Israel: the First Hundred Years, Volume 4: Israel in the International Arena

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ISRAEL: THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS

CASS SERIES: ISRAELI HISTORY, POLITICS AND SOCIETY Series Editor: Efraim Karsh, King’s College London ISSN: 1368–4795 This series provides a multidisciplinary examination of all aspects of Israeli history, politics and society, and serves as a means of communication between the various communities interested in Israel: academics, policy-makers, practitioners, journalists and the informed public. Selected titles: Peace in the Middle East: The Challenge for Israel Edited by Efraim Karsh. Between War and Peace: Dilemmas of Israeli Security Edited by Efraim Karsh. U.S.-Israeli Relations at the Crossroads Edited by Gabriel Sheffer. A Twenty-Year Retrospective of Egyptian-Israeli Relations: Peace in Spite of Everything By Ephraim Dowek. Global Politics: Essays in Honour of David Vital Edited by Abraham Ben-Zvi and Aharon Klieman. Israeli Diplomacy and the Quest for Peace By Mordechai Gazit. Israeli-Romanian Relations at the End of the Ceaucescu Era By Yosef Govrin. John F.Kennedy and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel By Abraham Ben-Zvi. Decision on Palestine Deferred: America, Britain and Wartime Diplomacy, 1939–1945 By Monty Noam Penkower. Israel, the Hashemites and the Palestinians: The Fateful Triangle Edited by Efraim Karsh and P.R.Kumaraswamy. Rethinking the Middle East By Efraim Karsh Israel: The First Hundred Years (Mini Series), edited by Efraim Karsh. 1. Israel’s Transition from Community to State, edited by Efraim Karsh.

iii

2. From War to Peace? edited by Efraim Karsh. 3. Israeli Politics and Society Since 1948, edited by Efraim Karsh. 4. Israel in the International Arena, edited by Efraim Karsh.

Israel: The First Hundred Years VOLUME IV

Israel in the International Arena Editor

Efraim Karsh

FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR

First published in 2004 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side, Southgate, London N14 5BP This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300 Portland, Oregon 97213–3786 Copyright © 2004 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd

Website: www.frankcass.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Israel: the first hundred years Vol. 4: Israel in the international arena.—(Cass series. Israeli history, politics and society) 1. Israel—Foreign relations 2. Israel—Foreign economic relations 3. Israel—History I. Karsh, Efraim II. Israeli affairs 327.5'694 ISBN 0-203-50409-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-58254-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0 7146 4960 0 (cloth) ISBN 0 7146 8021-4 (paper) ISSN 1368-4795 A catalog record of this book is available from the Library of Congress This group of studies first appeared as a special issue of Israel Affairs (ISSN 1353-7121), Vol.10, Nos.1&2 (Autumn/Winter 2004), published by Frank Cass All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

Contents

Towards Distant Frontiers: The Course of Israeli Diplomacy Sasson Sofer

1

ISRAEL AND THE GREAT POWERS David Ben-Gurion’s Zionist Foreign Policy, 1938–48: The Democratic Factor Allon Gal

11

Influence and Arms: John F.Kennedy, Lyndon B.Johnson and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel, 1962–66 Abraham Ben-Zvi

26

Indirect Pressure: Moscow and the End of the British Mandate in Palestine Arieh J.Kochavi

56

Blocking Peace: Britain and the Israeli-Jordanian Conflict 1949–51 Jonathan Sless

73

The Effects of Changes in the International Environment on the future of the Middle East Benny Miller

100

ISRAEL AND THE WEST The PLO Factor in Euro-Israeli Relations, 1964–1992 Rory Miller

117

Some Trade Effects of the EMU Process on Israel Tal Sadeh

150

The Road to the Israeli-Spanish Rapprochement Jacob Abadi

172

The ‘Good-Natured Bastard’: Canada and the Middle East Refugee Question David H.Goldberg and Tilly R.Shames

197

ASIAN RELATIONSHIPS

vii

The Republic of China and Israel, 1911–2003 Jonathan Goldstein

216

Israel-India Relations: Seeking Balance and Realism P.R.Kumaraswamy

249

Japan and Israel: An Evaluation of Relationship-Building in the Context of Japan’s Middle East Policy Raquel Shaoul

268

ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH WORLD Towards a Conceptual Framework of World Jewish Politics: State, Nation, and Diaspora in a Jewish Foreign Policy Shmuel Sandler

294

Post-Zionism in the Oslo Era and the Implications for the Diaspora Danny Ben-Moshe

305

Abstracts

330

Index

336

Towards Distant Frontiers: The Course of Israeli Diplomacy SASSON SOFER

There has always been a sense of exclusiveness about Israel’s place in the world. As a small nation, a democracy and the only Jewish state, Israel is, indeed, a unique international actor. Israel is also one of the few states not formally affiliated with any regional bloc; equally, it does not belong to any pact or alliance. As Abba Eban has noted, the ‘state of Israel has more unresolved matters of interrogation hanging over it than most other political units in the modern world.’1 Israel has difficulty maintaining a single international identity wholly consistent either with its own national values or with international norms at large. A constant preoccupation with the Arab-Israeli conflict has resulted in a conspicuous discrepancy between the aspiration to meet universal norms and the necessity to resort to realpolitik. It is customary to blame Israeli diplomacy for many lapses and deficiencies: its lack of foresight and long-range planning, a susceptibility to impulse and crisis exigencies, and a paucity of originality and inventiveness. One could sense Yitzhak Rabin’s contempt for professional diplomats as he prepared himself for the post of Israel’s ambassador to Washington: ‘What does the government expect Israel’s ambassador to the United States to achieve?’, he asked the officials at the Foreign Ministry. ‘Objectives? No one had any idea.’2 Nevertheless, the foundation of Israel’s foreign policy was laid in the years before independence. Under the patronage of the Labour movement, a cautious, pragmatic and fairly conservative diplomacy emerged. Israeli diplomacy has scored some remarkable achievements. Most notable are the special relationship with the United States, the surprisingly early and solid association with the European Community, the peripheral strategy involving Turkey, Iran and Ethiopia, the peace settlement with Egypt and Jordan, and, lastly, Israel’s aid and co-operation programme in the Third World.

Sasson Sofer is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

2 ISRAEL IN THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA

THE DOMESTIC SOURCES OF FOREIGN POLICY The political traditions of both the Labour Party and the Revisionist Right left their mark on Israeli diplomacy. Each presented a different approach to achieving Israel’s objectives in the international arena. From the 1940s until 1977 the Right was in opposition and the Left’s dominance, more than anything else, determined the restrained tone of Israel’s diplomacy. The tendency to merge the two traditions in Israel’s actions as a sovereign state obscures the fact that Right and Left are divided with regard to the concept of history, military affairs, the definition of borders, regional policy and diplomatic style. Indeed, until recently the conflict between these two diametrically opposed historical narratives occupied a central place in contemporary Israel. While the Left evolved from a socialist tradition, the Right based itself on various nationalist traditions, drawing eclectically on all of them. Socialist and nationalist dualism enriched the Left, but nationalist monism weakened the Right, thinning its conceptual wealth and undermining its contribution to either social construction or foreign affairs. Whereas the Left perceived diplomacy and the international arena as an unfortunate concatenation of events, the Right regarded foreign policy as a prescription for national greatness; constant manoeuvrings were supposed to force the great powers to pay attention and take Israel’s aims into consideration. The Left sought to advance along a wide front while establishing a broad convention at home; instead of clashing head-on, it preferred an indirect course. The Right relied on almost pure realism and preferred a more public form of diplomacy, building an ‘iron wall’ or desiring unilateral supremacy in the region.3 What still remains of the clash between Right and Left is the mutual tendency to push aside the formal aspects of diplomacy in favour of the mutual inclination for self-reliance and autarky. In the shadow of the rhetoric of the national will and the ultimate objective, the Right regarded Israeli policy as having considerable room for manoeuvre, without paying undue attention to external constraints or the limits of power. The Left engaged in consensual deliberations and the wisdom of its actions, while not always intended or inspired, arose from responsibility and caution, being aware of the limitation of international possibilities. The Left, in the face of the huge obstacles thrown up by history, could bear failure better than the Right and thus function in that narrow space between failure and victory. Historic maximalism made the Right more dependent on victory, and defeat was paralyzing for it. Not a few of its leaders believed that the great wheel of history would settle at the spot they had ordained. Israel’s political tradition combined both the fevered thinking of the Right and the convoluted imagination of the Left. Israel’s foreign-policy conceptions are significantly influenced by social and political factors. The political order placed a heavy burden on the conduct of foreign policy. Almost constant factional conflict hampered the development of systematic planning and decision-making. The leftist Mapai was the only party to provide its leadership with solid political support. While the closed pattern of

THE COURSE OF ISRAELI DIPLOMACY 3

coalition consensus accorded diplomacy a certain stability, it constantly limited the statesman’s scope of flexibility.4 The inherent difficulty in attaining political agreement among factions with differing worldviews invariably prevented foreign policy from adapting itself in time to new international developments. There was, also, a growing tendency for ad hoc decisions, concealing diplomatic initiatives from formal institutions, either at the legislative or the executive level, as well as from the public eye. Foreign policy is, in most cases, socially bounded. Thus the cleavages in Israeli society, and the divided nature of Israeli politics, had their toll on the conduct of diplomacy. The intensified role of informal interest groups only complicated these trends. Any change of political hegemony also entails changes at the conceptual and cognitive level of foreign policy. Israel’s case may well be termed one of diplomatic discontinuity. Israeli leaders must deal with a fragmented constituency, and encounter enormous difficulty in achieving public support and legitimacy for a given policy, whether of the Left or the Right. When making crucial decisions, Israeli statesmen tend almost to ignore the public. This is as true of the decision to accept the UN decision to partition Palestine in 1947 as the decisions to sign the Camp David accords and the Oslo agreements, all of which were introduced as a fait accompli, with the Knesset being asked only to approve formally what had already been agreed with foreign governments.5 In the case of the Oslo agreements, there was almost a flagrant neglect of the domestic front, leaving a significant part of the public out of touch with the peace process and its ultimate implications. THE PRINCIPLES OF FOREIGN POLICY For many years Israeli diplomacy was a highly charged affair, reeling from the heights of elation to the depths of depression. It was also characterized by a deeprooted suspicion of foreign powers. There was always an unbridgeable gap between rhetoric aiming at the ethical and the eternal, and the mundane and expedient needs of realpolitik. Already in the period between the two world wars a more pragmatic diplomatic style emerged. Zionist politicians honed their skills in their encounter with British statesmanship and its long and proud diplomatic tradition. From that period Israeli diplomacy inherited the tendency to promote its claims by concentrating its efforts in the open political arena. There it was possible to mobilize the support for Israel evinced by public opinion and various pressure groups, acting as a counterweight to the power of professional diplomats, who were, in most cases, less favourable, or even hostile, to Israel’s cause. Without that, it is impossible to explain the achievements of Israeli diplomacy, especially in the United States. The early years of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs were rather promising. The experience of members of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency during the pre-state era gave Israel unprecedented advantage in comparison to the new states which became independent at the same time in history. But, from the very


beginning the Foreign Ministry, which to this day remains rather small, comprising around 1,000 members and with a yearly allocation of about 0.5 per cent of the national budget, has been accorded only a secondary role in the national decision-making6 and is still the least political of the government ministries, providing continuity in planning and policy where a legacy of confusing traditions is the norm.7 Indeed, apart perhaps from Levi Eshkol, Israeli prime ministers have tended to ignore the ministry and have preferred to rely on the skills and expertise of their own professional staff. The debate over control of Israeli diplomacy has been constantly on the national agenda and it has been evident on more than one occasion that senior diplomats have been cut off from any significant political influence. Moreover, despite its tenuous grasp on decision-making,8 Israeli diplomacy has managed to rest on several constant principles. In particular, foreign policy has been fashioned, out of necessity, on a model of political realism, namely, on a calculated balance between power and political means. The ambivalence towards international guarantees, global conventions and multilateral resolutions is a reflection of a deep conviction in realist reasoning. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, who stressed the principle of self-help and autarky, argued that ‘Israel’s future will be determined first of all by our success in developing our own resources.’ He also paid due respect to moral considerations ‘by being a model and example.’9 Israel’s diplomacy was allowed only narrow room for manoeuvre. It is cardinal for an understanding of the essence of Israeli diplomacy to be aware of the fact that national security defined by weapons transfer, the support of at least one great power and immigration were the main priorities. The quest for international legitimacy was only a secondary consideration. Diplomatic initiatives were crafted not according to the desired moral principles, but out of necessity. It should be emphasized, however, that strategically this is a defensive and preventive policy rather than an offensive one. The dominance of security and military considerations threw Israel’s diplomacy out of balance. The ‘missing dimension’ in foreign affairs—the back channels, unofficial exchanges and secret networks—competed with the formal representation of the state of Israel abroad.10 The almost obsessive emphasis on combining policy with military action often placed Israeli diplomacy at a disadvantage, as Gideon Rafael, a former director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, conceded in his memoirs: ‘Israel, constantly poised on the precept of war, was constrained to concede priority to its defence requirements.’11 Both Right and Left supported the use of military means for obtaining political ends as the demands of the Arab-Israeli conflict propelled Israeli policy in one direction—towards political realism.12 The Jewish dimension is also an important factor for understanding Israeli diplomacy. In historical terms, the attitude of Israel to the Jewish diaspora represented a case of splendid ambivalence—as the unity of the Jewish faith had


a metaphorical significance that could not be disregarded, but likewise could also not easily be assimilated within a calculated political plan. Nevertheless, the structure of the Jewish centre in Israel and the periphery of communities was a great influence on Israel’s foreign policy. While the Jewish diaspora was a source of strength and influence, it also made Israeli diplomacy more complex, assigning to it tasks that often limited its flexibility. This element significantly constrained Israel in, for example, its relationships with the Soviet Union, South Africa and various Latin American states. Moreover, the Jewish factor was not without a price as it often confronted Israel with the need to make a choice—sometimes a tragic one —between its national interests as a sovereign state and its commitment to the well-being and security of the Jewish people throughout the world. The relationship between Israel and the diaspora communities is approaching a historical crossroads. Disenchantment, divisions and misunderstandings increasingly dominate this relationship as Israel has become significantly less dependent on diaspora economic support while at the same time it has ceased, in part, to be a model of inspiration for large sections of the diaspora. With the diaspora communities of the West apparently in demographic decline, the centre-periphery structure is destined for dramatic changes as Israel consolidates its place as the home to the largest Jewish community in the world, at a time when Israel and the Jewish people increasingly represent two distinct historical discourses.13 THE VICISSITUDES OF INTERNATIONAL ORIENTATION Ever since the beginning of the twentieth century, when Zionist diplomacy was thrown headlong into the thicket of the ‘eastern question’, the problem of orientation has played a crucial role. International orientation was perceived not only from a utilitarian perspective, but also as the supreme expression of political, cultural and national identity. Throughout its history the Zionist movement sought to cultivate close relations with the great powers that dominated the Middle East. Since the First World War Britain has been regarded as the principal political partner. After an early period of toying with the idea of non-identification, followed by a brief honeymoon with France, the special relationship with the United States began to dominate Israel’s foreign policy.14 Though the United States was hesitant in being identified with Israel in the latter’s early years, in more recent times the relationship has come to dominate Israel’s foreign-policy agenda, and, despite the fact that no formal alliance exists between the two nations, the United States has evolved into the ultimate guarantor of Israel’s security, its principal diplomatic ally and its foremost economic supporter (aid to Israel since 1948 is estimated at $100 billion).15 This partnership will face the test of history in the coming years as a new world takes shape. The strategic doctrines and international interests of the great powers are destined to change, and with them the passing attachments to small


nations. For the time being, the United States continues to build on its position in the Middle East, while Israel is America’s most reliable ally in the region. Unparalleled military co-operation and multifaceted, overlapping economic and political interests provide a strong anchor in the uncertain waters of the Middle East.16 Israel’s relationship with Russia has known only short periods of grace — during the first years of independence and perhaps at the present time. The Soviet Union was the first country to grant de jure recognition to the newborn state. It was, however, a diplomacy of contradictions from the very beginning as it was the Labour Zionists who were suspicious and fearful of the new emerging superpower. There is no other area in Israeli diplomacy where the ‘Jewish question’ clashed so radically with the expedient interests of the state of Israel. The fate of the Jewish community in Russia was cardinal to both countries, and left them with a narrow space of manoeuvre.17 But in historical perspective the relationship between Russia and Israel was unexpectedly pragmatic and utilitarian. After Israel had consolidated its Western orientation, not much could have been accomplished during the Cold War period. One could only marvel at the staggering amount of resources that the Soviet Union had invested in the Middle East with no complementary rewards. Israel, no doubt, is one of the principal beneficiaries of the decline of Russia’s power in the Middle East. Since the late 1980s new venues have been opened to Israeli diplomacy in Eastern Europe and in Russia itself, which continues to have vital interests in the region.18 Traditionally, the Middle East has been more important to Europe than to the United States. It will permanently remain Europe’s backyard. An implicit largescale partnership in the political, economic and strategic spheres, not reflected in the declaratory level, is serving both Western Europe and Israel well. In nourishing close ties with the European Union, Israel scored one of its best diplomatic achievements, and the credit for this achievement should go to the diplomats of the Foreign Ministry.19 At present, Israel’s commerce with the European Union surpasses that with the United States. Yet despite such advance trade ties, Europe’s policy of endorsing the Arab cause and its reluctance to support American initiatives have not endeared it either to the United States or to Israel. Indeed, the greatest challenge of Israeli diplomacy in world politics is balancing the asymmetry of its relationship with the United States and Europe. Israel was remarkably successful in forging relations with the Third World, particularly in Africa and Latin America, from which Israel gained considerable diplomatic support in international forums. Israel’s development co-operation with these nations constitutes a unique human experiment that still preserves some of its initial idealistic spirit. Since the mid-1980s Israel has managed to restructure its diplomatic relations with most non-Western states, including Islamic countries in Asia and Africa.20


The Far Eastern and the Pacific-Rim states remain one of the last diplomatic challenges for Israel and, though there has been steady progress in relations with China, India, Japan and the smaller, though perhaps more robust, Asian economies, no real breakthrough in political or economic relations, apart from India, has yet been consolidated. Israeli diplomacy has always been torn between the necessity of relying on great powers and a sense of missed opportunities in the Middle East. There was a constant awareness that the aims of Zionism contradicted Arab nationalism, but the ‘east’, from the Persian Gulf to North Africa and from Turkey to the Arabian Peninsula, presented fertile opportunities, particularly for clandestine initiatives. The ethnic heterogeneity of the Middle East and Arab divisiveness were tempting enough to fashion a few imaginative diplomatic efforts, the most wellknown of which is the peripheral co-operation with Turkey and Iran. Nevertheless, the profound economic gap between Israel and the Arab countries is not promising for regional co-operation and, though Israel has always taken part in the region’s machinations, more overt integration still appears to be far off. Moreover, Israel is forced to take into account the conflicting national interests of various Arab countries, and thus needs a more refined regional diplomacy. Since the 1950s Israel has served as a behind-thescenes balancing force in Middle Eastern affairs but, since the end of the Cold War, the revival of Turkish-Israeli strategic and economic co-operation (trade between the two states is the largest between any two countries in the Middle East)21 has further disturbed the region’s balance of power. Israel is still searching for an appropriate role in Middle Eastern diplomacy. The vision of a new Middle East, essentially a prudent, business-like idea, is being severely hampered by political realities on the ground, and in particular by the inability of Israel and the Palestinians to agree to a mutually acceptable framework for peace.22 CONCLUSION Israeli diplomacy is both cautious and pragmatic. It lacks constructive imagination, though at certain points in time, particularly before and after independence, it sparkled with new ideas. But, perhaps inevitably, the ArabIsraeli conflict drastically narrowed its horizons. Its major successes have been in secret bilateral dealings with local actors such as Jordan, Turkey, Iran and Ethiopia, while internationally it can claim a major strategic alliance with France during the 1950s, its close economic relationship with the European trading bloc and, most importantly, its ongoing special relationship with the United States. Nevertheless, these unprecedented successes have never been matched by the elevation of diplomacy to its proper place on the national agenda. The centralization of diplomatic activity under the prerogative of the prime minister has dominated the decision-making process to the extent that many key diplomatic decisions are taken by the prime minister’s office and by the ministry


of defence, while the foreign ministry is accorded only a secondary or symbolic role. NOTES 1. Abba Eban, Personal Witness, New York, 1992, p.33. 2. Yitshaq Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs, Boston, 1979, p. 123. 3. For the latest version of the Right’s conceptions, see Benjamin Netanyahu, A Place among the Nations, New York, 1993. 4. See also Shlomo Avineri, ‘Ideology and Israel’s Foreign Policy’, The Jerusalem Quarterly, Vol.37 (1986), pp.3–13. 5. See also Sasson Sofer, Begin: An Anatomy of Leadership, Oxford, 1988, pp.189– 200. 6. On Israel’s foreign service, see Walter Eytan, The First Ten Years, New York, 1958, pp.206–28; Abba Eban, An Autobiography, New York, 1977, pp.590–610; Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel, Oxford, 1972, pp.542–65; Gideon Rafael, The Making of the Israeli Diplomat. A Century of Zionist Diplomacy: 1897–1997, Conference held at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 5–6 May 1997; Aaron S.Kleiman, Israel and the World After 40 Years, Washington, 1990. 7. By the end of 1998, Israel maintained diplomatic relations with 169 countries and had 106 diplomatic representations abroad. See Chaim Opaz (ed.), Israel’s Foreign Relations, Jerusalem, 1999, pp.283–94 (Hebrew). 8. Abba Eban summed up that policy as one that ‘Lived from hand to mouth and could not evolve a far-sighted vision’, Memoirs, Tel Aviv, 1978, p.548 (Hebrew). See also Gershon Avner’s Oral Testimony, Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 19 July 1996. 9. David Ben-Gurion, Israel: Years of Challenge, London, 1964, p.212. See also Kleiman, Israel and the World, pp.146–8, 155–6. 10. Aaron S.Kleiman, Statecraft in the Dark: Israel’s Practice of Quiet Diplomacy, Tel Aviv, 1988. See also Opaz, Israel’s Foreign Relations, pp.244–60. 11. Gideon Rafael, Destination Peace, New York, 1981, p.376. 12. Yaacov Herzog, A People that Dwells Alone, London, 1975. Sasson Sofer, Zionism and the Foundations of Israeli Diplomacy Cambridge, 1998, pp.96, 97, 204–5. 13. Hillel Halkin, ‘The Jewish State and the Jewish Peoples’, Commentary, May (1998), pp.50–5; Opaz, Israel’s Foreign Relations, pp.219–3 8. 14. See also Uri Bialer, Between East and West: Israel’s Foreign Policy Orientation 1948–1956, Cambridge, 1990, pp.276–81. 15. See also Bernard Reich, Securing the Covenant, Westport, 1995, pp.1–13. 16. See also Edward N.Luttwak, Strategic Aspects of American-Israeli Relations, Washington DC, 1994; Opaz, Israel’s Foreign Relations, pp.274–82; Steven L.Spiegel, ‘Israel as a Strategic Asset’, in Ian S.Lustick (ed.), Arab-Israeli Relations, New York, Vol.10, pp.337–41; Ian S. Lustick, ‘Israeli Politics and American Foreign Policy’, ibid., pp.181–201. 17. Opaz, Israel’s Foreign Relations, pp.71–90, 261–72; Yosef Govrin, Israel-Soviet Relations, 1952–1967, Jerusalem, 1967 (Hebrew).


18. Stephen J.Blank, ‘Russia’s Return to Mideast Diplomacy’, Orbis, Vol.40 (1996), pp.517–35. 19. See Yitzhak Minerbi, A Century of Zionist Diplomacy, and R.Hollis, ‘IsraeliEuropean Relations in the 1990’s’, in E.Karsh and G.Mahler (eds.), Israel at the Crossroads, London, 1994, pp.185–97. 20. See also Shimon Amir, Israel Development Cooperation, Jerusalem, 1996; Opaz, Israel’s Foreign Relations, pp.181–216. 21. See also Amikam Nachmani, Turkey and the Middle East, Ramat-Gan, 1999; Bernard Lewis, ‘Rethinking the Middle East’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.71 (1992); Barry Rubin, ‘The Geopolitics of the Middle East Conflict and Crisis’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 2 (1998); Avraham Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, New York, 1998. 22. See also Shlomo Ben-Ami, A Place for All, Tel Aviv, 1994, pp.99–175 (Hebrew); and Yossi Beilin, Touching Peace, Tel Aviv, 1997, pp.221–58 (Hebrew).

ISRAEL AND THE GREAT POWERS

David Ben-Gurion’s Zionist Foreign Policy, 1938–48: The Democratic Factor ALLON GAL

The years 1938–40 represent a critical watershed in Zionist history. Great Britain, the mandatory power committed to implement the Balfour Declaration on the establishment in Eretz Israel (Palestine) of a national home for the Jewish people, increasingly pursued a policy that threatened to undermine the entire Zionist enterprise at a time when the situation of European Jewry had disastrously deteriorated. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the political course conceived by David Ben-Gurion in the face of these odds and to highlight the democratic elements embedded in the new policy. By way of achieving these goals, it will demonstrate that notwithstanding these formidable challenges, Ben-Gurion did not succumb to despair and violence, instead adopting a predominantly politicaldiplomatic perspective. This perspective, furthermore, was associated with an increasing democratization of the Zionist course. The United States of America, home to the largest Jewish community in the free world, remained formally neutral for more than two years after the outbreak of the Second World War. Were the Zionist leaders ready— despite this neutrality—to activate American Jewry and the American public in general in favour of the Zionist cause? Chaim Weizmann, the President of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), who enjoyed tremendous influence in the Jewish and Zionist worlds, was strongly pro-British in both political philosophy and practice. For all Britain’s increasing alienation from Zionism, Weizmann continued to consider it the main address for political Zionist efforts. In contrast, David Ben-Gurion, Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Eretz Israel since 1935, had a political biography that included a meaningful ‘American record’ worthy of an in-depth discussion. Indeed, in contrast with other leaders of Zionism and the Yishuv, Ben-Gurion, as his foremost biographer Shabtai Teveth has noted, had direct experience of America and American Jewry. From May 1915 to May 1918, important years in his personal life and political development, he lived in the United States as a Allon Gal is Professor of History at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba.


political exile. Most instructively, the compassionate socialist leader deeply appreciated, although he did not emotionally identify with, the American pioneers despite their capitalist philosophy. The free, bold spirit of the settlers and their epic constructive endeavour against so many odds deeply impressed him. As he wrote in his diary: ‘We, who seek to build a new land, amidst ruins and desolation, should see how the persecuted Sons of England established a rich and powerful state, first in the world for its resources and creative powers.’1 Ben-Gurion was taken with, to put it in his own words, the ‘bustling, energetic, materialistic, and pulsing modern life of that most developed and democratic of nations.’ The pioneering vistas, coupled as they were with democratic qualities and the promise of prosperity, were eagerly embraced by the Labour Zionist leader. When Ben-Gurion wrote these lines he was about 30 years old, serious and mature enough to mean what he thoughtfully recorded in his diary. Moreover, he married an American citizen (Paula Monbaz) in what was to become a stable and long marriage that lasted until his wife’s last day. Another factor that decisively worked to sustain an ‘American element’ in Ben-Gurion’s make-up was the success of the mass-democratic political trend in that country with which he was associated. The growth and accomplishments of the American Jewish Congress, a movement in which Ben-Gurion actively participated, are highly relevant. The movement began after the First World War with a Zionist initiative, demanded the assembling of a democratic Jewish congress in the United States, and eventually represented the American Jewish community in the Peace Conference in Paris (this version of American Jewish Congress existed until 1920). Most significantly, Ben-Gurion learned from the emergence of the Congress movement and its political achievements the power and effectiveness of mass political organization in the American set-up. Throughout his life, Ben-Gurion allocated much time to reading books. Now, during his years in the United States he devoted many hours to reading in the reputed Public Library of New York City. In this habit, incidentally, he was not unique among his socialist-Zionist colleagues, as more than a few of them attended the library if not for pure reading, at least for socializing. However, BenGurion did read diligently there and highly pertinent for our theme is that he read extensively works on American history and politics, American parties and democracy, and, even more intriguing, ‘practical guidebooks on the technique of mass mobilization, textbooks for organizational work, etc.’ This choice of reading material astounded some of his more doctrinaire colleagues, who expected him to delve in his free time into the classics of socialism, MarxistZionism, class warfare theories, and the like.2 Ben-Gurion’s years in the United States coincided in part with the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, the first conspicuously pro-Zionist president in American history. No less important perhaps for Ben-Gurion than Wilson’s endorsement of the Balfour Declaration was his appointment of Henry Morgenthau as ambassador to Constantinopole (with the blessing that any improvement he achieved for the Jewish community in Eretz Israel would be a credit to

BEN-GURION’S ZIONIST FOREIGN POLICY 13

America). And most important of all was the nomination, in the face of bitter reactionary opposition, of the first Jew to the Supreme Court—and not only a Jew but the Zionist and progressive pro-labour leader Louis D.Brandeis. BenGurion was duly impressed.3 All in all, the personal and public experiences of Ben-Gurion in the United States, accompanied as they were by his persistent study of American democracy and politics, were a formative factor. The openness and built-in opportunities in American public life came to be an enduring component in his political mind. Finally, it is not by chance that it was in the United States that Ben-Gurion began to overshadow his solemn political partner Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (the second president of Israel, following Weizmann’s death in 1952). Ben-Gurion’s bold and sophisticated use of American openness and public opinion obviously helped to make him the foremost Zionist labour leader. Back in Palestine, when he led the Histadrut (General Federation of Jewish Labour) between 1920 and 1935, Ben-Gurion became the architect of its intensive contacts with the Jewish and general labour movement in the United States. Typical of his political state of mind, Ben-Gurion visited America quite frequently: from November 1930 to January 1931, and every two years from the time when he joined the Jewish Agency Executive in 1933 until the outbreak of the Second World War. These visits were associated with great efforts and, indeed, presented a certain mindset, which is so relevant for our discussion. This ‘American bent’, interestingly enough, fell in line with Ben-Gurion’s well-known Palestine-centrism. Unlike the philo-British Weizmann, Ben-Gurion was rather ‘open-ended’ in the international arena. It seems fair to conclude that he conceived international alignments from a Palestinian—utilitarian and flexible —vantage point. This in turn means that he had a variety of foreign-policy orientations ‘in stock’, of which the American option came to be a solid and promising avenue.4 Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the leader of the New Zionist Organization (1935), who bears some similarity to Ben-Gurion, also conducted a rather flexible Zionist foreign policy. He even came to the United States (in March 1940) to harness American Jewry’s support for the creation of a Jewish army (his untimely death occurred there several months later). But Jabotinsky’s political horizons narrowed his perception of the American option. Quintessentially European (that is, Eastern or ‘Continental’) in his background and contacts, he was rather confined to the ‘old world’ in his strategy and was convinced that pressure from the East European countries (which wanted to get rid of their Jews) would impose a pro-Zionist solution on Britain. Moreover, his understanding of the United States was rather superficial. In his half-baked ‘American recipe’, the democratic and pluralistic nature of the US was marginalized. And this disadvantage made his course unacceptable to the typical American mind, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. It is no accident that Jabotinsky’s Revisionist movement was insignificant in American Zionism for a long time.5


In contrast to Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion—thoroughly democratic in his philosophy and an enthusiastic admirer of Western civilization—viewed the English-speaking peoples as the best carriers of this classic world legacy. He was never ‘anti-British’ in ideology or in politics, and even seriously considered the British parliamentary system as the modus operandi for the future Jewish state.6 However, in the decade discussed in this article, when the problem was the very survival of the Zionist enterprise, his acute interest was in America and the American democratic polity’s relevance for that survival. As we have seen, even during his earliest encounter with the United States Ben-Gurion considered it to have an especially dynamic, democratic tradition. Now, this belief had been vindicated to become politically most meaningful. As he told the National Council of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) in January 1941: ‘The real spirit of American democracy and of Jewish democracy… are one.’ Furthermore, Ben-Gurion believed that American democracy had a genuine potential for advancing minorities and small nations, and that with the realization of this potential, Zionism too would flourish. He reckoned that just as Irish Americans mobilized American public opinion and gained American support for an independent Ireland, so too could the Jews succeed, by democratic popular pressure, in mobilizing decisive support for the creation of a Jewish state. Once democratic-pluralistic America was ‘loyal to itself’, it would eventually support the Zionist cause.7 This keen interest in democratic America fitted in neatly with Ben-Gurion’s Zionist philosophy. As he told a Histadrut seminar in April 1941: There is an external precondition for a Zionist policy—democracy. A Zionist policy is inconceivable under dictatorship… In Russia, Germany, and Italy… Jews ceased to be a factor, and these countries ceased to be an address for Zionist policy… Wherever you do not have free speech, free thought, free press, free communications, free entrance and free exit— there is no possibility whatsoever for the implementation of Zionist policy… Zionist policy is based upon the action of the masses—upon Jewish masses and other nations’ masses … Zionism is built upon the fact that part of the world is democratic, that it is possible to act there via public information, that there is room for appeal, that it is possible to argue, to morally lecture and to morally criticize. That is, the moral factor is strong or weak, but it does exist, and the government is dependent on the people… And must daily respond to questions and justify itself.8 In line with this reasoning, Ben-Gurion sought an alliance with a democratic world power because of the crucial Zionist need for sympathetic backing, but underlying this move was a far-reaching social-political perspective. He believed profoundly that interaction with nations of rich democratic culture was desirable to ensure the proper internal development of a Jewish Israel. Hence he was strongly opposed to a struggle for independence based on sheer military power,


without international backing, as advocated, for example, by the Irgun Zva’i Le’umi (backed by the Revisionists). It was not only that he regarded this form of struggle as politically counterproductive, but he also considered such a course as carrying a high potential for internal conflict. That is why he often emphasized that ‘the framework of Zionist policy is not confined to the borders of Eretz Israel’ and that the movement should appeal to the ‘whole family of nations of the world… Zionist policy is founded on the relationship of the Jewish people with the human race, with the community of the peoples of the world.’9 Time and again Ben-Gurion underscored the inherent connection he believed to exist between the concept of ‘Israel, a people that dwells alone’ and the phenomenon of Jewish terrorism. His concern with the potentially negative impact of the extremely strenuous efforts for independence on the nature of Jewish society in Eretz Israel was a permanent factor in his impulse to cultivate an alliance with a new democratic world power in lieu of Britain. He observed the advent of a tendency of Jewish isolationism especially in times of crisis. Thus he stated boldly a few days after the outbreak of the Second World War: The Jews in the Land of Israel have different options: feebleness, defeatism, submission, servility, servitude to an oppressor. And there is the opposite way: arrogance, emulation of Arab terrorism or the Nazi methods, abuse and cruel treatment of the weak, domestic and external terrorism, wild hooliganism. These two ways should be dismissed from the Zionist perspective. A nation never dwells alone, even such a powerful nation as the English one, and ten times so a small nation like ourselves. Even when we will have a sovereign state in the borders of the historical Land of Israel, we shall have constant interaction with the world surrounding us, with the Middle Eastern countries, with Europe, and with America, and we should direct our deeds according to this historical balance.10 Ben-Gurion could relate rather easily his kind of Zionism—Eretz Israel-centred, modern and Bible-oriented—to major trends in American Zionism. Abhorring yidishkeyt (diasporic folklore) and rejecting Gegenwartsarbeit (Zionist involvement in Jewish community life in the diaspora), he related himself comfortably to the new trend of ‘acculturated’ American Zionism led by personalities such as Louis D.Brandeis, Julian Mack and Robert Szold. When American Zionism was torn between the more European-style camp led by Louis Lipsky and the ‘Brandeis camp’ (during the 1920s and beyond), Ben-Gurion kept constant contact with the latter group (while Weizmann most strongly sided with the ‘Lipsky camp’). It was the ‘Brandeis camp’ that eventually won, and in 1930 Brandeis-admirer Robert Szold— with whom Ben-Gurion closely and consistently co-operated—became the president of the ZOA. Ben-Gurion’s emphasis on practical work in Eretz Israel helped him enormously to cultivate understanding not just with the ‘more genuine’ American Zionism of the Brandeis stripe, but also—and most significantly —


with the largest and most stable of all Zionist organizations in the United States, Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Hadassah emphasized practical work in Eretz Israel, and Ben-Gurion, who greatly favoured this course, developed close working relations with it. His firm trust in the ability of American Zionism to mobilize American Jewry, and eventually the general public at large, on behalf of ‘the cause’ is largely explicable in his understanding of the nature of genuine American Zionism in general and of Hadassah in particular. His analysis of American Zionism and Hadassah, and his consequent ‘pro-American’ optimism, is vividly illustrated by his summary (in the autumn of 1942) of his recent political work in America: When war broke out the Zionist movement was not ready for this [political] task… Zionism became almost emptied of any concrete activity. This description does not include one branch, the largest of the Zionist movement—Hadassah, which has a certain enterprise [in Eretz Israel]. Although at the beginning it was narrow, apparently philanthropic, the concrete interest in its endeavour brought [Hadassah] closer to Eretz Israel, especially after it began to deal with the Youth Aliya, an endeavour that by itself imbued Hadassah with a new Zionist spirit… Hadassah is, to a large extent, the key to American Zionism… [In October 1940] it seemed to me… that the main thing to do was to …give the American Zionist movement political consciousness and political instincts, and to provide it with a political program and statesmanlike course… I began [to do so] with Hadassah. I knew that his was the key. The movement is large, and it is very close to events in Eretz Israel, and the interest in this country’s [Eretz Israel’s] affairs is greater here [in Hadassah] than in all the other circles.11 Ben-Gurion began to pursue an American-oriented Zionist foreign policy during the autumn of 1938, in response to the British retreat from the 1937 partition plan accepted by the Zionists. He then travelled to the United States, and in January 1939 tried (independently of Weizmann) to mobilize American Jewish opinion against Britain’s increasingly anti-Zionist policy. It may well be that the seeds of the now famous ‘American Jewish lobby’ (in the broad sense, as a democratic mass phenomenon) were then sowed. Ben-Gurion’s second concentrated effort to reshape Zionist foreign policy occurred during his visit to the United States at the beginning of October 1940, a visit which lasted three and a half months. It was during this period that he forged an alliance with the militants of the ZOA—Abba Hillel Silver, Emanuel Neumann and Henry Montor. This circle felt humiliated by the anti-Jewish policies of the American Red Cross and of leading officials in the State Department, and was deeply frustrated by Zionist ‘traditional-behind-the-scenes’ efforts (known by the negative term shtadlanut). These personalities decided in summer-autumn 1940 to begin building, in a conspicuously democratic way,


from bottom up, Jewish and pro-Jewish factors to assertively and dynamically work in pluralistic America. This particular timing—autumn 1940—was highly critical, not merely because of the ‘pre-election months’, but because it was then that the concept of ‘Jewish influence’ in American political life began to strike root. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, American support for the establishment of the state of Israel in 1947–48 was not a mere result of successful contemporary lobbying, but rather the culmination of some ten years’ systematic, democratic and political-educational work aimed at convincing American Jewry, the American people and American public opinion of the legitimate rights of the people and the justice of the Zionist cause. Silver’s Republicanism, or for that matter the ‘advantageous’ bipartisan politics of the Silver-Neumann-Montor style, are merely aspects of this historic process, the significance of which was rooted in its open-educational nature, a course to publicly enlighten America—Jewish and non-Jewish audiences alike—about American moral affinity with the Jewish cause and its long-range interest in a democratic Jewish Palestine. Ben-Gurion watched closely the American elections for the presidency at the end of 1940, and the victory of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt over Republican Wendell Willkie (supported, according to Ben-Gurion’s view at the time, by the reactionary super-rich) strengthened his faith both in American democracy and in the political potential of American Jewry. This strategic conclusion derived from Ben-Gurion’s—now sharpened and deepened— democratic political approach: I have come to the conclusion [he reported on his recent American visit to the Jewish Agency Executive in February 1941] that the way to win the American government is to [first] win the people, win public opinion; and the American people can be won… We must mobilize the American people, the press, members of Congress (the Senate and the House of Representatives), the churches, the labour leaders, the intellectuals; and when they are with us—the government will be with us, and Roosevelt will help us. The road to Roosevelt passes through the American people.12 Ben-Gurion concluded even then that although the Jews of America— more than 90 per cent of whom voted for Roosevelt—comprised only five million of 130 million, ‘they could influence public life, the press, the working masses, intellectual life… Under certain conditions [the Jewish constituency] can be the decisive factor.’13 Again, the important point here is not merely the recognition of the ‘American Jewish vote’, and not even the decisive weight Ben-Gurion attributed to this factor, but the pattern and content of the building of ‘Jewish influence’ in the United States. And the pattern was a clearly democratic one, grassroots-based, an ‘open-to-the-sun’ endeavour; while the content was the Jews’ right to develop their own secure and democratic state.


