I just read an article from the Independent on Israeli-US spying (in first comment). For years prior to the founding of Israel, the article suggests, "zionist" agents were heavily involved in clandestine activities within the US. This is the first article on this topic that wasn't complete rubbish and here is my question: who and where were the actors involved in shaping western policy involved in creating the state of Israel and to what ends would they go?
I think the Independent's use of "Zionist agents" is probably a bit hysterical. Without a doubt, American Jews and immigrant Jews to the United States played a major role in supporting Zionism in Palestine, and subsequently in the foundation of the state of Israel, but to refer to agents or spies goes beyond anything I've read on the subject. I'll preface this by saying that most of that reading is on Western imperialism and political history of the middle east, so if someone here has a more detailed knowledge of the institutional history of western Zionism I'm fully prepared to be wrong. That being said, where did American Zionism play a role in the founding of Israel:
One of the most prominent American Zionists was Louis Brandeis, a Supreme Court Justice, who was in correspondence with Chaim Weizmann and other leading Zionists in Palestine and Europe. Brandeis apparently played a role in getting President Wilson to accept the Balfour Declaration which is obviously a crucial document in the history of Israel. Likewise the history of groups like the Zionist Organization of America, and the American Jewish Committee are public, well known, and straightforward. The World Zionist Organization also obviously had a relationship with the United States, see the Biltmore Conference of the WZO where Ben Gurion, Weizmann and other leading Zionists announced their platform in 1942 in New York.
Obviously it comes after the founding but that there were strong limits to this influence (and certainly any espionage) is made obvious in the Suez Crisis of 1956, where Britain and France conspired (and "conspired" is definitely the appropriate word in this instance) with Israel to retake the Suez Canal. America was uninformed of the plans and was instrumental in stopping the war without any of the parties, including Israel, of achieving their goals.
It's worth bearing in mind that prior to 1948 it wasn't America, but Great Britain that controlled the fate of Palestine. This is reflected in the history of when, exactly, America starts to play a major role. That is precisely after Britain basically fails to put down the Jewish revolt (fought as an insurgency from at least 1939, but as an all out revolt from about 1946), and passes the ball to the UN. Whereas British policy was reflected by the 1939 white paper for a federal Palestine, the UN proposal pushed by Truman and with lobbying from American Jews/Zionists was for partition of Palestine into an Arab and Jewish state, one that was heavily favored towards Jewish interests in Palestine, precipitated the 1947-48 civil war and 48 Arab war, and ultimately the creation of the State of Israel.
In a negative sense Menachem Begin's book "The Revolt" certainly doesn't detail any spy rings within the United States, although it does imply quite heavy infiltration of the colonial administration, although he was in charge of the Irgun movement, rather than the much larger Haganah.
Obviously if someone here is more expert on the spying efforts of Israel, or Haganah, I'd love to hear from you, most of what I've studied is at the level of policy rather than say, the institutional histories of Zionist/Israeli activities and espionage.
For sources on what I've said here check out One Palestine, Complete, by Tom Segev, Western Imperialism in the Middle East by D.K. Fieldhouse, The Revolt, by Menachem Begin, and The Arabs by Eugene Rogan.