The Great Game

Excerpt from From Haven to Conquest:

As early as the special session of the General Assembly called in April 1947 to discuss Britain’s reference of the problem to the UN, the USSR had indicated its interest in “partition”. Earlier, the Soviet authorities had encouraged the movement of illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine from Soviet occupied East European countries. During the discussions by the General Assembly of the recommendation of UNSCOP, the USSR emerged as a staunch supporter of the idea of a Jewish state. The Soviet Bloc controlled four votes in the Assembly (those of the Byelorussian SSR, the Ukrainian SSR, Poland, and the USSR), and all these were firmly cast in support of a Jewish state. But the influence of the Soviet attitude on the UN Palestine deliberations far exceeded its voting strength, since it allayed fears that a pro-Jewish state attitude by the United States might exacerbate the Cold War. What was the motivation for Soviet pro-Zionism? The question is of obvious relevance today. [...]

There was nothing absent-minded about Soviet support of the Jewish state. The voting record of the Soviet Bloc during the crucial debate in the General Assembly leading to the partition decision on 29 November 1947 was determinedly pro-Zionist. It was to remain consistently so in the subsequent debates of all the UN bodies throughout the various stages of the Palestine War of 1948. Indeed, when, under State Department influence, and as a result of the increasing chaos in Palestine early in 1948, the US Government showed signs of wanting to reappraise its pro-partition policy, it was the USSR which insisted on its pound of flesh. Soon after the partition resolution, Soviet broadcasts to the Middle East, as well as the Soviet press, launched a campaign of abuse and psychological warfare against the Palestine Arabs and the Arab countries for opposing the establishment of a Jewish State. This campaign was sustained until the end of the fighting in 1949 and beyond. The fiercest attack on the UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte came from the USSR, for suggesting modifications in the partition plan in partial redress of its excesses. Nor was Soviet policy confined to political support and propaganda. The largest single consignments to Palestine of specially trained illegal Jewish immigrants were released from Soviet controlled Black Sea ports during 1947-48. But the most important Soviet contribution to the establishment of the Jewish state came in the form of a massive supply of heavy arms, tanks, and planes through Czechoslovakia, after the Communist take-over in that country in March 1948. [...] It was this Soviet arms deal to the Zionists in 1948 that tipped the military scales against the Arab countries facilitating the fall of Palestine and the rise of Israel.

Everything about Soviet Palestine policy during 1948-48 indicates that it was the result of cold calculation and long-term planning. The immediate objective of USSR policy was to exploit Anglo-American differences on Palestine in order to oust Britain from the country. With the British expelled from Palestine, British influence throughout the area would be undermined. On the long-term view, and knowing the intense Arab opposition to Zionism, the USSR hoped that the creation of a Jewish State would produce a fluid situation in the Middle East which was bound to present it with more than one avenue of exploitation. Given its freedom from public pressure at home, its policy could shift from support of one side to the other. Such a shift would enable it to compensate for its earlier misdemeanour in supporting Zionism while polarizing Arab opinion, itself cumulatively alienable from the West by the latter’s unrestrained Zionist partisanship. – Walid Khalidi, “Introduction”, From Haven to Conquest, The Institute of Palestine Studies, 2005.

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Updates:

The New Great Game: Part I

The New Great Game: Part II

Cold War Revisited