An important step in this direction was the resolution adopted in January 1941 at the conference of the United Palestine Appeal (UPA), led by Silver and much inspired by Ben-Gurion. The democratic motif in the widely distributed UPA declaration was clear and unequivocal. The establishment of the Jewish Commonwealth was presented as the culmination of the hoped-for victory of the anti-Nazi Allied countries. It is worthwhile quoting this part in full: The Conference gives its unqualified endorsement and complete support to the policy established and pursued by the Government of the United States of extending maximum aid to Great Britain and its Allies in their struggle to insure the survival of democracy, freedom and justice throughout the world. The Conference expresses the hope that the victory of the Allied cause will vindicate and permanently establish the principles of individual and national freedom, equality and independence, and, accordingly, that termination of the war will result in: (a) equal individual and group rights for Jews in all countries where they reside, and the eradication of all racial, religious and national discrimination in any form; (b) the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish Commonwealth.14 Instructively, Ben-Gurion and Silver began at about that time to describe Jewish independence and sovereignty as a ‘Commonwealth’, a term that was purposeful for two reasons. First, this was the term used by Woodrow Wilson in supporting the Balfour Declaration, and by using it the Zionist leadership signalled that it was casting the movement’s lot in with the United States. Second, by emphatically referring to a ‘Commonwealth’, the Zionists promised—for the Western world and particularly for the American public, and for themselves as well —that they were going to establish, much in the image of the existing Yishuv, a democratic, conspicuously enlightened state. The 1940 American elections were a milestone in Ben-Gurion’s political path in yet another way. After the elections, President Roosevelt strengthened in word and deed American involvement on the side of the Allied powers. Contemporary political analysts saw that the United States would, in the not too distant future, join the war against the Axis. Furthermore, after the elections the world could more clearly discern the economic surge of the United States since 1939. This dynamic development was both quantitative and qualitative—a vast surge of resources and innovative technology that took place persistently. It thus became clear that America would have a decisive voice both in the war’s conduct and in attendant political developments. This powerful development and its international implications worked strongly to sustain Ben-Gurion’s concentration on this great, dynamic and democratic power. Following his above visit, Ben-Gurion was to return to the United States for his longest and most crucial visit, from November 1941 to September 1942. The renowned philosopher Isaiah Berlin, a Weizmann admirer who at the time served


as first secretary in the British embassy in Washington, described his contemporary impression of Ben-Gurion: I had a long and fascinating conversation with Ben-Gurion on a Sunday in December 1941; so long and so fascinating that when we rose from lunch it was well after 5 P.M.; and it was only then that I learnt from the cab driver that the news of Pearl Harbour had been announced some hours before… He [Ben-Gurion] put no faith in princes, neither in Churchill nor in Roosevelt nor in any Gentile leader of party or country. He believed that the Jews of Palestine would by themselves be able to repel unavoidable Arab attacks, at least for a time; and he put great faith in the support of the Jews of America: the Jewish masses…fired by the image of an independent state, would prove far stouter-hearted and more effective allies than the powerful politicians whom Weizmann might persuade or charm. When Ben-Gurion spoke in this vein, in short, sharp bursts, punctuated by even more intense, absorbed, brooding silences, it was as if the apocalyptic vision by which he was possessed outran his powers of expression. Jewish opinion must be mobilized everywhere, and particularly in the United States; that alone would help.15 It was indeed in this spirit, and with American involvement in the global conflict strengthening his hand for mobilizing public opinion, that the indefatigable BenGurion promoted his political strategy during these long months. Between 9 and 11 May 1942 a conference of American Zionists took place at the Biltmore Hotel in New York. Almost 600 delegates participated in the gathering, including about 500 from America, as well as leaders of the world movement. The participation of the president of the World Zionist Organization and the chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive in the thick of the world war lent the conference the character of a world Zionist convention. Notwithstanding the joint co-sponsorship of Weizmann and Ben-Gurion, the conference bore from the start the stamp of the latter’s strategy, due especially to Neumann and Silver. Neumann entitled his speech ‘Winning American Support’, and spoke emphatically about Jewish democratic pressure ‘from bottom up.’ Silver likewise emphasized the potential centrality of American Jewry and the Zionist need to enlist it in exerting pressure on American policy. He seconded Neumann’s thesis that there was no future for an Anglo-linked Zionist policy and all but called for breaking with Britain, whose empire was on the brink of dissolution. While Weizmann took pains to stress the need for keeping faith in Britain, Ben-Gurion, through a forceful and upbeat address on the democratic Yishuv’s strength, concluded with a call for the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish commonwealth, evoking almost word for word the above-mentioned UPA January 1941 conference declaration. Indeed, the decisions of the Biltmore conference clearly bore the fruits of the Ben-Gurion-Silver line.


The conference also strongly raised the democratic banner: the Zionists are proud of the democratic Jewish community in Eretz Israel, hope for the democratic nations’ victory, and envision the future Jewish sovereign entity as interwoven into the fabric of the new free world. It is instructive to read the declaration that accompanied the Zionist leadership from that time to the birth of the state of Israel and beyond: The Conference declares that the new world order that will follow victory cannot be established on foundations of peace, justice and equality, unless the problem of Jewish homelessness is finally solved. The Conference demands that the gates of Palestine be opened; that the Jewish Agency be vested with the necessary authority for up-building the country, including the development of its unoccupied and uncultivated lands; and that Palestine be established as a Jewish commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new democratic world. Then and only then will the age-old wrong to the Jewish people be righted.16 The Biltmore platform, which was strongly and persistently acclaimed by BenGurion, came to represent an innovative, American-oriented, mass-democratic form of policy. It seems, however, that this process began in earnest later that year, perhaps in October, when the now politically militant ZOA and the more assertive Hadassah adopted the Biltmore resolutions at their conventions. About a year later (August 1943) the Biltmore decisions were adopted by the decisive majority of the American Jewish Conference, which represented roughly American Jewry in its entirety. Ben-Gurion’s drive for a ‘pro-American’ international empowerment was by now subtly intertwined with his readiness for the partition of Palestine. Actually, he held this view as early as 1937, at that time in connection with a ‘pro-British foreign policy’. Broadly speaking, working with a democratic world power inevitably implied that the Jewish national movement could not gain the whole of Eretz Israel as some parts of it were populated by Arabs. Indeed, Ben-Gurion’s international orientation was associated, allusive as it was at the time, with a readiness to partition Eretz Israel between Jews and Arabs. A democratic leader of Ben-Gurion’s stature could not aspire to bring about a Jewish state with the crucial help of a democratic world power while ignoring basic democratic rules in Jewish-Arab relations. The quintessentially democratic Zionist course was that—thanks to the processes of immigration and settlement—Jews would regain the majority in their historic homeland. And for the 18 million-strong world Jewry (in 1939)— most of whom lived under Nazi rule, a communist reign with antisemitic excesses, and other brutal and oppressive regimes—Eretz Israel offered the only potential haven. However, creating a haven for even a part of these millions in the near future, coupled as it was with a fundamental democratic impulse, caused Ben-


Gurion to constantly leave an option for the partition solution. This statesmanship-like approach encountered stiff opposition in the 1940s within the Zionist movement.17 Discussion of this protracted rift goes beyond the scope of this essay. It is essential for our story though to indicate that already on the eve of Ben-Gurion’s 1940–41 visit to America he ‘diplomatically’ rejected all ‘last-minute’ local pressures to definitely commit himself to a perspective of ‘the whole of Jewish Eretz Israel.’ Interestingly enough, it was in Eretz Israel that Ben-Gurion’s ‘worldwide grand politics’ met rather stiff opposition, with the strongest opposition coming from ‘leftist Zionism’, in which two groups rejected, for opposite reasons, the Biltmore plan. One of these was the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza’ir Marxist Zionist group (with its well-organized kibbutz movement), an advocate of bi-nationalism that interpreted the Programme’s Jewish sovereignty as despair of reconciliation with the Palestinian Arabs. At the other pole was the ‘security-activist’ Ahdut HaAvoda, with the largest kibbutz movement, passionate to settle the entire Land of Israel and fearing that a ‘hasty Jewish independence’ would force the Zionists into a ‘small state’ in just a part of Eretz Israel. (Ahdut Ha-Avoda’s leaders rightly suspected that the Biltmore Programme asserted the right to reconstitute the whole country as a Jewish commonwealth as a legal rather than a political claim.) Curiously, these two contradictory movements were united by intensive ‘anti-Americanism’. A partition of Eretz Israel, with an American endorsement, implicit and vague as it was in 1942–43, still evoked extremely bitter feelings among proclaimed leftist Zionists. Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair loathed capitalist America, to which they attributed undue war-mongering intervention, while the ‘populist’ Ahdut Ha-Avoda abhorred America as an imperialist power whose policy contradicted the genuinely patriotic aspirations of the Jewish national liberation movement.18 These criticisms in the labour movement notwithstanding, Ben-Gurion forcefully advanced his course as a basically ‘pro-Jewish’ (rather than ‘proAmerican’) one. He spoke vehemently in the name of ‘life-or-death’ Jewish interests and after-state Jewish empowerment. Zionists should become (in addition to being a power in Eretz Israel) a world-appreciated political factor, and they should—creatively, dynamically and democratically—use the opportune circumstances, he insisted. Eventually Ben-Gurion won the debate (during October—November 1942), as the majority of both ‘his’ Labour Party and of the Zionist Executive voted his way. The Biltmore Programme (subsequently renamed the Jerusalem Programme) thus became the official policy of the Zionist movement On the other side of the ocean, the Biltmore course had fewer difficulties. To be sure, the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Labour withdrew their endorsement of the American Jewish Conference and thus somewhat weakened the programme’s impetus. However, the Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs exerted effective pressure on the administration. In


the autumn of 1943 this committee was reorganized as the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC), with Silver as the actual leader. His leadership and Neumann’s systematic and ambitious work from 1943 to 1949 aroused public and congressional support and exercised considerable influence on the shaping of American foreign policy regarding Palestine.19 The Zionist congress which met in December 1946 failed to approve Weizmann’s policy and to elect him to the presidency (the office remained vacant). At the same time, the Zionists, as well as Jewish and non-Jewish constituencies in the United States, persistently pressed along public-democratic patterns, calling for national justice for the long-suffering Jewish people. By the time the Zionist congress took place, President Harry S.Truman was already set on a course that eventually led to a pro-Zionist solution to the Anglo-Arab-Jewish entanglement.20 In the spring of 1946 Truman recommended the admission to Palestine of 100, 000 Jewish refugees (or displaced persons—DPs—as they were officially called) and offered ships and funds for their transfer. In October he issued a statement calling for consideration of Zionist aspirations in Palestine, and in the next months he became attuned to the position of supporting the establishment of a Jewish state in part of the country. When the British government submitted the Palestine problem to the United Nations in early 1947, American policy on the issue was still ambivalent. In fact, there was much anti-Zionist content in the official American position, which originated in the State Department. At any rate, on 11 October 1947 the American delegation endorsed the scheme to partition Palestine. Moreover, the US representatives solicited pro-partition votes among UN member states and were thus partly instrumental in securing a two-thirds majority in the crucial vote on 29 November 1947. Again, in early 1948 there was a reversal of the declared American position and pressure was even exerted to postpone the declaration of statehood, but to no avail. The state of Israel was formally proclaimed on the scheduled date of 14 May 1948 by Ben-Gurion. The Israeli provisional government was recognized by President Truman on the same day ‘as the de facto authority of the State of Israel.’ This recognition was followed on 22 June by an exchange of ‘special diplomatic representatives’, and on 23 February 1949, by the appointment of a full-fledged ambassador, de jure recognition of Israel was extended. While there is little doubt that ‘high-echelon’ diplomacy and Weizmann’s timely personal intervention had an important role in obtaining Truman’s support, these achievements would have remained largely ineffectual without the decade-long intensive effort of American Zionists to instill pride in American Jewry to assertively stand for Jewish interests, and to gain the sympathy of the American public at large. It was precisely the new, self-assured Jewish vote potential and the sympathetic general public opinion which pleaded with the White House to do justice to the Jewish people, that enabled Weizmann’s ‘personal contacts’ to bear fruit.


It was free, pluralistic America that enabled its Jewry to actively help establish the democratic Jewish state. American Jews had an important role in leading ‘illegal’ immigrant ships to Eretz Israel, and American volunteers could participate in Israel’s War of Independence without losing their American citizenship. Indeed, American volunteers, Jews and non-Jews, participated in this war, particularly in the air force, the navy, artillery and communication. Although the US avoided selling weapons to Israel during the War of Independence and for several years after that, it did extend some economic help and allowed American Jewry to sustain generously the creation and durability of the new state. It was funds originating in the United States that made possible the purchase of ships for the ‘illegal’ immigration to Eretz Israel, for the crucial arms deal with Czechoslovakia, and for the airplanes that carried the vital supply. As early as 1949 Israel received a loan from the governmental ExportImport Bank to the tune of $100 million. During its first years, Israeli GNP grew at a pace of some 10 per cent per annum, most of the import of capital to the nascent state coming from a variety of American sources (governmental, private, Jewish and non-Jewish). The United Jewish Appeal (established in 1938) continued to sustain the Yishuv and young Israel—crucial economic support, especially for the success of the War of Independence and the absorption of the flood of Jewish refugees and immigrants arriving at the shores of the Jewish state. To conclude, the democratic factor played an important and multifaceted role in the immense 1948–49 Zionist achievement: that of a democratic and pluralistic America which constituted the ‘positive background’ to the entire drama; the democratic mass activity of the Zionist and the Jewish masses; the pro-Zionist activity of numerous democratic and liberal forces in American society and polity; and, finally, the appealing democratic nature of the Yishuv and the future Jewish state. During the first decade of Israel’s existence, Ben-Gurion’s foreign policy retained its deeply engrained democratic credo, rejecting all shades of fascism and communism that appeared in Israel and casting the lot of the Jewish state with the free world in an unmovable fashion. As Ben-Gurion explained to a leader of the American Catholic Church who visited Israel in 1949, ‘The essence of our special national heritage could never accommodate itself to a system which denied essential human liberties….’ And to the US ambassador to Tel Aviv, who feared Israel’s possible alignment with the Soviet Union, Ben-Gurion promised that ‘Rome would become Communist before Jerusalem.’21 Reflecting Ben-Gurion’s basic philosophy, these assertions also concluded the fateful—and successful—decade of his political work in America. The shortlived Soviet support during Israel’s struggle for independence did little to impress the Zionist leader (though he of course always had in mind the fate of the large Jewish community in the Soviet Union), who was keenly aware that the birth of Israel was the result first and foremost of the Yishuv’s many decades of dedicated labour, ceaseless defensive efforts and invincible spirit. Yet Ben-


Gurion also knew, and cherished the fact, that it was the democratic world that had enabled the crucial support of Jews and non-Jews for the creation of Israel and assured its survival against heavy odds. Indeed, the strength of the Zionist movement was largely a result of its work both within and with the democraticpluralistic English-speaking world. It is no exaggeration to say that, in many crucial respects, Israel was born of the democratic victory over Fascism and Nazism. At the same time, both the advent of Israel as a democratic state and its future stability owed much to BenGurion’s foreign policy during 1938–48, which prevented the Jewish struggle for self-determination from degenerating into terrorism, violence and international isolation. Predicating his political strategy and ideological vision on a vibrant democratic Zionist tradition, Ben-Gurion energetically sought an alignment with the largest and most powerful democratic nation, not only in order to achieve Jewish independence but also to place the nascent state of Israel on firm democratic foundations. Little wonder that upon its birth, Israel issued a quintessentially democratic Proclamation of Independence, in the spirit of the 1941 UPA Conference Declaration and the 1942 Biltmore Programme. This read in part: The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.22 NOTES ‘Eretz Israel’ and ‘Palestine’ are used interchangeably in this article to denote the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river, administered by the British Mandate in 1920–48, according to the League of Nations resolution. 1. Sh. Teveth, David’s Zeal: The Life of David Ben-Gurion, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1976, Vol.I, 298ff (Hebrew). 2. Sh. Grodzensky, ‘Memories’, Davar, 27 August 1965. 3. G.Hirschler, ‘Wilson, Woodrow’, New Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, Madison, 1994, Vol.II, p.1,383. 4. A.Gal, ‘The Sources of Ben-Gurion’s American Orientation, 1938–1941’, in R.W.Zweig (ed.), David Ben-Gurion: Politics and Leadership in Israel, London and Jerusalem, 1991, pp.115–23; Y.Gorny, ‘Ben-Gurion and Weizmann During World War II’, ibid., pp.85–98.


5. J.Heller, The Birth of Israel, 1945–1949: Ben-Gurion and His Critics, Gainesville, 2000, pp.249–81. 6. Sh. Aronsohn, David Ben-Gurion: The Renaissance Leader and the Waning of an Age, Sde Boqer, Beersheba, 1999 (Hebrew), esp. chapters 1 and 2; idem, ‘David Ben-Gurion and the British Constitutional Model’, Israel Studies, Vol.III, No.2 (Fall 1998), pp.193–214. 7. A.Gal, David Ben-Gurion and the American Alignment for a Jewish State, Bloomington and Jerusalem, 1991, pp.92–8. 8. Lecture at a Histadrut seminar in Rehovot, 3–4 April 1941, Ben-Gurion Archives (BGA), # 159. 9. Ibid. 10. Remarks at a social gathering in Tel Aviv, 8 September 1939, BGA, # 159. 11. Address to Zionist Executive, Jerusalem, 15 October 1942, BGA, Addresses File. 12. Minutes of Meeting of Jewish Agency Executive, Jerusalem, 16 Feb. 1941, BGA, Protocols Files. 13. Ibid. 14. New Palestine, Vol.31, No.16 (31 Jan. 1941), p.22. 15. Zionist Politics in Wartime Washington: A Fragment of Personal Reminiscence, Jerusalem (Yaakov Herzog Memorial Lecture, Hebrew University of Jerusalem), 2 Oct. 1972. 16. New Palestine, Vol.32, No.14 (15 May 1942), p.6. 17. See I.Kolatt, ‘The Zionists Movement and the Arabs’, in J.Reinharz and A.Shapira (eds.), Essential Papers on Zionism, New York, 1996, pp.617–47; Heller, The Birth of Israel, pp.249–90; Gal, Ben-Gurion and the American Alignment, p.194ff. 18. See B.Halpern, The Idea of the Jewish State, Cambridge, MA, 1961, pp.39–47, 206–07; Heller, The Birth of Israel, pp.197–248. 19. M.I.Urofsky, We Are One! American Jewry and Israel, Garden City, 1978, 6ff. 20. M.J.Cohen, Truman and Israel, Berkeley, 1990. 21. U.Bialer, ‘Facts and Pacts: Ben-Gurion and Israel’s International Orientation, 1948– 1956’, in R.W.Zweig (ed.), David Ben-Gurion, pp.222–23. 22. ‘Declaration of Independence’, New Encyclopedia of Zionism, Vol.1, pp.318–21.

Influence and Arms: John F.Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel, 1962–1966 ABRAHAM BEN-ZVI

In reconstructing the processes by which the American-Israeli alliance was formed and consolidated, most scholars who have sought to elucidate the origins and evolution of this relationship have tended to view the Six-Day War of June 1967 and its ramifications as a trigger event which transformed at a stroke what had previously been a conflict-ridden framework (with but a few isolated and disjointed examples of intermittent and partial co-operation) into a de facto, farreaching and concrete security partnership now predicated on ‘common political, ideological, security and strategic interests.’1 Against the backdrop of these widespread interpretations, which depict the 1967 conflagration as a turning point in the history of American-Israeli relations, the following analysis2 will present a different line of argument. According to this analysis, the groundwork of the alliance between Washington and Jerusalem had been comprehensively laid well before the outbreak of hostilities on 5 June 1967. In other words, it is argued that the 1967 war merely accelerated processes that were already in progress and did not initiate the shift of American diplomacy from the perspective of viewing Israel as a strategic burden to its interests in the Middle East to the other extreme of perceiving it as a reliable asset and bulwark against the recalcitrant forces of radicalism and militancy. Thus, although the decade that preceded the Six-Day War was formative in establishing the perceptual infrastructure of the American-Israeli alliance (particularly during the period following the Jordanian crisis of July 1958, when Israel was increasingly perceived in Washington as a strategic asset to the US by virtue of its proven ability to deter effectively Egypt from completely disrupting the Middle Eastern balance of power),3 it has nonetheless received scant attention from scholars. By virtue of their relative uneventfulness, the years which separated the Sinai War of 1956 from the 1967 conflagration have been downgraded and outweighed by periods that seemed either permeated with tension and fraught with crisis and conflict, or rich in diplomatic activity and pregnant with prospects of regional accommodation.4 Largely overlooked in the existing literature was the possibility Abraham Ben-Zvi is Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University.

US ARMS SALES TO ISRAEL, 1962–66 27

that this period could still be viewed as a decade of incubation, in which the seeds of change in the intrinsic nature and basic rules of the game within the American-Israeli dyad had not only been planted, but had begun to bear fruit. As a step towards replacing some of the crude dichotomies and simplistic generalizations that still abound in the literature surveying the origins and formation of the American-Israeli alliance, the following analysis will focus on one component of the relationship, namely, the sale of American arms to Israel, which will be viewed as a representative prism or lens, through which the very essence of this informal security alliance can be comprehensively explored. Concerning the perceptual level, it is clear that the vision of Israel as a strategic asset to American regional interests had started to permeate the thinking of Washington’s high-policy elite during the second half of the 1950s. Indeed, during the period following the Sinai War of 1956 it became increasingly clear to the architects of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s foreign policy that their initial hopes of consolidating a broadly based alliance in the Middle East that would effectively deter Soviet encroachment could not be reconciled with the actual dynamics of a recalcitrant region, whose main actors remained indifferent to American priorities and objectives.5 As the hope of achieving Arab unity and a multilateral security alliance against the Soviet threat faded in the face of incessant inter-Arab rivalries and unabated hostility towards the West, there was little point in persisting any longer with the American effort to secure Arab goodwill by remaining committed to an accommodative course towards such regional powers as Egypt and Iraq at the direct expense of Israel (which was denied American arms throughout the 1950s). Indeed, with the vision of Arab defection to the Soviet orbit gradually becoming an acutely menacing reality during this period, despite the early propensity of the Eisenhower administration to approach Israel with unabated reservations (and to endorse most Arab positions in the Arab-Israeli conflict), President Eisenhower became increasingly predisposed, during his second term in the White House, to reassess his original view of Israel as a strategic liability and an impediment to Washington’s regional plans. A major precipitant along the road of this perceptual change was the July 1958 Jordanian crisis.6 In this crisis, Israel was called upon for the first time to contribute to the operation, designed to rescue King Hussein of Jordan from the surrounding forces of radical Arab nationalism, which posed a direct and immediate challenge to his kingdom in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy (and the subsequent suspension of all Iraqi oil supplies to Jordan). And although the role which Israel agreed to perform in this operation was essentially passive (the Ben-Gurion government permitted the British and American airlift to Jordan, which consisted of vital strategic materials and 2,200 British paratroopers, to use its air space en route to Amman) and may appear marginal at first glance, it was viewed in Washington as a major strategic contribution to its effort to prevent a drastic disruption of the Middle Eastern balance of political and military power in the wake of the Iraqi revolution.7


Indeed, given the unwillingness of any other regional power (primarily Saudi Arabia) to co-operate in this operation, in the aftermath of the July crisis Israel emerged as the only regional party prepared to take risks (in its relations with the Soviet Union, which was highly critical of the Israeli decision) for the sake of ‘blocking the spread of the [Iraqi] coup to the Western sector of the IraqiJordanian union’ and thus of ‘relieving the situation in the area.’8 This revised image was further reinforced during the period that immediately followed the Jordanian crisis by the American recognition that Israel could play a useful balancing role vis-à-vis Egypt and thus help deter President Nasser from any direct effort to topple the Jordanian regime.9 Although this emerging perception of Israel as a key local actor capable of deterring and restraining Egypt came increasingly to dominate the thinking of the Eisenhower administration in subsequent months, it did not lead the president to abandon his longstanding policy of refusing to supply sophisticated weapons systems to Israel. Thus, while the administration became convinced in the aftermath of the turbulent days of July 1958 that the Israeli threat to use force if King Hussein were overthrown had indeed restrained Egypt and effectively blocked Nasserist expansion, a gap continued to exist between perception and actual behaviour. Indeed, the American-Israeli alliance remained essentially embryonic during the subsequent four years. Faced with the unwavering opposition of the Department of State, which remained adamant in its refusal to reassess the traditional American arms-sales policy (which ruled out the supply of advanced weapons systems to Israel), both the Eisenhower presidency and (initially) the Kennedy administration opted to avoid the conclusion of a major arms deal with the Ben-Gurion government. It was only in the summer of 1962 that this gap between image and actual policy finally disappeared. The sale in August 1962 of six batteries of Hawk antiaircraft missiles to Israel finally translated the largely unstructured and latent partnership into a concrete form of collaboration, thus predicating the AmericanIsraeli framework upon far less amorphous and opaque premises. Arms sales was not the only manifestation of the fact that, during the years that preceded the Six-Day War, explicit, tangible and far-reaching forms of strategic co-operation came increasingly to replace the earlier policy of highlyconstrained, transient and mostly covert collaboration. Thus, in April 1963, in the face of yet another challenge, engineered by proNasser forces in Jordan, to the Hashemite Kingdom, new and unprecedented forms of strategic co-operation (which included the exchange of intelligence and the joint preparation of contingency plans) were initiated between the Kennedy administration and the Ben-Gurion government. These measures were further reinforced by the president’s reliance—in a far more systematic, direct and explicit way than was the case in the July 1958 Jordanian crisis—on the Israeli threat to occupy the West Bank of the Jordan in the event of the collapse of the Hashemite Kingdom as the most effective means of deterring Egypt from openly intervening in the intensifying civil strife in Jordan.10


Similarly, on 13 November 1963 new ground rules for the American-Israeli framework were established with the inauguration in Washington of the first formal dialogue on regional security issues. Although these discussions exposed major differences between Washington and Jerusalem on such issues as the military significance of Egypt’s missile development programme, the magnitude of the Arab military threat to Israel, and the nature of the American commitment to Israel’s security, it did result in an understanding concerning the Israeli need to modernize its tank force.11 And while the Kennedy administration remained opposed during these discussions to the idea of granting formal security guarantees to Israel, it reiterated its commitment (which was most clearly articulated by President Kennedy in his 27 December 1962 meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir) to come ‘to Israel’s assistance if it were the victim of aggression.’12 Notwithstanding these indications of convergence and compatibility and the fact that the conceptual infrastructure of the alliance, which had been laid in the aftermath of the July 1958 Jordanian crisis, began to bear concrete fruit during the years preceding the 1967 war in such forms as joint crisis-management activities in the Jordanian zone and the bilateral review of the regional strategic landscape, it is in the field of arms procurement that this change in the essence of the relationship became most apparent prior to the Six-Day War. Indeed, whereas all other manifestations and indications of strategic cooperation were ad hoc in nature, having been precipitated by the transient exigencies of a turbulent and dynamic regional setting, the sale of American arms to Israel on three occasions in 1962–66 had a lasting impact on this framework by virtue of establishing and institutionalizing new rules of conduct and behavioural patterns which amounted to a de facto security partnership. These three instances, which fundamentally transformed the nature of the relationship, were the August 1962 Hawk sale, the July 1965 agreement between the Johnson administration and the Eshkol government, which committed the US to sell 210 M-48A Patton tanks to Israel, and the May 1966 agreement between the two governments on the sale of 48 Skyhawk fighter-bombers to Israel. And while these three agreements were precipitated by protracted, and occasionally heated, bargaining which exposed serious disagreements between some of the participants in the process (particularly within the Department of State), the accumulated outcome of this bargaining was the emergence of a new American arms-sales posture towards Israel more than a year before the outbreak of the June 1967 War, which would considerably limit the margin of manoeuvrability and latitude of choice of future administrations in approaching the Arab-Israeli predicament. The bargaining over the sale to Israel of advanced weapons systems, which culminated in three major agreements prior to 1967, resulted not only in the de facto abandonment of a central tenet of the traditional American policy towards the Middle East, but in the recognition—which came to pervade official Washington—that the cluster of domestic considerations which were patterned


on the ‘special relationship paradigm’13 between Washington and Jerusalem comprised a legitimate part of the negotiating agenda. Thus, whereas a decade earlier President Eisenhower and his foreign-policy team had remained adamant in their refusal ‘to be influenced at all by political considerations’,14 which they viewed as incompatible with the national interest in the shaping of American Middle-East policy, the picture changed dramatically in the early 1960s, with official and unofficial representatives of the ‘special relationship’ orientation becoming an integral and significant factor in the bargaining structure and process. Contrary to President Eisenhower’s unwavering determination ‘to handle our affairs’ during the period immediately preceding the presidential elections of November 1956, ‘exactly as though we did not have a Jew in America’,15 President Kennedy, as soon as he entered the White House, moved to legitimize this ‘domestic constraint’ by appointing a prominent representative of the special relationship paradigm, Myer Feldman, as his Deputy Special Counsel, namely, as his political liaison to the American-Jewish community. Less than two years after his appointment, in the summer of 1962, Feldman emerged as a central actor in the intra-governmental bargaining over the sale of the Hawk missile to Israel, playing a crucial role in modifying, for the first time, the traditional, and deeply ingrained, American posture of refusing to sell advanced weapons systems to Israel. Irrevocably committed to a cluster of domestic and electoral considerations, which were inextricably related to the basic premises of the special-relationship orientation, Deputy Special Counsel Feldman therefore provides a quintessential illustration of a domestically-oriented administration official and decision-maker who continuously sought to employ such mechanisms as electoral politics as a means of engendering pro-Israeli policies. In addition to the group of domestically-oriented administration officials, who were motivated by an unwavering commitment to Israel’s continued national existence, integrity and security, two other groups participated (in various forms) in the decision-making process over the sale to Israel of the Hawk missile, the M-48A Patton tank and the Skyhawk fighter-bomber. These groups may be termed the traditionalists and the pragmatists. While the successive bargaining games between these three groups were occasionally highly competitive and fierce, they ultimately ended in victories for proponents of the sale of arms to Israel, who managed to form majority coalitions for their advocated course. Unlike the domestically-oriented participants in the process, who were exclusively motivated by an abiding desire to translate the widespread and pervasive sentiments of identification with, and sympathy for, Israel in American public opinion, into well-defined and concrete policies, programmes and pressures (which would enable the president and his party to win the Jewish vote in presidential or congressional elections), the traditionalist group of policymakers and administration officials consistently sought to predicate the American arms-sales posture exclusively on regional and global strategic and


political considerations while remaining oblivious to the requirements of the domestic American scene. This traditionalist group, whose core comprised the Middle Eastern experts of the Department of State, strongly supported Washington’s traditional arms sales policy, which, as has been indicated, was based on the innate reluctance of successive administrations to become major arms suppliers to the Middle East. Convinced that the supply of American arms to Israel was bound to have serious repercussions across the Arab world and jeopardize vital American security interests, policy-makers who belonged to this group remained irreconcilably opposed, throughout the 1950s and part of the 1960s, to the possibility that the US would become an arms supplier to Israel and that it would predicate its posture in the Arab-Israeli sphere on the premises of the special-relationship paradigm. In their thinking, the wish that American diplomacy could maintain an appearance of impartiality in approaching the Arab-Israeli zone converged with, and was reinforced by, a cluster of considerations related to regional stability, namely, to the perceived need to prevent a highly dangerous arms race between Israel and its protagonists. Indeed, believing that the sale of advanced weapons systems to Israel would not only adversely affect American relations with the Arab world but would also precipitate a regional arms race by virtue of intensifying the Arabs’ feelings of vulnerability and insecurity, the traditionalists, who shared the view that a longstanding and substantial asymmetry in military capabilities existed between the protagonists in the ArabIsraeli conflict favouring Israel, therefore remained convinced, throughout the period under consideration, that any deviation or departure from the traditional American arms-sales policy towards Israel would be a prescription for added turbulence along the Arab-Israeli front.16 In assessing the traditionalists’ relative power and influence in the bargaining game over the sale of arms to Israel, it is evident that, at least during the Kennedy era, the group of traditionalist policy-makers (whose main representatives were Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (until September 1965) Phillips Talbot) was deprived of much of its traditional base of power and support within the administration and was frequently confronted (as was the case in the Hawk decision) by a powerful coalition comprising not only the domestically-oriented participants in the process, but several officials from the National Security Council (NSC) and the Department of Defense, who formed the backbone of the pragmatist group, to which we now turn. However, during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s tenure as president, members of the traditionalist group did manage to regain some of their influence in the debate over the sale of arms to Israel. Unlike the traditionalists and the domestically-oriented participants in the process, who were influenced in their thinking and behaviour by a single set of political or strategic calculations, the group of pragmatists, whose quintessential representative in both the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations was Robert Komer (the National Security Council Middle Eastern expert), was continuously


exposed to more than one policy or bureaucratic angle of observation and consequently was predisposed to advocate a course which incorporated more than one dimension or perspective. Specifically, contrary to the traditionalists’ unwavering conviction that the supply of arms to Israel would be detrimental to core political and strategic interests in the Middle East, the pragmatists (who were acutely aware of the president’s domestic needs and not only of the region’s strategic landscape) were constantly prepared to engage in an effort to maintain or broaden the president’s domestic support even at the cost of modifying or abandoning the traditional tenets of American arms-sales policy. Consequently, continuously anxious to protect President Kennedy’s (or President Johnson’s) domestic front, and particularly his margin of support among Jewish voters, this group of policy-makers tended (unlike the traditionalists) to view the limited sale of arms to Israel under specific circumstances as fully compatible with the basic strategic objectives which the administration sought to promote in the Middle East. However, unlike the domestically-oriented decision-makers, who constantly recommended the unconditional sale of advanced weapons systems to Israel, the pragmatists, who were far less enthusiastic in supporting this course, attempted to incorporate any arms transaction into a broader quid pro quo involving Israeli concessions on a variety of regional and security issues. Notwithstanding this distinction between the domestically-oriented and the pragmatist participants in the process, the far more substantial difference between the pragmatists and the traditionalists (which enabled the pragmatists to view the limited sale of arms to Israel as fully compatible with American strategic interests in the Middle East and laid the groundwork for their recurrent partnership with the domestically-oriented players in the bargaining game) should not be obfuscated or ignored. Specifically, whereas the traditionalists were exclusively preoccupied with the adverse impact, which any tilt in the American arms-sales posture was expected to have on regional stability and core American interests and objectives in the Arab world, the pragmatists adhered to a considerably more optimistic vision of the ramifications which were likely to result from such a change, provided that the supply of arms to Israel constituted only one facet, fully integrated into a broader strategy which required Israel to set aside some of its own traditional positions and strategies along the Arab-Israeli front. Convinced that the sale to Israel of such advanced weapons systems as the Hawk missiles, the M-48A Patton tanks or the A-4 Skyhawk fighter-bombers would help alleviate Israel’s fears of isolation and encirclement, the group of pragmatist participants in the decision-making process looked upon these transactions as confidence-building measures, which were bound to induce the Israeli leadership to adopt a more accommodative approach in the Arab-Israeli sphere. Focusing on the Israeli, rather than the Arab, side of the equation (as the traditionalists were predisposed to do), the pragmatists believed that if provided


with military carrots of sufficient magnitude (which would reinforce the longstanding American commitment to Israel’s security), Israel would become increasingly prepared to pursue a conciliatory posture. Rather than precipitating or fuelling a highly dangerous arms race as the traditionalists consistently warned, the sale of American arms to Israel was therefore viewed by the pragmatists as a stabilizing stratagem which had the potential to reduce any preemptive Israeli tendencies as well as the tendency to cross the nuclear threshold (which, according to the pragmatists’ reasoning, Israel may have contemplated as a means of offsetting the perceived decline in its conventional power).17 Having identified the groups which participated in the intra-governmental bargaining over the shaping of Washington’s arms-sales policy towards Israel during the years that preceded the Six-Day War, the following analysis will seek briefly to reconstruct the actual dynamics of three decision games which were played between representatives of these groups and culminated in the provision of the Hawk missile, the M-48A tank and the Skyhawk fighter-bomber to Israel before 1967. Who exactly were the representatives who differed in terms of their respective power, bargaining skill and worldview, and who strove to build majority coalitions that would enable them to carry out their preferred arms-sales posture? What bargaining strategies did they advocate in these instances and in what ways did they attempt to manipulate their bureaucratic opponents into acquiescence? THE HAWK DECISION, AUGUST 1962 At first glance, President Kennedy’s decision to sell to Israel the Hawk shortrange, anti-aircraft missile appears puzzling in view of his original desire to improve relations with Egypt by vastly increasing the level of economic assistance to Cairo (particularly the PL-480 surplus wheat programme) in the hope that the pursuit of an accommodative course towards President Nasser would help to shift the forces of Arab nationalism into a pro-Western orientation.18 Notwithstanding this effort to open a new, and more tranquil, chapter in the turbulent history of American-Egyptian relations, which was fully supported by such pragmatists as the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, McGeorge Bundy, and the NSC regional expert, Robert Komer, it became increasingly evident, during President Kennedy’s first 18 months in the White House, that the same officials who sought a rapprochement with Egypt became supportive of the Hawk sale without viewing it as inherently incompatible with the simultaneous pursuit of an accommodative course in the American-Egyptian sphere. Contrary to the belief, which permeated the thinking of the bureaucracy during Eisenhower’s first term as president (and which continued to characterize the thinking of the traditionalists during the Kennedy years)—that the supply of American arms to Israel would make it aggressive and intransigent towards its Arab neighbours—such pragmatists as Bundy and


Komer consistently believed that a confident and reassured Israel would be willing to make concessions from a position of strength.19 It is indeed on the basis of this pragmatist belief in the power of ‘positive sanctions’ (applied to both Egypt and Israel) to moderate the behaviour of the recipient and thus to set in motion a process of conflict-reduction in the ArabIsraeli zone, that the conceptual groundwork, or infrastructure, for the Hawk decision was laid in the summer of 1962. Whereas the pragmatists’ conviction that the sale of sophisticated weapons systems to Israel could provide the necessary impetus for inducing the Israeli government to reciprocate by embarking on a more accommodative course towards its adversaries provided the conceptual basis for the eventual about-face of the American arms-sale posture, an additional set of concrete factors, based on the assessment of the balance of certain military capabilities in the Arab-Israel theatre, provided the strategic rationale for the transaction, thus reinforcing the belief in the power of inducements to precipitate reciprocal behaviour on the part of the recipient. These factors, which demonstrated to the pragmatists and their allies in the Department of Defense that the Hawk deal was not only an inherently logical contingency in terms of its expected ramifications but also a sound strategic option in terms of the distribution of power in the region, revolved around the Pentagon’s assessments (which remained unchanged during the first 18 months of the Kennedy presidency) that the supply in late 1960 of the advanced Soviet MIG-19 interceptors to Egypt made Israel ‘vulnerable to surprise air attack’ and that, consequently, there was no military justification ‘to deny the Hawk to the Israelis.’20 Whereas the traditionalists remained irreconcilably committed to their preexisting, immutable vision of an overall asymmetry in the balance of military capabilities in the Middle East favouring Israel and consequently did not relinquish their opposition to the supply of arms to Israel despite its undisputed vulnerability to an Egyptian aerial strike, the pragmatists, who were acutely sensitive to the changing dynamics of the Middle Eastern arms race, combined their conceptual and operational clusters of considerations into a coherent posture of qualified support for the sale of arms to Israel, which ultimately won the support of President Kennedy. In the bargaining game that preceded the sale, the pragmatists eventually agreed to co-operate with the president’s Deputy Special Counsel Feldman, who had enthusiastically supported the Hawk transaction since early 1961. Although both the pragmatists and the domestically-oriented participants in this process were continuously sensitive to the domestic political context and particularly to the need to broaden the base of Jewish support for the administration in view of the approaching November 1962 congressional elections, for such pragmatists as Komer and Bundy the cluster of domestic considerations and constraints comprised but one element within a multifaceted, highly complex decisional setting. By comparison, for such domestically-oriented actors as Feldman, the set


of domestic political calculations constituted the only prism or lens through which policy options were assessed. Notwithstanding this difference, it was the partnership between the pragmatists and the domestically-oriented group of policy-makers (led by Feldman) which ultimately proved to be the decisive factor in ensuring victory in this intra-governmental game for proponents of the Hawk sale in defiance of the traditionalist Department of State, which was left empty-handed and marginalized as its efforts to prevent the reorientation of the administration’s longstanding arms-sales policy completely collapsed.21 Against the backdrop of the consolidation, in the summer of 1962, of the coalition between the pragmatists and the domestically-oriented actors involved in the bargaining process, what was left for proponents of the Hawk deal en route to the formal conclusion of the sale was to win the support of President Kennedy for their advocated course and to agree on the specific terms of the transaction. The means by which the pragmatists and the domestically-oriented participants in the drive to reorient the American arms sales posture sought to recruit the president into their ranks was to link the Hawk issue to a major component of the Arab-Israeli predicament that continuously preoccupied President Kennedy, namely, the fate of the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Although the pragmatists and the domestically-oriented players in the game did not initially agree on the specific nature of this linkage between the arms-procurement sphere and the Palestinian zone, they fully shared the vision of the Hawk as a panacea that could well entice Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion into adopting at a stroke a more pragmatic and accommodative posture with regard to the Palestinian issue.22 Fully committed to their innate perception of the Hawk deal as a powerful confidence-building tool, which was capable of instantly and drastically modifying Israel’s threat perception and risk calculations, Komer and Feldman moved, in early August 1962, to market the sale to the president as a strategy designed to ensure an Israeli endorsement (albeit partial or qualified) of the Johnson Plan. This plan for a Palestinian settlement of the 1948 refugees incorporated the principle of repatriation of between 100,000 and 150,000 Palestinian refugees as one of its central components on condition that the Arab states agreed to co-operate in the implementation of such ingredients of the plan as the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in their territories.23 Although Israel was initially highly suspicious of the plan, fearing that, in the absence of adequate safeguards, a large number of refugees would seek repatriation, the pragmatists and their domestically-oriented allies were convinced that the Hawk missile could be sold to both President Kennedy and Prime Minister Ben-Gurion as a powerful and effective way of ultimately securing Israel’s acquiescence (if not support) in the Johnson Plan by unequivocally demonstrating Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security. Based on these images, premises and expectations, the final round of the intragovernmental bargaining over the Hawk unfolded in early August 1962. Faced


with the traditionalists’ last-ditch effort to prevent the imminent conclusion of the deal by resorting to the tactic of procrastination (according to which the sale should be preceded by a diplomatic effort to reach an arms limitation agreement between Israel and Egypt), Feldman emerged as the dominant figure, who ultimately managed to gain the full support of the president for his advocated strategy, which was based upon a non-binding and amorphous form of linkage between the desired Israeli approach towards the Johnson Plan and the sale of the Hawk. Irrevocably committed to the logic of this ‘strategy of expected reciprocity’, Deputy Special Counsel Feldman remained fiercely opposed to any effort to reach an automatic and simultaneous quid pro quo between Israel’s acceptance of the Johnson Plan and the provision of the Hawk. Instead, he insisted that the Hawk missile should be supplied to Israel in the hope, but not the certainly, that that it would encourage the Ben-Gurion government to take conciliatory action in return.24 Using his access to President Kennedy as a stepping-stone for pressing his case, Feldman (with the full backing of the pragmatists) forcefully demanded that the administration predicate its linkage posture strictly on the non-binding premises of the strategy of expected reciprocity, insisting that the Hawk sale should not be contingent on Israel’s acceptance of the Johnson Plan. Not only would the immediate and unconditional decision to provide the Hawk to Israel help the president to win the Jewish vote in the November 1962 congressional elections, he argued, but it would, according to this quintessential domesticallyoriented actor, enable the department of defense to deliver the missile to Israel on the very eve of the November 1964 presidential elections, thus guaranteeing ‘the optimal political impact before the 1964 US elections.’25 Maintaining further, in a series of private meetings with the president, that ‘you cannot get a proud nation like Israel to accept [the Johnson Plan] as a condition for getting the Hawk’,26 Feldman mixed national pride with the requirements of domestic politics in his call for the immediate conclusion of the Hawk deal without making it subject to specific Israeli actions vis-à-vis the Johnson Plan. Ultimately, Feldman’s relentless efforts, combined with the pragmatists’ argument that the Hawk inducement would moderate Israel’s modus operandi in the Palestinian sphere, bore fruit as President Kennedy agreed to lend his unconditional support to the strategy of expected reciprocity without insisting on any binding preconditions. And indeed, in his 19 August 1962 meeting with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, Feldman, who was secretly dispatched to Israel to convey the American decision to the Israeli leadership, quickly moved to implement his preferred stratagem of expected reciprocity, pointedly avoiding any organic linkage between the Hawk sale and the Johnson Plan. At first, the incentive was duly offered to the elated prime minister. ‘The President had determined’, Feldman solemnly announced, ‘that the Hawk missile would be made available to Israel…in the absence of arms limitations.’27


