cambridge, 500 pages, $39.99)

In “Israel’s Moment,” Jeffrey Herf, a professor at the University of Maryland and the author of several esteemed works of modern German history, presents a vivid portrait of this dramatic period and a trenchant analysis of the forces at work. Along the way, he reminds us of how contentious the debate was—within the U.N. itself and within the most powerful governments of the time.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Kremlin supported the Zionist cause. Eager to see the British expelled, Stalin pressed for the creation of Israel as a step toward that goal. No less a figure than the Soviet diplomat Andrei Gromyko delivered pro-Zionist speeches in 1947 and 1948, invoking the Holocaust and promoting an independent state as a place where Jews would always have a home. Mr. Herf, noting Stalin’s anti-Semitism—which would soon fully emerge, he says, in “anticosmopolitan” purges—calls such Soviet support “one of the great ironies of mid-twentieth century politics.” The U.S.S.R. was naturally joined by its satellites, including Poland, whose U.N. ambassador, Alfred Fiderkiewicz, was a non-Jewish survivor of Auschwitz.

As for the British, their own elites were divided. Though Churchill had pro-Zionist views, the Labour government, led by Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, was anxious about access to Arab oil and lamented Britain’s retreat from the Middle East, however vexing Palestine had become.

Mr. Herf is especially illuminating about France. Its Foreign Ministry sought to nurture good relations with the Arab world at the expense of the Zionist cause, even allowing Haj Amin al-Husseini (the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem), who was in French custody as a result of his collaboration with Hitler, to return to the Middle East rather than face justice. But the Interior and Transport ministries took a different view. Their leaders, especially Adrien Tixier, Édouard Depreux and Jules Moch, were inspired by their time in the wartime Resistance to support Israel’s creation. Remarkably, they had the power to defy the policies of the Foreign Ministry and allow large-scale, “illegal” Jewish immigration to Palestine at a time when the British were doing all they could to deter support for the nascent Jewish state. Between 1945 and 1949 as many as 180,000 Jews reached Palestine/Israel by way of France.

In the U.S., most members of Congress and President Truman supported the establishment of Israel. They were joined by outspoken advocates in the liberal and left-leaning press, including I.F. Stone, Freda Kirchwey and Henry Wallace, writing for such publications as the Nation, PM and the New Republic. They sought to carry the cause of antifascism into the postwar world—Israel’s socialist leanings were seen as part of this effort—and judged the creation of Israel as a necessary consequence of the Holocaust.

By contrast, the U.S. State Department, led by George Marshall and George Kennan, opposed the creation of Israel, fearing most of all, as Mr. Herf puts it, “that a Jewish state in Palestine would become an instrument of Soviet influence.” Kennan was already known for his Long Telegram of 1946, in which he had argued for the “containment” of the Soviet Union. Marshall was among the most admired men in the country, lauded for his role as Army chief of staff during the war. In 1947-49, he was serving as Truman’s secretary of state.

Mr. Herf observes that “Kennan, who saw so clearly into the heart of darkness of Stalin’s regime, denounced Zionist policy as a threat to America’s national interest in the same weeks that he called for an end to the Nuremberg trials and denazification efforts in occupied Germany.” Marshall, for his part, seemed to agree with his British counterpart, Bevin, who, when the two met, associated the Jews, in Mr. Herf’s summary, with “unfortunate political influence in the United States, terrorism in Palestine, and communists seeking to destabilize the Middle East.” I.F. Stone captured this view in PM: “The brass hats have decided that Jewish refugees are Reds and that a Jewish state in Palestine would be a Soviet base.” Mr. Herf quotes extensively from Kennan’s and Marshall’s memos, revealing a distasteful anti-Jewish prejudice in their understanding of the Zionist cause.

The heated debate in the General Assembly came to a head on Nov. 29, 1947, when a majority of states voted in favor of what was called Partition, creating two independent states, one Arab and one Jewish, with Jerusalem to be recognized as an international city. Partition was opposed by the Arab and Muslim countries, as well as by Cuba and Greece, among others. The U.K. abstained, as did Yugoslavia. Ahead of the vote, Partition was opposed as well by prominent American policy makers at the State Department and the CIA. Truman’s intervention ensured a “yes” vote from the U.S.

As Cold War tensions grew, Mr. Herf shrewdly notes, the positions and debates surrounding “Israel’s moment” would prove to be, for both Washington and Moscow, a “discomfiting memory.” The Soviets would become increasingly anti-Zionist, while U.S. administrations would grow closer to Israel. But in the immediate aftermath of World War II, passions and interests ended up working in favor of the Jewish state.

Mr. Rubenstein’s most recent book is “The Last Days of Stalin.”