My understanding is that early on the Communist bloc believed that Israel would be a socialist state that would essentially do what Israel does for NATO, creating a socialist base in the Middle East. Once it became clear that would not happen the Israeli's lost much of their Communist support and many communist groups backed the Palestinians. Supporting Israel is a clear historic mistake and worth learning from. I'd say a key take away is recognize that settler colonialist movements are never going to break left, and that by extension before you extend support to a movement you must understand it's underlying culture and politics. I would hope that if the USSR, Vietnamese Communist Party, and others had understood the settler colonialist and fascistic nature of Zionism they would not have made this mistake. And hopefully we'll learn from this and not repeat the mistake in the future.

Without knowing much about the situation I can see the two being sympathetic. The Nakba was two years away and both had been engaged in national liberation struggles for a long time. Zionism still had some vaguely leftish components in the 40s. I could very generously say that perhaps Uncle Ho was not fully versed on the political situation in Palestine, or was not well read in the underlying theory of Zionism and was basing his views primarily on conversations with his friend David. Alternately, Ho Chi Minh was as mortal as any of us, and it's entirely possible that he made a bad choice. I would be curious to know more about the situation, the 40s were a goddamn mess with national liberation struggles breaking out all over the world and nations solidifying in to the cold war blocs. With the holocaust just barely over and many Jewish Europeans still being held in "displaced persons" camps I can see views of contemporary Zionism being very different from what we now know Zionism to be.

Regardless, it's a good reminder that even great leaders and theorists are human and have limits, biases, and sometimes make poor choices. We shouldn't deify anyone in the movement. Ho Chi Minh was a great leader and a very important person, but we're all in this together and we all have our roles to play.