After Feldman had presented the deal as a fait accompli without making it contingent on any prerequisites, the conversation with Prime Minister BenGurion shifted to the Israeli part of the equation, with the American envoy merely requesting that Israel co-operate ‘in good faith’ with the Johnson Plan.28 Notwithstanding Feldman’s belief that, despite the initial Israeli reservations, the Johnson Plan could still provide the impetus for progress by inducing Israel ‘to make concessions’29 and thus moderate its mode of conduct on the Palestinian front, it became increasingly evident in subsequent months that Prime Minister Ben-Gurion (as well as Foreign Minister Golda Meir) remained highly suspicious of the initiative, unwilling even marginally to deviate from his preexisting vision of the desired Palestinian settlement. Insisting that Johnson had incorporated into the final draft of his plan changes which infringed on Israel’s sovereignty prerogative to be the ‘final arbiter’ concerning the number of Palestinian refugees to be repatriated to Israeli territory,30 Ben-Gurion and Meir, in sharp contrast with Feldman’s expectations, reiterated on numerous occasions their irreconcilable opposition to the plan, viewing it as a threat to core security interests. And indeed, faced with Israel’s assertion that the plan was totally unacceptable to the government of Israel31 (and with the equally harsh criticism of Egypt and Syria, which remained irreconcilably opposed to the plan, albeit for different reasons), the administration ultimately decided to acquiesce in the face of a recalcitrant regional environment. While President Kennedy remained determined to sell the Hawk missile to Israel without delay, the Johnson Plan gradually faded into the background until it was officially suspended in January 1963. Despite the traditionalists’ urgent plea, the president refused to re-open the Hawk decision for further review even after the November 1962 elections and after it became abundantly clear that the sale remained an isolated episode that, as such, failed to engender or fuel a process of conflict-reduction and accommodation on the Palestinian issue. Although the bargaining over the Hawk resulted in a major victory for the pragmatists and the domestically-oriented policy-makers, the fact that the offer of the Hawk did not precipitate any change in the operational practice of Israel led to the temporary breakdown of this coalition. Thus, while Myer Feldman and the domestically-oriented group continued to predicate their arms-sales posture on the non-binding premises of the strategy of expected (but not required) reciprocity, the pragmatists, who were uninhibited in their criticism of Israel’s growing intransigence in the aftermath of the Hawk deal, became increasingly prepared to abandon their initial belief in the power of positive sanctions to moderate the behaviour of the beneficiary and to adopt instead a bargaining strategy based on binding and concurrent trade-offs between incentive and compensation.32 In other words, the offer of new military carrots to Israel could no longer be based, according to this revised pragmatist logic, on the opaque premises of the strategy of expected reciprocity. Rather than an advance payment for future Israeli concessions, the military carrot would now be offered


by the dominant pragmatist faction within President Johnson’s foreign and defence policy apparatus only as compensation to Israel for actions taken earlier by the administration towards third parties (or for earlier accommodating Israeli actions and initiatives) or as an integral part of a built-in linkage between an accommodating Israeli move and the American reward or payment.33 It is to the analysis of this trade-off or quid pro quo strategy, derived from the lessons that the pragmatists drew from the Hawk experience, in the context of the case of the sale of the M-48A tank to Israel in July 1965, that we now turn. THE M-48A PATTON TANK DECISION, JULY 1965 The conclusion, in August 1962, of the Hawk deal was neither the culmination of a major reassessment of American priorities and strategic objectives in the Middle East, nor directly precipitated by a major regional crisis or conflagration that profoundly or instantly altered the thinking of members of Washington’s high-policy elite. Rather, the Hawk transaction can be viewed as the cumulative outcome of a gradual learning process, whose origins date back, as we have witnessed, to the Jordanian crisis of July 1958 and, more specifically, to the role which Israel performed in this crisis in protecting Western interests at a considerable risk.34 Against this backdrop, and in view of the fact that, by the end of the 1950s, it had become evident that the initial American drive to forge a broadly-based interArab security alliance sufficient to contain Soviet encroachment had failed dismally (with such regional powers as Egypt, Syria and Iraq defecting to the East), the establishment of formal security ties, including arms transactions, between Washington and Jerusalem (which came increasingly to be perceived by the US as the only viable and reliable pro-Western stronghold in the region) was only a matter of time. And indeed, although President Kennedy initially sought to channel the forces of Arab nationalism into a pro-Western orientation by improving relations with Egypt, this effort was not perceived in Washington as incompatible with the concurrent desire of the Kennedy administration to predicate American relations with Israel on the premise that it was the only power capable of safeguarding American interests in the region. In view of the fact that the establishment of security ties within the AmericanIsraeli framework was viewed by the Kennedy administration, since its inception, as an inevitable outcome of the revised strategic landscape and of the growing perception of Israel as a strategic asset to American security interests in the region, it is not surprising that the bargaining over the Hawk did not revolve largely (except in the case of the traditionalists) around the basic logic inherent in the decision to deviate from the traditional parameters of American arms-sales policy (or around the intrinsic merits of this move) but rather around the desired terms of the deal. Against the backdrop of this decisional setting and due to the fact that the Hawk sale was largely addressed, in the summer of 1962, not in the context of


American arms-sales posture but in the context of the Johnson Plan, one could readily expect President Johnson (who decided, from the very beginning of his presidency, to abandon his predecessor’s accommodating policy towards Egypt) to further strengthen the arms-sales posture inaugurated by Kennedy. However, notwithstanding President Johnson’s determination to pursue an uncompromising policy towards Egypt (in view of President Nasser’s continued effort to threaten the existence of the monarchies in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, his continued flirtation with China, Cuba and the Vietcong, and his unabated support for the rebels in the Congo),35 and notwithstanding his unwavering commitment to the values and beliefs which comprised the backbone of the specialrelationship paradigm between Washington and Jerusalem, no direct, automatic and linear linkage was established, during the period preceding the Six-Day War, between the image of Israel held by the president and the actual formation of the American arms-sales policy towards Israel. Clearly, President Johnson’s innate sympathy towards Israel, and his perception of it as a bastion of democratic values and a reliable bulwark against the regional forces of militancy and militarism, did not always precipitate a derivative, fully compatible arms-sales posture. Thus, although the Hawk transaction was followed by two additional arms deals, which were concluded prior to 1967, the road towards the 1965 M-48A tank and the 1966 Skyhawk fighter-bomber sales was long and arduous. Indeed, although the sale of these weapons systems to Israel helped to consolidate and institutionalize a major component of the strategic relationship between the US and Israel before the outbreak of the 1967 conflagration, the fact that the matter of arms sales remained, at least temporarily, divorced from the overall strategic vision of the Middle East, which the Johnson administration sought to translate into reality, should not be overlooked or obfuscated. As we will soon witness, the shadow of the Hawk experience and, more specifically, the lessons drawn by the pragmatists from Israel’s behaviour in the immediate aftermath of the decision (combined with the growing power of the traditionalist faction within President Johnson’s foreign-policy apparatus) was the main factor responsible for the occasional gap between the politics and policies of arms sales and the other dimensions and tenets of American diplomacy and strategy towards Israel during the period leading up to the 1967 war. As has been indicated, the fact that the offering of the Hawk inducement did not result in any modification in the Israeli mode of conduct in the Palestinian context and failed to engender any reciprocal Israeli move led the pragmatists (albeit not the domestically-oriented members of the administration) to insist, in future arms negotiations, on more direct forms of linkage between the provision of weapons systems to Israel and the recipient’s contribution to the deal. This insistence on reciprocity in deed and not merely in expectation ruled out, in fact, any advance and unilateral provision of benefits to Israel. In the words of Robert Komer, ‘in dealing with Israel, we want to avoid giving, if possible, before we have taped down the quid-pro-quos.’36 Convinced that ‘we cannot commit


ourselves to Israel’s defence without making sure that we have not given it a blank check’,37 Komer and the other pragmatists approached the M-48A bargaining with a keen awareness of the pitfalls inherent in the pursuit of the posture of de facto ‘unconditional cooperation.’38 Indeed, with the shadow of the Hawk deal constantly in the background, Israel would now have to pay a political or strategic price for the arms requested. On 29 July 1965, in an exchange of letters between Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter Solbert and Special Assistant to the Israeli Defence Minister Zvi Dinstein, the Johnson administration formally agreed to sell to Israel 210 M-48A Patton medium tanks (with conversion kits and 105 mm guns) at a cost of $42 million, ‘to be paid over two years.’39 What is amazing about the timing of the sale is that the initial Israeli request for the M-48A Patton tanks was formally submitted more than two years before the deal was finally concluded and that, furthermore, both the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations were basically sympathetic to the Israeli request. In a meeting which took place in New York on 30 September 1963 between Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Meir, alluding to the growing gap in the ‘quality of…advanced weapons’ between Egypt and Israel, which reinforced the need for Israel to ‘maintain a strong deterrent’, expressed Israel’s abiding interest in ‘procuring…new tanks’ as a means of maintaining stability across the Israeli-Egyptian border.40 Although Secretary Rusk, like the rest of the traditionalists, was not convinced by the foreign minister’s arguments and repeatedly emphasized Israel’s overall military superiority over Egypt, Komer (as well as the other pragmatists in the NSC, the Department of Defense and the US Army) believed that Israel had ‘an increasingly good case for [tanks], as Egypt’s inventory of Soviet models continues to grow and that, consequently, we can, in principle, help meet this problem (they want mostly M-48s) either from our own surpluses or indirectly through releasing surplus M-48s from our NATO allies as they re-equip.’41 Komer’s assessment that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) indeed faced ‘a problem about modernization in their armour’42 was accepted at face value by all the American participants in the first American-Israeli dialogue on regional security issues, which was inaugurated in Washington on 13 November 1963 and was not seriously challenged by any other administration officials or agencies outside the Department of State in subsequent months.43 And indeed, during the period immediately following this dialogue, faced with repeated Israeli requests ‘to replace at least three hundred of its tanks with more effective tanks’ and help Israel ‘maintain a credible policy of deterrence’ in view of the recent purchase by Egypt ‘of Soviet T-54 and Stalin 3 tanks’ as well as Mig-19 and Mig-21 interceptors and Tupolev-16 bombers,44 such pragmatists as McGeorge Bundy and Komer were predisposed to accept the Israeli position and to define the tank issue as ‘a real question which we could look at in real terms.’45


Thus, while the Department of State, the mainstay of the traditionalist orientation, continued vehemently to oppose any new sale of arms to Israel, fearing as in the past that it would ‘drive the Arabs into the arms of the Soviets’ and disrupt a relationship ‘with the Arabs which we have built up with considerable effort over the past several years’,46 most other individuals and organizations operating in the Johnson administration, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, viewed ‘the replacement of 300 of Israel’s present M-4 tanks [as] militarily sound on the basis of modernization’, namely, in view of the fact that ‘the bulk of its [M-4 Sherman tank] inventory is obsolescent’ and ‘that the Arabs possess modern heavily armed and armoured tanks.’47 Similarly, Feldman, whose behaviour until his resignation, in late January 1965, was reminiscent of his approach to the Hawk issue, fully supported the tank sale (despite the fact that, unlike the Hawk, the requested tank constituted an offensive weapons system). Indeed, his 15 January 1964 meeting with the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Abraham Harman, focused on the financial terms of the deal rather than on its intrinsic merits.48 Notwithstanding the apparent emergence, in early 1964, of a majority coalition supporting the tank sale, and notwithstanding the fact that Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara conveyed on 26 January 1964 his ‘approval in principle of a tank sale to Israel’ to the Department of State49 and even authorized four days later ‘the extension of credit for the sale of 200 M-48A3 tanks to Israel over the next 1–2 years and 100 M-60 tanks over the next 2–3 years’,50 the actual conclusion of the deal was not forthcoming. Despite these mounting indications of support, which convinced the government of Levi Eshkol that the formal announcement of the sale was imminent, Israel would have to wait for another 18 months before a decision finalizing the sale was made. In seeking to explain this delay, it is evident that the shadow of the past, namely, the pragmatists’ conviction, in the aftermath of the Hawk deal, that any unconditional sale of arms to Israel should now be avoided (and that the sale of the M-48A tank should depend upon certain reciprocal Israeli actions) converged with, and was reinforced by, considerations related to nuclear development. Specifically, the American intelligence community was receiving credible information that Israel and the French company Marcel Dassault had signed in April 1963 an agreement to produce for Israel the MD-620 Surface-to-Surface Missile (SSM) capable of carrying a 750 kg. war-head,51 thus exacerbating the fear that Israel’s ‘French connection’, in addition to ‘encouraging Egypt to be more aggressive than purely [conventional] military calculations would justify’, could now create ‘the real possibility of a whole new dimension in the Middle East arms race.’52 Since Israel already possessed ‘an operating reactor’, the argument went, the April 1963 agreement was potentially capable of enabling it ‘to acquire a nuclear delivery capability.’53 Anxious to prevent the possibility that Israel would ‘acquire an independent nuclear deterrent’,54 the pragmatists became increasingly predisposed to make the tanks sale (unlike the Hawk transaction) contingent on specific Israeli


assurances ‘to forego such a build-up’ by using the M-48A Patton tank as a powerful leverage for ‘achieving greater Israeli cooperation in matters of importance to us.’55 And indeed, in numerous messages to the president which he drafted in early 1964, Komer, while expressing strong opposition to Feldman’s recommendation that the M-48A tank should be unconditionally ‘sold right now’,56 reiterated his belief that ‘before the President decides [on the tank issue]’, he should ‘further explore…what cooperation can we get from Israel in return [for the Hawk]— such as avoiding a missile and nuclear arms race.’57 It was precisely the specific terms of this desired exchange that preoccupied the discussions between Washington and Jerusalem in subsequent months, during which time the M-48A tank became the means, or the bait, for inducing Israel to refrain from crossing the nuclear threshold and agreeing that the requested armour would be supplied indirectly through the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The first indication that the decision-making process concerning the M-48A tank sale would indeed be long and arduous came on 23 December 1963, when the American ambassador to Israel, Walworth Barbour, in a meeting with Prime Minister Eshkol, expressed the view that ‘the impression that Israel might be developing a [nuclear] weapon may provoke Nasser’ (or precipitate a highly dangerous nuclear arms race in the region), made it essential for the administration ‘to reassure Nasser that the Dimona reactor’s purpose was peaceful.’58 Although this request was closely patterned on failed American efforts to obtain Israel’s approval of a ‘reassuring move’, in early 1964 it became clear that this continued American desire ‘to reassure Nasser that our recent inspection of Israel’s Dimona reactor shows [that] Israel is not going nuclear’59 no longer comprised merely a non-binding request to the Eshkol government, but was transformed into an explicit precondition for the tank sale. Fearing that Israel’s ‘apparent desire to keep the Arabs guessing [about Dimona] is highly dangerous and…might spark Nasser into a foolish pre-emptive move’60 or inspire him ‘to get exotic weapons …and better missiles from the USSR’,61 the pragmatists became increasingly predisposed to consider the desired Israeli reassurance to Egypt as a major confidence-building and stabilizing measure, both within the American-Israeli and Israeli-Egyptian frameworks. Notwithstanding this growing American determination to pursue a ‘reassuring strategy’, the initial Israeli reaction to this request, which derived from its policy of ‘nuclear ambiguity’, was defiant. Insisting that this posture of maintaining a margin of ambiguity and ‘uncertainty regarding Israel’s deterrent capacity’ was bound to restrain President Nasser by virtue of making him ‘apprehensive…as to Israel’s military capabilities’,62 Prime Minister Eshkol reiterated on numerous occasions in the spring of 1964 his opposition to any such unilateral Israeli move by maintaining that ‘it is good for Nasser to worry about Israel’s military capabilities.’63


Not until Prime Minister Eshkol’s visit to Washington, in early June 1964, was this irreconcilable approach finally abandoned. Although the prime minister was initially unresponsive to the president’s request that Israel ‘let us reassure Nasser about Dimona’ as a means of ‘keeping Egypt from getting into nuclear production’,64 he decided on the following day to acquiesce in the American pressure in the hope that this concession would result in a reciprocal American move in the form of the immediate conclusion of the desired tank deal. Eshkol’s decision to compromise was part of a calculated trade-off which made it easier for him to reject a second, and considerably more problematic, request, namely, that Israel ‘accept IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] controls’ for its Dimona nuclear reactor and provide definitive proof that, by making its nuclear reactor fully accessible to periodic and intrusive IAEA inspections, it was ‘not going to get into nuclear production.’65 The mounting Israeli hopes and expectations that, by assenting to the ‘reassuring request’ (while rejecting the request to accept IAEA controls for Dimona), a window of opportunity for finalizing the tank deal would be opened in the immediate aftermath of Prime Minister Eshkol’s visit failed to materialize. Nor did the issue of IAEA controls subside into the background during the months that followed the June 1964 visit. The road towards the conclusion of the tank deal was still long and rocky, with the question of IAEA controls ultimately becoming a major obstacle in the final hurdle of the bargaining process. However, before this bargaining could reach its final phase, the parties had to overcome another major obstacle, which was inherent in the pragmatists’ desire to conceal the American role in the tank deal. Although the pragmatists (and the president) recognized ‘that Israel’s armour needs gradual modernization to keep a dangerous imbalance from developing’,66 they were determined to meet these needs ‘without exposing American diplomacy to unacceptable political risks.’67 Contrary to the initial opposition of most traditionalists to the sale of American tanks to Israel (whether directly or through intermediaries), the pragmatists were prepared in the summer of 1964 to ‘help Israel in every way possible to get a sufficient quantity of tanks elsewhere.’68 Ultimately, when the ‘third party option’ for supplying the M-48A tank collapsed in early 1965, Komer and Bundy quickly adjusted their thinking to the new circumstances and began to advocate the direct and undisguised sale of tanks to Israel on condition that (unlike the Hawk sale) it would be incorporated into a trade-off involving genuine Israeli concessions on core security matters. Although ‘a German deal’69 was only one of several options which the administration explored, the Israeli insistence that ‘only M-48As from West Germany [the Federal Republic of Germany] will do’70 led the administration to focus exclusively on the German option. And indeed, in July 1964 the president managed to persuade Chancellor Ludwig Erhard to approve a triangular arrangement whereby the Pentagon would provide the FRG with new and advanced M-48A(3) tanks in return for the delivery by the FRG (through Italy) of 150 older M-48A(1) tanks from its own inventory to Israel.71 Shortly


afterwards, despite strong resistance from its foreign ministry, the FRG ratified the decision and agreed to sell the Eshkol government 150 M-48A(1) tanks. The Israeli hopes that the tank issue, which had clouded American-Israeli relations for more than a year, was resolved failed to materialize. Indeed, in February 1965 it became clear that the ‘German connection’ was nothing more than an inconsequential episode in a long and tortuous saga and, as such, could not provide the impetus for resolving the matter. Specifically, a spate of leaks about the German tank route, which appeared in the German press in early 1964 and precipitated a harsh political campaign against the government, led Chancellor Erhard on 12 February 1964 to suspend the deal. Of the 150 M-48A tanks that were promised to Israel via the German back channel, 110 remained undelivered when the sale was de facto cancelled. The abrupt ending of the German involvement in the M-48A tank deal by no means guaranteed that the Johnson administration would now agree to transfer unconditionally to Israel the remaining 110 undelivered tanks directly. Instead, in the wake of the German fiasco Washington quickly moved to integrate the sale into a new framework of trade-offs, for which Israel was now required to pay an additional price with regard to both Jordan and the nuclear issue. The Jordanian aspect proved the less problematic component in the package. This linkage consisted of Israel’s acquiescence in King Hussein’s request for 100 M-48A tanks and 20 F-104G interceptors in exchange for the supply to Israel of an unspecified number of ‘combat aircraft’ and the suspended M-48A tanks (on condition that Jordan promised to keep the American armour on the East Bank of the Jordan).72 Having obtained an informal Israeli approval of the Jordanian deal (accompanied by a commitment not to mobilize the representatives of the special-relationship paradigm into action against the deal), the administration now concentrated in February and early March 1965 on the additional price to be extracted from Prime Minister Eshkol in return for the direct supply of American tanks to Israel. The final round of negotiations concerning the specific configuration and components of the M-48A tank deal was inaugurated in Israel in late February 1965. Although the traditionalists continued to be highly sceptical in their approach towards any package that guaranteed the provision of weapons to Israel, President Johnson ultimately decided to finalize the sale on condition that it was part of a trade-off involving Israeli concessions in the nuclear field. For that purpose Robert Komer, the quintessential pragmatist, was sent to Israel along with Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Averell W.Harriman, who was chosen by the president for the mission because of his domesticallyoriented inclinations and particularly because of his close ties with the New York Jewish community. Indeed, in the final analysis it was this renewed partnership between the pragmatists and the domestically oriented participants in the process that profoundly influenced its outcome at the expense of the traditionalist group. Specifically, in the course of this concluding phase of the bargaining it became


increasingly evident that Komer’s preoccupation with the regional strategic landscape (and particularly his desire to reassure Israel in view of the imminent American-Jordanian arms deal and thus mitigate the ‘pre-emptive’ tendency ‘which is building in Israel’73) was augmented by Harriman’s preoccupation with the sphere of ‘domestic politics.’ The outcome was their strong advocacy of the M-48A tank sale, albeit not as a unilateral act (as Feldman had previously recommended) but as part of ‘a package’ necessitating Israeli concessions.74 The core of this package, which was transmitted by the president to Komer and Harriman on 21 February 1965, was the demand that Israel ‘reiterate in writing its intentions not to develop nuclear weapons’ and to ‘clarify this by accepting IAEA safeguards on all of its nuclear facilities.’75 Although this demand had already been raised, as we have seen, in June 1964 during Prime Minister Eshkol’s visit to Washington, it later subsided into the background and was practically abandoned after the prime minister had agreed that the administration reassure President Nasser concerning Israel’s peaceful intentions in the nuclear sphere. Now, in view of the plethora of intelligence reports, which suggested to the administration that the Marcel Dassault company might already have produced the MD-620 SSM, the logic inherent in this original precondition was further reinforced since this missile was capable of carrying nuclear warheads.76 Notwithstanding the traditionalists’ insistence, as their fall-back position, on a trade-off between an Israel consent ‘to IAEA observation’ and the ‘selective direct sales of military equipment to Israel’,77 in late February and early March 1965 it became increasingly clear to the American negotiators that Prime Minister Eshkol remained adamantly opposed to the integration of the Dimona nuclear reactor into any framework of intrusive international control and inspection. Fully committed to his opposition to the IAEA scenario (unless Egypt agreed to simultaneously accept IAEA controls), Prime Minister Eshkol augmented his regional-strategic argument (which was based on his vision of the severity of the Arab-Israeli conflict in general and of the refusal of Egypt, Israel’s major protagonist, to accept IAEA controls, in particular) with a cluster of domesticallyoriented claims. These revolved around the prime minister’s growing domestic predicament, the origins of which lay in the defection of former Prime Minister Ben-Gurion from the ruling Israel Workers’ Party (MAPAI) and his growing challenge to his successor. The final confrontation between Prime Minister Eshkol and Ben-Gurion, which took place at the MAPAI convention in February 1965, coincided with the final phase of the American-Israeli bargaining over the M-48A tank and was fraught with rumours (which were disseminated by Ben-Gurion’s supporters, including Deputy Defence Minister Shimon Peres), according to which Prime Minister Eshkol, unlike Ben-Gurion, was ‘soft’ on Dimona and might already have compromised Israel’s most vital security interests. Although the accusations were groundless (in 1965 Prime Minister Eshkol remained fully


committed to the basic premises of the nuclear policy of Ben-Gurion),78 they made the beleaguered prime minister even more determined not to concede on the question of IAEA controls, particularly against the background of the approaching parliamentary elections (which were scheduled for 2 November 1965). Indeed, in the course of the electoral campaign Ben-Gurion, who became the leader of a newly founded political party named Israel Workers List (RAFI), viciously challenged the leadership and ‘moral authority’ of his heir.79 Against the backdrop of this ‘domestic constraint’ the administration, unwilling to further exacerbate Eshkol’s political and electoral predicament, eventually agreed to sell to Israel the M-48A tanks without obtaining the highlydesired and ironclad Israeli nuclear concession. Indeed, notwithstanding the traditionalists’ unabated hopes and expectations, which were reiterated as late as 1 March 1965, ‘to find ways to bring [Israel] into IAEA safeguards’ as the most appropriate means of preventing ‘the dissemination of nuclear weapons into the Near East’,80 it become increasingly evident as the bargaining approached its conclusion that the balance of motivation in this case favoured Israel, which was more committed than the administration to hold onto its initial position regardless of the cost involved. Ultimately, confronted by an uncompromising Israeli prime minister, who headed ‘a relatively unstable coalition government’ in an election year,81 President Johnson and his traditionalist Secretary of State Rusk decided to accept the pragmatists’ recommendations that ‘we must give [the] Israelis some hope on hardware’ while ‘leaving [the] question of IAEA to [the] future.’82 And indeed, in the Memorandum of Understanding which was signed on 10 March 1965 between Eshkol and Komer no reference was made to IAEA controls or safeguards, as President Johnson and the traditionalist proponents of the ‘linkage posture’ between the direct supply of arms to Israel and Prime Minister Eshkol’s acceptance of IAEA controls reluctantly decided to accept the standard Israeli promise ‘not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Arab-Israeli area’83 as the substitute for the far more binding commitment they sought to obtain from the Eshkol government. Furthermore, in view of the administration’s decision to sell M-48A (basic) tanks (as well as 50 armoured personnel carriers) to Jordan, and the fact that of the 150 M-48A(1) tanks that the FRG agreed in July 1964 to sell to Israel, only 40 were actually delivered before the deal was suspended, the administration now agreed to provide Israel with 210 M-48A tanks. One hundred of these tanks of type M-48A(1) were sold as compensation for the deal with Jordan with 110 tanks of the more advanced M-48A(2C) type as a substitute for the 110 undelivered ‘German’ tanks.84 The deal itself was formally concluded on 29 July 1965 following additional negotiations on such matters as the terms of payment. The principle of strict symmetry was explicitly reaffirmed in the agreement as ‘the United States will ensure the sale directly to Israel at her request of at least the same number and quality of tanks that it sells to Jordan.’85


While the conclusion of the 10 March 1965 Memorandum of Understanding constituted the second victory in three years (the first being the Hawk sale) for the pragmatist proponents of the strategy of positive inducements (albeit not on a unilateral basis on this occasion), for the traditionalist group of policy-makers and administration officials this agreement was the second occasion on which a longstanding component of their advocated Middle East policy, namely, their innate opposition to the supply of advanced weapons systems to Israel (as a corollary to their continued desire to prevent the US from becoming a major arms supplier to the Middle East), was abandoned. The traditionalists’ hopes, which were frequently expressed in the aftermath of the M-48A deal, that the sale amounted to nothing more than a one-off deviation from the traditional American arms-sales posture, failed to materialize. A corollary of the American-Israeli tank deal, namely, the issue of the sale of American fighter-bombers to Israel, to which we now briefly turn, began increasingly to dominate the agenda of the traditionalists, the pragmatists and, to a far lesser extent, the domestically-oriented participants in the decision-making process immediately after the conclusion of the tank agreement as a result of the administration’s commitment to compensate Israel for its decision to sell Jordan 20 F-104G interceptors. In view of the essential similarity (in terms of both the process and its outcome) between the bargaining over the tanks and the A-4E Skyhawk fighterbombers in 1966, the following review of the dynamics of the process which culminated on 20 May 1966 in the official announcement in Washington of the administration’s decision to sell to Israel 24A-4E Skyhawk fighter-bombers (and to give it an option to purchase 24 additional Skyhawks), will concentrate primarily on certain core components of American policy towards Israel (such as those related to the Dimona nuclear project), which surfaced (as they did in the M-48A tank case) as part of the quid pro quo which the administration sought once again to consolidate. THE A-4E SKYHAWK FIGHTER-BOMBER DECISION, MAY 1966 The issue of the sale to Israel of American fighter-bombers was inextricably linked to King Hussein’s threat to purchase MIG-21 interceptors (from Egypt or the Soviet Union) unless provided with a comparable American alternative (such as the F-104 aircraft).86 Acutely alarmed by the consequences in terms of regional stability and American strategic interests of ‘Soviet planes [in Jordan]’,87 all branches of the administration (with the exception of the departing Deputy Special Counsel Feldman) recognized the need to prevent the defection of King Hussein to the Eastern bloc by supplying arms to Jordan (exclusively, as the traditionalists recommended, or as part of a broader trade-off involving the sale of the M-48A tank to both Jordan and Israel, as the pragmatists insisted).


When it became abundantly clear to the administration that the Jordanian king remained irreconcilably wedded to the view that any arms deal with Washington must include planes as well as tanks, the pragmatists, unlike the traditionalists, began to support the sale of planes to Israel as a necessary compensation for what appeared in early 1965 (following months of procrastination during which the administration sought to confine itself to the sale of armour to Jordan) as the impending sale of American planes to the Hashemite Kingdom. In view of this overriding desire, which united almost all branches of the Johnson administration, to prevent a highly-threatening tilt in King Hussein’s foreign and defence policy orientation, all that was left for the dominant pragmatist faction (albeit not for the traditionalists) was to bargain with the Eshkol government over the nature of the compensation to Israel and over the specific conditions under which the transaction would be carried out. In other words, since the strategic decision to sell planes to Israel was made as an inevitable extension of the decision to sell Jordan the F-104 interceptor, the bargaining over the Skyhawk fighter-bomber was largely confined to the tactical level, namely, to the question of the specific aircraft to be sold, its producing country, and Israel’s part in, and contribution to, the package. As with the M-48A tank, the administration sought initially to avoid direct involvement in the deal by encouraging Israel ‘to obtain suitable aircraft from Western European sources.’88 It was only after it became abundantly clear to both the pragmatists and the traditionalists that no European aircraft option was either available or suitable for Israel’s requirements that the actual negotiating process over the sale of the Skyhawk fighter-bomber began in Washington in January 1966.89 As with the M-48A tank, it was Komer and the pragmatist group in the NSC who, in view of ‘the drying up of Israel’s regular European sources’, became convinced that the administration should ‘become the direct supplier of the plane sales’ to Israel90 as an integral part of a broader trade-off. Whereas Secretary Rusk and the traditionalists found it exceedingly difficult to accept the premises of the quid pro quo strategy, on the basis of which the pragmatists’ arms-sales posture was delineated, Komer and his partners in the bureaucracy became wedded once again to the view that the supply of the Skyhawk carrot could become the means of obtaining from Israel at long last significant concessions in the nuclear field which would surpass the amorphous parameters of the 10 March 1965 accord. And indeed, it was the nuclear issue and, more specifically, the question of the continued American inspection of Dimona (where a pattern of qualified Israeli compliance with American demands had already been established)91 that dominated the bargaining over the Skyhawk in January and February 1966. In opting to focus on the inspection issue, the pragmatists surmised that, in view of Prime Minister Eshkol’s sweeping victory in the Israeli parliamentary elections of 2 November 1965, he would be capable of embarking upon a more flexible nuclear course, incorporating a willingness to permit American scientists


periodically to inspect the Dimona site in exchange for the Skyhawk. However, although the November 1965 elections eliminated a major constraint from the Israeli domestic scene that during the months preceding the elections had considerably restricted Prime Minister Eshkol’s margin of manoeuvrability in approaching the nuclear realm, no softening in the basic Israeli position concerning the inspections of Dimona was forthcoming. Specifically, while the Israeli government agreed in the negotiations to augment its 10 March 1965 commitment ‘not to be the first power to introduce nuclear weapons into the Arab-Israeli area’92 with the commitment ‘not to be the first power in the Middle East to manufacture nuclear weapons’, it remained adamantly opposed to the repeated American demand for ‘periodic visits’ to Dimona.93 Ultimately, following intensive negotiations, which were held in Washington for almost two months between Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Robert Komer and Deputy Assistant Secretary of International Security Affairs Townsend W.Hoopes, on the American side, and Ambassador Abraham Harman and the Minister of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Ephraim Evron, on the Israeli side, a basic agreement was finally reached on 17 March 1966. Indeed, in the basic agreement which was reached on 17 March 1966 (in the form of an exchange of letters between Secretary McNamara and Ambassador Harman), no reference was made to the secretary’s demand that Israel ‘accept the need for periodic visits [of Dimona].’94 Decoupled from the material core of the agreement, the issue was addressed in a separate message which accompanied the 17 March 1966 agreement and was submitted on 11 April 1966 by Ambassador Harman to Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Raymond A.Hare. In this message, while Israel reiterated its longstanding opposition to any form of institutionalized inspection, it agreed to visits to Dimona ‘from time to time’,95 a formula which guaranteed that Israel would continue to have the exclusive prerogative over the timing, duration and frequency of future American inspections. Although this agreement was accompanied by the visit on 2 April 1966 to the Dimona facility by an American team of scientists (which was designed to lend credence to Harman’s message of 11 April 1966), this apparent gesture of Israeli goodwill could not obscure the fact that in the final analysis the Skyhawk agreement (including its 11 April 1966 attachment), which was formally announced in Washington on 20 May 1966, most clearly exposed the limits beyond which Israel was unwilling to proceed despite intensive American pressure. Indeed, while Israel was prepared to accept linkage between some of the conventional and nuclear components which comprised its overall strategic posture, it remained adamant in its refusal to accept any ‘conditions’ in the form of either periodic inspections of Dimona or IAEA controls and safeguards which could severely restrict its margin of manoeuvrability and latitude of choice in core security matters. Unwilling to acquiesce in an issue


which was defined by the Israeli leadership as inextricably related to vital strategic interests, Israel ultimately prevailed in this encounter (as was the case with the 10 March 1965 agreement) despite intensive American pressures (exerted primarily by the traditionalists).96 Thus it is clear that the cumulative impact of the Hawk deal, the M-48A tank transaction and the Skyhawk sale was the establishment of a de facto patronclient strategic relationship in the American-Israeli sphere before the outbreak of the June 1967 War. Indeed, coming in the wake of the M-48A tank deal, the Skyhawk 1966 agreement provided a new impetus for predicating the AmericanIsraeli framework upon new political and strategic premises more than a year before the outbreak of the war. Although the process by which Israel had become by 1966 a recipient of sophisticated American weaponry was fraught with bickering, crises and intragovernmental rivalries, the fact that the bargaining, on each occasion, concluded with a substantial victory for the pragmatist faction amounted, in the aggregate, to the de facto abandonment of the traditional tenets of the American arms-sale posture in the region and consequently to the establishment of broadened parameters, within which strategic co-operation between Washington and Jerusalem, on a variety of regional and bilateral issues, could now openly and formally unfold. That these parameters were further expanded in the aftermath of June 1967 is, of course, a different story, which should not downgrade or obfuscate the fact that the basic groundwork for this strategic partnership had been laid earlier in the form of these three arms transactions. NOTES 1. Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, ‘The United States and Israel Since 1948: A “Special Relationship”?’, Diplomatic History, Vol.22, No.2 (1998), p.232. For similar interpretations, see Peter L. Hahn, ‘Commentary: Special Relationships’, Diplomatic History, Vol.22, No.2 (1998), p.263; Michael N.Barnett, ‘Identity and Alliances in the Middle East’, in Peter J.Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identities in World Politics, New York, 1996, p.438; William B.Quandt, Decade of Decisions: American Foreign Policy Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967–1976, Berkeley, CA, 1977, pp.46–63; Steven L.Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America’s Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan, Chicago, IL, 1985, pp.152–3. 2. The following analysis will draw on the author’s works on the subject, including his recently completed book manuscript In the Shadow of the Hawk: Lyndon B.Johnson and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel, London (forthcoming). 3. On the July 1958 Jordanian crisis and its impact on American perceptions of Israel, see Abraham Ben-Zvi, Decade of Transition: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Origins of the American-Israeli Alliance, New York, 1998, pp.77–83. 4. Abraham Ben-Zvi, John F.Kennedy and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel, London, 2002, p.2. 5. Ibid., p.4.


6. Ben-Zvi, Decade of Transition, pp.77–83. 7. Ben-Zvi, Kennedy and the Politics of Arms Sales, p.15. 8. See Discussion between General Nathan F.Twining, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and President Eisenhower, 16 July 1958, Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol.11: Lebanon and Jordan, 1958–1960, Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 199, 309 (hereafter FRUS). 9. Zaki Shalom, The Superpowers, Israel and the Future of Jordan, 1960–1963: The Perils of the Pro-Nasser Policy, Brighton, 1999, pp.95–104. 10. Ibid., pp.80–94. 11. Fawaz A.Gerges, The Superpowers in the Middle East: Regional and International Politics, 1955–1967, Boulder CO, 1994, p.194; Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, New York, 1998, pp.172–23. 12. Ben-Zvi, Kennedy and the Politics of Arms Sales, p.99. See also FRUS, Vols. 17– 21: Near East, Africa Microfiche Supplement, 1961–1963, p.76. 13. For an analysis of the ‘special relationship’ paradigm, its sources and manifestations, see Abraham Ben-Zvi, The United States and Israel: The Limits of the Special Relationship, New York, 1993, pp.15–24. 14. See memorandum on Eisenhower’s conversation with Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, 26 April 1955 in The John Foster Dulles Papers, Box 1, ‘General Correspondence’ folder, Seeley Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University. See also Ben-Zvi, The Limits of the Special Relationship, pp.53–5. 15. See letter from President Eisenhower to Captain Everett (Swede) Hazlett, 2 November 1956, FRUS, Vol.16, p.944. 16. Ben-Zvi, In the Shadow of the Hawk (forthcoming). 17. Ibid. 18. Ben-Zvi, Kennedy and the Politics of Arms Sales, p.34. 19. Ibid., p.38. In his analysis of American policy towards Egypt and Israel during the Kennedy era, Ofer Mazar argues that the Hawk sale to Israel was a necessary compensation for the provision by the administration of generous packages of economic and technical aid to Egypt. See his In the Shadow of the Sphinx: Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Making of the Special U.S-Israeli Relations, Tel Aviv, 2002, pp.319, 330–31 (in Hebrew). 20. See memorandum of conversation between Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs William P.Bundy and Ambassador-designate to Israel Walworth Barbour, 8 May 1961, FRUS, Vol.17, pp.102–033. 21. Ben-Zvi, Kennedy and the Politics of Arms Sales, p.51. 22. Ibid., p.68. 23. In August 1961 Joseph Johnson, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (and a former official in the Department of State) was appointed special representative of the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC) in an effort to resolve, or at least mitigate, the problem of the Palestinian refugees. One year later, in early August 1962, he submitted the final draft of his plan, which incorporated the principle of repatriation as an integral tenet of its overall design and outlined procedures for implementing the principles of repatriation and compensation, to the White House and to the UN Security Council. See ibid., p.68, and Mazar, In the Shadow of the Sphinx, pp.222–29. 24. The basic premises of the ‘strategy of (expected) reciprocity’ were most comprehensively developed by Robert Axelrod. See his The Evolution of


25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

Cooperation, New York, 1984, pp.27–54. For additional illustrations of this strategy, see Robert Axelrod and Robert O. Keohane, ‘Achieving Cooperation Under Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions’, World Politics, Vol.38, No.1 (1985), pp.239–40; Robert O.Keohane, ‘Reciprocity in International Relations’, International Organization, Vol.40, No.1 (1986), pp.5–10; Kenneth A.Oye, ‘Explaining Cooperation Under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Strategies’, World Politics, Vol.38, No.1 (1985), pp.14–16. See memorandum of conversation between President Kennedy and Feldman, 10 August 1962, Papers of President Kennedy (PPK), National Security Files (NSF), Box 118: Israel, General, 1962, John F.Kennedy Library (JFKL): 2. See Oral History Interview with Feldman, 20 August 1966, part 9, JFKL: 431–33. See report from Feldman to Kennedy, 19 August 1962, PPK, NSF, Box 118: Israel, General, 1962, JFKL: 1. Ibid., pp.1–20. Ibid., p.2. See also Mazar, In the Shadow of the Sphinx, pp.229–30. See Komer’s memorandum to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy, 14 September 1962, FRUS, Vol.18, p.26. See conversation between Golda Meir and Dean Rusk, 26 September 1962, FRUS, Vol.18, pp.132–33. For illustrations of this quid pro quo bargaining strategy see, for example, Alexander L. George, ‘Strategies for Facilitating Cooperation’, in Alexander L, George, Philip J.Farley, and Alexander Dallin (eds.), US-Soviet Security Cooperation: Achievements, Failures, Lessons, New York, 1988, p.693. See also Glenn H.Snyder, Alliance Politics, Ithaca, NY, 1997, p.89; George W.Downs and David M.Rocke, ‘Tacit Bargaining and Arms Control’, World Politics, Vol.39, No. 3 (1987), pp.300–01. For evidence, see Ben-Zvi, Kennedy and the Politics of Arms Sales, pp.92–3. This section draws on Ben-Zvi, In the Shadow of the Hawk (forthcoming). For illustrations, see Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, p.122; Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East, pp. 176–77. See memorandum from Komer to President Kennedy, 16 May 1963, PPK, NSF, Box 119a: Israel, General, 1963, JFKL: 1. See Komer’s memorandum to McGeorge Bundy, 30 April 1963, FRUS, Vol.18, p. 504. Martin Patchen, Resolving Disputes Between Nations: Coercion or Conciliation?, Durham, NC, 1988, p.268. The details of the sale were incorporated into a memorandum submitted by Komer to Johnson , 29 July 1965, FRUS, Vol.18, p.483. See memorandum of conversation between Meir and Rusk, 30 September 1963, FRUS, Vol.18, p.718. See Komer’s correspondence with McGeorge Bundy, 19 November 1963, PPK, NSF, Box 119: Israel, General, 1963, JFKL: 1. See Komer’s memorandum, 18 November 1963, PPK, NSF, Box 118: Israel, General, 1963, JFKL: 4. For a review of this dialogue, see Komer’s memorandum of 21 November 1963, PPK, NSF, Box 119: Israel, General, 1963, JFKL: 1–4. See memorandum on conversation between Israeli Ambassador in Washington Abraham Harman and Dean Rusk, 3 January 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, p.4.


45. See memorandum of conversation between McGeorge Bundy and Harman, 10 January 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, pp.12–13. 46. See letter of Phillips Talbot to Rusk, 18 November 1963, FRUS, Vol.18, pp.7–9. 47. See message from Rear Admiral J.W.Davis, Deputy Director, the Joint Staff, to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, 18 January 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, p.25. See also the memorandum submitted by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle G.Wheeler, to Secretary McNamara, 12 March 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, p.67. 48. See memorandum of conversation between Feldman and Harman, 15 January 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, pp.15–16. 49. The reference to McNamara’s approval ‘in principle, of a tank sale to Israel’ was made by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter Solbert in his memorandum to McNamara, 15 February 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, p.32. 50. See message from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Frank K.Sloan to Deputy Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Alexis Johnson, 30 January 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, p.53. The message indicated that ‘McNamara had authorized the extension of credit for the sale.’ 51. For evidence on the agreement, which was concluded on 26 April 1963, between the Marcel Dassault Company and the Israeli government, see Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp.116, 232. 52. See memorandum of conversation between Bundy and Harman, 10 January 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, pp.12–13. See also Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p.197. 53. See memorandum of conversation between Bundy and Harman, 10 January 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, p.13. See also Komer to Bundy, 19 November 1963, PPK, NSF, Box 119: Israel, General, 1963, JFKL: 2–3. 54. See memorandum submitted by Deputy Assistant Solbert to McNamara, 15 February 1963, FRUS, Vol.18, p.33. The memorandum referred to the ‘likelihood’ of an Israeli agreement with Marcel Dassault. 55. See Komer’s memorandum to Johnson, 18 February 1964, NSF, Name File, Robert W. Komer, Memos, 1964, LBJL: 1. 56. Ibid. See also Komer memorandum to Johnson, 26 February 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, pp.43–4. 57. See Komer’s memorandum to Johnson, 29 January 1964, NSF, Country File, The Middle East, Israel, Memos and Misc., 1964, LBJL: 1. 58. For a summary of the various American requests that Israel agree to the ‘reassuring option’, see the memorandum sent by the Department of State’s Executive Secretary, Benjamin H. Read, to McGeorge Bundy, 11 February 1964, FRUS, Vol. 18, pp.29–30. The memorandum of Barbour’s conversation with Eshkol of 23 December 1963 is quoted by Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p.196. 59. See Komer’s memorandum of 26 February 1964 to Johnson, FRUS, Vol.18, p.44. 60. See Komer’s memorandum to Johnson, 18 February 1964, quoted in Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p.197. 61. Ibid. 62. See message from the Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Aryeh Levavi, to Harman, 3 March 1964, quoted in Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p.199. 63. Ibid.


64. See Johnson’s message to Eshkol, 19 March 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, pp.73–4. See also Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p.200. 65. See memorandum of conversation between Johnson and Eshkol, 1 June 1964, NSF, Country File, Israel, Eshkol Visit, 1964, LBJL: 2. 66. See Johnson’s memorandum (drafted by Komer) to Feldman, 15 May 1964, FRUS, Vol.18, p.125. 67. Ibid. 68. See memorandum of Johnson conversation with Eshkol, 1 June 1964, NSF, Country File, Israel, Eshkol Visit, 1964, LBJL: 1. 69. See Komer’s memorandum to Johnson, 28 May 1964, NSF, Country File, Middle East, Israel, 1965, LBJL: 3. 70. See memorandum of Eshkol’s conversation with Johnson, 1 June 1964, NSF, Country File, Israel, Eshkol Visit, 1964, LBJL: 1–2. 71. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p.204. 72. Ben-Zvi, In the Shadow of the Hawk (forthcoming). 73. See Komer’s telegram to the Department of State, 13 February 1965, FRUS, Vol. 18, p.325. 74. See Komer’s memorandum to Johnson, 16 February 1965, FRUS, Vol.18, pp.334– 35. 75. See memorandum of conversation between Komer and Harriman, 21 February 1965, NSF, Files of Robert W.Komer, Israel Security, December 1963–March 1966, LBJL: 5. 76. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp.116, 232. 77. See Rusk’s telegram to Harriman, 26 February 1965, FRUS, Vol.18, p.349. 78. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp.220–22. 79. Ibid., p.222. See also Asher Arian, The Second Republic: Politics in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1997, p.79 (in Hebrew). 80. In the parliamentary elections of 2 November 1965, Eshkol’s party, MAPAI, won an overwhelming victory over Ben-Gurion’s newly formed RAFI party: whereas MAPAI won 45 parliamentary seats, RAFI secured only 10 seats in the Knesset. 81. See Harriman’s telegram to Johnson (and Rusk), 28 February 1965, FRUS, Vol.18, p.359. 82. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp.220–22. 83. See the American-Israeli Memorandum of Understanding, 10 March 1965, FRUS, Vol.18, p.398. 84. Ibid. The agreement on the sale of 100 M-48A tanks to Jordan was concluded on 18 March 1965. It committed Jordan to keep the US and other ‘free world sources’ as the ‘sole sources of supply to its armed forces’, FRUS, Vol.18, p.405, note 5. 85. See American-Israeli Memorandum of Understanding, 10 March 1965, FRUS, Vol. 18, p.399. 86. See Johnson’s memorandum to Komer and Harriman, 21 February 1965, FRUS, Vol.18, p.343. 87. See record of Johnson’s telephone conversation with Feinberg, 20 February 1965, FRUS, Vol.18, p.342. 88. See Rusk’s telegram to the American embassies in Tel Aviv, London, Paris and Bonn, 5 June 1965, Record Group (RG) 59, Records of the Department of State, Central Files, Defence Affairs (DEF) 12–5, Israel, United States National Archives and Records Administration (NA), College Park, MA: 2.


89. For evidence of the administration’s efforts to avoid direct involvement in the sale of planes to Israel and on the choice of the Skyhawk subsonic fighter-bomber, see Ben-Zvi, In the Shadow of the Hawk (forthcoming). 90. See Komer’s memorandum to Johnson, 8 February 1966, NSF, Name File, Komer Memos., 1965–66, LBJL: 2. 91. See in this connection Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp.177–80. 92. See note 83 above. 93. See memorandum of McNamara’s conversation with newly appointed Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, 12 February 1966, FRUS, Vol.18, p.553. 94. Ibid. 95. See Harman’s message to Hare, 11 April 1966, FRUS, Vol.18, p.572. 96. Ben-Zvi, In the Shadow of the Hawk (forthcoming).

Indirect Pressure: Moscow and the End of the British Mandate in Palestine ARIEH J.KOCHAVI

Britain came out of the Second World War with its empire ostensibly intact. There were British soldiers in almost every Middle Eastern country, from Iran in the East to Libya in the West and Eritrea and Ethiopia in the South. British military installations could be found throughout the area, including the largest of Britain’s overseas bases on the Suez Canal, where about 200,000 soldiers were stationed. Britain viewed the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the adjacent regions as its ‘natural dominion.’ Egypt, Cyprus and the Sudan had been under British rule since the end of the nineteenth century, while after the dismembering of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, Britain obtained a mandate over Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine.1 The Middle East was vital for Britain’s overall strategic interests and the region’s rich oil reserves were essential for Britain’s economic rehabilitation, especially given the changed geopolitical situation thrown up by the war. Russia was poised to take over Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria and appeared eager to dominate events in Germany and Austria as well as Greece and Turkey. In the light of these expansionist ambitions, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin concluded that Moscow actively sought the decline of the British Empire in order to fill the vacuum wherever the British might be forced to withdraw. Determined to bolster Britain’s hold over the Middle East, Bevin set out to reinforce the alliances the British had forged with the Arab countries in the region. The soft underbelly of this policy proved to be Palestine.2 Bevin was particularly concerned with the question of Jewish immigration to Palestine. Like his Conservative predecessors, he thought that letting Jewish immigration continue without Arab consent was likely ‘to result in a wave of hostility throughout Arab countries, spreading to the Moslems of India and threatening Great Britain’s position in the Middle East.’3 Moscow was well aware of the importance the British ascribed to the Middle East in general and to Palestine in particular. A close follower of British policy in Palestine, Daniil S.Solod, the Soviet Minister in Syria and Lebanon, believed that for the British Palestine was ‘the most vulnerable point’ in the Middle East, Arieh J.Kochavi is Professor of Modern History at Haifa University.

ISRAEL IN THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA 57

and that it was ‘the centre of Anglo-American differences in the Middle East.’ Given the anticipated development of the oil industry in Saudi Arabia, the Americans were out to secure their position on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and to have the Arabian oil pipe line terminate on either the Egyptian or the Palestine coast. But, as Egypt was bound by a treaty with Great Britain, which ‘jealously guards Egypt’, a direct or even an indirect penetration of the US into Egypt could not be carried out ‘without serious objections from, and possibly even clashes with, Britain.’ Under the circumstances, Palestine was the better option. Solod, who had served as counsellor to the Soviet mission in Egypt between 1943 and 1944, was convinced that the Americans would refrain from openly challenging current British privileges over Palestine, but that they would gradually try to displace the British economically, and then also politically, through supporting a Jewish state.4 Already in January 1946 Solod recommended that Moscow participate actively in finding a solution to the question of Palestine, which ‘is situated not only on the route of British imperial communications, but also on the sea routes to various ports in our own country.’ Solod recognized that Britain’s policy on Jewish immigration into Palestine could give Moscow an opportunity to create difficulties for Britain. He pointed to the White Paper of 1939 that had set limits to the immigration of Jews (75,000 over a period of five years; thereafter any further immigration would be conditional on Arab consent), and stated that this policy would ‘bring an end to the creation of the Jewish national home in Palestine, as proclaimed in the well-known Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917.’5 In other words, he believed that the Zionists could be expected to put up strong resistance to this policy, which Moscow could in turn exploit. This article explores the tactics Moscow employed to undermine Britain’s position in Palestine and the measures London took to counter them. Not long after the Second World War the Soviets realized that Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe either to Germany and Austria or to Palestine offered a good opportunity to complicate the British position in the region. The largest number of potential Jewish emigrants happened to be in countries within the sphere of Soviet influence and so were many of the routes to the American and British occupation zones in Germany and Austria. Jewish refugees had begun arriving in the Displaced Persons (DP) camps during the first few months after the war. British Foreign Office officials saw this influx of Jews from Poland as part of a Zionist plot to embarrass British military authorities in Germany and to make it clear to the world that it was no longer possible for Jews to live in Europe, their only option being immigration to Palestine. The department linked this movement of Jewish refugees with Bevin’s decision, made public on 13 November 1945, to set up an ‘Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine’, which, among other things, was to investigate the situation of the Jewish Displaced Persons and assess how many of them actually wished to emigrate to Palestine.6

58 MOSCOW AND THE END OF THE BRITISH MANDATE

In their efforts to halt the movement of Jewish refugees to Palestine, the British soon discovered they were up against the Soviets, who appeared to be playing a double game. In early December 1945, when the American delegate to the Directorate of Prisoners of War and Displaced Persons in Germany suggested dividing the Jewish refugees coming into Berlin among the four occupation zones, the Soviet representative rejected this and proposed to ask the Polish government not to grant visas to Jewish emigrants but to allow the Kommandatura (the Council of the Occupation Forces in Berlin) to return the emigrants to Poland.7 Not that the Soviet delegate actually wanted this to happen, but Moscow had to stick to the principle it had been espousing that all nationals from countries under its control should be repatriated, by use of force if needed, and could not now be seen to be supporting a different course in public.8 The British were not taken in by this Soviet stand and remained sceptical of the Soviet claim that they were not aware of the Jewish influx. The British Control Commission for Austria, for example, concluded as early as midOctober 1945 that it would not have been possible for thousands of Jews to enter Austria without Soviet agreement.9 Given their involvement in Poland, the Soviets must have known that, although Jews were leaving the country illegally, the government was allowing this to happen. In other words, the suggestion to appeal to the Polish government was probably less than candid and the proposal to force the Jews to return to Poland should equally be treated with some doubt. The British realized that the Soviets knew the Americans would object to the proposal because of the response that the plight of the Jewish refugees in the DP camps was already arousing among the American general public.10 Not for the last time, the Soviets took advantage of the differences in approach that had become apparent among the two Western powers vis-à-vis the treatment of Jewish refugees. Under the circumstances and in spite of the complicated and tense relations between Britain and Poland—key positions in the new Polish government set up after the war such as president, prime minister, minister of defence, minister of the interior, and minister of finance were filled by communists and their supporters—London decided to turn directly to the Polish authorities.11 In early February 1946 Britain’s ambassador to Poland, Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, informed the Polish government that many Jews were managing to leave Poland for the American and British zones in Germany and Austria as well as Italy, from where they tried to make it to Palestine. As his government believed that the exodus had external political causes and aimed at increasing the difficulties the British were experiencing in Palestine, Britain wanted to see vigorous measures to stop the illegal departures, for example by no longer supplying Jewish emigrants with government-issued visas.12 The Poles denied that they had any involvement in the exodus. The SecretaryGeneral of the Polish Foreign Ministry, Joseph Olszewski, told CavendishBentinck that his government was making every effort to prevent all illegal departures, including those of the Jews. Olszewski assured the ambassador that


very few exit visas had been allocated to private individuals in the course of 1945 —no more than 200–300 all told—while passports were issued only if applicants could show they had a visa or an entry permit to some other country. Olszewski estimated the number of Jews who had left Poland since it had been liberated at approximately 20,000. Cavendish-Bentinck concluded from this that the Polish government was not really willing to prevent the Jews from leaving the country illegally.13 He estimated that, at the very least, 120,000 Jews would be leaving Poland by January 1948 and that the figure was more likely to be 170,000—the Jews were determined to leave whatever happened.14 And indeed, between February and October 1946 the Soviets allowed about 170,000 Jews who had escaped to the Soviet Union during the war to return to Poland in spite of the fact that they knew that the overwhelming majority of them would continue to Germany and Austria.15 The flight route for Jewish refugees from Poland to the American and British occupation zones in Germany was through Czechoslovakia. Here too, given the dominance of the communists in the government—in the elections of May 1945 the Communist Party had received 38 per cent of the votes and its leader, Klement Gottwald, had been appointed prime minister —London concluded that the migration via Czechoslovakia had the full knowledge and concurrence of the national government.16 The British Legation in Czechoslovakia informed London in early August 1946 that approximately 1,800 Jews were crossing the border from Poland into Czechoslovakia each day and that the Czech government was only concerned to make sure that none of these Jews would remain in the country.17 Nevertheless, London decided to address the Czech government directly, claiming that illegal immigration served to swell the ranks of the Zionist militias in Mandatory Palestine and increase the danger of a civil war there which in turn could jeopardize peace throughout the Middle East. The Czech government was asked to ‘take immediate action to tighten up their control arrangements at the Polish border and throughout the transit area’, and to observe carefully the international regulations that prevent the entrance or passage of migrants unless they possessed the appropriate documents.18 British efforts failed and Jews from Poland continued to cross Czechoslovakia on their way to the Americanoccupied zone in Austria.19 The Soviets, of course, knew of this movement. In fact, in May 1946 the Polish communist prime minister, Edward Osóbka-Morawski, stated at the opening of the tenth session of the Polish National Council that the government would not stand in the way of Jews wanting to travel to Palestine to realize their national aspirations.20 Three months later Colonel Starov, head of the POW and DP Division in the Soviet ACC for Austria, reported to Moscow that altogether some 200,000 Jews were on their way to Palestine from Poland through Czechoslovak territory and the Soviet zone of Austria, while Colonel Konev, the Soviet representative dealing with repatriation in Poland, informed Moscow that the Jews were travelling not only across Czechoslovak territory but also via


Polish ports. Trains carrying these refugees were heading for Munich, in the American zone of occupation, ‘where there is said to be a mustering point for onward travel to Palestine.’ In Warsaw, Konev continued, there was a Jewish Central Committee, to which a representative of the American government (he probably referred to the representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Poland) was appointed, and in the provinces and villages there were Jewish committees to ensure that Jews travelling to Palestine would obtain free transport and food.21 The British also failed to influence the authorities of Hungary to prevent Jews passing through. Like Czechoslovakia, Hungary served as a transit country mainly for Jews who had left Romania on their way to Austria. Here London tried to take advantage of the Allied Control Commission (ACC) in Hungary— which consisted of representatives of Britain, the US and the Soviet Union—to instruct the Hungarian government not to allow Jews to cross the border into Hungary. At a meeting of the ACC in Hungary in May 1946 the British representative, Major General O.P.Edgecumb, put it to his Russian counterpart, Marshal Klement Voroshilov, that the Hungarian government was aware of the extensive illegal movement through the country but was doing nothing to prevent it. Voroshilov did not give much hope to his British partner, maintaining it would be difficult to pressure the Hungarian government into taking steps to halt the flow.22 When, three months later, Edgecumb again raised the subject, this time especially mentioning the huge bribes involved in this traffic, Soviet Representative General Vladimir P.Sviridov told him that the Hungarian minister of war had by now doubled the number of border police, who each month arrested approximately 1,000 people trying to cross the border illegally.23 Sviridov further denied, as Edgcumbe had claimed, that Russian lorries were helping the illegal movement of Jews from Hungary to Austria.24 Disappointed with the Soviet approach in the ACC, London decided in midAugust 1946 to discuss the illegal movement directly with the Hungarian authorities. Alexander K.Helm, the British minister, told the Hungarian Prime Minister, Ferenc Nagy, that he had considerable proof of the illegal migration via Hungary and of the fact that Budapest served as the central transit point. Moreover, the Hungarian authorities and the Hungarian Red Cross were providing the Zionist organizers of the movement with the necessary documents. The prime minister, who appeared unsurprised at the news of the co-operation of the Hungarian authorities, promised Helm his government’s assistance but also hinted that he could give no guarantee that his instructions would be carried out.25 London was aware that, as a member of the Smallholders’ Party, Nagy enjoyed only a limited ability to determine policy because the communists controlled both the ministries of the interior and police. Moreover, Soviet soldiers guarded the border between Hungary and the Soviet occupation zone in Austria, and the Hungarian Border Police Commander, General George PálfiOesterreicher, fully co-operated with the Russians and the Zionists.26


Nevertheless, it turns out that the Soviets were not wholly indifferent to British pressure. In mid-September 1946, for example, Moscow warned its ambassadors in Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia and its ministers in Bulgaria and Hungary not to ‘become involved in any matters to do with the departure of Jews for Palestine.’27 But then, this instruction coincided with the discussions at the Peace Conference in Paris (29 July–15 October 1946) on the peace agreements with former-enemy countries, including Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. The Soviets stood to profit most from the peace treaties, among other reasons because the accords would bring about the dispersal of the ACC in those three countries and enable them to consolidate their control of south-eastern Europe. It is reasonable to assume that, in an ad hoc fashion, the Soviets wished to limit the areas of friction with London.28 The British took advantage of the Peace Conference to urge the Soviets and Romanian authorities to prevent illegal sailings of Romanian Jews to Palestine. The British feared that Romania would become the main base for illegal immigration not only because they knew that already at the beginning of 1945 more than 100,000 Jews were registered with the Jewish Agency for immigration to Palestine, but also because most of the clandestine sailings during the war itself had embarked at Romanian ports.29 Moreover, except for Soviet Jewry, the 430,000 Jews in Romania were the largest remaining nucleus of Jews in countries that had been under Nazi control. The first clandestine immigrant ship that sailed from Romania after the war was the Smyrna (renamed by the Zionists the Max Nordau). The British were aware of the preparations that were going on and the British Military Mission in Romania tried to activate the ACC in Romania in an attempt to prevent the sailings.30 Soviet military authorities in Romania explained to the British in mid-April 1946 that no one without exit visas approved by the ACC and the Romanian government would be permitted to depart.31 Several days later the Smyrna sailed with 1,666 illegal immigrants on board.32 When the British Military Mission lodged a protest, the Soviets countered by saying that since all the passengers had visas for Mexico there had been no excuse to prevent the ship from leaving the harbour.33 Several weeks later, at a session of the ACC in Romania, the head of the Soviet delegation, Colonel General Ivan Susaikov, dismissed the protests of the British representative, Air Vice-Marshal Donald Stevenson, about the Smyrna by replying that the destination of departing vessels was not his affair and that for all he cared, ‘they might go to the bottom of the sea.’ He had been told that the people on the Smyrna were sailing for Mexico and that it could not be put at his door if in the course of the trip the ship changed destination and decided to make for Palestine. Similarly, when Stevenson asked him to prevent the embarkation of another illegal immigrants’ ship, the Agia Anastasia, the Soviet officer claimed that he did not have the authority to interfere with embarkations from Romania and that his job ended with providing permits to those persons whom the Romanian government was willing to let go. Susaikov added that in anything


pertaining to Jewish embarkations the British ought to turn to Romanian’s foreign ministry.34 Adrian Holman, the British Minister in Bucharest, who kept London informed about these developments, strongly rejected Susaikov’s claims, arguing that ‘[u] ltimate control of all movements in and out of Romania still rests with the ACC and therefore proposed approach to the Rumanian government would not only be ineffective but also serve generally to acknowledge a right which we do not in effect admit and which that government has so far not attempted to claim in principle.’ Not only did the captain and crew of the Smyrna know that the passengers were illegal immigrants sailing for Palestine, Holman added, but the captain had informed the Soviet port authorities in Constanta of the ship’s true destination. In other words, it did make sense to ask the Soviet authorities to prevail upon the Romanian government to prevent the illegal sailing of Jews.35 In mid-July the head of the Soviet Administrative Section of the Allied Control Commission, Colonel Borisov, informed A.C.Kendall, the head of the Consular Section in Romania, that he had distributed 440 exit visas to Jews who intended to sail to Costa Rica on the Agia Anastasia. In so doing he was ignoring a Soviet promise to consult with the British before providing exit visas to Jews.36 Kendall vigorously protested against what he called ‘Soviet collusion with the enemy country in illegal measures directed against her ally Great Britain’, claiming that he had proof the Jews intended to sail to Palestine, and accused Borisov of aiding and abetting the illegal immigration. Kendall wanted the Russians to prevent the ship from leaving the port until Costa Rica had confirmed the validity of the visas, but Borisov countered that the validity of transit visas or visas to final destinations was not his affair. In the circumstances, Holman decided to approach the Romanians directly, demanding that Romanian Foreign Office officials vet all requests to leave Romania, since their colleagues at the Ministry of the Interior (under communist control) were ignoring the matter of invalid visas.37 At this point, Maurice Peterson, Britain’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union, reported to the Soviet Foreign Ministry on the methods the organizers of the illegal immigration were using to get around the law, including the use of forged visas. The secretary-general of the Romanian Foreign Ministry had openly admitted, he said, that the departure of the Jews was taking place without his approval. Peterson likewise mentioned that Borisov had refused to take steps to prevent the departure of the Agia Anastasia. The British now asked the Soviet government to instruct its representatives in Romania not to allow the exit of Jews whose documents were not in order and who by their clandestine actions intended to violate the laws of Palestine.38 At the same time, Holman continued to apply pressure on the local authorities and told the Romanian foreign minister that certain officials in the Ministry of the Interior and the Council Presidium were collaborating with the Zionist Jews, possibly with Soviet agreement. Holman warned Gheorghiu Tatarescu, an anti-communist and known antiSemite, that if the Agia Anastasia were to set sail, ‘he must not be surprised if he


had a rather frigid reception in [the Peace Conference in] Paris.’ Tatarescu promised to do all he could to prevent the illegal departure of Jews. Holman did not stop at discussing the matter only with the foreign minister, but also urged Romania’s communist prime minister, Petru Groza, to prevent the sailing of the Agia Anastasia.39 As in the case of Hungary, the British warning that Romania’s interest might suffer at the peace conference because of its policy towards the illegal emigration appeared to have temporarily achieved its purpose. The Romanians wanted to improve the conditions of the peace treaty they were offered and needed the goodwill of the two Western powers, among other things concerning their disagreement with the Hungarians about Transylvania.40 Thus, at the conference the Romanian foreign minister, who headed his country’s delegation, was able to tell Hector McNeill, Minister of State at the British Foreign Office, that the Romanian government had decided to prevent the Jews from sailing on the Agia Anastasia even if it were found that the passengers’ visas were legal.41 When distrust of the Romanian authorities led London again to approach Moscow towards the end of August, the Soviets at first delayed their reply, hiding behind formalistic excuses. Trying to prompt firm action, the British embassy in Moscow responded by saying that ‘in matters of this kind where unscrupulous and interested parties were clearly out to twist the regulations to their advantage and to deceive the British and the Soviet authorities we had expected that the Soviet government, in view of their professed concern for the interests of the Middle Eastern peoples, would have adopted a cooperative instead of legalistic attitude.’42 British pressure on Moscow eventually had the desired effect. Towards the end of October 1946 the Soviets announced that the visas to Ethiopia of the Jews who were about to sail on the Agia Anastasia had turned out to be forged and that they were not allowing them to sail.43 It is likely that the decision of the Soviets to prevent the Agia Anastasia from sailing had nothing to do with the fact that the visas were forged but in this case, too, was connected with the deliberations of the Peace Conference in Paris and with their follow-up in the Council for Foreign Affairs (CFM) which was to meet in New York between 4 November and 12 December 1946. The pressure the British had exerted left no doubt as to the importance they ascribed to the matter and so as to give the British no excuse to cause trouble, the Soviets and the Romanians elected to avoid creating additional modes of conflict until the peace agreements were signed. Meanwhile, both Bucharest and Moscow realized they could achieve their objectives by letting Jews sail from another communist state that had not been an enemy country—Yugoslavia.44 The British knew that without Soviet consent this illegal immigration could not have taken place but they had no actual proof that the Soviets were involved. Moscow was careful not to leave fingerprints and to act covertly at all times, a tactic aimed at keeping all options open—particularly not to antagonize the Arabs —while at the same time adding to British difficulties in ruling Palestine. Although they were aware of the differences of opinion between the British and


the Americans over the treatment of Jewish DPs, the Soviets concluded that both Western powers were determined to prevent Moscow from taking part in solving the Palestine question. Thus, February 1947 was, to a certain extent, a turning point in Soviet actions The signing of the peace agreements had taken away one of Britain’s most effective diplomatic levers against the USSR and its satellites. But more significantly, Foreign Secretary Bevin announced later that month that Britain had decided to hand over the Palestine question to the United Nations.45 Trying to explain the background to this move, Boris E.Shtein, Counsellor at the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pointed to four reasons: the stalemate in the British government’s negotiations with both Arabs and Jews; the understanding that maintaining the status quo in Palestine by force would require the dispatch to Palestine of substantial armed forces and the expenditure of considerable material sources, which would have been extremely difficult given the strained state of British finances; the opportunity to transfer Britain’s main strategic base in the Middle East from Palestine to Transjordan, an operation that was secured by the Anglo-Jordan treaty of April 1946; and increased pressure from the United States. Significantly, Shtein did not think that Bevin’s statement meant that Britain had fully, and finally, relinquished Palestine and was ready for an immediate withdrawal of its troops. Instead, he saw it as a very adroit diplomatic maneuvre. Bevin was well aware that a practical solution to the Palestine problem was not simple and could not be quickly achieved by the UN—by shifting responsibility for the Palestine question onto the United Nations, Britain could maintain its presence and its troops in Palestine and gain time. Discussing the disputes between London and Washington, Shtein mentioned how Bevin had attacked President Harry S.Truman in a debate in the House of Commons on 25 February, claiming that Truman’s demand to transfer 100,000 Jews to Palestine had been the cause of the breakdown of negotiations with the Arabs and the Jews. Then there had been Bevin’s undiplomatic outburst against the president to the effect that he could not ‘solve problems which are the subject of an electoral campaign.’ Shtein thought that Bevin was basically right since the US position on Palestine hinged largely on the existence of the two million Jews whose votes were sought by both the Republican and Democratic parties. But the Soviet official also wrongly believed that Palestine was important to the US both strategically and economically: ‘To leave Great Britain in power in Palestine would mean British control of export of oil from Saudi Arabia’, while ‘possession of Palestine (in one form or another) would give the United States an important stronghold on the Mediterranean where, as we know, the US has no other such bases.’46 Shtein, who also served as an adviser and member of the Soviet delegation to the First Session of the UN General Assembly, urged his government to make its position on Palestine clear. The USSR had to take a decisive stand in favour of the abolition of the British Mandate and to oppose strongly its replacement by


British trusteeship. The Soviet Union, he thought, could not but support the creation of an independent and democratic state in Palestine and demand the withdrawal of British troops from the country. ‘Great Britain’s referral of the Palestine question to the United Nations’, Shtein concluded, ‘offers the USSR its first opportunity not only to express its point of view on the matter, but also to play an effective part in deciding the fate of Palestine.’47 Moscow was quick to take advantage of the new diplomatic developments and on 14 May 1947 at the special session of the General Assembly that was convened to set up an ad hoc committee on Palestine (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, UNSCOP), Deputy Foreign Minister and USSR Representative to the UN Andrei Gromyko expressed Soviet support for the partition of Palestine into two independent states, one Jewish and one Arab, in case a bi-national state proved unworkable.48 This decision to support the establishment of a single Arab-Jewish state was a tactical move as Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Viacheslav M.Molotov explained to Andrei I.Vyshinskii, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs: ‘We did not want to take the initiative in the creation of a Jewish state’ but, in fact, ‘the creation of an independent Jewish state better conveys our position.’49 The publication of UNSCOP’s report on 1 September 1947 and the British government’s announcement on 26 September of its decision to abandon the mandate led the Soviets openly to support the establishment of a Jewish state.50 In his instructions to Vyshinskii on 30 September, Molotov told him to support the majority recommendations of UNSCOP to partition Palestine into two independent states, Arab and Jewish, ‘which corresponds to our basic position on this issue.’51 Two weeks later, Molotov instructed Vyshinskii to support the Colombian draft resolution that proposed the establishment of a special subcommittee to study the observations and recommendations of the UNSCOP report. ‘It is politically expedient to support this proposal’, Molotov explained, ‘since it envisages, along with permitting 150,000 Jews to immigrate to Palestine, a solution to the general impoverished European Jews.’52 Vyshinskii was further instructed to consult Jewish opinion ‘on all important questions concerning Palestine.’53 Parallel to the diplomatic campaign, the Soviets continued to support pressuring the British through clandestine sailings from Balkan ports. Now, however, the Soviets no longer concealed their support of this movement and in June 1947 they officially declined UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie’s request to take stringent measures to prevent the passage or embarkation of Jews attempting to enter Palestine illegally.54 At the time, relations between the Western powers and the USSR significantly deteriorated following Stalin’s decision not to join US Secretary of State George Marshall’s recovery initiative for Europe (the Marshall Plan). Instead, Moscow began its drive to extend its control over the countries within the Soviet sphere of influence. This was particularly clear when Romanian and Bulgarian communists began removing anti-communist opposition leaders and thus accelerated their overall control of governments.55


Both countries now became the main bases for Jewish departures, with Romania supplying the illegal immigrants and Bulgaria the ports of embarkation— extensive pressure on the Romanians by the British led to the shifting of ports of departure from Romania to Bulgaria, which had nothing to lose by antagonizing the British.56 In their efforts to prevent the sailing of illegal immigrant vessels from ports in the Balkan, the British now tried to recruit the help of the US State Department. In mid-October 1947 Secretary of State Marshall’s attention was called to two ships, the Pan York and the Pan Crescent, both crewed by Americans and financed by American funds, that were about to set sail from Black Sea ports for Palestine carrying 16,500 illegal Jewish immigrants. Bevin instructed British Ambassador Lord Inverchapel to stress that all illegal immigrants were arriving from countries subject to Soviet influence and that ‘only those well indoctrinated with the communist faith are allowed to go.’ The British claimed that illegal immigration was now a factor in the Russian plan to use Palestine ‘as a springboard for their influence in the Middle East and the principal source of confusion and instability throughout the area.’57 The British legation in Romania also attempted to ensure that American diplomats in Bucharest were aware of the dangers inherent in the sailing of these vessels to the West. They spoke of an ongoing movement of Jews from the Soviet Union to Romania and of the Soviet involvement in this illegal operation. Many of the Jews were joining these illegal sailings. Assembly points and ports of departure were situated at vital locations along Soviet transport routes, and Soviet military trains were conveying the Jewish immigrants to the Mediterranean coast. Furthermore, the NKVD provided thousands of exit permits to these immigrants ‘when exit clearance for normal passengers was practically impossible to obtain.’58 The British also warned that the arrival of the Pans in the Middle East would tax the resources of the British and push the Arabs to react more violently. The Foreign Office stressed that ‘only the Russians would gain from the proposed operation through greatly increased disturbances throughout the Middle East and the introduction of a large number of communist agents.’59 Although they failed to prevent the sailings of the Pans from Bulgaria, with the aid of the Americans the British succeeded in convincing the Zionists to divert the ships to Cyprus rather than Palestine.60 As pointed out, the mass departure of approximately 280,000 Jews by land and sea from Soviet-bloc countries could have occurred only with the knowledge and consent of Moscow. But there was another element that worried the British. The Foreign Office believed that the Soviets were not only encouraging the Jews to leave but were also training Jewish youths for underground activity in Palestine and helping them to reach their destination and that Jewish communists were given preference.61 These assertions fit the wider British assessment that the Soviets were striving to undermine Britain’s status in the Middle East and were seeking a foothold in the area. The British were well aware that Moscow had


been piqued when the two Western powers had excluded the Soviets from their efforts to resolve the conflict in Palestine. Whitehall regarded the Soviet facilitation of illegal Jewish immigration as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to cause a rupture in London’s relations with both the Arab world and the United States. The Soviets systematically rejected British charges that they were involved in the illegal sailings and the escape of Jews from Eastern Europe. Instead, they pointed a remonstrative finger at the United States whose policy regarding Jewish DPs and Zionism was well known. The Soviets exploited the disputes that went on between the Americans and the British on this matter. In the joint Allied control commissions they supported positions and recommendations on Jewish migration consistent with those of the British, which ostensibly placed them on the side of the British against the Americans. They knew that the Americans would oppose any proposal to close the gates of their occupation zone in the face of Jewish refugees or to return them to their countries of origin. For example, in a session of the ACC in Austria at the end of September 1946, the American delegate accused the Soviets of aiding the Jews to reach the American zone of Vienna. The Soviet representative argued in response that while the Soviets were ready to do whatever was necessary to halt the stream of emigrants to Austria, the Americans were helping 100,000 Jews to reach Palestine. When the British delegate then moved for a decision to close the borders and block illegal Jewish emigration, the Soviets supported the proposal, while the American delegate opposed it.62 The mass exodus of Jews from countries under Soviet influence was made possible in large part through a rare convergence of the interests of those countries themselves and the USSR, of the Jews in those countries and of the Zionist movement. Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were generally not averse to seeing the Jews go since many of them refused to adjust themselves to the communist system. The desire to harm British interests was common to all Soviet satellites. In view of the Anglo-American disputes about policy towards Jewish DPs, it was logical for the Soviet Union both to try to exacerbate the problem of Jewish refugees in Germany and Austria and to help tens of thousands of Jews to set sail for Palestine. The Kremlin was well aware of the difficulties that the illegal immigrants were causing the British in Palestine and the implications that this had for London’s relations with the Arab states. Even after the UN had already passed its partition resolution (29 November 1947), the Soviets allowed the continuation of the illegal sailings. Allowing the Pans to sail was intended, among other things, to signal to the British what they could expect if they went back on their decision to leave Palestine: hundreds of thousands of Jews still in communist-bloc countries constituted a significant potential threat to the British. Soviet suspicions of the Western powers’ intentions were substantiated when the US proposed, in mid-March 1948, a temporary trusteeship for Palestine instead of partition.63 Analyzing British policy, Semioshkin wrote in mid-April 1948:


The ‘neutral’ position of the British on the Palestine question can not hide their real aims, which are to wreck the UN resolution on partition by provoking internecine conflict between Arabs and Jews and to remain in Palestine as a third force, alone or together with the US, or to hand over Palestine to the King of Transjordan, who would keep it for Britain. The British police and army are therefore either doing nothing or are secretly assisting the Arabs in their struggle against the Jews.64 At this point, when the termination of the mandate was closer than ever, instead of acting behind the scenes, the Soviets led the campaign against the US proposal. At the second session of the UN General Assembly (16 April–14 May 1948) Gromyko openly attacked both the US and Britain, saying it was clear that the responsibility for the present situation lay with these states that wished to frustrate the partition plan and to impose a solution dictated by the selfish interests of the ruling circles of the United States.65 In contrast to their direct and aggressive takeover, through local communists and the Red Army, of those countries that would come to make up the Soviet bloc, in Palestine the Soviets were forced to play a different game. Without any foothold in the Middle East, Moscow adopted an equivocal policy that would guarantee maximum maneuvring space. It certainly succeeded in confusing Alan Cunningham, the British High Commissioner in Palestine, who in mid-1946 speculated as to why the Soviet military authorities in Romania had permitted the departure of the Smyrna, that ‘possibly this was an example of a tactical mistake in this new field which is attributable to Soviet ignorance of the Arab world… alternatively, the opportunity of causing embarrassment to Great Britain may have proved too tempting to resist.’66 However, as argued above, this was not ‘a tactical mistake’ but part of a calculated policy that aimed at applying indirect pressure on the British mandatory authorities while at the same time avoided alienating the Arabs. This course of action continued until the autumn of 1947 when the Soviets realized that by supporting the Zionist cause they could help bring an end to the British mandate. In the final analysis, in the contest between Britain and the Soviet Union over Palestine Moscow achieved its goal. By enabling a dramatic increase in the number of Jewish DPs streaming into Germany and facilitating a substantial rise in illegal sailings to Palestine, the Soviets not only helped to undermine Britain’s position in Palestine but also succeeded in driving a wedge between Britain and the US at a critical stage of London’s efforts to solve the Palestine question. NOTES 1. See also Ritchie Ovendale, Britain, the United States, and the Transfer of Power in the Middle East, 1945–1962, London, 1996.


2. Wm. Roger Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East 1945–1951, Oxford, 1984, part III, chapter 9; Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary 1945– 1951, New York, 1983, pp.34–6, 154–57, 250–53. 3. See memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1 September 1945, British Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), CAB 94/14. 4. Solod to I.V.Samylovskii, 3 January 1946, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations 1941–1953, part I, London, 2000, doc.56. 5. Ibid. 6. Arieh J.Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States, and Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948, Chapel Hill, 2001, pp.43–51. On the Anglo-American Committee, see Amikam Nachmani, Great Power Discord: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine, 1945– 1946, London, 1987; Michael J.Cohen, Palestine and the Great Powers, Princeton, 1982, pp.60–67, chapter 5. 7. Allied Control Authority, Directorate of Prisoners of War and DPs, note by the secretariat on ‘Treatment of Jewish Refugees’, 7 December 1945, PRO, FO1005/ 838. See Strang to FO, 12 January 1945, PRO FO371/57685. 8. On the repatriation of Soviet refugees, see Mark R.Elliot, Pawns of Yalta: Soviet Refugees and America’s Role in Their Repatriation, Urbana, 1982, pp. 102–14. See also E.F.Penrose, ‘Negotiating on Refugees and Displaced Persons, 1946’, in Raymond Dennett and Joseph E. Johnson (eds.), Negotiating with the Russians, 1951, pp.139–68. 9. Acarbit, Vienna to Troopers (War Office), 18 October 1945, PRO FO945/655. 10. Michael J.Cohen, Truman and Israel, Berkeley, 1990, chapter 7; Leonard Dinnerstein, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust, New York, 1982, chapter 2. 11. John Coutouvidis and Jamie Reynolds, Poland 1939–1947, Leicester, 1986, chapters 8–10; Sussane Lotarski, ‘The Communist Takeover in Poland’, in Thomas T.Hammond (ed.), New Haven and London, 1975, pp.339–67; Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, The Rape of Poland: Pattern of Soviet Aggression, Connecticut, 1948. 12. FO to Warsaw, 2 February 1946, PRO FO371/57687. See also minute by George Rendel, 30 January 1946, PRO FO371/57686. 13. Victor Cavendish-Bentinck to FO, 7 February 1946, PRO FO945/655. On the process of issuing passports and exit visas, see Warsaw to FO, 11 August 1946, PRO FO371/52627. On the flight from Poland, see Yehuda Bauer, Out of the Ashes: The Impact of American Jews on Post-Holocaust European Jewry, Oxford, 1989, pp.111–19; David Engel, Between Liberation and Flight: Holocaust Survivors in Poland and the Struggle for Leadership, 1944–1946, Tel Aviv, 1996 (Hebrew). 14. Cavendish-Bentinck to Christopher Warner, Head of the Northern Department, FO, 20 February 1946, PRO FO371/57688. 15. Engel, Between Liberation and Flight, pp.42–4, 121–24; Yehuda Bauer, Flight and Rescue: Brichah, New York, 1970, p.125; Yisrael Gutman, The Jews in Poland after World War II, Jerusalem, 1985, pp.20–26 (Hebrew). On the repatriation agreement between the Soviet Union and Poland, see Joseph B.Schechtman, Postwar Population Transfers in Europe 1945–1955, Philadelphia, 1962, pp.155– 77. 16. Victor Rothwell, Britain and the Cold War 1941–1947, London, 1982, pp.367–74.


17. Schuckburgh to FO, 7 August 1946, PRO FO371/52627. See also minute by J.G.S.Beith, FO Eastern Department, 21 August 1946, PRO FO371/52629. 18. Schuckburgh to Fierlinger, 2 September 1946, PRO FO371/52632. 19. Schuckburgh to FO, 14 September 1946, PRO FO371/52632. 20. Ya’acov Ro’i, Soviet Decision Making in Practice: The USSR and Israel 1947– 1954, New Brunswick, 1980, p.29. 21. K.D.Golubev, Deputy Plenipotentiary of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on Matters of Repatriation, to A.A.Smirnov (Moscow), 4 Sept. 1946, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, doc.66. 22. Note by Edgecumb on ACC meeting, 21 May 1946, PRO WO178/78. See also report of the intelligence organization Allied Commission for Austria on ‘The Unauthorized Movement and Clandestine Activity of Jewish DPs in Austria’, 8 April 1946, PRO FO371/57690; Acarbit Vienna to WO, 8 April 1946, PRO, FO943/485 and WO to Acarbit Vienna, 11 May 1946, PRO FO945/590. 23. Helm to FO, 17 August 1946, PRO FO371/52630; Helm to FO, 17 August 1946, PRO FO371/52629. See also Ferenc Nagy, The Struggle Behind the Iron Curtain, New York, 1948, p.194. 24. See notes of ACC meeting on 30 August 1946, PRO FO371/58966. 25. Helm to FO, 16 August 1946, PRO FO371/52629; memorandum presented to the Hungarian Foreign Minister, 15 August 1946, PRO FO371/52630. On Nagy’s attitude to the Jews, see Sari Reuvani, ‘Anti-Semitism in Hungary in the Years 1945–1946’, Yalkut Moreshet, Vol.43–44 (1987), pp.182, 189, 195 (Hebrew). 26. Helm to the FO, 8 August 1946, PRO CAB104/275; British military mission in Hungary to British Commission Austria, 15 August 1946, PRO FO371/52629/ E8292. 27. A.A.Smirnov, M.A.Masksimov, L.F.Teplov to VG.Dekanozov (Moscow), 17 September 1946, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, doc.68. 28. John Wheeler-Bennet and Anthony Nicholls, The Semblance of Peace: The Political Settlement after the Second World War, London, 1972, chapter 18. 29. Dalia Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust: Illegal Immigration to the Land of Israel, 1939–1944, New York, 1990, chapter 13. 30. Holman to FO, 4 April 1946, PRO ADM1 16/5561 and FO to Bucharest, 5 April 1946, PRO ADM1 16/5561. 31. Holman to FO, 13 April 1946, PRO FO 371/52515. 32. Arie Steinberg, The International Aspects of the Jewish Immigration from and through Romania 1938–1947, PhD dissertation, University of Haifa, 1984, pp.702– 07 (Hebrew). 33. Holman to FO, 4 May 1946, PRO ADM 116/5561. 34. Minutes of 27th meeting of Allied Control Commission, Romania, 20 June 1946, PRO WO178/71. 35. Holman to FO, 2 July 1946, PRO, FO 371/52531/E5839; Holman to FO, 24 June 1946, PRO FO371/52534. 36. Holman to FO, 12 July 1946, PRO FO 371/52538/; Holman to FO, 25 July 1946, PRO FO371/52544. 37. Holman to FO, 26 July 1946, PRO FO371/52544; Aide Memoire to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bucharest, 27 July 1946, PRO FO371/52549. 38. Peterson to VG.Dekanozov, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow, 31 July 1946, PRO FO371/52549; Peterson to FO, 14 August 1946 PRO FO 371/52628.


39. Holman to FO, 8 August 1946, PRO FO371/52627; Holman to FO, 15 August 1946, PRO FO371/52629. 40. Stanley M.Max, The United States, Great Britain, and the Sovietization of Hungary, 1945–1948, New York, 1978, pp.81–3. See also Paris Peace Conference, 1946: Selected Documents, Washington, DC, pp.649–833. 41. Paris to FO, 22 August 1946, and Paris to FO, 28 August 1946, PRO FO371/52630; FO to Adis Ababa, 29 August 1946, PRO FO371/52630. 42. Roberts to Dekanozov, 31 August 1946, PRO FO 371/52632; Roberts to FO, 6 September 1946 and Roberts to FO, 7 September 1946, PRO FO371/52632. 43. Trunkhanovski to Roger Allen, British First Secretary at the embassy in Moscow, 25 October 1946, PRO FO371/52636; minute by Beith, 10 September 1946, PRO FO371/52632. 44. Menachem Shelah, The Yugoslav Connection: Illegal Immigration of Jewish Refugees to Palestine through Yugoslavia, 1938–1948, Tel Aviv, 1994, chapters 17–18 (Hebrew); Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics, pp.211–17. 45. Martin Jones, Failure in Palestine: British and United States Policy after the Second World War, London, 1986, chapter 5; Wm. Roger Louis, ‘British Imperialism and the End of Palestine Mandate’, in Wm.Roger Louis and Robert W.Stookey (eds.), The End of the Palestine Mandate, London, 1986, pp.11–19; Cohen, Palestine and the Great Powers, pp.209–29. 46. See also Robert M.Hathaway, Ambiguous Partnership: Britain and America, 1944– 1947, New York, 1981, chapter 14. 47. Shtein to A.Vyshinskii (Moscow), 6 March 1947, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, doc. 74. See also doc. 75. 48. Gromyko’s speech to the First Special Session of the UN General Assembly, 14 May 1947, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, doc. 83. For an analysis of the speech, see Benjamin Pinkus, ‘Soviet Policy towards the Jews of the USSR and the Yishuv, 1945–1948’, in Benjamin Pinkus (ed.), Eastern-European Jewry: From the Holocaust to Redemption, 1944–1948, Sde Boker, 1987, pp.77–84 (Hebrew). See also Ro’i, Soviet Decision Making in Practice, pp.65–73. 49. Molotov to Vyshinskii, 30 September 1947, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, docs. 95 and 94. 50. Cohen, Palestine and the Great Powers, pp.260–76; Jones, Failure in Palestine, chapters 6–7; Ovendale, Britain, the United States, pp.214–19. 51. Molotov to Vyshinskii, 30 September 1947, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, doc. 95. See also Oles M.Smolansky, ‘The Soviet Role in the Emergence of Israel’, in The End of the Palestine Mandate, pp.65–71. 52. Molotov to Vyshinskii, 16 October 1947, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, doc. 97. 53. Memorandum by A.Timfeev, First Secretary, Department of UN Affairs, Soviet Foreign Ministry, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, doc. 99. 54. Ro’i, Soviet Decision Making in Practice, pp.76–77. 55. Michael J.Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952, Cambridge, 1987; William C.Cromwell, ‘The Marshall Plan, Britain and the Cold War’, Review of International Studies, Vol.8 (1982), pp.233–49; Geir Lundestad, The American Non-Policy towards Eastern Europe, Oslo, 1975, pp.257–84; Nissan Oren, Revolution Administered: Agrarianism and Communism in Bulgaria, Baltimore, 1973, chapter 5; Rothwell,


56.

57.

58. 59. 60. 61.

62.

63. 64. 65. 66.

Britain and the Cold War, pp.374–88; Mark Ethridge and C.E.Black, ‘Negotiating on the Balkans, 1945–1947’, in Negotiating with the Russians, pp.171–206. Brigadier E.R.Greer, British Representative to the ACC in Romania, to Ivan Susiakov, 25 August 1947, PRO FO371/61848; Frank Roberts, the British minister in Moscow, to FO, 26 August 1947, PRO FO371/61824; Roberts to FO, 27 August 1947, PRO FO371/61824. Inverchapel to Marshall, 18 October 1947, PRO FO115/4334; Inverchapel to FO, 1 November 1947, PRO FO371/61851. See also Arnold Krammer, The Forgotten Friendship: Israel and the Soviet Bloc, 1947–1953, Urbana, 1974, pp.44–6. Holman to FO, 17 December 1947, PRO FO371/61854. FO to Washington, 27 December 1947, PRO ADM1/20793. On the Pans, see Ze’ev Venia Hadari and Ze’ev Tsahor, Voyage to Freedom: An Episode in the Illegal Immigration to Palestine, London, 1985. British embassy, Prague to Baxter, 1 October 1946, PRO FO371/52560; minute by Beith, 21 August 1946, PRO FO371/52629; FO to Washington, 25 September 1946, PRO CAB127/ 280. Minutes of the 56th meeting of Executive Committee ACC for Austria, 29 September 1946, PRO, FO945/372; minutes of the 37th meeting of the Directorate Allied Commission for Austria, 10 September 1946, PRO FO1007/150. Cohen, Truman and Israel, chapters 10–11; Michael T.Benson, Harry S.Truman and the Founding of Israel, Westport, CN, 1997, chapter 10. Semioshkin to Gromyko, 13 April 1948, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, doc. 118. Gromyko’s speech to the Second Session of the UN General Assembly, 20 April 1948, Documents of Israeli-Soviet Relations, doc.119. Cunningham to Hull, 30 May 1946, PRO, FO181/1019.

Blocking Peace: Britain and the IsraeliJordanian Conflict, 1949–51 JONATHAN SLESS

In the aftermath of the 1948 Palestine war the tiny desert Kingdom of Jordan held secret negotiations with the Israelis. It had been swamped with Palestinian refugees and had a border of several hundred miles with Israel which it could not effectively defend. Conversely, Israel viewed the Arab Legion with respect. It had acquitted itself well during the war, and was also backed up by the AngloJordanian treaty, of which the Israelis were wary. Britain, after opposing contacts for much of 1948, shifted its stance in January 1949 and allowed talks to occur. But how genuine was this policy shift? Did Britain, as argued by revisionist historians, develop ‘a gradually improving relationship with the Jewish State’ and act as an honest broker in the Jordanian-Israeli negotiations?1 This essay contends that far from seeking a rapprochement with Israel, between 1949 and mid-1951 at the very least Britain prevented the Jewish state from making peace with the one Arab state eager to do so, Jordan. ISRAELI-JORDANIAN ARMISTICE NEGOTIATIONS Whilst the British were keen to facilitate armistice negotiations between these two states, this desire reflected the dire military position of Egypt, Britain’s foremost Middle-East client, rather than any wish to turn Israel’s gains on the battlefield into a political reality. Indeed, Britain tried hard to limit these gains by seeking co-ordination between Jordan and Egypt. Sir John Troutbeck, the head of the British Middle Eastern Office (BMEO), felt there might be a role for the Arab League to do this.2 The Foreign Office had no vested interest in keeping this particularly anti-British organization going, and was sensibly not prepared to fall in with this proposal.3 Nonetheless, the Eastern Department was convinced that Israel was negotiating with Egypt as a ploy only to facilitate an attack on Transjordanian forces or Jerusalem.4 Attempts by Israel to secure British mediation were rebuffed. The Foreign Office had little wish to deal directly with, Jonathan Sless is an independent writer and commentator. This article is taken from his King’s College, London PhD thesis Britain’s Policy Towards Israel, 1949–1951 (1999).


or make concessions to, Jews.5 Then, again, it had little faith in King Abdullah’s ability to negotiate a worthwhile agreement with them either.6 The antagonistic British line led to the inevitable Israeli response when on 5 March the Israelis took Um Rashrash (Eilat) and the Ein-Gedi region, assigned to the Jewish state by the UN partition resolution. Israel was aware of Britain’s treaty with Transjordan, and had no wish for a clash, conducting its move with circumspection and making its limited intentions known.7 In response, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin complained to the Americans and sought permission to break the arms embargo to supply the Legion.8 The British used the Israeli moves as a pretext to threaten the Israeli air force and reinforce the British garrison at Aqaba.9 Glubb Pasha, the British commander of the Arab Legion, delayed the Iraqi army from leaving the West Bank.10 Sir Alec Kirkbride, the British Ambassador to Transjordan, advised that the British army should hold this front against the Israelis. This was rejected, but a British military operation codenamed ‘Barker’ was prepared in the event of an Israeli advance into Jordan.11 As the armistice negotiations between Israel and Jordan drew to a close, the British legation in Amman enlisted the help of its American counterpart.12 The two legations advised King Abdullah not to sign the agreement because it provided for the Israelis to link the town of Afula with the rest of the country.13 On 22 March, though a draft agreement had been signed, the British legation sought and obtained Glubb’s support to urge the king to refuse to sign the final copy.14 Its last-minute attempts to improve the terms of the agreement by encouraging the king to appeal directly to US President Harry Truman also failed. The armistice was signed on March 30 1949; the British government had been unable to use force to support Jordan.15 This fact did not encourage the British to advise the Jordanians to reach formal peace. The Foreign Office was interested only in engaging in a systematic effort to extract territorial concessions from Israel. EARLY BRITISH ATTEMPTS TO SECURE ISRAELI CONCESSIONS On the very same day Sir John Beith of the Eastern Department addressed himself to the problem of trying to wrest a right of way from Israel between Jordan and the Gaza Strip. This would have divided the former British mandate neatly in two, as well as making it easier for Britain to supply Jordan and Iraq by sea in the event of an Arab-Israeli conflict.16 It failed to tackle the crucial question of land communications to allow vehicular traffic to cross between Jordan and Egypt. Since the British had largely given up on the prospect of the preferable route (through the important Israeli town of Beersheba), he suggested an alternative: a one-way gravel track starting at Kubri on the Suez Canal and running to Aqaba, across the Sinai Peninsula via Nakhl and Thamad, then on from Aqaba to Amman via Ma‘an and Hasa. The road could be made suitable

BRITAIN AND THE ISRAELI-JORDANIAN CONFLICT 75

within two years: ‘The complicating factor was that it would be necessary to deny the extreme Southern tip of the Negev to Israel, to keep this continuous line of communication in Arab hands.’17 Transit rights aside, the best prospect of curbing the Israelis lay in encouraging Jordan to formally annex the West Bank.18 Israeli warnings about the risks to peace if the Anglo-Jordanian treaty was extended to this territory were ridiculed.19 Correspondingly, the Foreign Office’s only concern was that the Arabs were ‘not forced into relinquishing more territory to Jews.’20 It advised King Abdullah that it would ‘be best not to go too far with a bilateral peace agreement until the [Conciliation] Commission’s own attitude, had become clearer.’21 The British had a dim view of the likely effectiveness of this body.22 By this time warships, including destroyers and cruisers, were patrolling the Gulf of Aqaba. It seemed to at least one impartial observer that the Foreign Office was hoping to lure the Israelis into a military conflict with the British Empire.23 Sensing the British intrigue, the Israelis toughened their stance. In mid-April the US delegate at the Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC) was told by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that Israel ‘would not relinquish any part of the Negev [and there could be] no corridor between Egypt or the Mediterranean for Jordan.’24 Still, he held out the carrot that if peace was concluded, ‘Jordan could be allowed a free zone at Tel-Aviv or Haifa, with rights of passage, or possibly the Gaza, which could be turned into an autonomous area, if the Egyptians agreed to it.’25 The Foreign Office’s response was artful. At first it was in favour of saddling the Israelis with 300,000 disaffected Palestinian refugees; later it dropped the idea when it realized that there would be nothing to stop the Israelis from ‘pleading [their] inability to stop a voluntary movement of refugees from the area.’26 Meanwhile, during the month of May the Lausanne talks rumbled on, with the British conspicuously absent.27 The negotiations went into recess in June, with both sides unwilling to make the concessions needed to buy peace. The Israelis, increasingly suspicious of British intentions, were circumspect about proffering any concessions, whilst the Jordanians, guided by the British advice that the Jews were intent on securing ‘further nibbles culminating in the conquest of the whole of Palestine’,28 became more intransigent. Eventually, the State Department, bemused by the stiff British stance, approached the head of the UK’s UN delegation asking for clarification of what sort of peace Britain envisaged. The British response to this request made it clear that they were angling for nothing less than Dr Philip Jessup’s formula for a just settlement. This American UN representative had argued for an exchange of territory between the two sides. The idea was to ensure that full territorial compensation be paid for land lost from Count Bernadotte’s failed attempt at mediation in 1948, with its partition plan. This plan had been unacceptable to the Arabs during the war, as well as to many Israelis; it was unlikely that it would become more amenable after the end of hostilities. None of this deterred the Foreign Office. Beith’s ideas about land


links had by early August been enhanced to make them more palatable to the Arabs, and to the British themselves.29 The eight points London gave the Americans were: • • • • • • • •

Israel’s acceptance of the refugees; Acceptance of Israel’s Gaza Strip proposal; Israel would make significant territorial concessions in return for Gaza; Guarantees of communication and outlets for all Arab states; A free port (or at least a free zone) for all Arab states in Haifa; Partition of Jerusalem with international supervision of the Holy places; Arab Palestine should be formally incorporated into Jordan; Israel and the Arab states should agree to share, for their mutual benefit, the waters of the Jordan and Yarmuk.

Looking closely at the Foreign Office’s blueprint for an acceptable peace in the middle of 1949, its specifics made it implausible that Israel could ever have accepted it. Consider the first proviso: ‘acceptance of the refugees.’ There is no mention here of how many the Foreign Office thought the Israelis should accept or where these should be resettled. It is doubtful whether the British meant that all 600,000 refugees were to be taken back since this would have negated the second proviso: ‘acceptance of Israel’s Gaza Strip proposal.’ Since this was now conditional on the 300,000 Arabs being able to return to any part of Israel, it was impractical for the Jews to implement it. The list of ‘territorial concessions’ contained in the documents, or the third proviso, gave the Israelis a seemingly adequate choice of different areas for them to cede. The trouble was that each was bound to be deeply militarily or economically problematic. It was, however, the fourth and fifth provisos, or ‘communications or outlets’, and the ‘free port in Haifa’ which, considering Israel’s high tax economy, threatened to be the most technically difficult to implement. It was impossible to prevent leakage to the Israeli population.30 Since the sixth proviso for ‘the administration of the Holy Places’ by the UN was not, in any case, under Israeli control, this hardly depended on their agreement. Only in the case of the seventh and eight provisos—that ‘Arab Palestine should be incorporated into Jordan’ and that ‘Israel and the Arab states should agree to share the waters of the Jordan and the Yarmuk, for their mutual benefit’—were there grounds for optimism. Even here, Israel’s rapidly expanding population made both issues a bone of contention. With Foreign Office requirements for an equitable settlement for the Arabs rapidly escalating, it continued to allow discussions between Jordan and Israel. There were two reasons for this. First, although the Israelis had not yet risen to the British bait and responded by using force, Israel was growing stronger. The Foreign Office realized that discretion might be the better part of valour. Convincing the Americans to take part in a territorial guarantee which effectively underwrote Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank was proving difficult. So the


prospect of the immediate incorporation of the West Bank, with the subsequent protection of the Anglo-Jordanian treaty acting as a shield, had receded. Secondly, it was hoping that the obvious Israeli anxiety for a deal might provide an opportunity to extract ‘significant concessions.’31 BRITISH INVOLVEMENT IN THE FORMAL ISRAELIJORDANIAN PEACE NEGOTIATIONS On 27 November 1949 these ideas led to Britain’s agreement to the first formal peace talks between the two states.32 At first, things seemed to go well, with the Israelis catering to some extent to Bevin’s concerns by agreeing in principle to provide transit facilities for the Jordanians at Haifa, essential if the British were going to be able to supply them, in the wake of any potential Arab boycott. Subsequently, the Israelis stated that the Americans wanted them to come to terms with Jordan, and asked what the attitude of the British government was. Revealingly, Samir Rifai, the Jordanian prime minister, would only say that ‘he was not in the position of speaking for His Majesty’s Government.’33 Then the Israelis, quite reasonably, for information purposes only, asked ‘whether the Anglo-Jordanian treaty would apply West of the Jordan River’, to which Samir replied that ‘obviously it would apply to the whole of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.’ The Foreign Office took this to mean that the Israelis had clandestine intentions to capture the entire area.34 The following Thursday there were further talks, when the Israelis made the point that they did not wish to see British bases west of the River Jordan. Still, they made it clear that this was for domestic considerations, as opposed to military ones.35 The Jordanians denied that their desire for the Negev was prompted by British strategic considerations and agreed to take land bordering Lebanon in exchange. The Foreign Office, though, considered the question was of ‘some significance.’36 Writing from Cairo on 8 December, Sir Ronald Campbell, the British ambassador to Egypt, drew London’s attention to the fact that the negotiations were apparently going in the wrong direction: ‘Would an outlet to the Lebanese frontier suit British strategic purposes, as well as one to the Egyptian frontier?’37 That same day, at a further meeting between the two sides, the Israelis tried to sell King Abdullah the idea that a corridor was unnecessary: the matter could be handled by giving Jordan a jurisdiction similar to that prevailing in the towns of Colon or Panama. Kirkbride’s position was that it was an Israeli ‘trap’ into which King Abdullah had failed to fall.38 Here perhaps the elemental role of Kirkbride, both in these exploratory talks and during the entire period under review, should be elaborated. Ron Pundick argues that ‘one of Israel’s biggest mistakes was overestimating Britain’s role in the Transjordanian decision-making process.’39 Even if one ignores the documentary evidence this is unlikely: ‘Sir Alec’s influence with King Abdullah stemmed as much from his friendship with him, as it did from his privileged position as a plenipotentiary of the British Empire’,40 and this influence was, as I


will demonstrate, very important. Briefly, he was sceptical about the whole process and considered it futile,41 a fact which coloured both his perception of the difficulties of coming to an agreement and his representations to London about the manner in which the negotiations were being conducted. On 17 December, with Moshe Dayan and Reuben Shiloah acting for Israel and King Abdullah and Samir representing Jordan, the two parties actually reached the stage of signing a paper entitled ‘Principles of a Territorial Arrangement (Final).’ The paper contained the details of a territorial compromise between Israel and Jordan. Although not called a formal peace treaty, at the King’s insistence, it was precisely that. Still, when the Israelis returned to see King Abdullah he informed them that ‘his friend, Sir Alec Kirkbride…did not agree that Jordan should enter into such a treaty with Israel, while other states, mainly Egypt, had not done so.’42 The Foreign Office endorsed the ambassador’s line.43 Nevertheless, the British continued to allow negotiations between the two states. This was not, it should be stressed, because they wanted an agreement to be reached. Instead, having got the Israelis’ measure, and once again desirous to play for time until some arrangement over the West Bank could be made, they cynically concluded that they ‘need do nothing to discourage’ them.44 The only Foreign Office stipulation was that any agreement should be put to the Conciliation Commission for their endorsement.45 The British considered King Abdullah much too optimistic over the sort of concessions that could be extracted from the Jews, and wanted to give themselves ample time to thwart any deal with which they did not agree. For its part, Israel believed that the Jordanian demand for sea access was prompted by British strategic considerations and wished to do nothing to hinder a potential deal. Seeking to counteract Foreign Office reservations, Shiloah, when he met Samir on 23 December, offered the Jordanians a strip of territory about 50 to 100 yards wide, which would have linked Jordan with the Gaza Strip. The Israeli further offered about three miles of beachfront just north of this area, near Ashkelon, for the Jordanians to build their own port. The offer appeared to represent a significant breakthrough since it meant the Israelis dealing with the logistical difficulty of having a corridor in the middle of their country. Somewhat taken aback, the Israelis were willing to concede, at least in principle, the Jordanian requirement for direct access to the Mediterranean. The British warned both the Egyptians and the Jordanians that ‘the Israelis were seeking to play one off against the other.’46 The British claimed to the Americans that they were adopting a ‘hands off’ attitude towards the negotiations. Apparently, the Israeli offer had breached some of the ‘technical guidelines’ which the Foreign Office had generously supplied to Kirkbride.47 Guided by this British advice, the Jordanians professed to be unimpressed. The area was ‘full of sand dunes’, as was all the coast in this area, and ‘of no economic value.’48 Samir even questioned whether another meeting was necessary at all.


PEACE NEGOTIATIONS IN 1950 During 1950 the pattern always repeated itself. The Jordanians, usually with but sometimes without British tutoring, would demand more than the Israelis could give. It emerged that the Jordanians wanted a strip of land kilometres-wide capable of settlement,49 a proposition bound to have been unacceptable to Israel as it would have allowed for fortresses such as Latrun to be built along its southern border, thus splitting the Jewish state in the middle.50 A request by Israel for British intervention drew some support from the Americans, who believed that the corridor was both ‘unnecessary’ and ‘impractical.’51 The British believed that the only role the Israelis saw for His Majesty’s Government was to coerce Jordan and not them, and so declined to intervene.52 Whilst the Foreign Office ‘did not feel that corridors were ever satisfactory arrangements’, it considered that the Jordanian demand for access to the sea could be used to extract concessions, either in Jerusalem or in the Southern Negev.53 In response, the Israelis wrote to both King Abdullah and the Jordanian prime minister stating that the demand for a large strip of land would mean that there would be ‘no point in the remainder of the discussions.’54 Kirkbride advised that ‘Jordan did not seem to have anything to lose by sitting back and waiting for a while to see what happened.’55 The two sides met again in early February despite Britain’s ‘do nothing’ advice and various attempts to isolate the Israelis politically, but the meeting proved inconclusive. There were indications that King Abdullah might be prepared to compromise over the size of the corridor,56 but the Jerusalem and Mount Scopus questions proved difficult.57 The Israelis asked the Americans to persuade the British to mount a joint appeal to King Abdullah to secure a quick compromise over the corridor.58 The idea found favour with James McDonald, the American ambassador to Israel,59 but was rejected by the Foreign Office’s Middle Eastern advisor.60 The British felt that the ambassador was ‘antiBritish.’61 There were also Virtually no concessions which [they] could feel justified in pressing Jordan to make.’62 Adopting such a transparently one-sided attitude made it obvious that the British were really only interested in stabilizing the border, by means of either an Allied guarantee or a declaration against any hostilities, by any party, in order to reinforce the status quo. Nevertheless, extracting this from the Americans was proving difficult.63 There seemed no possibility of their participating in a guarantee, only a declaration,64 and even this needed careful groundwork before it could be obtained. So the best course of action seemed to be to let the talks go on spasmodically,65 whilst the Foreign Office set to work on the State Department.66 Since it believed that King Abdullah was no longer playing a direct part in the negotiations,67 there seemed little risk of a breakthrough.68 Unfortunately for the British, on 7 February at Shuneh King Abdullah returned to the talks and put forward a realistic proposal, which took the form of a sevenpart plan. It reserved Jordan’s right to access to the Mediterranean, without


demanding a corridor. The official Israeli reaction was ‘that the plan could be a basis for talks which, it was hoped, would be continuous, until agreement is reached.’69 The Foreign Office warned King Abdullah that ‘there was a real danger that the Israelis would accept the parts of the proposal that suited them, and make amendments to the remainder.’70 McDonald visited Sir Knox Helm, the British ambassador to Israel, on 19 February and assured him that the Israelis would be ‘flexible over the details of the settlement.’71 The Foreign Office felt ‘the Israelis hoped to persuade King Abdullah to make further concessions.’72 THE CRITICAL MOMENT On the following Friday night Israeli representatives met Prime Minister Samir and his deputy, Fauzi Mulki at Shuneh, to produce and initial ‘a basis for negotiation.’73 This was a revised nine-point version, in Arabic, of the seven points proposed by King Abdullah two weeks previously. The next meeting was scheduled for 28 February, during which time both sides were to prepare their own version of this revised agreement. To sell the agreement to their own sceptical public, the Israelis asked the British to publicise a private assurance that they had already given, that they would not place bases on the West Bank.74 The Foreign Office declined to do so: ‘it would appear that the British had been involved in the negotiations.’75 At the end of February Jordan’s Council of Ministers approved a Jordanian draft. This was positive; they had previously declined to have anything to do with an agreement with Israel.76 Israel’s draft was presented to Jordan. However, Samir considered it ‘to be clear on all matters in favour of Israel but referring only vaguely to points in favour of Jordan.’77 He suggested to Kirkbride that he should pull out of the talks. The latter would only murmur that ‘the Israelis would naturally try to get terms favourable to themselves.’78 The two drafts were virtually identical, with the exception of a Jordanian deletion of a clause related to the resumption of trade.79 Hence, it would appear that Kirkbride was telling Samir not to conclude this agreement. With this ambiguous but distinctly negative British lead, Jordan’s prime minister decided to become ‘dissatisfied with the terms of the agreement’ and resigned. He was ‘eventually persuaded to stay, on the understanding that no further attempts would be made to negotiate with the Israelis, until after the completion of the elections in Jordan in the middle of April.’80 It is not clear who persuaded him to stay in office and why this was done, but the king was told by the British ‘not to work towards a formal peace treaty before consulting the new Parliament.’81 The stalling of the talks induced little mourning in London: ‘The present check on the Israel-Jordan negotiations will at least have been useful in allowing the Israelis to see the strength of Arab feeling, even in Jordan itself.’82 In early March the Syrians tried to prevent any potential Jordanian-Israeli agreement by threatening to close the frontier if it were concluded. Shiloah approached Helm to ask for British assistance to warn the Syrians ‘to keep off


the grass.’ The Foreign Office, guided by its representative in Damascus, was disinclined to assist.83 It viewed the Israeli approach as based on out-of-date information. King Abdullah ‘had already had his severe reverse.’84 To make sure that this ‘reverse’ was final, the Foreign Office wrote to Washington that ‘No intervention by the US would be effective, it might antagonise the Jordanians.’85 Geoffrey Furlonge, head of the Eastern Department, piously intoned: ‘Jordanian public opinion has really been the determining factor.’86 That the senior diplomat in the Eastern Department was willing, in early 1950, to sacrifice the chances for peace, on which so much of British strategic needs depended, on the chimerical altar of Arab public opinion is hard to understand. However, Furlonge was not alone. It became clear that the Americans were going to fall into line with British wishes not to place any additional pressure on Jordan to complete an agreement.87 The Foreign Office’s Middle East advisor commented smugly that ‘the State Department’s attitude is satisfactory.’88 Even so, a concern arose that Israel might use the lack of an agreement as a pretext to attack Jordan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff advocated strengthening the Legion and raising its subsidy.89 Notably, the unhelpful British attitude attracted searching comment from Helm: As I understand it, we favour negotiations between Jordan and Israel, and this in turn ought to presumably mean that we should favour the conclusion of an agreement. Or does it? Frankly I feel rather puzzled. Anyway, and unless you advise me to the contrary, I will continue to act on the assumption that you would like to see an agreement.90 Writing in response to Helm’s questioning letter, Furlonge tried to clarify the British position by giving substance to the oft-repeated remark that they would like to see peace, ‘but not at any price’:91 ‘We feel that the Israelis, by playing on the weakness of the United Nations, have got away with so much more than they are entitled to, that any settlement with Jordan at least, could only be equitable if it involved them in considerable concessions.’92 What the phrase ‘considerable concessions’ from a territory the size of Wales would have meant in practice, Furlonge felt disinclined to say, but clearly this explained the lack of British support for a peace agreement, based upon King Abdullah’s seven-point plan which contained no ‘considerable concessions’ from Israel. Would the British ever be willing to change their position in the future? Furlonge was discouraging: It may well be that Israel will never be willing to make these concessions and that Jordan will eventually have to acquiesce…in which case, we shall probably offer no objection; but we should not feel justified at this stage in pressing her to accept such a settlement, especially as the evident Israeli anxiety for an agreement, which you mention, and we have already


observed, may lead to them becoming more reasonable if King Abdullah shows no undue precipitation in the negotiations.93 In the middle of March the stalling tactics of both the British and the Jordanian prime minister became clear. It was revealed that the Arab League was about to meet in Cairo and that a hostile communiqué would emerge. The State Department approached Britain, asking whether it could suggest any means of forestalling it.94 So did Israel, asking Britain to use its influence with the Arab League members to prevent it. In both cases, the Foreign Office felt unable to assist Israel. British deference to Arab feelings about their defeat in the Palestine war meant that they had become more than a little disconcerted that the ‘Arabs [had] already given [them] credit for having brought the negotiations to their present point.’95 Besides, British interest in the talks, let alone a settlement, was waning fast: By mid-April Arab Palestine will be incorporated into Jordan, and our present idea is that we shall announce the application of the AngloJordanian Treaty to the incorporated areas. Thereafter, the Israelis will surely realise that expansion in that direction could hardly fail to involve them in direct conflict with us…the effect on the Israelis will be salutary.96 THE COLLAPSE OF THE PEACE PROCESS At around this time, a little too propitiously for the British, the chances of a unilateral Israeli-Jordanian deal suddenly diminished. The internal dissent between the various factions within Jordan, which hitherto had been relatively silent, became vocal. The Council of Ministers again shifted stance in the wake of the League’s threat to expel Jordan. Jordan should submit to Farouk’s threats by sending a representative to Cairo to vote in favour of an Arab League resolution. This stated that any Arab state making a separate peace with Israel would be regarded as having left the League. King Abdullah approached Kirkbride to ask for his opinion. The latter sided with the ministers against the king.97 A Jordanian delegate was duly sent to Cairo to vote with the forces of negation. On 24 April 1950 another Israeli bid to rekindle the moribund peace process occurred. Shiloah sent a message to King Abdullah stating that Israel could not recognize Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank and expressing a wish to meet both him and Kirkbride.98 On the same day the British disingenuously advised the Americans that a declaration by them, approving the union of Arab Palestine with Jordan, would be helpful in promoting negotiations.99 And yet, Abdullah was told by His Majesty’s Representative that ‘he should not do anything to bring himself into conflict with his new Parliament.’100 Nor did Kirkbride ‘see any useful purpose in meeting the Israelis.’101 Discouraged by the prevarication but unwilling to accept the British advice to suspend the negotiations altogether, Abdullah contacted Ben-Gurion, saying that


he was prepared to leave the League if necessary to secure an agreement. Once again, Kirkbride warned him that negotiations would be futile unless the cabinet approved them. Later, another warning was sent direct from London to the king reinforcing its ambassador’s line.102 Accordingly, the king asked Kirkbride to mediate with the cabinet as he had been doing since 1948. The British ambassador declined to do this.103 It is worth reflecting for a moment on the real motivation, and the effects of this British support and concern for Jordan’s fledgling democratic institutions. Since early 1949, when Kirkbride had insisted that the Council of Ministers become involved in the proceedings which ultimately led to the Armistice agreement,104 the British had gradually been according them a status which they had hitherto not enjoyed. It is tempting to believe that the British had suddenly become converts to the rule of democracy in despotic states. Yet the real reason for their behaviour was to act as a counterbalance to restrain King Abdullah’s enthusiasm for negotiation with the Israelis. By now, Israel was also appraised that Abdullah had been advised to ‘go slow’105 with his negotiations, but there was little it could do. Questions were already being asked in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) why the government bothered to negotiate with Abdullah at all, considering his country’s military weakness. It was felt that there could be no further Israeli concessions. The tacit acceptance of Jordan’s absorbing of the West Bank, and the offer of transit facilities, were now the most Israel was prepared to countenance. Certainly, it appears that the British realised that they had lost a valuable opportunity to extract at least some of what they wanted.106 Still, with their goal of securing the West Bank for Jordan achieved and the prospects of an Israeli-Jordanian deal lost, for the moment, the Foreign Office could afford to look more impartial. Its Middle Eastern advisor summed up the rights and wrongs of the Arab and Israeli positions by grudgingly conceding: ‘The Arabs have shown themselves lamentably inefficient and lacking in realism.’107 Furthermore, in view of the forthcoming Tripartite Declaration, the British now felt it advisable to argue that they wanted an Israeli-Jordanian agreement, but were powerless to facilitate it.108 Such was the line that Kirkbride took when he wrote in to the Eastern Department complaining of the quandary in which he had been put by the whole unfortunate business: ‘If I tell the King not to press the Government, he will extricate himself by sending word to Israel that he is being held up by the British. If I press the Prime Minister to go ahead, he will probably resign. In the circumstances I suggest I do neither.’109 His Majesty’s Ambassador, in what was after all still the third most powerful nation in the world at that time, considered himself helpless to act for fear that the prime minister, who was not even the head of state of one of the smallest and poorest countries, totally beholden financially and militarily to the United Kingdom, might resign. As if to echo this artificially supine position, on 5 May Campbell even wrote arguing that the Tripartite Declaration should wait for the results of the Arab League’s political committee meeting.110 Britain ignored this


Egyptian pressure and the three-power declaration was made on 25 May Still, British motives were murky, at least as far as Israel and the peace process were concerned. Far from being a statement confirming that the existing frontiers should not be altered except by mutual agreement, as the Americans considered the Tripartite Declaration to be, the British were less convinced. It seemed unlikely to the Foreign Office that the State Department would actually do anything to protect Arab frontiers against Israel.111 The British were unwilling to embarrass any Arab state by suggesting within any declaration that they should actually refrain from attacking the Jews.112 In addition, ‘His Majesty’s Government…might want to get the existing armistice frontiers adjusted in favour of the Arab states, before proceeding to such a guarantee.’113 Quite simply the Foreign Office hoped it would make an ‘uneasy commitment’ less so,114 and did not, as Avi Shlaim contends, undertake to ‘promote an Israeli-Jordanian agreement.’115 Since the Israelis had no wish to attack the West Bank and try to absorb the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs living there, they too were pleased with the declaration. Indeed, two days later they offered Jordan territorial adjustments in the Jenin triangle area in return for the understanding that Jordan would drop its claim to the Negev.116 King Abdullah too was anxious to take up the new Israeli offer and does not appear to have consulted the British.117 The Foreign Office found out and discussed the matter with Louis Douglas, the US Ambassador to Britain. The British believed that the Israelis were provoking frontier incidents to ‘test the efficacy of application of the Anglo-Jordan treaty to Arab Palestine.’118 In the middle of June the Israelis, much too hopeful that a new climate had at last dawned in Anglo-Israeli relations in the wake of the Tripartite Declaration, approached Helm in Tel Aviv to secure British encouragement and support.119 Once again, the British attitude towards any impending new talks remained dubious. Furlonge noted gloomily that Jordan had given up all hope of concessions in the Negev or corridors to Gaza. He also forgot that Shiloah had offered transit facilities at Haifa at his very first meeting with the Jordanians, and urged that these be secured.120 Still, so unlikely did the Foreign Office now view the restarting of the peace talks that it decided not to act on the transit issue until discussions had resumed. For his part, Kirkbride who, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government would have had to do most of the ‘encouraging’, was even less enthusiastic than previously. Seeking to blame the whole problem on constitutional difficulties, he argued that the Council of Ministers would not allow the King the freedom of action he had previously enjoyed.121 Thus Kirkbride, according to his own testimony, was powerless to implement any positive instructions towards the peace process. So that the Eastern Department should be under no illusions that he did not want any ‘instructions’, he commented: ‘My own view is that the present Prime Minister would resign if pressed either by the King or myself.’122


On 3 July the intrepid Helm, not wishing even at this very late hour to miss the chance of a peace agreement, wrote to the Foreign Office. His letter incorporated a persuasive argument that the forthcoming Israeli-Jordanian negotiations should be given a prod. It was to be lamented that the negotiations had made no progress during the May–June, and now, with the seasonal frontier incidents, progress would be more difficult. Whilst London’s statements advocated peace, was it not time to put words into deeds? If peace occurred between Egypt and Israel, would Jordan lose much of its attraction and therefore its bargaining power?123 Helm’s criticism of British policy attracted stinging comment on Abdullah’s motives from Kirkbride: His desire for a settlement is…basically selfish and not really due to farsighted statesmanship. He is obsessed with the idea of recovering his fatherland, the Hejaz, towards which a settlement with Israel is the first step. The next would be the creation of Greater Syria, followed by the final showdown with the Saudis.124 Whatever the merits of the ambassador’s beliefs, he did not see that within King Abdullah’s unrealistic craving for more Arab territory lay a real opportunity. There was a chance, at least for the moment, to break the Arab-Israeli deadlock. Conversely, his letter contained a detailed deposition as to why ‘fortunately or unfortunately according to the point of view King Abdullah was no longer free to act independently on such matters.’125 How was peace to be achieved? Kirkbride shunned the only route likely to prove effective, to press the Jordanian ministers to resign and allow the king to take charge of the negotiations. Instead, Abdullah should press his ministers to co-operate more with the Palestine Conciliation Commission in Jerusalem. London should dissuade the Israelis from defending their frontier against infiltrators.126 The truth is that by this time the British were openly advocating a six-month delay in the negotiations, even though the Israelis believed that such a delay would probably worsen the chances of a successful outcome.127 On 7 July, with British advice such as this, the talks between Shiloah and Abdullah ‘fell flat.’ At this meeting, the king was asked point-blank by the Israeli whether the peace talks could resume or would have to be postponed indefinitely. He could only hedge, stating that he ‘could not commit himself to either conclusion.’128 The resumption of these tentative contacts stimulated the Eastern Department to put Furlonge’s transit facilities proposal into immediate effect.129 The Foreign Office’s excessive eagerness to secure concessions already made contrasted markedly with its reaction to an Israeli request for assistance on a minor point of procedure with the PCC.Kirkbride felt that the Israeli request had ‘ominous’ overtones and he trusted that ‘HMG would avoid undertakings to Israel to press Jordan on any point, or at any time.’130 Britain, at all costs, had to be ‘neutral’ or appear to be so, whilst the prospects for peace were placed in the trusty hands of the PCC. Then, the British could rely on the fact that a Jordanian


delegation, composed partly of Palestinian ministers, would not allow any concessions to be made. The fact that Kirkbride’s idea of using the PCC as a peace forum, with its Palestinian representation, was likely to prove to be a failure became apparent when the PCC met on 17 August. Nothing emerged from these discussions. Whilst a proposal for the reconstitution of a special commission was offered by Jordan if Israel made the first conciliatory gesture, it was Israel’s turn to be cautious. The Jordanian nominees were political non-entities who would have turned any commission into a debating society.131 Finally, in late August 1950 the Foreign Office gave a diplomatically coded message to Kirkbride to reverse course. So that he would get the message, the Foreign Office openly challenged his specious advice that the PCC was a suitable forum for negotiating a final settlement.132 It would appear, with the Korean War going badly for the West, that there was a sudden anxiety by some, if not all, of the personnel within the Foreign Office for a working arrangement between Israel and Jordan. If the Russians invaded the region, the legion should not be tied up defending a hostile border. In the context of the worsening international situation, this was a deeply unprofitable pursuit for it to be engaged in. Then Anglo-Israeli strategic co-operation might have to be placed on the agenda. This did not mean that Furlonge, and many other key diplomats in the Foreign Office, had become enthusiastic adherents to the concept, as they saw it, of peace at any price.133 Despite the ‘urgency’, the head of the Eastern Department was still going to leave the prospects for Middle Eastern peace in the hands of one diplomat in Amman who had declared that he considered it most important that no pressure be placed on Jordan. Still, the problem for the British was that the prospects for peace did not rest entirely with them, or for that matter even with the Jordanians. With Shiloah largely discredited, there was an increasing awareness within the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs of British interest in a deal. A little less eagerness on Israel’s part might be a sensible strategy.134 However, in early October Helm wrote again to the Foreign Office: ‘Britain had taken a risk over the union of the West Bank and Transjordan, and the Arabs had shouted but done nothing. They could afford to take a similar risk for peace.’135 Unfortunately, the mechanism which the ambassador proposed—an ineffectual peace resolution at the General Assembly—left much to be desired. Replying, the Foreign Office was willing to back Jordan after a deal had been concluded with the other Arab states; it was unprepared to give an indication of how much support, in the wake of Arab sanctions, it would give in advance of one.136 Since this was the principal concern of the Jordanian Council of Ministers, its attitude scarcely improved the prospects for peace. Towards the end of 1950 there was a weakening of King Abdullah’s power. The chances of a unilateral peace agreement between Jordan and Israel had evaporated. Although the conservative government led by Said Mufti had resigned in the wake of the Wadi Araba incident, neither Kirkbride nor his


American counterpart, Drew, considered that the present time was opportune for a demarche either to the king or the new cabinet.137 Subsequently, Samir Rifai had agreed to take up the reigns of power but insisted that he would ‘only make peace in agreement with the other Arab states.’138 Palestinian representation on the Council had increased from five members to six, reducing still further the possibility of a flexible Jordanian attitude.139 Even so, on 12 December the Israelis, led by Shiloah, met Abdullah and also tried to meet Rifai. The latter was not particularly receptive to a meeting unless he had been offered major concessions in advance.140 Still, on 23 December the two did eventually meet, but little came of the discussions. The Israelis viewed the prime minister’s stickiness as part of an attempt to extract the Southern Negev from Israel, in which case Shiloah favoured suspending the negotiations altogether. Surveying the wreckage of the negotiations at the end of the year, the newly appointed head of the British Middle Eastern Office, Sir Thomas Rapp, commented ruefully: ‘A modus vivendi between Israel and Jordan was very near in March last. It is, I think to be regretted that we did not do more to force the pace, as our own influence is declining almost perri passu with that of the King.’141 About the future, Rapp was equally pessimistic: ‘Briefly, I do not believe that time is working in favour of a settlement between Israel and the Arab states, in which we have every interest, and so long as the present situation persists, there can be no growth or stability in this naturally unstable area, but only increasing disintegration.’142 How would the advice of the new head of the BMEO, which differed so markedly from that of his predecessor, be received by other diplomats in the region and the Foreign Office? A POST-MORTEM The problem was that whilst there was considerable truth in many of Rapp’s views, diplomats in the Foreign Office were not predisposed to admit it. Personally, at least, Furlonge, who with Wright, had been in charge of much of British foreign policy towards Israel during the previous year, was irritated by Rapp’s implied criticism: ‘Rapp has not served much time in the Arab countries with the exception of Morocco and Egypt 25 years ago.’143 But then, Arab countries had changed little, either in their political systems or in the feudal nature of their people, over the previous 25 years. Israel had not even existed then, and certainly bore little resemblance to the mandatory situation of the 1920s. Rapp’s letter was thus unassailable to such a criticism. Still, at the behest of Sir William Strang, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, some sort of post-mortem of the previous year’s events was perhaps inevitable. According to Furlonge: The question of direct pressure by HMG on Jordan, and perhaps Israel also, with a view to forcing a settlement, was discussed by Mr. Wright and


myself at intervals of about a fortnight, throughout the spring and the summer of 1950. Always, we concluded, in the light of Sir Alec Kirkbride’s reports, and our own knowledge, that such pressure would not be effective and merely weaken our influence in Jordan.144 Furlonge predicated his thesis around the argument that peace could not, and should not, be achieved through British involvement or pressure: ‘Arabs may be led but not driven, and attempts to drive them, even in what we regard as their own interests, fail.’145 This statement went against the entire British experience in the Middle East: the Sudan on numerous occasions, Egypt in 1882 and 1942, Iraq in 1920 and 1941, and Palestine in 1936–39. It was also curious to suggest that the ‘Arabs could be led’; the Foreign Office had hardly done this over the past three years. Still, Furlonge was in a mood for self-exoneration. Surprisingly, his argument was not entirely accepted by Strang, who asked: If we cannot drive Jordan, it is for consideration whether there is any means by which we can lead her. It is this we would like you to talk over with Kirkbride. Failing this, the question seems to be, whether or not, we ought to consider bringing pressure to bear on Israel (or perhaps, on the Arab states), and if, whether or not, it would be likely to achieve results.146 There is nothing in the documents to indicate that the meeting, which eventually took place between Rapp, Kirkbride and Furlonge on 3 and 4 February in Amman to discuss the peace process, led to a revision in the previously hostile, but now ambivalent, British stance towards it.147 However, it is interesting to note that Furlonge was so keen to be present that he suggested that Rapp schedule his meeting with Kirkbride to coincide with his own visit to Jordan.148 THE RHODES ARMISTICE NEGOTIATIONS A few weeks later the Israelis requested Helm that ‘HMG, via Kirkbride, intimate to Samir that Israel hoped progress could be made at the forthcoming Rhodes talks.’149 Rifai had left Jordan before the instructions from London arrived. At a 23 February meeting he wanted the Israelis to give up Tulkarm and Qalqilya. Shiloah replied that these towns had been lost, not by fighting, but by the terms of the armistice; adjustment could be discussed in the framework of a general settlement. The Israelis also agreed to give up three abandoned Arab villages near Latrun, the recovery of which Rifai might be able to present as ‘a solid achievement, to his people.’150 However, there were some indications that ‘the Jordanians were only interested in keeping up desultory conversations.’ A meeting scheduled for a month or so later ‘would show’, according to the Israelis, if this were the case.151 It was during this sensitive lull in the negotiations that Dow wrote to Bevin. The head of the Jerusalem Legation’s letters were often challenging of


Whitehall’s orthodoxies; this one did not disappoint. It argued for nothing less than the complete revision of Britain’s increasingly failed Egypt-centric policy to one focused around an Anglo-Jordanian alliance.152 The letter was dismissed by the Foreign Office, with one diplomat seeing it as ‘strongly tinged with antiEgyptian and anti-Israeli feelings.’153 It is not clear how arguing for an IsraeliJordanian rapprochement was anti-Israeli. Still, the letter, of which Roger Louis, in his book The British Empire in the Middle East 1945–51 makes much, received no reply until after the pivotal Israeli-Jordanian meeting for 1951.154 The British Introduce the Scopus Question as a Spoiler This occurred on 15 March, when Rifai met Shiloah and handed him a ‘written plan’,155 which was basically a glorified wish-list of Jordanian demands. These included: immediate compensation for several million pounds of Arab property in Jerusalem outside a general settlement which ignored considerable Jewish losses; and division of no man’s land on a ‘property ownership basis’ instead of, as Israel wanted, on the basis of ‘controllability and security.’ The proposal would have meant that the majority of the territory went to Jordan. Still, Jordan’s demand for Mount Scopus dogged the talks.156 The contention that the area should be treated as Jordanian territory caused ‘amazement’ in Tel Aviv.157 Jordan refused to accept Israeli counter-proposals, postponing the issue of. sovereignty.158 The British role was revealed by Kirkbride: Samir’s attitude on this subject has been affected by two factors, (a) very strong representations by Glubb that the existence of an Israeli enclave on Scopus will prejudice, to a most serious extent, the possibility of defending Arab Jerusalem against an attack from Israel, or, in other words, it makes the strategic position of the Arab Legion forces untenable. (b) an opinion by the English barrister J Foster F.C., whose engagement was reported in my telegram No.109 of the 28th of March, last, that the Jordan Government have a good case for claiming, on legal grounds, that the whole enclave is basically Jordan territory.159 With events seemingly going the Eastern Department’s way, Furlonge finally responded to Dow in a condescending but jovial mood: ‘Dear Dow, I am afraid that we do not at this stage, share your conclusions so long as the Middle East as a whole, is threatened with Russian aggression, we cannot afford to disregard any of the component countries.’160 The scatter-gun approach, such as Furlonge was advocating, was not only inevitably anti-Israeli but had become so diffuse that by 1951 it was no strategy at all. Nevertheless, Furlonge fell back on a hoary old chestnut: ‘It is true that this involves us dispersing our activities over a wide field, but in all the circumstances, this seems the lesser of two evils.’161 Responding to Furlonge’s put-down, Dow reiterated his advice that what Britain needed was a more


definitive position. Obviously reconciling himself to the fact that a complete change in direction, on the basis of his advice was unlikely, he commented: I am still left apprehensive that in the absence of peace between Israel and Jordan, the binding force of bilateral agreements which we may make with individual Arab states will, in the case of an early showdown with Russia, not be found strong enough to counteract the deep seated enmity between Jew and Arab, but if this risk must be taken, it must.162 In fact, with the Korean War now going more favourably for the West, the Foreign Office’s willingness to take a ‘risk’ with, rather than for, peace, was increasing. On 12 April Kirkbride visited Israel, where he tried to convince his hosts to make a more generous offer with regard to Mount Scopus. Meeting Moshe Sharett, the Israeli foreign minister, he claimed that Rifai would welcome a settlement, when the evidence suggests that he knew that such was not the case.163 Asked about the provision of transit facilities, which the British had sought to throw into the pot all through the previous year, Kirkbride answered, more truthfully, ‘such facilities would be of value to Jordan ultimately, but the Jordanian authorities would not dare take advantage of them in the existing circumstances.’164 On 16 April the Israelis produced their formal response to the 15 March meeting. It was evident that neither Rifai’s ‘hard-ball’ tactics, nor Kirkbride’s softening-up visit, had caused them to deviate much from their original position. They were not prepared to give up what they considered to be their rights to Mount Scopus, though they were willing to be flexible about more minor issues, such as the handing over of part of Naharayim.165 The Israelis also sent an oral message that they were willing to discuss the unlocking of frozen Arab bank accounts.166 Whilst the Foreign Office viewed the Israelis as ‘not unaccommodating’,167 Rifai’s response remained inflexible. On 30 April, in a legalistic note drafted by Foster, he reiterated the Jordanian position that the Mount Scopus matter should go to arbitration.168 Determined now to bypass the recalcitrant Rifai, the Israelis sent word to Abdullah, asking him to restrain his prime minister and promising to release the Arab funds in return.169 However, Rifai, with his British friends behind him, was not easily thwarted. He told the king that the release of these funds, and even the evacuation of Naharayim, were due to Jordan as a matter of ‘right and justice.’170 The Israelis, confident of their legal position, agreed to accept a Jordanian offer to refer the matter to The Hague, though they pointed out that this would cause ‘considerable delay.’171 Since Rifai, with Kirkbride’s connivance,172 had been playing for time, this suited the Jordanians and the British. Therefore, predictably, in London the secession of the talks prompted no response. P.R.Oliver, a junior diplomat who worked under James Wardrop at the Eastern Department, felt it was ‘absurd’ that considerations of peace, stability and the defence of the Middle East now, at least ostensibly, hinged on the Mount


Scopus problem.173 However, his paper was given short shrift by his superior: ‘The Israeli police presence from Mount Scopus will have to be eliminated, either by using the UN, or insisting that the Jordanians make it a precondition to any progress.’174 This proves that Rifai’s insistence that the sovereignty issue of Mount Scopus had to be clarified first, before any substantive negotiations could take place, was at Britain’s behest. On 11 May King Abdullah met Shiloah again, and suggested that the question of implementing the armistice agreement was now the first priority. Arranging access to Mount Scopus could be handled separately from the question of sovereignty. Two days later Shiloah replied that he agreed with this proposal, requesting that Abdullah obtain Rifai’s agreement so that the negotiations could proceed. The records show that further meetings did not occur. The British blamed Israel entirely: ‘The Israelis may have had some success in influencing King Abdullah with their half promises of concessions to come, and by their protestations of friendship and devotion, but they are not likely to get far with a hard headed person like Samir.’175 With mounting desperation, Shiloah met Helm again to try to convey the Israeli frustration at the British lack of support for their peace initiatives.176 Helm wrote to the Foreign Office more than a little irritated with the inaction from London.177 Extravagant Arab statements were numerous and often spoke of a second round which would eliminate Israel. By contrast, the pulling up by the British of the Israelis had occurred in several instances, notably in the Huleh incident on the Israeli-Syrian border.178 In response, the Eastern Department actually questioned whether it was legitimate for the Foreign Office to advise the Arabs to make peace with the Israelis: ‘The Arab states might well be justified in rejecting such an approach. Any settlement, or any modification of the Armistice Agreements with Israel, would require concessions. There are no indications that Israel is prepared to make such concessions.’179 Eventually, however, some minor dissent occurred within the Foreign Office. On 9 July Oliver came up with a detailed review of the events of the past couple of years and admitted the obvious: the British policy of working towards minor amendments and adjustments by one side or another was likely to lead nowhere— the situation could be changed only by taking a broader perspective. He advocated a radical solution: a workable British plan proposing no unrealistic concessions from the Israelis.180 Whilst this somewhat daring initiative would almost certainly have met serious resistance from the more senior members of the department, just as his earlier paper had done,181 events superseded it. KING ABDULLAH’S LAST BID FOR PEACE On 10 July 1951 King Abdullah wrote to British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, attempting to gain an audience ‘to outline a subject which would assure our safety and perpetuation of the traditional friendship between Great Britain and the Middle East.’182 It is not possible to assess from his letter what he meant by


this. Still, the ‘safety and perpetuation’ of British hegemony in the Middle East could have come about only either by the preponderance of British military force and the willingness to use it, or by some kind of a regional strategic arrangement. Since this was achievable only through peace, it is more than likely that Abdullah’s letter was a precursor to another peace initiative, this time incorporating a possible Middle East defence pact involving Great Britain, Israel and Jordan. We shall never know because on 20 July, bereft of British political support for his various attempts at peace, the king was assassinated by a Palestinian. JORDAN-IRAQ UNION If his death eliminated the last residual chances of peace, ‘because Jordan was no longer able to take a fearlessly independent position in the Arab League’,183 it also raised the thorny question of a Jordanian-Iraqi union. In this regard, the British feared Arab odium more than they opposed Arab unity.184 Unfortunately, the Israelis were not in a position to be so sanguine. A union between Jordan and Iraq posed specific security dangers, particularly since the latter had not even concluded an armistice with Israel. The British, though, were mainly concerned with Arab susceptibilities and their position in Jordan rather than Anglo-Israeli relations. There was also the question of the true motives for Israel’s opposition to a union.185 The position of the Foreign Office was drafted, as usual, by Furlonge, who argued that a union between the two countries would give no immediate economic advantage to either side while giving Iraq a common frontier with Israel. There would be considerable logistical problems in managing such a large country, separated by a vast desert. The French were also opposed to the idea.186 All these reasons obscured the fact that the British rejected the union because they feared a dilution of their power, already heavily eroded by the Palestinian ministers in Jordan and Abdullah’s assassination.187 The British also ‘did not wish to risk being held responsible for a merger which had tried and failed.’188 This predominantly self-centred position may have been the British view, but it was sufficiently ill-defined and ill-communicated to convince everyone in the Middle East that they were against the proposal. The Syrian prime minister, for one, and many Israelis thought that Britain was in favour of such a union ‘as the only way to save Eastern Palestine.’189 In mid-August, when this news finally reached London, Strang was forced to ask the Eastern Department ‘why [Syrian prime minister] Hakim thought that this was the British position.’190 The issue, along with King Abdullah’s death, clouded Anglo-Israeli relations in the middle of the year.


THE FOREIGN OFFICE HAS SECOND THOUGHTS A few weeks after the union debate, albeit too late for it to be of any useful purpose, a discussion erupted in the Eastern Department over Oliver’s hitherto moribund paper. On 8 August it was the usually compliant James Wardrop, who worked under and usually agreed with Furlonge, who raised the matter by writing yet another paper entitled ‘The Effect of Arab-Israel Relations on the Defence of the Middle East’.191 This document summarized the serious impact that an absence of peace between Israel and its neighbours would be bound to have, both on Allied strategy and any nascent attempts to form a Middle East command. Suffice it to say here that it argued for a much more pro-active stance which did not cater to Arab susceptibilities at the expense of Britain’s Middle Eastern strategy. That such a remarkable theory should have taken nearly three years to develop was not, by Foreign Office standards, particularly notable. More important was the fact that it was now given some credence by the head of the Eastern Department who cautiously endorsed it. Furlonge conceded that the PCC initiative was ‘clumsy and ill-advised’ and doubted whether it would have much success. Still, he was ‘not [yet] convinced’ that His Majesty’s representatives were not already acting positively to secure peace.192 R.J.(Jim) Bowker, who had replaced Wright as assistant under-secretary of state and who was deputised to convey this formal change of Britain’s policy to its diplomats in the region, was less ‘convinced’: Hitherto, we have refrained from urging the Arab states to make peace with Israel, because we believed that we should not succeed and that our efforts would merely alienate them. We think this is still true. On the other hand, we are beginning to wonder whether we have done enough to inculcate in the Arabs the realisation that they are gaining nothing, and losing something, by persisting in their present attitude towards Israel.193 Even so, Bowker was hardly advocating a full-frontal attack on the governments to which the ambassadors were accredited, only a gradual process of education. The fact that the time for this had long since passed, and that the British were only weeks away from being unceremoniously flung out of Iran with the resultant loss of prestige, and would soon be forced out of the region altogether, was not factored into his advice. At the same time, the letter which Bowker sent to the Tel Aviv legation made it apparent that although the Israelis had been trying by all means, fair and foul, to secure peace for three years, he considered them to be equally responsible for the debacle: ‘If the process of education on which we now wish to embark with the Arabs is to bear any fruit, a change of attitude on the part of the Israelis is no less necessary.’194 Whatever truth there may have been in this statement, it was likely that the road, at least to British re-education, was going to be a lengthy and rocky one.


All His Majesty Government’s representatives stationed in the Arab countries, when they responded to Bowker’s letter, either commented on the futility of trying to encourage the Arabs to make peace with Israel, or gave dire warnings of the impact that such a course of action would have on Britain’s position in the country concerned. However, for one representative, a diplomatically couched howl of protest did not seem to be enough. Kirkbride decided to use this opportunity to engage in an obvious piece of historical distortion: ‘There was a moment early in 1950 when the two countries were near agreement and a relatively unimportant concession by the Israelis might have tipped the scales.’195 No one in the Foreign Office or among the other diplomats in the region would have had the effrontery to challenge Kirkbride openly; he had, after all, been the most successful and long-serving ambassador to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. No one, that is, except Helm. The British ambassador to Tel Aviv was now leaving the region after two eventful years, but, despite all his best efforts, Foreign Office attitudes had not really changed. Indeed, he had not even been supplied with copies of the responses to Bowker’s re-education letter from the other diplomats in the region until he had pointedly asked for them.196 Nevertheless, he did not feel that he could really let matters pass: I cannot refrain from taking up with you the passage in Alec Kirkbride’s letter of September 1st, to you…in which he says that ‘there was a moment early in 1950 when the two countries were near agreement and a relatively unimportant concession by Israel might have tipped the scales.’ I think it is now fairly generally agreed that a great opportunity was missed in March 1950, and it does therefore seem to be important that the record should be set straight about the facts attending the suspension of the negotiations at the time… There is, so far as I can find in our file, no suggestion that the Israelis had refused a relatively unimportant concession, or that the Jordanians asked for one. And there was no doubt about the Israelis desire to go on. But for the suspension, the time for concessions would doubtless have come later.197 Quite prudently, the Eastern Department, whilst acknowledging that Helm was correct,198 did not wish to continue with this particular line of argument. It might have re-opened the debate about the British role, which, as we have seen, scarcely stood up to scrutiny. As shown in this essay, and contrary to the various claims made by revisionist scholars, far from seeking to promote Arab-Israeli peace, between 1949 and mid-1951 at the very least the Foreign Office worked hard to prevent Israel from making peace with Jordan.


NOTES 1. Ilan Pappe, Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1948–51, London, 1988 and Avi Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan, Oxford, 1988, p.564. 2. Cairo to FO, 21 January 1949, FO/371/75330/E1082, and Cairo to FO, 27 January 1949, FO/371/75331/E1326. 3. FO Min Beith, 25 January 1949, ibid. 4. FO to Washington, 13 January 1949, FO/371/75335. 5. FO to Amman, 4 March 1949, FO/37175339/E2662. 6. Amman to FO, 31 March 1949, FO/371/75337/E1482 and FO Min Beith, 2 February 1949, ibid. 7. Mr Wells Stabler to Secretary of State, 12 March 1949, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1949, Vol.1, p.823. 8. Memorandum of a Conversation Between Secretary of State and the British Ambassador, 10 March 1949, FRUS, 1949 Vol.1, p.812 and Bevin to Attlee, 17 March 1949, FO/371/75340/E3687. 9. Pappe, Britain, p.179. 10. Pirie-Gordan to FO, 14 March 1949, FO/371/75339/E3323. 11. FO Min Walker, 14 December 1948, FO/371/68337/E16402. 12. Amman to FO, 24 March 1949, FO/371/75386/E3844. 13. Amman to FO, 23 March 1949, FO/37175386/E3790. 14. FO Min Secretary of State to Prime Minister, 24 March 1949, FO/37175387/E4010/ S24 and Amman to FO, 23 and 24 March 1949, FO/75386/E3824. 15. FO Min McNeil, 14 January 1949, FO/371/75337/E1881. 16. FO Min Beith, 31 March 1949, FO/371/75332/E4150. 17. FO to Jerusalem, 31 March 1949, FO/371/75349/E4322. 18. FO Min Walker, ‘Armed Assistance to Transjordan’, 2 May 1949, FO/371/75287 and FO Min Furlonge, 15 April 1950, FO/371/82718/E1081/9. 19. FO Min Burrows, 20 April 1949, FO/371/76349/E1847. 20. Amman to FO, 30 April 1949, FO/371/75332/E5533. 21. Kirkbride, FO, 16 April, 1949, FO/74349/E5203. 22. FO Min Burrows, 20 April 1949, FO/371/75349/E1847. 23. Henry Morgenthau: Memorandum of a Conversation by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Hare), 15 February 1950, FRUS, 1950, p.743. 24. Washington to FO, 21 April 1949, FO/371/75349/E5066. 25. Ibid. 26. BMEO to FO, 2 May 1949, FO/371/75332/E5613. 27. Beith to Warner, 6 May 1949, FO/371/75439/E5264. 28. Amman to FO, 17 June 1949, FO/37/75342/E7727 and FO Min Jackson, 29 June 1949, ibid. 29. FO to Paris, 8 August 1949, FO/371/75351/E9411 and the British Embassy to the Department of State, Enclosure, ‘Proposed Basis of a Settlement Between Israel and Arab States’, FRUS, 1949, Vol.2, pp.1,345–46. 30. Efraim Karsh, Fabricating Israeli History, London, 1997, p.203. 31. Franks to FO, 18 November 1949, FO/371/75344. 32. Kirkbride to FO, 29 November 1949, FO/371/75344/E14375.


33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

Amman to FO, 29 November 1949, FO/371/75344/E14375. FO Min Dudgeon, 30 November 1949, FO/371/75344/E14375 Amman to FO, 3 December 1949, FO/371/75344/E11523. Burrows to Heneage, 8 December 1949, FO/371/75344/E14529. Campbell to FO, 8 December 1949, FO/371/75345/E14718. Amman to FO, 10 December 1949, FO/371/75345/E14759 and the Charge in the United Kingdom (Holmes) to the Secretary of State, 13 December 1949, FRUS, 1949, Vol.2, pp.1, 540. Ron Pundick, ‘The Relations Between Great Britain and Jordan, 1946–51’, PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1992. Sir Alec Kirkbride, From the Wings, Amman Memoirs 1947–51, London, 1976. Amman to FO, 10 December 1949, FO/371/75345/E14718. Moshe Dayan, My Life, London, 1976, p.112. FO Mins Hankey and Brinson, 13 and 14 December 1949, FO/371/75345/E14810 and FO to Amman, 22 December 1949, FO/371/75345, No. 966. Burrows to JCSS, 8 December 1949, DEFE 5/18 COS (49) 223. Ibid. Kirkbride to Strang, 27 December 1949, FO/371/82177/1015/4. The Charge in the United Kingdom (Holmes) to the Secretary of State, 22 December 1949, FRUS, 1949, Vol.2, pp.1, 556. Amman to FO, 27 December 1949, FO/371/75345/E15277. The Ambassador in Israel (McDonald) to the Secretary of State, 29 December 1949, FRUS, 1949, Vol.2, p.1, 561, and Franks to FO, 28 January 1949, FO/371/ 82177/1015/12. Helm to FO, 31 December 1949, FO/371/82177/E1015/2. Franks to FO, 21 January 1950, FO/371/82177/E1015/9. Amman to FO, 10 December 1949, FO/371/75345/E14810, FO Min Sheringham, 2 January 1950, FO/371/82177/El015/2 and FO Min Furlonge, 3 January 1950, ibid. The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Holmes) to the Secretary of State, 3 January 1950, FRUS, 1950, p.666. Kirkbride to FO, 16 January 1950, FO/37182177/E1015/7. Ibid. Helm to FO, 3 February 1950, FO/371/82177/E1015/17. The Charge in Jordan (Frizlan) to the Secretary of State, 7 February 1950, FRUS, 1950, p.727. Helm to FO, 31 December 1949, FO/371/82177/E1015/2. Hoyer-Miller to FO, 8 February 1950, FO/371/82177/El015/9. FO Min Sheringham, 10 February 1950, ibid. Ibid. Furlonge to Burrows, 3 February 1950, FO/371/82181/E1017/11. FO to Amman, 10 February 1950, FO/371/82177, Tel No 56 and FO Min Wright, 3 February 1950, FO/371/82181/E1017/11. Burrows to Furlonge, 16 February 1950, FO/371/82181/E1017/8. Furlonge to Burrows, 3 February 1950, FO/371/81181/E1017/11. Hoyer-Miller to FO, 6 February 1950, FO/371/82177/E1015/18 and Strang to Amman, 10 February 1950, FO/371/82177, Tel No 56. Furlonge to Burrows, 3 February 1950, FO/371/82181/E1017/11. FO to Amman to Washington, 15 February 1950, FO/371/82177, Tel No 928.


69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

Washington to FO, 21 February 1950, FO/371/82177/E1015/30. Kirkbride to FO, 20 February 1950, FO/37182177/E1015/28. Helm to FO, 20 February 1950, FO/371/82177/1015/29. FO Min Sheringham, 22 February 1950, FO/371/82177/E1015/30. Kirkbride to FO, 27 February 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/33. Helm to FO, 27 February 1950, FO/371/82177/El015/32. FO to Helm, 3 March 1950, FO/371/82177, Tel No 162 and FO Min Furlonge, 9 March 1950, FO/82178/1015/42. Kirkbride to FO, 1 March 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/34. Kirkbride to FO, 2 March 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/36. Ibid. Amman to FO, 1 March 1950, FO/371/82178/El015/34 and Amman to FO, 1 March 1950, and FO/371/82178/E1015/44 and ISA 130.02/2453/3 24 February 1950. FO to Angora, 13 March 1950, FO/371/82709, Tel No 93. FO Min, 6 March 1950, FO/371/82715/E1051/19. FO Min Sheringham, 8 March 1950, FO/371/82709/E1024/1. FO to Tel Aviv, 13 March 1950, FO/37182709, Tel No 183. FO Min Furlonge, 8 March 1950, FO/371/82709/E1024/3. FO to Franks, 8 March 1950, FO/371/82709, Tel No 1291. FO Min Furlonge, 8 March 1950, FO/371/82709/E1024/3 Franks to FO, 10 March 1950, FO/371/82709/E1024/5. FO Min Sheringham, 13 March 1950, ibid. Pappe, Britain, p.198. Helm to FO, 10 March 1950, FO/371/82709/1024/9. Roger Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East 1945–51, Oxford, 1984, p.581. Furlonge to Helm, 23 March 1950, FO/371/82709/E1024/09. Ibid. Franks to FO, 15 March 1950, FO/371/82709/E1 124/8. Troutbeck to FO, 20 March 1950, FO/82710/1024/16. FO to Tel Aviv, 23 March 1950, FO/371/82709/E1024/9. Amman to FO, 1 April 1950, FO/371/81930/E1071/18 and FO Min Furlonge, 3 April 1950, FO/371/81930/E1071/71. Kirkbride to FO, 25 April 1950, FO/371/82718/E1081/23. Memorandum of Conversation by Mr Stuart W.Rockwell of the Office of African and Near Eastern Affairs, 24 April 1950, FRUS,1950, p.869. Kirkbride to FO, 25 April 1950, FO/371/82718/E1081/23. Ibid. FO Min Sheringham, 29 April 1950, ibid. Amman to FO, 4 May 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/55. Amman to FO, 1 February 1949, FO/371/75337/E1482. Tel Aviv to FO, 10 May 1950, FO/371/82178, Tel No 230. Cairo to Tel Aviv, 11 May 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/59. FO Min Sheringham, 21 April 1950, FO/371/82182/1017/29. FO Min, ‘Minutes of meeting held on the 18th of July in the Foreign Office of the Palestine Conciliation Commission’, 19 July 1950, FO/371/82179. Amman to FO, 4 May 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/55. Campbell to FO, 5 May 1950, FO/371/81908/E1023/36.


111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155.

Campbell to FO, 6 May 1950, FO/371/81908/E1023/8. FO Min Wright, 11 April 1950, FO/371/81967/E1195/2. Campbell to FO, 6 May 1950, FO/371/81908/E1023/8. FO Min Hankey, 13 February 1950, FO/371/82514/E1022/6. Shlaim, Collusion, p.564. Amman to FO, 27 May 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/61. FO Min Furlonge, 31 May 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/62. The Ambassador in the UK (Douglas) to the Secretary of State, 2 June 1950, FRUS, 1950, p.917. Helm to FO, 16 June 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/64. FO Min Furlonge, 31 May 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/62. Kirkbride to FO, 20 June 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/66. Amman to FO, 20 June 1950, FO/371/.82178/E1015/66. Helm to Furlonge, 3 July 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/72. Amman to FO, 14 July 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/77. Amman to FO, 14 July 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/77. Ibid. The Ambassador to Israel (McDonald) to the Secretary of State, 30 June 1950, FRUS 1950, p.945. Amman to FO, 10 July 1950, FO/371/82178/E1015/73. FO Min Hankey, 24 July 1950, FO/371/82179/E1015/77. Amman to FO, 18 August 1950, FO/371/82179/E1015/85. Tel Aviv to FO, 18 August 1950, FO/371/82179/E1015/86. FO to Amman, 22 August 1950, FO/371/82179, Tel No 431. FO Min Furlonge, 22 August 1950, FO/371/82179/E1015/88. Chadwick to Furlonge, 12 September 1950, FO/371/82179/E1015/99. Helm to Wright, 7 October 1950, FO/371/82179/E1015/106. Wright to Helm, 26 October 1950, FO/371/82179/E1015/106. The Minister in Jordan (Drew) to the Secretary of State, 30 November 1950, FRUS, 1950, p.1067. Amman to FO, 11 December 1950, FO/371/82179/E1015/116. Shlaim, Collusion, p.577. Amman to FO, 18 December 1950, FO/371/822H/E1091/E248. Rapp to Strang, 15 December 1950, FO/371/81912/E1023/156. Ibid. FO Min Furlonge, 6 January 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/9. FO Min Furlonge, 6 January 1951, FO/371/91365/E1041/9. Ibid. Strang to Rapp, 5 February 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/9. Amman to FO, 27 January 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/9. FO Min Furlonge, 15 January 1951, FO/37191364/E1041/9. Helm to FO, 22 February 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/11. Helm to FO, 26 February 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/14. Helm to FO, 27 February 1951, FO/371/91364/E1014/15. Dow to Bevin, 3 March 1951, FO/371/91184/E1024/6. FO Min Dudgeon, 16 March 1951, FO/371/91184/E1024/629. Louis, British Empire, p.582. Kirkbride to FO, 19 March 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/16.


156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198.

Tel Aviv to FO, 19 March 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/17. Helm to FO, 19 April 1951, FO/371/91364/1041/28. Amman to FO, 28 March 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/18 Kirkbride to Furlonge, 31 March 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/24. FO to Dow, 2 April 1951, FO/371/91184/E1024/6G. Ibid. Dow to Furlonge, 13 April 1950, FO/371/91184/E1024/16. Kirkbride to Furlonge, 31 March 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/24. Kirkbride to Furlonge, 12 April 1951, FO/37/91364/E1041/26. Helm to FO, 19 April 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/28 and the Ambassador to Israel (Davis) to the Department of State, 20 April 1951, FRUS, 1951, pp.647–49. Kirkbride to Morrison, 20 April 1951, FO/371/91364/1041/29. FO Min Oliver, 26 April 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/28. Kirkbride to FO, 3 May 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/32. Ibid. The Chargé in Jordan (Frizlan) to the Department of State, 4 May 1950, FRUS, 1951, pp.660–61. Helm to FO, 7 May 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/30. Kirkbride to FO, 31 March 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/24. FO Min Oliver, 25 April 1951, FO/371/91368/E1072/10. FO Min Wardrop, 14 May 1951, FO/371/91368/E1072/10. Amman to FO, 16 May 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/35. Helm to FO, 22 June 1951, FO/371/91364/E1041/37. Helm to FO, 23 June 1951, FO/371/91368/E1092/14. Jerusalem Post, 22 June 1951, FO/371/91368. FO Min Furlonge, ‘Arab-Israeli Situation: French Initiative’, 30 June 1951, FO/ 371/ 91368/E1072/15. FO Min Oliver, 9 July 1951, FO/91368/E1072/15. FO Min Oliver, 9 July 1951, FO/371/91368/E1072/10. King Abdullah to Attlee, 10 July 1951, FO/371/91799. Annual Report for Jordan 1951, FO/371/98856. FO Min Furlonge, 1 August 1951, FO/371/91797/E1393/20. Troutbeck to FO, 31 July 1951, FO/371/91797/E10393/11. FO Min Furlonge, 1 August 1951, FO/371/91797/E10393/20 FO to Baghdad, 22 July 1951, FO/371/91797, Tel No 720. FO Min Furlonge, 1 August 1951, FO/371/91797/E10393/20. Damascus to FO, 12 August 1951, FO/371/91797, Tel No 259. FO Min Strang, 14 August 1951, Ibid. FO Min Wardrop, 8 August 1951, FO/371/91368/E1072/21. FO Min Furlonge, 14 August 1951, ibid. Bowker to ME Legations, 24 August 1951, FO/371/91368/E1072/21. Ibid. Kirkbride to Bowker, 1 September 1951, FO/371/91368/E1072/23 FO Min, 27 October 1951, FO/371/91368/E1092/33. Helm to Bowker, 5 November 1951, FO/371/91368/E1072/36. FO Min Oliver, 12 November 1951, ibid.

The Effects of Changes in the International Environment on the Future of the Middle East BENNY MILLER

This essay discusses international influences on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the peace process. It addresses the current international situation of US hegemony vis-à-vis the Middle East and its beneficial effects on the regional peace process. Yet this hegemony may not endure over the long run and may be replaced by three alternative scenarios: US disengagement from the Middle East that will lead to a great-power vacuum in the region; the competitive involvement of other major powers (notably Russia and China) in the region alongside the US; and the co-operative involvement of several status quo powers. The essay discusses the likelihood of these alternative scenarios, as well as their potential implications for regional security. It shows that the current international situation of US hegemony is the most beneficial for progress in the Middle East peace process. THE END OF THE COLD WAR AND THE RISE OF US HEGEMONY As a result of the growing weakness of the Soviet Union and its eventual disintegration, a unipolar or hegemonic world has emerged since the late 1980searly 1990s because of US dominance in overall power resources, especially in the military sphere, including a unique global power-projection capability.1 The disappearance of the Soviet Union brought about a paradoxical situation—an overall decline both in US interest in global engagement and in the constraints that US engagement faces in different parts of the globe. The decline in US interest is due to the disappearance of the major threat to the US, namely the Soviet Union, which had brought about the massive American global engagement in different regions during the post-Second World War era. The decline in constraints has taken place because Soviet power posed the major impediment to US intervention abroad during the Cold War. The relative progress towards regional peace in the Middle East in the 1990s can be explained in relation to these two global changes. Despite the overall decline in US interest in global Benny Miller is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Haifa.

CHANGES IN THE INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT 101

affairs, there are continuously important US interests in the Middle East, and thus there are persistent incentives for an intense US engagement in the region. At the same time, the declining constraints have made it easier for the US to advance the regional peace process than during the Cold War. THE EFFECTS OF SEPTEMBER 11 The terrorist attacks of September 11 provided a motive for an intensive US global engagement that was missing since the end of the Cold War. US hegemony changed its character to a more unilateralist orientation, ready to ignore the UN, the Europeans, Russians and Chinese whenever its perceived key security interests were at stake. The US also changed its security doctrine, endorsing a strategy of pre-emptive or even preventive, war against rogue states which sponsor terrorism or develop weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, the US adopted the idea of regime change in this kind of state through the use of force. While some neoconservative thinkers in the US advanced similar ideas well before September 11, the political support which these ideas could garner became much stronger in its aftermath. This new and far-reaching foreign and security policy could not find considerable domestic support before such a traumatic experience for American society had taken place. These changes are especially relevant to the Middle East because of the heavy presence of the new security threats—terrorism and weapons of mass destruction —in the region. This is why the Middle East has seen the first application of the new doctrine: the Iraq War of Spring 2003. THE PERSISTENCE OF IMPORTANT US INTERESTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA AND THEIR ENHANCEMENT AFTER SEPTEMBER 11 America’s willingness to play the hegemonic role in the Middle East2 stems from the intrinsic importance of the region to its interests. This importance is unrelated to superpower competition and has thus survived the end of the Cold War. The major intrinsic interest is derived from the location of vast oil resources in the region and the attendant need to preserve the free flow of this oil. This produces an American interest in ensuring regional stability and, more specifically, in maintaining good relations with the Arab states. So long as the Arab-Israeli conflict continues, such an interest runs counter to the US political/ideological/ moral commitment to Israel’s security—hence the US attempts to reconcile this conflict of interests through the promotion of an Arab-Israeli peace, and thus also to enhance regional stability which is necessary for guaranteeing the uninterrupted flow of oil from the region. Cold War attempts by the US to construct an Arab-Israeli grand alliance against the supposedly shared Soviet threat failed because local parties diverge from great powers by tending to focus on regional threats rather than on global ones. In contrast to the highly dubious


and disputed Soviet threat to the regional states, following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait Iraqi revisionism has posed a real shared threat to the US (because of the threat to the oil resources), Israel and the status quo Arab states. Thus the US was able to lead a multinational coalition comprising most Arab states in the Gulf War and, in the aftermath of its victory over Iraq, to promote the Arab-Israeli peace process. The intrinsic importance of the Middle East to the US has been further reinforced by the threat of proliferation of non-conventional weapons to some regional powers, which has become especially acute with the end of the Cold War.3 Indeed, the main danger to the US in the wake of the Cold War is perceived to be ‘future Iraqs—lawless, renegade states in possession of modern weapons, including those capable of mass destruction, and dedicated to the pursuit of aggressive, even terrorist, ends….’4 Apart from Iraq itself, most future Iraqs also seem to be located in the Middle East: Iran, Syria, Libya and Algeria. Indeed, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to aggressive Middle Eastern regimes has become all the more likely because the disintegration of the Soviet Union has led to the weakening of control over nuclear weapons, thus increasing the danger of transfer of nuclear knowledge and technology. Such proliferation could eventually pose threats to states in the developed world. These fears increased dramatically after September 11. All of a sudden it seemed that the core interests of US national security, notably homeland defence, were tightly related to the stability of the Middle East, to the type of non-conventional arsenal that certain rogue regimes in the region developed and their relations with terrorist organizations, and even to the nature of the regimes in the region. This gave impetus to a major military intervention in Iraq in order to prevent its acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and, even more fundamentally, to the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in order to install a more moderate regime— ideally a more democratic one, or at least a proWestern one. The objective of this post-September 11 strategy is not only to change the capabilities of rogue regimes, namely to destroy their WMD, but also to change their intentions by transforming the nature of the political system. The idea is that the regime change in Iraq will have a snowball effect on the other states in the region to the extent that the advent of a more democratic, or at least moderate, regime in a prosperous and stable oil-rich Iraq will serve as a model for other Arab and Islamic states. This liberalization of Arab/Muslim regimes will not only reduce their incentives to acquire WMD, but will hopefully drain the swamp in which terrorists like al-Qaeda thrive. In the view of key administration officials, alQaeda emerged in the Arab-Islamic world because of the authoritarian nature of the regimes there, which silenced dissent effectively. This repressive political culture drove radical people to use violent means, while the regimes followed a scapegoat strategy, albeit indirectly (through the education system, the media and the religious establishment).5 This strategy focused on diverting the people’s attention from the local oppressors towards the allegedly external enemies of


Arabism and Islam— the ‘Great Satan’—the US, and its smaller counterpart— Israel. The liberalization of the regimes is expected by the US administration to end this diversionary strategy and thus remove a basic security threat to the US as manifested in the September 11 attacks. In addition, it is hoped that liberalization will reduce the danger of these regimes acquiring WMD and passing them to terrorist organizations, which might use them against the US. Democratization of the Arab regimes would also arguably increase the prospects of peace with Israel based on the logic of the democratic peace theory,6 though critics argue that democratization of unstable societies with nationalist and ethnic tensions might aggravate conflicts rather than reduce them, at least in the initial stages of the democratization.7 Moreover, the imposed democratization by US military force might increase resentment towards the US, destabilize pro-US regimes and increase the pool of volunteers to terrorist organizations like alQaeda. Notwithstanding the enhanced importance of US interests in the Middle East after September 11, the constraints on US freedom of action in the region have declined drastically since the end of the Cold War. This has improved US military freedom of action and enabled the war in Iraq to take place despite strong international and regional opposition to the war. Declining Military Constraints The Soviet collapse made possible a large-scale US military involvement in great proximity to Soviet borders during the first Gulf War, including a deployment of US forces from Europe. Such an involvement would have been unthinkable before the end of the Cold War, both because of the need to maintain a high level of readiness at the more important front in Europe, and the fears of escalation to a superpower war following the initiation of war operations in the Gulf.8 Thus, the US was able to deploy massive force in the Gulf in 1990–91 and to inflict major blows on Iraqi military power. The Iraq War of 2003 demonstrates even more dramatically the declining military constraints on American freedom of action. In contrast to the first Gulf War, this time there was no international and regional consensus behind the war. Quite to the contrary, this time the US was unable to obtain the approval of the UN Security Council for its war in Iraq and even some of its major European allies vehemently opposed the war. Moreover, the objectives this time were much more far-reaching than in the first Gulf War. In 1990–91 the US was a status quo power restoring the situation which had been undermined by a revisionist Iraq. This time it was a revisionist US aiming to transform the Iraqi regime and potentially other regimes in the region, though most likely by the power of the Iraqi example than the direct use of force. And at this early stage it is obviously very difficult to assess whether the Iraqi example will indeed be a success or a failure.


Declining Diplomatic Constraints The transformation from a competitive to a hegemonic international system has limited the room for manoeuvre of the Middle Eastern actors, especially the Arab radicals. During the Cold War these states could turn to the Soviet Union for diplomatic assistance and arms supplies during crises, especially when the tide in regional wars turned against them. This made it possible for the radicals to persist in the conflict against Israel and to intimidate those who wanted to make peace with it. Soviet disintegration terminated this support and thus weakened the ability of the radicals to continue the conflict and to block progress in peace-making under US sponsorship. The defeat of Iraq in 1991 further weakened the standing of the radical antiAmerican forces in the region. Following the victory over Iraq, a de facto proAmerican coalition was established, which included all the status quo forces in the region: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Morocco, Turkey and Israel. Together with the Soviet collapse, this development meant that for the foreseeable future there was no real option for ex-Soviet clients like the PLO or Syria to join an anti-US alliance in the Middle East. If the PLO or Syria wanted to extract territorial concessions from Israel, they now had to turn to the US. Moreover, the inability of the Arab states to defend Kuwait has shown the great dependence of many regional states, especially the oil-rich Gulf monarchies, on the US for their security. The Gulf War has also shown the limitations that the US can place, under crisis conditions, on Israel’s freedom of military action, as was manifested in the deployment of US Patriot missile batteries in Israel (in addition to US air raids on Iraq) as a substitute for an Israeli military response to the Iraqi Scud missile attacks. The local states are also highly dependent on American aid, investments and technology transfers for their economic development. Thus, the growing vulnerability of both Arabs and Israelis and their rising dependence on the US have increased the latter’s ability to serve as the sole ‘honest broker’ in the Middle East. This, in turn, created a strategic environment conducive to the promotion of the peace process in the 1990s. It began with the 1991 Madrid Conference following the Gulf War, and culminated in the Jordan-Israel peace accord of 1994 and the 1993 Oslo agreements between Israel and the PLO, leading in 1994–95 to the emergence of a semi-independent Palestinian National Authority in the major cities of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the last of these cities, Hebron, transferred to the Palestinian authority in early 1997. The agreement on its transfer could not have been reached without an active US mediation. As the US is both democratic and distant from the region, the form of its hegemony is relatively benign, with an emphasis on encouraging (rather than imposing) a regional order and peace, although opponents of US hegemony see it as much more oppressive. Despite these beneficial effects of the US hegemony on the Middle East peace process, these effects have their limits. A hegemonic power is unable to transform the fundamental objectives and motivations of the regional actors with


regard to peace, and these have to change if a true indigenous reconciliation is to take place in the region. Thus, even if progress towards regional peace can be achieved under US hegemony, a more comprehensive peace depends on the leadership and domestic politics of the regional parties themselves.9 Indeed, despite the mediation efforts of President Bill Clinton, the peace negotiations between Israel and Syria and Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in 2000 and the ‘second intifada’ erupted in September that year. This demonstrated the limitations to the ability of US hegemony to broker peace agreements between hostile belligerents, although US efforts might have helped to contain the violence to the communal/low-intensity level rather than becoming a regional conflagration. The main reason for the hegemon’s failure is related to the asymmetric balance of motivation between a great power and regional states. Namely, there are difficulties in controlling the behaviour of regional actors that have a much higher commitment to the issues at stake than the faraway hegemonic power. Another reason for the US failure to bring about progress in the Arab-Israeli peace process, however, might have been the gradual dissolution of the Gulf War coalition during the late 1990s. In contrast to US expectations and despite its containment policy, Saddam Hussein remained defiantly in power. Thus, by demonstrating the limitations on US power, its failure to remove Saddam weakened its ability to exercise a restraining influence on the regional actors and to promote regional peace. Accordingly, one might expect that Saddam’s removal from power in the spring of 2003, and the consequent weakening of the radical camp in the region, will reinforce the US ability to promote an Arab-Israeli peace. At the same time, potential difficulties in post-war Iraq might divert US attention and energy from the peace process. If the stabilization of Iraq becomes protracted and costly, and the resentment in the Arab world against what it sees as US occupation of Iraq gains momentum, such developments might encourage some isolationist sentiments in the US, even though the likelihood for this kind of a scenario looks quite low in the post-September 11 world. At any rate, there are limits to the willingness and ability of the US to continue to play the role of the hegemonic power in the Middle East over the long run. THE POTENTIAL FOR US DISENGAGEMENT FROM THE MIDDLE EAST AND ITS LIKELY EFFECTS With the disappearance of the Soviet threat, there have been growing calls for US disengagement from world affairs, especially in the sphere of military-strategic involvement. Indeed, in many post-Cold War crises, post-Soviet regions, and most notably in Bosnia until the autumn of 1995, the US was visibly reluctant to intervene. One cause of this reluctance is the sensitivity of the American public and Congress to casualties, another being the multiplicity of domestic socioeconomic problems in the US. It is true that impressive improvements in the


performance of the US economy during the 1990s somewhat diminished the impact of these concerns. Moreover, there is widespread acknowledgment in the US of global economic interdependence and its crucial importance for the US economy. Still, the eruption of a domestic economic crisis or racial tensions might reduce the willingness to intervene overseas in the absence of a clear and present danger to important US interests. In addition to such domestic problems, disengagement will also become more likely if there is a growing recognition in the US that the global burden-sharing in regional trouble-spots is unfair, and that Washington pays a disproportionate share of the costs of maintaining international stability through its diplomatic and military engagement while the other major powers behave as ‘free riders.’ Another factor that may induce US disengagement is the nature of the Middle East conflict itself. To the extent that the Arab-Israeli conflict is transformed from an interstate regional conflict to a low-intensity feud of terrorist acts, guerrilla operations and popular riots, one should expect much less US interest and ability to influence the evolution of the dispute. Great powers are much more able and willing to influence interstate disputes than to shape and terminate domestic and low-intensity conflicts. The great-power interest in reducing communal violence is much lower than in major regional conflicts because the latter pose a much greater threat to international stability and to important strategic and economic interests. Thus, communal violence between Israelis and Palestinians appears as much less relevant to the security of the oil-rich Gulf states than did the inter-state Arab-Israeli wars of the past, and the oil flow is the major strategic US interest in the post-Cold War Middle East. At the same time, the costs and difficulties involved in pacifying communal violence make this role an unattractive one for a superpower like the US, especially with growing public disinterest in international events in the post-Cold War era, and the strong domestic opposition to the high costs attending such missions. Such a potential US disengagement from the Middle East will have very dangerous consequences for regional security. During the Cold War the superpowers were unable to prevent the eruption of the various Arab-Israeli wars. Yet, they were able to co-operate, even if only tacitly, in containing the wars and in terminating them once there was a danger to the survival of a key ally. As a result, Israel could never win a total victory in any military conflict with the Arabs. At the same time, the Arab states knew that if they posed a real threat to Israel’s existence, the US might intervene or take dramatic measures. Thus, no war could end decisively because the superpowers would not allow a complete surrender of one party.10 Conversely, US disengagement from the Middle East could lead to uninterrupted regional wars with much more widespread devastation and without referees and constraints.11 US disengagement will also have adverse effects in the diplomatic domain of the attempts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. US disengagement will deprive regional antagonists of an effective external broker who can draw on a multiplicity of economic, military and diplomatic resources in order to use a great


variety of ‘sticks’ and ‘carrots’ to induce the local actors to show greater flexibility. In such a situation, the ability of local actors to obstruct regional conflict resolution will be greater than in a situation dominated by a single leader. Thus, US disengagement will pose threats to international stability or, at the very least, endanger peace and prosperity in conflict-ridden regions such as the Middle East. An especially crucial problem in this case will be the lack of control over nonconventional proliferation. Such oil-rich, ‘rogue’ revisionist states such as Iran and Libya, and to a lesser extent Syria, will be more easily able to acquire such weapons without facing effective international sanctions. In the medium-to-long term the oil wealth of Iraq (should another militant regime emerge there) and Iran could give these states the ability to challenge the status quo in the Gulf and to support radical movements and states elsewhere in the region. This could become the basis of an anti-US alliance that could challenge US allies such as Egypt and Israel.12 The challenge of Iran and Iraq could become especially troubling and costly if they succeed in developing alliances outside the region with major powers dissatisfied with US hegemony such as China and Russia. Indeed, another negative scenario for the Middle East concerns the involvement of other powers in the region in competition with the US. Yet, in the post-September 11 world, the likelihood of US total disengagement has declined drastically because of the widespread perception that serious violent threats to US security are present in the international environment, notably in the Middle East. Such a perception led to the willingness to go to war in Iraq because of the threats of WMD, the presumed connection to radical Islamic terrorism and the hoped-for transformation of regimes in the Arab world in a more moderate direction. This kind of perception might also bring about a renewed US involvement in the Arab-Israeli peace process with the expectation that the defeat of Saddam Hussein, which weakened the Arab radicals, will moderate the Arab positions while reassuring Israel and thus make the region more conducive to a vigorous peace process. The progress in this process, in turn, will supposedly reduce the appeal of the militants who aim at terrorizing and hurting the US. THE LIKELIHOOD AND DANGERS OF A COMPETITIVE GREAT-POWER INVOLVEMENT Arms supplies, including weapons of mass destruction and the means for their delivery, by the Russians, the Chinese and the North Koreans to radical Middle Eastern states underline the major danger that the involvement of external powers can pose to Middle East stability. The more competitive the relations between major powers become the greater the ability of the local states, including revisionist ones, to manipulate them and to extract assistance, including the supply of weapons of mass destruction and other offensive weapons. The construction of a regional security regime will become unlikely.


Moreover, such supplies will raise the likelihood of arms races and crises in the region and increase the fear of pre-emptive strikes, surprise attacks and preventive wars. Major power rivalry will also bring about diplomatic, economic and military support by one or more of the powers to radical regional forces opposed to the peace process, and thus make it much more difficult to promote peace or to stabilize it if a settlement was already reached. A major question regarding the likelihood of such a competitive great-power involvement in the Middle East relates to the extent that the other major powers will feel the urge to balance the US by forming a countervailing coalition that will block US hegemony. This depends partly on the US conduct as a hegemon and partly on changes in the balance of power and on the pursuit of revisionist policies by the dissatisfied nascent great powers._ The Global Distribution of Capabilities With the Soviet collapse, US military superiority is assured for some time, especially due to its major advantages in power-projection and sophisticated high-tech arms, including ‘smart’, high-precision weapon systems and information warfare. No other power is a real match to US military prowess. Despite the fears that were prevalent in the US a decade ago about the rising economic power of Western Europe and especially Japan, the 1990s witnessed a growing US economic advantage in high-tech, computer, software, communication and information industries. Moreover, the highly flexible and dynamic US economy has expanded to a greater extent than its industrialized competitors, even though it has slowed down considerably in the last few years. Japan and Western Europe are still far from being global strategic powers. This was demonstrated most clearly during the Gulf War and in the recent war in Iraq and with regard to the Europeans in the Yugoslav wars as well. The Europeans were unable to act coherently and effectively in the diplomaticmilitary domain even in their own backyard. Only a forceful US diplomatic and military intervention brought about the termination of hostilities in Bosnia and produced the Dayton peace agreements of 1995 and then the defeat of Serbia in Kosovo in 1999 which led to the removal of Slobodan Milosevic from power. At the same time, the war in Chechnya has demonstrated the great weakness and disarray of the Russian military. Thus, in the last few years attention has focused on the rising power of China, manifested in the impressive growth rates of its increasingly capitalist economy. But China still lags far behind the developed world in its technological and organizational sophistication. Nor will Chinese military power be a serious rival to the US in the foreseeable future due to its backward technology and the severe limitations on its power-projection capability to East Asia, let alone to the Middle East.


The Extent of Acceptance of US Hegemony by the Other Powers Balance-of-power theory posits that great powers will not accept the continued hegemony of one over the others, but will seek to counterbalance the hegemon by strengthening their domestic power base or by forming an anti-hegemonic coalition. Yet there is a competing theory —a balance of threat—which suggests that such a countervailing alliance will not be formed automatically on the basis of power considerations (notably the hegemon’s preponderant power), but only if the hegemon is seen as posing a threat to the other great powers. Thus, the advent of an anti-American coalition is less likely than was the case with previous hegemonic powers because of the combination of several factors: the open and transparent US democratic regime; the geographical distance of the US —being separated by two vast oceans—from the world centres of power and the foci of the major international conflicts (Europe, East Asia and the Middle East); and the less threatening behaviour of the US in comparison with earlier dominant states. The last factor is an especially important one. It depends on the strategy of future US administrations— whether they will behave multilaterally (that is, co-operating with the other great powers through international institutions) or unilaterally, and whether they will focus on coercion or accommodation of potential rivals, especially other great powers, in disputes between them and the US. The more unilateral and ‘bully-like’ US behaviour will tend to be, the higher the likelihood of the establishment of a countervailing anti-US coalition and vice-versa. The formation of such a coalition will have major destabilizing consequences for the Middle East, which will in all likelihood be one of the major arenas for great-power competition due to the combination of important interests (oil) and a multiplicity of regional conflicts providing many opportunities for external intervention. Such a scenario seemed to gain somewhat greater credibility following the pursuit of a more unilateralist policy by the Bush administration, especially since the international agenda became dominated in 2002–03 by the possibility of a US-led war in Iraq. An anti-war, in fact an anti-hegemonic, coalition has emerged, including France, Germany, Russia and China, which opposed the US plan to go to war in Iraq and change the regime there. Yet this loose coalition was too weak to limit US ability to go unilaterally, with the ‘coalition of the willing’, to war in Iraq. Despite the unilateralist inclinations of the administration, which were reinforced by September 11, it is still unclear whether the US will persist in the unilateralist path in the post-war era or will show sufficient multilateralism, at least in the ‘low-politics’ issues of reconstruction and humanitarian aid in Iraq, so as to disarm its anti-hegemonic opponents. At any rate, the Iraq War shows the limitations to the ability of the anti-hegemonic forces to constrain the US in matters it considers vital to its security and interests.


Revisionist Regimes A major factor that will determine whether the world returns to past patterns of great-power competition is the evolution of the regimes in China and Russia and their foreign-policy objectives. Should China pursue expansionist objectives of becoming the dominant power in East Asia, it will create growing tensions in this region regarding questions such as Taiwan, the Spratley Islands and a variety of border and trade disputes. Although in this case the focus of international tensions will be in East Asia, such instability is also likely to spill over to the Middle East through the supply of destabilizing weapon systems to radical regional states and likely Chinese diplomatic support for extremist regional forces. The potential rise of former communist or ultra-nationalist forces to power in Russia might be even more destabilizing due to Russia’s geographical proximity to the Middle East and its traditional involvement in the region. At the same time, the severe limitations to Russian power in the foreseeable future mean that its ability to destabilize the region is going to be low. Moreover, Russia’s concern about radical Islamic forces in Central Asia and Iran might create an alliance of interests based on a shared threat between Moscow and the status quo forces in the Middle East. Still, short-term economic considerations seem to tempt Russia to supply weapons of mass destruction to radical Middle Eastern states. In postSoviet Russia there have also been serious problems of control over military and civilian elements which have been interested in such arms supplies for their own private gains. On this issue the ability and willingness of the US leadership to act is crucial. The more the US persists in a resolute policy of nuclear non-proliferation, and the more it succeeds in building multilateral coalitions in this area with the Europeans and the Japanese which will engage also the Chinese and the Russians, the less likely the spread of non-conventional arms to the Middle East. This brings us to the final international scenario: co-operation between the status quo powers. GREAT-POWER CO-OPERATION Facing a threat of revisionist Middle Eastern regimes, equipped with weapons of mass destruction capable of reaching targets in Europe, could supposedly motivate the status quo powers to collaborate in a great-power concert. Such a concert will then include first of all the US and the European Union, and also the Japanese in the multilateral economic domain. The Russians may also join depending on their adherence to a status quo orientation in foreign policy and the evolution of their domestic regime, that is, if they move forward with liberalization and democratization. This great-power concert will aim at stabilizing regions which have three major characteristics: the presence of vital great-power interests, high conflict-proneness and an acute danger of non-


conventional proliferation to radical regimes. The major example of such a region is the Middle East because of the combination of oil, a multiplicity of intense conflicts and the presence of revisionist states working hard on acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The Russians, despite their greatly weakened position, should be accorded a role in the Middle East, especially if ‘new thinking’ continues to govern their foreign behaviour, because of their important interests in this adjacent region and their still considerable military power and arms industry. Thus, for example, Russia’s participation is essential for the success of any regional arms control regime as it can readily spoil any arrangement not to its liking through the supply of weapons, including non-conventional ones, to rogue regimes. In the area of arms control a Chinese engagement is also desirable, for China is a major arms supplier to radical states in the region. On the other hand, the Europeans and the Japanese, both of whom have important stakes in Middle Eastern oil, could play an increasingly important role alongside Washington in providing a multilateral framework, international legitimacy and technological-economic assistance and investments for the hoped-for regional reconciliation in the Middle East. At the same time, as the current case of US economic sanctions against Iran shows, it is impossible to implement effective sanctions without the collaboration of at least the major industrial powers. Great-power co-operative security or a concert vis-à-vis the Middle East may supposedly be the best international strategy to overcome the disadvantages of both hegemony and disengagement. In a concert there is no single dominant power, and thus the rise of challengers aimed at counterbalancing this power and displacing it from its hegemonic position is unlikely. At the same time, a concert, at least potentially, can mobilize a greater amount of resources than a single hegemon, however powerful this hegemon is likely to be. If there is an effective great-power concert, the Middle East peace process will also be less biased to the preferences of a single hegemon. This will in turn make the process more balanced and less likely to generate resentment on the part of some of the regional parties for fear of the hegemon’s tilt towards their regional rivals. In the Arab-Israeli case, it means that European (let alone Russian, Chinese or Japanese) participation will balance the widely perceived US bias in favour of Israel. This may supposedly make the Arabs less alienated from the peace process as vividly illustrated by their preference for the most recent manifestation of a concert in the Middle East peace process—the so-called Quartet, comprising the European Union, Russia, the UN and the US—over an exclusive brokerage by the US. The post-September 11 collaboration of the great powers in the war on terrorism, especially in Afghanistan and in the hunt for al-Qaeda operatives worldwide, shows the potential for some kind of great-power concert in the face of a shared threat like a global trans-national terrorist network and related radical groups. Yet the war in Iraq and the sharp disagreements between the US and


Britain on the one hand, and the anti-war coalition on the other, demonstrate the severe limitations to great-power collaboration even among traditional allies. Indeed, there are a number of potential caveats with regard to a great-power concert. One problem is that of the so-called collective goods, namely the tendency of every individual power to avoid paying the costs needed to achieve the ‘collective goods’ of regional peace and stability, and to expect that the other powers will do the job and incur the necessary costs. This may lead to the ineffectiveness of concerts and to a de facto disengagement of major powers from regional conflicts, with all its above-mentioned dangers to regional peace. In order to minimize the collective-goods problem, the US, because of its overall superior capabilities, should continue to play the role of a leader or a benign hegemon for the foreseeable future. This will also address Israeli concerns that a multilateral arrangement in which the US is only one voice among many will be unable to defend legitimate Israeli interests in the face of strong international support for the Arabs. But the US should be a multilateralist leader, acting, to the extent possible, through international institutions such as the UN Security Council or ad hoc multinational coalitions (such as those in the Gulf in 1991 and since 1995 in Bosnia) rather than a unilateralist hegemon.13 This will allow it to be more effective in mobilizing the resources of the other major powers and less likely to alienate them or the Arabs. A second potential concern is that a great-power concert would evolve into a condominium in which the powers impose their vision of the international order on local actors. Yet the combination of the international norms of selfdetermination and sovereign equality with the inevitable continuation of some degree of competition between the great powers would minimize the likelihood of the advent of such an oppressive condominium. Small states are expected to oppose a coercive collaboration of the great powers in which the latter impose peace on reluctant regional parties. However, as the attitude of most moderate Arabs and Israelis towards some sort of international sponsorship of their peace talks has shown, regional leaders do not necessarily oppose accommodative collaboration in which the great powers work together with the local actors to reach negotiated agreements. Such collaboration has characterized the post-Cold War processes of regional reconciliation in some of the trouble spots in the Third World. A third problem with multilateral co-operation is that in many cases it tends to break down after a short while, with rivalry replacing the co-operative arrangement, due to great-power concerns over relative power and mutual security fears. Such a breakdown is especially likely if there is an ideological/ domestic incompatibility among the great powers and some of them have revisionist inclinations. Thus, even if a great-power concert emerges with regard to the Middle East, it is unlikely to endure over the long term. The recent rift among the great powers regarding Iraq is a major example of the difficulties of establishing an enduring concert.


To sum up, four international scenarios for the Middle East have been discussed: a continuation of US hegemony, US disengagement from the region, a competitive great-power involvement, and multilateral great-power collaboration. Generally, the current unipolar international system, and the US hegemony visà-vis the Middle East, especially following the Iraq War, is the most feasible for the foreseeable future. It is also the international situation most conducive for progress towards an Arab-Israeli peace. All the alternatives will be worse. A continuing US leadership and commitment is crucial for Middle Eastern stability, war prevention and the success of the regional peace process. Only in later stages, to the extent that a comprehensive settlement is reached and regional peace takes root, can the US role become less crucial with regional forces more able to manage the agreed peace on their own. Both US disengagement and a competitive great-power involvement will have an adverse effect on the peace process. A concert will not be as bad as disengagement and great-power competition with regard to progress in regional peace-making, but its feasibility is doubtful. Moreover, it is likely to be much more problematic for Israel than US hegemony. The other major powers do not have the same special moral/domestic political commitment to Israel as the US does. Thus, all the peace forces in the Middle East, and especially Israel, have to take advantage of the window of opportunity created in the aftermath of the war in Iraq in order to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict with the aid of US hegemony. If there is a further delay in the peace process, a combination of the rise of radicalism on both sides of the conflict, proliferation of non-conventional weapons, spread of terrorism, and an altered international environment will generate a far more dangerous Middle East. NOTES 1. For the argument about the emergence of a unipolar world in the aftermath of the Soviet decline, see Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Unipolar Moment’, Foreign Affairs: America and the World, Vol.70 (1990/91), pp.23–33, and especially William C.Wohlforth, ‘The Stability of a Unipolar World’, in Michael E.Brown, Owen R.Cote Jr., Sean Lynn-Jones and Steven Miller (eds.), America’s Strategic Choices, Cambridge, 2000, pp.273–309. For a more refined argument about American leadership in the 1990s, see Joseph Nye, Bound to Lead, New York, 1990 and Joseph Nye, The Paradox of American Power, Oxford, 2002. For scepticism on the part of balance-of-power/neo-realist theorists about the endurance of a unipolar world, see Christopher Layne, ‘The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great Powers Will Rise’, International Security, Vol.17, No.4 (Spring 1993), pp.5–51, and Kenneth N.Waltz, ‘The Emerging Structure of International Politics’, International Security, Vol.18, No.2 (Fall 1993), pp.44–79. For an analysis of the future of American power with the end of the Cold War, see Aaron Friedberg, ‘The End of the Cold War and the Future of American Power’, in Geir Lundestad (ed.), The Fall of Great Powers: Peace, Stability, and Legitimacy, Oxford, 1994, pp.175–


2.

3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

96. See also the debate between Samuel Huntington, ‘Why International Primacy Matters’, International Security, Vol.17, No.4 (Spring 1993), pp.68–83 and Robert Jervis, ‘International Primacy: Is the Game Worth the Candle?’, International Security, Vol.17, No.4 (Spring 1993), pp.52–67. A most useful and updated debate on the future of the balance of power is presented in the edited volume by John G.Ikenberry, America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power, Ithaca, 2002. See also T.V.Paul, James J.Wirtz and Michael Fortmann (eds.), Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford, forthcoming). On the US as the hegemon in the Middle East after the end of the Cold War, see Steven L. Spiegel, ‘Eagle in the Middle East’, in Robert J.Lieber (ed.), Eagle Adrift: American Foreign Policy at the End of the Century, New York, 1997, p.302; Benjamin Miller, ‘The Global Sources of Regional Transitions from War to Peace’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol.38, No.2 (March 2001), pp.199–225; Benjamin Miller, ‘Between War and Peace: Systemic Effects on the Transition of the Middle East and the Balkans from the Cold War to the Post-Cold War Era’, Security Studies, Vol.11, No.1 (Autumn 2001), pp.1–52; Benjamin Miller, ‘Conflict Management in the Middle East: Between the “Old” and the “New”’, in Paul F.Diehl and Joseph Lepgold (eds.), Regional Conflict Management in the Post-Cold War Era, Boulder, 2003, pp.153–208; Shai Feldman, The Future of U.S.Israel Strategic Cooperation, Washington DC, 1996; Michael C.Hudson, ‘To Play the Hegemon: Fifty Years of US Policy toward the Middle East’, Middle East Journal, Vol.50, No.3 (Summer 1996), pp.329–43; Stephen D.Krasner, ‘The Middle East and the End of the Cold War’, in Laura Guazzone (ed.), The Middle East in Global Change, New York, 1997, pp.201–15; Louis J.Cantori, ‘The Middle East in the New World Order: Political Trends’, in Tareq Y.Ismael and Jacqueline S. Ismael (eds.), The Gulf War and the New World Order, Gainesville, 1994, pp. 451–72; Benjamin Miller, ‘The Great Powers and Regional Peacemaking: Patterns in the Middle East and Beyond’, in Zeev Maoz (ed.), Special Issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies on Regional Security in the Middle East, Vol.20 (March 1997), pp.103–42. On the threat of nuclear proliferation to the Third World following the end of the Cold War, see Michael Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws: America’s Search for a New Foreign Policy, New York, 1995. Robert W.Tucker and David C.Hendrickson, The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and America’s Purpose, New York, 1992, p.35. On rogue states in post-Cold War US foreign policy, see Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws. See also Robert S.Litwak, Rogue States and U.S. Foreign Policy, Washington, DC, 2000. Jack S.Levy, ‘The Diversionary Theory of War: A Critique’, in M.Midlarsky (ed.), Handbook of War Studies, Ann Arbor, pp.259–88. Michael Doyle, ‘Liberalism and World Politics’, American Political Science Review, No.80 (December 1986), pp.1151–69; Bruce M.Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World, Princeton, 1993. Edward D.Mansfield and Jack Snyder, ‘Democratization and the Danger of War’, in Michael E.Brown et al. (eds.), Debating the Democratic Peace, Cambridge, 1996, pp.301–36. On this point, see Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws, pp.39–40.


9. This logic is developed in Miller, ‘The Global Sources of Regional Transitions’, and Miller, ‘Between War and Peace’. 10. Spiegel, ‘Eagle in the Middle East’, p.303; Krasner, ‘The Middle East’. 11. Spiegel, ‘Eagle in the Middle East’, p.303. 12. Cantori, ‘The Middle East in the New World Order’, p.467. 13. Nye, The Paradox of American Power.

ISRAEL AND THE WEST

The PLO Factor in Euro-Israeli Relations, 1964–1992 RORY MILLER

The ongoing Palestinian war against Israel (also known as the ‘Al Aqsa intifada’) has shown the European Union (EU or Community) to be Yasser Arafat’s and the Palestine Authority’s (PA) most steadfast international ally. Indeed, since the outbreak of hostilities in September 2000, following the breakdown of negotiations between the parties at Camp David, Israel has faced criticism from the EU partners on a number of interrelated issues. This has ranged from public condemnation of Israel’s destruction of EU-funded infrastructural projects in the Occupied Territories to the far more serious allegation over what Commission President Romano Prodi termed Israel’s ‘utterly intolerable treatment of the Palestinian people.’1 The Community has also insisted that responsibility for the crisis is shared by both Israel and the Palestinians and that ‘violence on both sides [has] shattered the possibility for peace.’2 This European determination to apportion blame equally for a crisis that most Israelis believe was initiated, and is being perpetuated, by the Palestinian leadership either directly or through incitement, not to mention the apparent European disregard for Israeli victims of the violence, has also contributed to the worsening of relations.3 So has the growing support within the Community (most notably in the European Parliament and in various universities) for trade sanctions and academic and scientific boycotts of Israel at a time of continued Community funding for the PA. While the Community’s relentless effort, at least until mid-2003, to protect the position of Arafat and the PA as Israel’s ‘only valid interlocutor’ and the harsh warnings lest Israel adopt a policy (in the words of former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine) of ‘asphyxiating’ the PA president or of marginalizing him in any future negotiations, have also fuelled tensions.4 All this has led many to question the reasons for what has been termed the ‘bizarre love affair’ between Europe and Arafat’s regime.5 For some, the European Union’s unstinting defence of Arafat regardless of his involvement in the terror war and the parallel lack of support for Israel’s anti-terror policy is evidence of longstanding European indifference to the suffering of Israelis, which in turn has been attributed to a visceral anti-Israeli feeling within Europe


due to guilt over the Holocaust and a belief that Israel is the last bastion of colonialism in the Middle East. Some go even further and attribute European indifference to Israeli suffering to anti-Semitism.6 For others, the European stance is an inevitable function of Europe’s post-1945 worldview (set down in the preamble to the Treaty of Rome in 1958), which places a premium on negotiation and non-confrontation (critics may prefer the word appeasement) as well as a commitment to finding economic solutions to political problems.7 Others still, such as Harry Kney-Tal, Israel’s Ambassador to the Community in 2002, explain the European position in terms of the fact that the Community, the largest financial donor to the PA since its creation, ‘simply cannot accept’ the Israeli claim that the PA is either inherently opposed to peace or incapable of reform as this would ‘entail rejection of the creature they’ve created’ and as such the EU has refused ‘to play any part in a process that might lead to the collapse of the Palestinian side.’8 Kney-Tal’s explanation that Europe simply cannot face the thought that in backing the PA and Arafat so assiduously for the last decade it may have made a fundamental miscalculation as to Arafat’s capacity, and desire, to lead his people to peace certainly has merit. However, the Oslo process did not mark the beginning of Europe’s championing of the Palestinian cause or Arafat, but was a culmination of over two decades of European efforts to legitimize the PLO and integrate the organization into the Arab-Israeli political process without the PLO renouncing its objective of destroying the state of Israel or abandoning its strategy of terror. 1958–1967: PRELUDE TO EUROPEAN-PLO RELATIONS During the first decade of the Community’s existence (1958–67) neither the Palestinian cause, nor the nascent PLO, dominated Europe’s agenda. Indeed, prior to the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war the Palestinian issue was viewed overwhelmingly in humanitarian terms in the West and there was little support for the political aspirations of the Palestinian people, who for the most part lived in Arab states or under Egyptian and Jordanian control in Gaza and the West Bank and were themselves under no illusions that the Arab world entertained any thoughts regarding Palestinian self-determination. All four of the original ‘Six’ founding states of the European Economic Community (EEC or EU) who had been members of the United Nations in November 1947—Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Luxemburg9— had voted in favour of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 1947 that called for the partition of Palestine into two independent states—one Jewish, the other Arab. In the following years the bilateral relationship Rory Miller is Lecturer in Mediterranean Studies at King’s College, University of London.

THE PLO AND EURO-ISRAELI RELATIONS, 1964–92 119

between Israel and each of the future ‘Six’ had blossomed. The most dramatic example of this was the September 1952 agreement, in the face of much opposition within Israel, between the Bonn government and the Jewish state, whereby Germany pledged to pay significant financial reparations as compensation for Nazi crimes. These years also saw France (preoccupied with its war in Algeria and furious with the Egyptian leader Nasser, whom it believed to be a leading patron of Algerian rebels) develop into Israel’s closest ally and primary supplier of military equipment and intelligence information, not to mention nuclear technology and training.10 Indeed, it has been argued that a primary motive for the Egyptian decision (between 1959 and 1964) to establish gradually a Palestinian entity that would ultimately evolve into the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was President Nasser’s belief that Israel had successfully marginalized the Palestine issue in the West.11 And it is of note that even Arab opposition to burgeoning EEC-Israeli ties in these years was devoid of any mention of Palestinian rights or the refugee issue and was presented in terms of the economic disadvantage and ‘discrimination’ that the Arab nations would face if Israel’s relationship with the Community was formalized.12 Certainly, the establishment of the PLO (which would be commandeered by Arafat’s Fatah organization in the following years) in 1964 had little impact on European attitudes towards Israel. Indeed, in the same year as the PLO’s birth Israel celebrated the signing of its first (and the first Middle Eastern) trade agreement with the EEC. The June 1964 agreement was, admittedly, highly cautious and far more limited than Israel had envisaged (most notably, it only covered 27 of the 200 products on which Israel hoped to reach agreement), but it was an important economic and diplomatic achievement for Israel nonetheless. Since the founding of the EEC the leadership of the fledgling Jewish state saw the Community as an opportunity to extend its relations with a group of important, friendly European nations at a time when (excepting Turkish and Iranian de facto recognition) she faced economic and political isolation within the Arab world and wider Middle East. As Prime Minister Ben-Gurion told Gideon Rafael (who in 1957 was appointed Israel’s representative to the EEC as well as ambassador to Belgium and Luxemburg), the ‘closely knit community… would become a central force in world affairs’ and Israel had to forge close links with it.13 As such, Israel was the third country after the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland to establish a diplomatic mission with full ambassadorial status in Brussels even though at this stage Israel was represented abroad by only 12 ambassadors (accredited to 20 countries).14 There was also the economic factor. Isolated by an Arab boycott in its own region, trade with Europe, which by 1961 accounted for about 40 per cent of Israel’s total exports, was increasingly vital to Israel’s economic development.15 The Community’s preference for a limited commercial agreement dealing with only a few products and completely excluding technical and financial issues was in no way motivated by political differences, but was solely due to economic and


geographical considerations. Italy, for example, under pressure from its farm community in the south, feared competition from Israeli oranges,16 while the Dutch opposed any move towards an expanded EEC because of the economic vulnerability facing the ‘Six’ at this time. Moreover, Israel failed to meet many of the evolving criteria for significant economic ties. It was not a European country or one of the overseas countries or territories with which the members of the Six had special links (such as the Maghreb states). There was also a belief within Europe that any agreement with Israel would create a precedent and place it under a moral obligation to enter into similar agreements with other Mediterranean countries.17 Such was the extent of goodwill towards Israel that the European parliament— a body that in more recent years has been among Israel’s harshest critics— unanimously advocated strong Community ties with Israel as a ‘political and moral obligation’ and because ‘on the moral plane … Israel is spiritually and economically orientated towards Europe.’18 Indeed, at the same time that the rejectionist programme of the PLO was being endorsed in a meeting in East Jerusalem in May 1964, the European Parliament was unanimously voting in favour of the imminent trade agreement with Israel as a ‘first step’ and an initial ‘gesture’ that opened the way for far deeper ties.19 Thus, though disappointed by its economic benefits, Israel viewed the 1964 agreement positively. As Amiel Najar, Israel’s Ambassador in Brussels, explained, the real value of the agreement was that it provided Israel with ‘standing’ among the ‘Six’ and could pave the way for more valuable links in the future,20 while senior Israeli figures including Yigal Allon, Abba Eban, Shimon Peres and Levi Eshkol all favoured building on the agreement as a matter of priority.21 In a speech to the Knesset in 1965 Prime Minister Eshkol justified his decision to move towards diplomatic relations with West Germany on the basis that ‘the more we have tried to establish closer ties with the new Europe, the more clearly we have realised the considerable importance of Germany in the European community.’22 THE 1967 WAR AND GRADUAL REALIGNMENT There is no doubt that the Israeli occupation, during the June 1967 war, of territories that had previously been controlled by Jordan (the West Bank) and Egypt (Gaza) did fundamentally shift international opinion away from Israel and was the pretext under which the Jewish state lost the sympathy of European governments. But the view of Israel as a ‘self-confident, coldly efficient power’23 and of the Palestinians, now under Israeli rule, as the conflict’s victim was not an immediate development. Indeed, despite the general acknowledgement that Israel had technically initiated military action in June 1967, there was widespread European sympathy for Israel in the context of years of Arab threats and Nasser’s more recent expulsion of United Nations forces from Egypt, as well as his effort to deny Israel access to the region’s waterways.


In the immediate term the war actually appeared to help Israel in its major objective of replacing its 1964 economic agreement (which was due to expire in June 1967) with an association agreement.24 As the Dutch Foreign Ministry noted, the war had created a ‘wave of sympathy for Israel [and] is likely to help considerably the conclusion of some form of agreement of association.’25 On 7 June 1967 the European Commission adopted its report to the Council of Ministers containing suggestions for the new phase of negotiations between Israel and the Community. This report included a recommendation calling for the negotiation of a preferential agreement with Israel on the basis of Article 111 of the treaty. This was viewed in the press as both ‘politically provocative [and]…a major innovation in the Community’s foreign policy.’26 However, on 27 June, though noting this proposal, the Council decided that rather than entering into a new round of substantive negotiations at this time of uncertainty the original 1964 trade agreement would be extended until 30 June 1968.27 The diplomatic crisis occasioned by the June war preoccupied both the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the General Assembly (UNGA) for much of the latter half of 1967. Between 5 and 14 June there were 16 meetings of the UNSC, while between 17 June and 21 July there were 33 meetings of the UNGA Special Session, 17 of which were devoted to a general debate on the crisis. The five UN members of the Community participated in these discussions but there was little attempt to deal with the crisis at the Community level, a reluctance highlighted by the French philosopher and political commentator Raymond Aron, who noted sarcastically that the Community ‘was concerning itself with beetroot during these historic days’, and by the European Parliament, which passed a resolution deploring ‘the failure of the Community to date to frame a common policy [on the crisis].’28 Even when in November 1967 the UNSC adopted Resolution 242, which, though subject to widely differing interpretations, has been accepted by all parties as the basis for a final settlement, the only official statement made by the ‘Six’ was that ‘we [the community] affirm our approval of the resolution which constitutes the basis for a settlement.’29 France, a permanent member of the UNSC, played a central role in both the UNSC and UNGA deliberations on the issue. Since 1962 she had been reevaluating her relationship with Israel and the onset of the crisis in late May 1967 provided General de Gaulle with an opportunity to re-align French policy in a dramatic fashion. On 2 June the French cabinet stated that the party to initiate hostilities would ‘not have either her approval and, even less, her support.’30 On this basis, de Gaulle rounded aggressively on Israel in the wake of the war, most memorably during a press conference in which he castigated Israel as an ‘an elite people, sure of itself and overbearing.’31 This new French hostility towards the Jewish state was highlighted by its vote in favour of the 4 July Yugoslav-sponsored non-aligned UNGA draft resolution (A/L522), which blamed Israel for the conflict and called on it to withdraw to territory held prior to the war without any parallel commitment from the Arab


side to recognize its existence, and by its decision to abstain on a more moderate UNGA draft resolution proposed by a number of Latin American states (A/ L523).32 De Gaulle’s stance had practical implications—France would enforce an arms embargo against Israel until 1992—but in the long run (as Israel achieved her desired strategic relationship with the United States) French hostility was far more significant for its impact on Israel’s developing relationship with the EEC. As Aron argued at the time, one of the consequences of the French position was that it had ‘broken away from her partners in the Common Market’33 and research published by the PLO-sponsored Institute of Palestine Studies in 1971 underlines this fact. This research characterized the Belgian, Luxemburg, Dutch and Italian stance at the UNGA in the summer of 1967 as either ‘strongly’ or ‘very strongly’ pro-Israeli, while France was the only EEC member to be classed as ‘strongly pro-Arab’ in the same months.34 The first practical signs of this division were seen when the European Council debated EEC-Israeli trade relations in December 1967. The Commission restated its support for a preferential agreement with Israel, possibly extending, in the future, to association, while the German, Dutch, Belgian and Luxemburg delegations also supported entering into a preferential agreement with Israel. Even Italy (a direct competitor with Israel in several agricultural product areas) was prepared to consider a preferential agreement, or even association, if the Israeli negotiations took place in the context of a general enlargement that did not focus exclusively on the Mediterranean. However, France refused to discuss the nature or extent of any future economic links with Israel and over the following months opposed improved economic ties with Israel on the grounds that a preferential agreement that abolished customs duties (the agreement preferred by Germany and The Netherlands) was out of proportion with Israel’s economic importance to the Community. France even adopted the Italian call for expansion northwards as a way of avoiding progress with Israel.35 It was only in late 1969, and in return for The Netherlands abandoning her opposition to improving economic ties with the Maghreb and exploratory talks with Lebanon and the UAR, that France agreed to remove its veto on an Israel agreement.36 The upshot of this trade-off was the Israel-EEC five-year agreement of June 1970 that extended preferential treatment to industrial commodities and granted the most significant staged-tariff rèductions on Israeli industrial exports up to that point. Neither this concession in the economic sphere nor de Gaulle’s departure from the presidency saw an alteration in the French political attitude towards Israel. Indeed, under Georges Pompidou, de Gaulle’s successor, the French position became increasingly focused on Palestinian rights. In July 1969 Pompidou spoke of the ‘human and political problems posed by the existence and rights of the Palestinian people’ and in 1970 he acknowledged the ‘political character’ of the Palestinian problem.37 In the same year France voted in favour of UNGA


Resolution 2628, which linked the Palestine refugee problem to the ‘inalienable rights of the people of Palestine’ (and had been dismissed by Israel as ‘one-sided and harmful’).38 France also continued her ‘discreet but tenacious efforts’39 to bring the other members of the ‘Six’ in line with her position. This policy was aided by the growing frustration among the ‘Six’ over the failure to present a united foreign policy to the world. This issue had been raised during The Hague summit in December 1969, and in 1970 the European Political Co-operation (EPC) was created with the objective of providing members with a framework through which they could consult on important foreign-policy issues. By the time of the May 1971 EEC foreign ministers meeting in Brussels (again convened to discuss political co-operation in the international arena) Israel was deeply concerned over the possibility that France’s (in the words of Prime Minister Meir) ‘one-sidely anti-Israel’40 policy could radicalize its Community partners. Prior to the meeting Abba Eban, Israel’s foreign minister, had taken the unusual step of meeting his German counterpart specifically to urge him not to follow the ‘French adoption of the Soviet Arab line’, while the Israeli foreign ministry sent notes to the governments of Belgium, Italy, The Netherlands and Luxemburg asking them not to succumb to the French position.41 The Brussels meeting resulted in the drafting of a document that was unanimously approved by the ‘Six’ foreign ministers on 13 May. Named after French Foreign Minister Schumann, this document restated the Community’s support for UNSC Resolution 242—an Israeli withdrawal (with minor adjustments) to lines occupied on 4 June 1967—and for the internationalization of Jerusalem. But it broke new ground in supporting the right of Palestinian Arab refugees either to return to their former homes or to be compensated.42 One should not overestimate the practical importance of the Schumann memorandum. It was never officially published and, in dealing with such controversial issues as Jerusalem and the repatriation of refugees, it had no hope of succeeding at a time when neither Syria nor the PLO had even accepted Resolution 242 as the basis for a settlement. Moreover, there was no unanimity within the ‘Six’ over its value, with German officials dismissing it as only ‘a working paper’ and a text of no real importance.43 However, the document did have the dual effect of alienating Israel further and, more significantly, focusing the Community’s Middle East policy increasingly on Palestinian grievances. For example, 1971 saw the beginning of official EEC aid to Palestinians under the auspices of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] and this was followed by Italian Foreign Minister Aldo Moro’s expression of sympathy for the Palestinian struggle for a homeland as well as a Belgian government announcement of its ‘preoccupation’ with the future of the Palestinian people.44 It is worth noting that this increased Community ‘preoccupation’ with the Palestinian aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflict came in the wake of the PLO’s adoption in 1969 of its National Covenant, which called for the elimination of


Zionism (Article 15), declared the existence of the state of Israel to be null and void (Article 19), denied the existence of any historic or religious link between the Jewish people and the Holy Land (Article 20), and rejected any form of compromise (Article 21).45 It also coincided with the PLO’s widening of its terror war against Israel from attacks inside the Jewish state to attacks in Europe or on European property. For example (and leaving aside the massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in the summer of 1972), between July 1968 and the end of 1972 Palestinian terrorists were responsible for attacks on Israeli, European or American air lines, or aviation facilities, in Rome (three times), Athens (three times), Zurich (twice), Munich (twice), Jordan (twice), Amsterdam (once), Beirut (once) and Brussels (once).46 1973–1980: ENLARGEMENT, WAR AND THE PLO TAKES CENTRE STAGE The first enlargement of the community from ‘Six’ to ‘Nine’ took place in 1973.47 Israel greeted the entry of Denmark, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom with anxious anticipation and attempted to extract assurances from the ‘Six’ (most notably Germany) that this development would not impact negatively on its economic or political interests.48 In particular, Israel was anxious that British entry would bolster its economic links to the community— by 1973 Britain was Israel’s third largest trading partner and an important market for Israeli agricultural produce (though overall Israel imported three times as much from the UK as vice-versa)— and would counter-balance the French effort to steer the Community towards an increasingly pro-Palestinian position. This was by no means assured. In 1969 Prime Minister Meir described the British decision to prevent the sale of Chieftain tanks to Israel as ‘one sidedness’,49 while in the following year the then British foreign secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, publicly acknowledged the ‘legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.’50 The October 1973 (Yom Kippur) War, which saw the invasion of Israel on its holiest day by the combined forces of Syria and Egypt, further reduced the likelihood of the newly enlarged Community aligning itself with Israel. During the war no member of the ‘Nine’ allowed the United States to use its territory to refuel supply planes destined for Israel, while on 6 November 1973 the Community issued a declaration which it termed its ‘first contribution’ to the ‘search for a comprehensive solution.’ This called for both sides to return to their 22 October positions and for negotiations along the lines of UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. It also stressed the need for Israel to ‘end territorial occupation’ of land gained in 1967 and, though it did call for the right of each state to live in peace within secure and recognized borders—an implicit acceptance of Israel’s right to exist—it linked this to a much more explicit statement that there would


only be a just and lasting peace if the ‘legitimate rights of the Palestinians’ were taken into account.51 Israel responded harshly to this statement with Foreign Minister Abba Eban urging the ‘Nine’ to ‘reconsider the content and spirit of their declaration’ and Yitzhak Rabin concluding that ‘in effect the [European declaration] accepts the Arabs’ position on the political issue in everything regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict.52 There is little doubt that Europe’s stance, coming at a time of post-war uncertainty and an OPEC oil embargo had, as Abba Eban argued, more to do with ‘oil for Europe…than peace for the Middle East’53 and Garret Fitzgerald, Ireland’s foreign minister at the time, later captured the prevailing mood within the Community. ‘It immediately became clear’, he recalled ‘that oil was an issue upon which a frightened community would be unable to maintain solidarity. There was a distinct air of “every man for himself” and we were soon in inglorious disarray.’54 But even if this ‘modification of [European] views’55 was a response to economic pressure, it was still the first time since 1967 that the Community had placed the Palestinian issue at the centre of the political debate and the Arab world responded accordingly. In Algiers in late November 1973 the Arab heads of state characterized the declaration as ‘significant’,56 while secret clauses excluded from the original Algiers Declaration, but published later in the Arabic press, called for the Arab nation’ to build on what President Sadat of Egypt termed ‘signs of understanding’ in Europe in order to ‘develop the political stance’ and to set up PLO information offices in the Community under the auspices of the Arab League.57 The decision of the seventh Arab Summit at Rabat in October 1974 to acknowledge the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people aided this objective.58 So too did the PLO’s significant gains at the United Nations. On 14 October 1974 a Syrian-sponsored draft resolution calling for PLO participation in plenary meetings of UNGA discussions on the Palestine issue was adopted by 105 votes to 4 (with 20 abstaining). Israel dismissed this vote as ‘illegal and not binding …in any way’ and expressed particular ‘astonishment’ that in voting in favour of the resolution France, Ireland and Italy had ‘sided with the approach of the most extremist Arab state.’59 Israeli disillusionment with the UN (and Europe) increased the following month when PLO Chairman Arafat—who was described by Yigal Allon at the time as ‘the leader of the Arab terrorist organisations’60 —became the first nonhead of state to address the UNGA. In 1975 (the year Israel suffered the indignity of the ‘Zionism is a form of Racism’ resolution)61 the PLO established another precedent when it was invited to sessions of the UNSC on the same basis as member states.62 In adopting a position so favourable to the PLO the UN was basically according official status to an organization whose publicly stated objective was the destruction of one of its own members (Israel). Hardly surprising that Chaim


Herzog, Israel’s ambassador at the UN, was reduced to pleading ‘How many times does this Assembly have to be told that the PLO’s policy is diametrically opposed to any move towards peace with Israel?’63 Such profound legitimization of the PLO at the UN was also, according to Khaled al Hassan, one of the PLO’s most senior political figures, vital in moving European public opinion ‘away from the generally pro-Israeli feelings,64 while at a political level the PLO increased its legitimization in Europe through the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD).65 The EAD had been established by the ‘Nine’ in the aftermath of the 1973 war in the hope of improving links with the Arab world through the promotion of economic and cultural ties. But from the start it found itself hostage to the Arab, and more specifically the PLO’s, effort to force the normalization of relations between the EEC and the PLO onto the Community agenda. At this stage, the ‘Nine’, collectively at least, were still wary of any act that might be interpreted as communal support for the PLO’s evolution into an official entity on a par with sovereign states. Thus only France among the ‘Nine’ chose to abstain, rather than vote against, two November 1974 UNGA draft resolutions—3236 (XXIX) and 3237 (XXIX)—which, respectively, ratified the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, independence and the sovereignty of Palestine without even mentioning the existence of Israel and called for granting the PLO observer status at the UN on the grounds that this was equivalent to granting the PLO ‘legal recognition.’66 The first meeting of the EAD was postponed because of the Community’s unwillingness to allow the PLO to attend as a separate delegation. When talks did commence in June 1975 (with members of the PLO finance department, the Palestine National Fund, participating as part of a single Arab delegation) the Palestine issue and the PLO was placed at the top of the Arab agenda. For example, at meetings in Luxemburg in May 1976 and Tunis in February 1977 the PLO representatives in the Arab delegation had the honour of drafting the Arab communiqués which on both occasions concentrated on the Palestine issue, called on the ‘Nine’ to recognize the PLO and criticized the Community for failing to turn official statements into action. This strategy of placing the PLO and the Palestine issue at the heart of EuroArab discussions paid immediate dividends. The thirteenth Palestine National Council session in Cairo in 1977 welcomed the ‘effective role’ played by the PLO at the EAD and Ahmad Sidqi Al-Dajani, the senior PLO representative at the EAD, was promoted to the PNC executive, which now took direct control of EAD strategy.67 And Al-Dajani later drew on the German example to highlight just how inserting the PLO as a ‘major element’ in the EAD had improved the PLO’s position within the Community. As he recalled, the PLO delegate to the EAD, in his role as head of the EAD Cultural, Labour and Social Affairs Committee, was able to travel to Germany on various occasions during which time, and ostensibly on EAD business, he succeeded in gaining the PLO political acceptance in Bonn.68


However, this gradual PLO penetration of European hearts and minds did not obstruct the developing economic relationship between the Community and Israel. By 1974 trade with the ‘Nine’ accounted for half of Israel’s imports (c. $2 billion) and a third of its exports (c. $700 million) and Yitzhak Rabin, who succeeded Golda Meir in 1974, was assuring the Knesset in his first speech as prime minister that ‘increased co-operation between us and…the Common Market in particular will now be one of the central objectives of the new government.’69 In May 1975 (after almost three years of negotiations) Israel and the ‘Nine’ signed the first agreement of its type between the Community and a non-member Mediterranean state. The agreement concentrated on the development of a freetrade area for industrial goods with significant tariff reductions for 85 per cent of Israel’s agricultural imports into the Community.70 Speaking in the Knesset on 26 May 1975, Foreign Minister Allon characterized the agreement as a ‘great and even spectacular’ opportunity for Israel’s future relations with a European trading bloc that occupied ‘pride of place in Israel’s foreign trade.’ But he cautioned against presuming that the agreement heralded a change in the ‘Nine’s’ political attitude.71 Events in the summer of 1977 proved Allon correct as the Community’s abolition of customs duties on most of Israel’s industrial imports (as laid out in the 1975 agreement72) coincided with the Community’s London communiqué (29–30 June), which extended its support for Palestinian territorial rights and a role for the PLO as a legitimate party to the conflict. Indeed, the longest section in this statement related to Palestinian rights and expressed the view that a solution to the conflict had to include a homeland for the Palestinian people and that, in an implicit reference to the PLO, the ‘representatives of the parties to the conflict including the Palestinian people must participate in the negotiations in an appropriate manner.’73 By this time even West Germany, traditionally the member of the ‘Nine’ most sensitive to Israeli concerns, appeared ready to accept the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people on the condition that it renounced violence,74 while the United Kingdom, which under both Wilson and Callaghan was the Community’s most outspoken critic of the PLO, was becoming increasingly open to PLO involvement in any negotiations. Indeed, though maintaining a strenuous anti-PLO position in public—in December 1977 Prime Minister Callaghan told Parliament: ‘I have made clear our position on the PLO. While it fails to recognise the existence of Israel and to deny that existence, I do not see how we can have dealings with it’75—the British government privately urged Israel to consider promoting moderate elements within the PLO.76 Britain also followed the lead of other members of the ‘Nine’, notably West Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, in allowing the PLO to open an information office (albeit under the auspices of the Arab League) in London. The June 1977 statement had been welcomed in the Arab world as a significant advance on the Community’s previous position. It was followed in June 1978 by


another Community statement that called for representatives of the Palestinians to participate in negotiations and called on Israel to grant ‘effective expression’ to Palestinian national identity and to ‘recognise the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people’ in the context of an overall settlement of the conflict.77 This statement was released at a time of deadlock in the tentative EgyptianIsraeli peace negotiations (that would culminate in the 1979 peace treaty) and it was a serious setback to the Israeli attempt to persuade the ‘Nine’ to support Israeli-Egyptian negotiations and to endorse the preferred Israeli option of Palestinian autonomy (rather than statehood) in the Occupied Territories. The PLO viewed Camp David as ‘a wholly retrograde move’,78 and both its leadership and senior Arab politicians, such as Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, warned that it was not ‘in Europe’s interest to defy the Arabs…let them leave the role of ingrate to the Americans.’79 Europe’s lukewarm support for the Camp David process gave a significant boost to the PLO and in turn antagonized Israel on two levels. As Foreign Minister Dayan explained, the European position was both politically ‘injurious to the entire process of negotiations’ with Egypt and morally wrong as ‘no country can or should be expected to negotiate with a party [the PLO] which denies its very existence, aims at its destruction, and uses terror against its civilian population.’80 But such arguments had little impact on the ‘Nine’, even though the five years between Arafat’s appearance before the UNGA and the signing of the IsraeliEgyptian peace agreement saw Palestinian attacks at airports in Paris and Istanbul, an attack on an El Al plane, the hijacking of a Lufthansa plane, and the killing of civilians in Brussels, not to mention the notorious Entebbe affair and the hijacking of a school bus inside Israel that left 20 children dead. Indeed, far from having a negative impact on the PLO’s position in Europe, this terrorism only seemed to increase the willingness of European leaders to endorse the organization. In 1979 Arafat met Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky and Germany’s Willy Brandt, at the time Chairman of the Socialist International, in Vienna. He also met the Spanish prime minister and the president, prime minister and foreign minister of Portugal, while PLO ‘Foreign Minister’ Farouk Kaddoumi met the Belgian foreign minister in Brussels and the PLO representative in France was the guest of honour at a meeting of the French Diplomatic Press Association.81 Equally, on 25 September 1979 Ireland’s foreign minister, speaking at the UNGA on behalf of the ‘Nine’, called for the ‘representatives’ of the Palestinians (the PLO) to ‘play a full part in the negotiations of a comprehensive settlement.’82 Such visits, honours and statements were rightly interpreted as evidence of the PLO’s ‘important diplomatic gains in Western Europe’83 and they were also significant because they underlined the fact that the PLO could consolidate and expand its position in Europe without altering its original objective—the destruction of the state of Israel—or its modus operandi—terrorism. As Labour Party leader Shimon Peres pointed out at the time of Arafat’s meeting in Vienna:


‘the PLO gained in status not because it changed, but because Kreisky and Brandt are hopeful that it will change’84 (in March 1980 Austria extended full recognition to the PLO, without the body having renounced terrorism or accepted Israel’s right to exist).85 Moreover, at the same time that Andrew Young, the United States Ambassador to the UN, was being reprimanded (he subsequently resigned) for holding an unauthorized meeting with a PLO representative there was widespread speculation in Europe as to which member state of the Community would be the first to receive Yasser Arafat on an official visit.86 No leader of an EEC state did meet Arafat at this time but there was a noticeable increase in member state endorsements of the PLO. In October 1979 Italy granted the PLO ‘political recognition.’ In February 1980, on a visit to Bahrain, Ireland’s foreign minister called on the PLO to play a full role in negotiations and stressed that ‘Ireland recognises the role of the PLO in representing the Palestinian people’,87 while during a visit to the Middle East in March 1980 French President Giscard d’Estaing called for the inclusion of the PLO in future negotiations.88 Israeli Prime Minister Begin believed that there was ‘nothing graver’89 than Europe’s attempt to legitimize the PLO and was greatly troubled both by the statements of European leaders and by speculation that the EEC was moving towards ‘collective recognition of the PLO.’90 Speaking on Irish radio, Begin appealed to the Irish government to reverse its decision to recognize the PLO and told listeners that he viewed the decision as equivalent to Irish acceptance of the PLO’s ‘right to destroy the Jewish state.’91 He expanded on this in a speech in the Knesset in June 1980 where he chastized Europe for its desire to recognize the ‘organisation of murderers—the PLO’ and warned that this ‘official policy of your countries might imperil the Jewish state and the remnants of the Jewish people.’92 What troubled the Israeli leadership even more was the fact that the various European statements in support of the PLO were accompanied by explicit calls for a Palestinian homeland and for Palestinian self-determination—indeed, during his visit to the region in March 1980 the French president had for the first time officially acknowledged the Palestinian right to self-determination. For Begin, who favoured Palestinian autonomy in the Occupied Territories, the phrase ‘self-determination’ meant ‘a so-called Palestinian state’, and one dominated by the PLO, an organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel.93 This view was shared by Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who supported what he termed ‘co-existence’ with Palestinian Arabs but viewed the PLO as ‘disqualified as a partner’ and argued that the only ‘justification’ for a Palestinian state was as ‘a base against Israel’s existence.’94 As such, in the first months of 1980 the Israeli government made formal protests to Ireland, France, West Germany and Britain over various statements in support of Palestinian self-determination,95 while Israeli ambassadors based in Europe gathered in London to discuss how best to counter the European attempt


to introduce the concept of Palestinian self-determination into the political debate.96 1980–88: FROM VENICE TO ALGIERS The gulf in Israeli-European relations widened with the publication of the Community’s Venice Declaration of 13 June 1980. Though acknowledging Israel’s right to exist, it contained outspoken criticism of Israel’s ‘territorial occupation’ since 1967 and condemned settlements built outside pre-1967 borders as illegal under international law. In a reference to the political claims of the Palestinian people it rejected the traditional view that the Palestinian problem was ‘simply one of refugees’ and called for the Palestinians to be allowed to ‘exercise fully its right to self-determination.’ Most controversially, it also called for the PLO to be ‘associated with’ future negotiations.97 There had been much internal debate over whether to mention the PLO by name in this statement. The Netherlands, West Germany and Denmark had favoured avoiding direct mention, and preferred limiting the statement to a call for a role for the Palestinian people only, while Ireland, France, Italy, Luxemburg and the United Kingdom favoured explicit mention of the PLO. A compromise was found whereby the final declaration called for PLO association, rather than participation, in negotiations.98 The Venice statement was the first Community declaration on the Arab-Israeli conflict that had included explicit support for Palestinian ‘self-determination’ and a role for the PLO in future negotiations. It was followed in July by a decision by the ‘Nine’ to abstain, rather than vote against, a UNGA resolution that called for PLO ‘participation’ on an equal footing with Israel in future UNGA debates and demanded that the Palestinians be permitted to ‘establish their own independent sovereign state.’99 Israel’s reaction to what Foreign Minister Shamir termed these ‘several new points’100 was immediate and harsh. In an interview in the French press the day following the publication of the Venice document Begin characterized the statement as ‘a shame.’101 And after a cabinet meeting in which he attacked the ‘hypocrisy and cynicism of the heads of the EEC countries’,102 the cabinet issued a statement dismissing the document as ‘a Munich-like surrender’ and condemned the Community’s endorsement of the Arab SS known as the PLO.’103 The opposition Labour Party was equally forthright. Shimon Peres described the French position at Venice as more extreme than that of Egypt and later, after he had become foreign minister in the national unity government, he dismissed the document as ‘a piece of paper’ that changed nothing on the ground.104 Peres also repeated Begin’s argument that the Venice Declaration had been issued just weeks after Fatah, the dominant constituent group within the PLO, had reiterated its objective of liquidating Israel and he warned the Community not to adopt the PLO as a partner based on ‘smiles, promises and hopes’ at the expense of


ignoring the real PLO.105 Abba Eban also made this point when he criticized Venice for giving the PLO access to the peace process without extracting any ‘ideological or rhetorical concessions’ in return.106 The Community rejected these charges and Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary, who was a moving force behind the declaration, explained that the statement was made during a ‘political vacuum’ when the Camp David process was ‘in the doldrums’ and was a conscious European attempt to promote a ‘proper appreciation of the Palestinian aspect’ based on the PLO’s association with the process and Palestinian self-determination.107 But, leaving aside the morality of the Community’s supporting a role for the PLO in the political process at a time when its primary occupation was terrorism against civilians, it could also be argued that the European decision not to adopt the American policy of isolating the PLO as long as it rejected Israel’s right to exist or UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338, was a lost opportunity for Europe to pressure the PLO into moderating its position precisely when the ‘political vacuum’ brought about by American support for Egyptian-Israeli peace made Arafat’s organization vulnerable. This Palestinian response to Venice supports such a view. Though acknowledging the Community’s ‘important political role’, the PLO criticized the Venice Declaration for failing to recognize either the PLO or an independent Palestinian state.108 Arafat was even more disdainful, comparing the document to ‘a piece of bone that they could throw to us and keep us busy’ and adding that ‘the Palestinian people are in no need of a political statement or initiative to determine its destiny.’109 Moreover, if the Community expected the Venice statement to have a moderating effect on the Palestinian resort to violence it was mistaken, and indeed the European policy provided the Palestinian leadership with no reason to change its policy of rejectionism or halt its programme of terror. As George Habash, the head of the PFLP, explained days after the Venice Declaration had been issued, any increased support for the Palestinian cause in Europe ‘has not taken place because of the suaveness of PLO representatives in London, Paris or Rome but thanks to the rifle.’110 And one should note that in the months, and years, following Venice the Palestinian terror strategy increasingly concentrated on Jewish, rather than Israeli, targets in Europe—most notably in a succession of attacks on synagogues in Paris (1980), Vienna (1981), Brussels, Rome (1982) and Istanbul (1986). Thus it is hardly surprising that in the same month as the Vienna synagogue attack (August 1981) Israeli Foreign Minister Shamir was describing EC efforts as ‘worthless’111 and his ministry was condemning the ‘Nine’ for its refusal to see the PLO as a terror organization determined to destroy Israel and for its determination to ‘desperately and pathetically…discover in it an ounce of moderation which does not exist and cannot exist because of its very nature.’112 Prime Minister Begin was also becoming increasingly outspoken in his attacks on European leaders for their public legitimization of the PLO. In response to an


announcement by Chancellor Schmidt of Germany that European foreign ministers favoured the participation of the PLO in any future meetings of the EAD,113 Begin told Israel Radio that such views could break relations between Israel and Europe and accused Schmidt of lusting after Arab oil. Asked whether such ‘harsh attacks’ would ‘cause serious difficulties for Israel’s relations with Europe’, Begin replied: ‘I do not fear anything, my friend.’114 In the same year Begin referred to President Giscard d’Estaing of France as a man of ‘no principles whatsoever’ and described his presidency as the worst period in Israeli-French relations.115 He also dismissed Britain’s foreign minister, Lord Carrington, as ‘no friend of Israel’116 and accused the Dutch foreign minister, Van Klaauw (who had met Arafat in his position as head of the EEC Council of Ministers), of shaking the hand of a man ‘covered in the blood of Israeli children.’117 The early 1980s also saw two developments: the entry of Greece into the Community in 1981 and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 which underscored the wildly discordant views that Israel and the Community held on the PLO. Greece’s PASOK (Socialist) Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou was one of the most outspoken supporters of the PLO in the international arena and the Arab League hoped that Greek entry would make up for what it viewed as the ‘ineffectiveness of Europe’s efforts’ since Venice.118 On his first day in power in October 1981 Papandreou had written to Yasser Arafat inviting the PLO leader to Greece at his ‘earliest convenience’ in order to discuss co-operation and the possibility of upgrading the PLO office in Athens.119 In response, Israel’s representative in Greece (there had been no exchange of ambassadors between the two states at this point in time) took the unusual step of issuing a public statement condemning the invitation and noting that Israel ‘has been greatly shocked’ by the Greek desire to recognize the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians.120 The Greek position further alienated Israel from the Community, but it also dramatically reduced the capacity of the ‘Ten’ to present a united front on the Middle East. From the time of its entry Greece refused to support any Community statements that implied European support for Camp David,121 while at the UNGA Greece’s uncompromising support for the PLO meant that 1981 was the first year that the Community voted together on Middle East resolutions less than 80 per cent of the time (77.3 per cent). By December 1983 this had fallen to 68 per cent, with Greece voting separately from the other member states nine times on various paragraphs of two December 1983 resolutions (35/58 and 38/180).122 In June 1982, in an operation codenamed Peace for Galilee, Israeli invaded Lebanon. The ostensible objective of the campaign was the destruction of the PLO’s military infrastructure in Lebanon and the neutralization of that country as a terror base. The Community’s response to the invasion, and in particular the efforts of member states to protect the physical and political integrity of the PLO and its leader Arafat during the siege of Beirut that followed, has many parallels


with the Community’s effort to protect Arafat’s survival in his Ramallah compound during the recent crisis. Of course, the European response to the Israeli invasion was a function of several factors. France saw itself as the historic protector of Lebanon (what France’s ambassador at the UN termed a ‘particularly deep attachment’ to Lebanon’),123 while Ireland had a significant troop presence in the UN peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) in Southern Lebanon. There was also widespread anger within the Community over Israel’s decision to ignore an early diplomatic note from the ‘Ten’ calling for moderation. However, all of these considerations were overshadowed by the European determination to protect the PLO’s survival. For example, the Community’s declaration on the crisis, agreed at a two-day summit at the end of June, addressed the Lebanon war in terms of the need for Palestinian ‘selfdetermination’ and for the PLO to be ‘associated with negotiations’ and argued that Israel would only achieve security by ‘satisfying the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.’124 Greece had granted diplomatic recognition to the PLO before the invasion and used the Lebanon affair as an opportunity to call on her Community partners to recognize formally the PLO as a way of guaranteeing the survival of the ‘heroic and proud’ organization. The Papandreou government also appealed to the UNSC to meet to discuss the fate of Lebanon’s Palestinians and offered to send troops to help evacuate PLO guerrillas if Arafat so desired. It also called on Israel to give guarantees of safe passage to 4,000 PLO fighters leaving Lebanon in late 1983.125 As Arafat’s Beirut headquarters came under increasing threat in late June the French government asked the US to pressure Israel into accepting a cease-fire and to promise it would not enter Beirut. France then initiated a draft resolution at the UNSC calling for an Israeli cease-fire and an ‘initial disengagement of forces’, a key PLO demand at that time, as the first step towards Israel’s complete withdrawal from Lebanon, while it called on the PLO only to withdraw to ‘existing camps.’126 This was vetoed by the US and ignored by Israel, whose cabinet had already demanded that the PLO hand over its weapons to the Lebanese army and that all PLO members ‘without any exception’ leave Beirut and Lebanon.127 Again in late July France submitted a joint draft resolution with Egypt to the UNSC that linked the siege of Beirut to a solution of the Palestinian problem128 and by August it was widely known that France was in the process of preparing a proposal for Palestinian statehood that it intended to submit to the UN. This was pre-empted by the American announcement of the Reagan Plan, but these various French efforts highlight the extent of the European concern for the survival of the PLO and Arafat. Indeed, by this time Prime Minister Begin was confiding in the Knesset: ‘sometimes I wonder why France supports to such a great extent this murderous organisation [the PLO].’129


Athens was Arafat’s first stop following his departure from Beirut. He arrived on 1 September 1982 to a rapturous welcome from Papandreou, who praised the ‘heroic behaviour, the hard fight, the bravery and [the] self-sacrifice of the PLO.’ The Greek Prime Minister also described the visit as a ‘historic moment’ and a ‘great honour’ and promised to do all in his power to support ‘the struggle of the Palestinian people for complete self-determination and for the creation of their own country and state.’ In response, Arafat informed the assembled media that he was ‘satisfied by European support and, more particularly, by the efforts made by the ‘Greek Prime Minister and our friend President Mitterand.’130 Arafat’s specific mention of Mitterand is of interest. Various scholars have argued that François Mitterand’s election to the French presidency in March 1981 marked a significant set back for Franco-Palestinian relations.131 It is true that Mitterand, a member of the 1950s French administration which worked closely with Israel, came to the presidency with a strong record of pro-Israeli sympathy and that Begin, who viewed him as a ‘true friend of Israel’,132 welcomed his election. However, apart from the French effort to protect Arafat in Beirut, Mitterand’s first presidency saw French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson praise Arafat as a ‘very great personage’ and even compare him to de Gaulle,133 while these years also saw the first official French call for the creation of a Palestinian state and Mitterand himself called for this in a speech to a special session of the Knesset.134 At the height of the Lebanese crisis both Cheysson (who had visited Arafat in Beirut in August 1981) and Mitterand met Farrouk Khaddoumi in Paris and French soldiers participated in the PLO evacuation of Beirut in the summer of 1982 and the Tripoli evacuation in December 1983. Indeed, by this time Arafat was informing Mitterand: ‘From the rank of a friend, France has now become a brother’,135 and Israel was accusing both France and Greece of participating in the PLO’s evacuation as part of a deal to buy themselves immunity from terrorism.136 The Lebanon War and Arafat’s flight from Beirut also witnessed a surge in PLO contacts with member states other than France and Greece. In the summer of 1982 Khaddoumi met Italian Foreign Minister Emilio Colombo in Paris and in September 1982 Arafat travelled to Rome where he met the Italian president. In the following month the Danish foreign minister (in his capacity as president of the ‘Ten’) met Khaddoumi in New York.137 In the first three months of 1983 the Dutch government approved a motion calling on it to enter into discussions with the PLO information office in The Hague, German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich-Genscher called for a ‘mutual gesture of recognition’ from Israel and the PLO, and leaders of the ‘Ten’ restated their desire for the PLO to be ‘associated’ with future negotiations.138 Between 1984 and 1988 a Likud-Labour national unity government ruled Israel and Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres (the Likud and Labour leaders respectively) held the premiership, vice-premiership and foreign ministry on a


rotating basis. Shamir had been Begin’s foreign minister and, though more reserved in manner, was just as adamant as his former leader on the issue of the PLO. Nor did Peres take a softer line. As both prime minister and foreign minister, he consistently challenged Europe over its PLO policy. Speaking to a group of European socialists in Vienna in 1985 (in the wake of Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi’s visit to Arafat in Tunis—the first meeting by a major Western head of state and the PLO leader), Peres attacked Europe’s ‘obsequious attitude towards the PLO’ and called on European leaders to see their ‘great mistake’ and ‘to cease closing their eyes…and to refrain from an attitude of forgiveness’ towards the PLO.139 Yitzhak Rabin, the Minister of Defence and Labour’s other leading figure, was equally dismissive of Europe’s PLO policy. In the wake of the Palestinian attacks on Vienna and Rome airports in December 1985, which saw 20 fatalities, he noted that it was ‘tragic-ironic’ that the attacks took place in two countries whose governments had been very positive towards the PLO.140 In 1986 Spain and Portugal entered the Community. Israel had been concerned at this development for both economic and political reasons. In high-level meetings in Brussels in February 1983 and Luxemburg in October 1985 Yitzhak Shamir had asked the Community to consider the impact of Spanish and Portuguese entry on the Israeli economy,141 while in a speech to the European Parliament President Chaim Herzog had warned that without ‘remedial’ arrangements the entry of these southern European states would threaten ‘the social and economic basis of Israel’s all important agricultural sector.’142 On a political level, both Spain and Portugal had been longstanding supporters of the Palestinian cause—Arafat had received a hero’s welcome on his visit to Lisbon in 1979—and a senior Israeli diplomat characterized Israeli efforts to improve relations with both since the 1970s as ‘fruitless.’143 In 1982 Israel opened an office in Madrid and El Al began flying to that city in 1985 but it was only in January 1986, after what Foreign Minister Shamir described as ‘many years of endeavours’,144 that Prime Minister Peres met a Spanish delegation in The Hague, where it was agreed to establish full diplomatic relations (with the opening of embassies in Tel Aviv and Madrid).145 Spain’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with Israel at this time was not due to a significant shift in its attitude to the conflict. Indeed, during their meeting with Peres Spanish representatives presented him with a statement on Palestinian rights and this was followed on 17 January 1986 by a public declaration by the Gonzalez government in support of the Palestinian cause and a decision in August that year to accord diplomatic status to the PLO mission in Madrid to reflect the ‘prominent’ role the PLO must play in a future settlement.146 Thus Spain’s decision to improve relations with Israel can only be explained by her entry into the Community—and in the face of much disapproval at home the Spanish government defended the decision on the basis that Europe’s goal of


a Common Security and Foreign Policy (CSFP) necessitated an upgrading of relations with Israel.147 The Spanish case highlights the fact that while the entry of traditionally proPalestinian nations into the EEC had a negative impact on Israel’s attitude to the Community, membership also benefited Israel by moderating the official position of these countries. Ireland, for example, had granted Israel de jure recognition in 1963 but only formalized the relationship by agreeing to diplomatic relations at (non-residential) ambassadorial level in December 1974 on the eve of its first presidency of the Community. Even in Papandreou’s Greece there was a realization that the lack of relations with Israel (at the time Israel was only permitted to maintain a diplomatic mission but no embassy or ambassador in Athens) could damage the Community’s credibility when it assumed the presidency for the first time in 1983.148 As the Greek newspaper Kathimerini noted, when faced with a similar predicament in 1974 Ireland had upgraded diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.149 Papandreou (despite a request by the European Parliament to grant Israel full diplomatic recognition before Greece took up the presidency)150 was not prepared to follow the Irish example. However, he did agree to end Greece’s veto on economic aid to Israel and this was followed after 1985 by a ‘quiet upgrading and cultivation of improved relations.’151 And in 1987 Karolos Papoulias made the first official visit to Israel by a Greek foreign minister, which was heralded by Israel’s Shimon Peres as a ‘historic event.’152 The first years of the national unity government saw (in the words of Yitzhak Shamir) ‘a noticeable improvement’ in Israeli relations with Europe and by January 1987 Shimon Peres, who was foreign minister at the time, was reporting that ties with the Community were ‘much closer’ than even two years earlier.153 There were even occasions when it appeared that France, one of the PLO’s most steadfast backers among the ‘Twelve’, was re-evaluating its stance. In October 1985 Peres welcomed a statement by the Elysée Palace that President Mitterand was reconsidering his attitude towards the PLO; the following year an Israeli newspaper quoted Prime Minister Jacques Chirac as opposing a Palestinian state and favouring the exclusion of the PLO from negotiations.154 However, neither incident proved significant and the French foreign ministry quickly restated the French position that ‘the PLO should be associated with the negotiation of a global settlement that would, in particular, permit the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination.’155 Even Prime Minister Thatcher, who had refused to meet an Arab League delegation because it included a member of the PLO, was adamant that the PLO represented the Palestinians and took the occasion of a state dinner during a visit to Israel to tell her hosts: ‘we believe that you will only find the security you seek by recognising the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and their just requirements.’156 In February 1987 the Community declared its support for an international peace conference to be held under the auspices of the United Nations.157 It is


ironic that at a time when Israel’s relationship with the ‘Twelve’ was improving, partly due to a decision by both parties to ‘agree to differ’ on the issue of the PLO and Palestinian statehood, that the issue of an international conference would once more cause a major breach in Israel-EEC relations. Yitzhak Shamir, the leader of the Likud bloc within the government, and prime minister at the time of the Community announcement, opposed the idea of an international conference, preferring discussions based on the 1978 Camp David accords leading to a transitional period of autonomy and eventual negotiations leading to a settlement of the conflict. Thus he rejected the Community’s support for a conference as ‘perverse and criminal’ and argued that such a conference ‘means Israel would be against the whole world.’158 By mid-1987 a spokesman for the prime minister’s office was stating an Israeli position that was completely at odds with that of Europe: We say yes to peace; yes to negotiations; yes to cooperation; yes to practical arrangements with Jordan within the framework of the peace process; yes to the participation of agreed upon Palestinian representatives in the Jordanian delegation…no to an international conference of the UN… no to a framework whose objective is to exercise pressure on Israel and no to inviting the PLO.159 However, the Labour foreign minister, Shimon Peres, was increasingly disposed towards Israeli attendance at an international conference both as a prelude to direct negotiations and as a way of limiting international criticism against Israel for spoiling peace proposals. Peres’s stance on this issue caused much tension with his Likud prime minister at a time when Israel was increasingly preoccupied by the popular Palestinian revolt, the intifada. This became another obstacle to improved EEC-Israeli relations as the Community adopted a harsh tone in its various condemnations of Israeli policy and member states expressed disapproval of Israeli actions in the territories (Greece, for example, suspended its proposal to upgrade diplomatic ties with Israel because of the intifada and did not grant the Jewish state de jure recognition until 1990).160 There was also an attempt within the ‘Twelve’ to link economic relations with Israel to events in the Territories. Even at the height of the Lebanon War there was no consensus within the Community for economic sanctions against Israel: all that could be agreed was the postponement of the signing of an economic agreement relating to Israeli credits over the next few years and a freeze in certain joint activities (Greece also used its veto to halt the resumption of economic aid to Israel in the wake of the war).161 And while there was no general support for imposing economic sanctions on Israel over the intifada by the end of 1987, the European Parliament had decided to postpone the final ratification and approval of the trade protocols attached to the 1986 Israeli-EEC trade agreement until Israel allowed Palestinian Arab citrus growers to market


their goods directly to Community via Israeli ports without processing by Israel or a change in certificates of origin.162 This affair has been minimized by commentators who view Israeli opposition to the EEC demand as the typical negotiating tactic of a small state attempting to extract better conditions from a larger negotiating partner.163 But in reality Israel resisted the European demand, which it condemned as indirect economic sanctions,164 because of a real reluctance to make concessions on an issue that might be construed as de facto recognition of the Palestinian entity and only conceded defeat on this issue in April 1988 in return for ratification of the trade protocols. In a speech to the European Parliament at Strasbourg in mid-September 1988 Arafat hinted at the PLO’s willingness to accept UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338 in the context of other UN resolutions relevant to the conflict. This was followed on 15 November 1988 by a declaration in Algiers that called for the convening of an international peace conference under the auspices of the UNSC and on the basis of UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. It also renounced terrorism (but with a significant caveat that excluded this from applying to those fighting foreign occupation) and proclaimed a Palestinian state (without defined borders but with Jerusalem as its capital).165 Though this was the first time the PLO leadership had verbally endorsed a settlement of the conflict on terms set out in UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338, Israel was dismissive in its response with the Israeli foreign ministry describing the statement as ‘ambiguity and doubletalk’ and Prime Minister Shamir labelling it as a ‘deceptive propaganda exercise intended to create an impression of moderation.’166 The Community rejected the Israeli argument that the PLO had not changed its covenant, its policy, its path of terrorism, its goal of destroying Israel and its argument that the statement was made for tactical reasons related to the Tunis leadership’s desire to enter into dialogue with the United States and a concern that local leaders in the territories were increasingly being viewed as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. Rather, the ‘Twelve’ attached ‘particular importance’ to the Algiers declaration, ‘welcomed’ the decision as an implicit ‘acceptance of the right of existence and of security for all states of the region, including Israel’, and expressed its ‘satisfaction that the PNC has explicitly condemned’ terrorism. Nevertheless, the Community (unlike 27 Muslim, Third World and NonAligned Nations) hesitated in recognizing the newly declared Palestinian state.167 Indeed, seven of the ‘Twelve’ (Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Portugal, West Germany and Luxemburg) opposed any reference to UN Resolution 181 of 1947 in the Community’s official response to the Algiers statement lest it was viewed as an endorsement of the borders of any new Palestinian state.168 As such, the final communiqué simply restated ‘the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people with all that this implies’169 and French Foreign Minister Dumas further expounded on the Community’s stance


on the issue when he told a press conference that France had ‘no difficulty of principle’ in recognizing a Palestinian state but that it was impossible to recognise a ‘state that does not dispose of a defined territory.’170 In December 1988 Arafat made a tour of European capitals but was unable to gain any endorsement for his Palestinian state, with various leaders informing him that they had no intention of breaking rank with their Community partners on this issue.171 Nevertheless, he thanked the EEC for its support and expressed his faith in the Community’s ‘political responsibility and moral responsibility.’172 And by this time, with the notable exception of its attitude towards collective recognition of Palestinian statehood, the Community’s political programme—its support for the convening of an international conference and comprehensive multilateral negotiations that included a role for the PLO—was almost identical to that of the PLO.173 This completely contradicted the position of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, the head of the newly elected Likud-led national unity government, who in June 1990 formed a government without Labour participation. Distrustful of both the Soviet Union and the EEC, he opposed an international conference; desiring to build on the Camp David formula of bilateral negotiations, he opposed a multilateral process in which Israel had to deal with all the Arab states and the PLO as one; and favouring negotiations with Arab states (in particular Jordan and Egypt) and elected local Palestinian leaders in the territories, he ruled out dealing with the PLO. Thus in January 1989, the same month that Yasser Arafat had his first official meeting with high-level members of the Community, Prime Minister Shamir informed the president of the European Parliament that it was difficult to see the EEC as a participant in any future peace process because it was so pro-Palestinian without regard for Israel’s fundamental needs.174 Despite Shamir’s stance, by this time a notable cross-section of Israeli political and academic figures (even Ezer Weizman, a member of his own cabinet who was dismissed after he met Arafat in Vienna) had come to believe in the necessity of including the PLO in political negotiations. And in the euphoria surrounding the Oslo process that followed Labour’s election victory in 1992 Shamir’s intractable opposition to PLO involvement in the political process seemed increasingly anachronistic.175 Likewise, Shamir’s distrust of the European Community (which had been shared for so long by Labour leaders Rabin and Peres) seemed outdated once the Community was co-opted into the peace process in its role as major donor to, and fundraiser for, the nascent Palestinian Authority. Indeed, throughout these years of (misplaced) optimism very little attention was paid to the fact that on almost every occasion when Israel and its Palestinian partner disagreed on how to move negotiations forward, the Community supported the Palestinian position and called on Israel to make concessions. But now the optimism is gone, the Oslo process is in ruins, terror is at an alltime high, and a majority of Israelis, the American administration and significant sectors of the Palestinian population have lost faith in Arafat’s capacity, or


desire, to lead the Palestinians to their inevitable state. Europe, on the other hand, though endorsing PA reforms (most notably, the election of a prime minister free from Arafat’s control) has shown itself to be as steadfast in its support of Arafat and his PA as it had been towards Arafat and his PLO during the decades when a rejection of Israel’s right to exist and wide-scale terrorism (much of it in Europe) had been the organization’s only contribution to the peace effort. Though the reasons for this are complex and the heterogeneous nature of the Community has meant that different member states have had varying levels of involvement in the Middle East region and different attitudes to both Israel and the PLO over the last quarter of a century, there are still certain factors that can account for the fact that during this time the European Community has evolved into the PLO and Arafat’s major Western sponsor. First and foremost, since the late 1960s there has been (however misconceived) a sincere belief in Europe that Israel’s victory in June 1967 transformed the Jewish state from a victim of Arab aggression into a colonial occupying power, and the fact that this view evolved at a time of growing European sympathy for Third World causes and anti-colonial ideology seemed to add credence to the belief that Zionism was an anachronistic, even illegitimate ideology, while the Palestinian struggle was one of liberation. In more concrete terms, the French decision to break with Israel after the 1967 war and to champion Palestinian rights within the Community also influenced its smaller European partners to embrace the Palestinian cause. This was all the more so because the French practical effort to gain support for its Palestine policy coincided with a more general European desire to co-operate in the field of international relations, which in turn saw member states, such as The Netherlands, Belgium and even the United Kingdom, who were previously viewed as sympathetic to Israel, move towards the French position as part of their contribution to European Political Co-operation.176 On top of this, ideological anti-Americanism, coupled with a growing European desire to use the EPC mechanism as a way of competing politically with the United States in the Middle East, made a more outspoken pro-PLO policy appealing because, in the wake of American support for the Camp David process, it was the major means by which the Community could show those Arab states opposed to Egyptian-Israeli peace its pro-Arab credentials. Indeed, it is no coincidence that in May 1980 the European Council specifically called on EC foreign ministers to make a statement at its Venice meeting the following month on the grounds that it was ‘conscious that Europe may in due course have a role to play’ in the Middle East.177 Nor should one forget the economic importance of Middle East oil to Europe for much of this period, a concern that made it increasingly appealing to support a role for the PLO in the political process, a position favoured by Saudi Arabia and the other major Arab oil-producing states on which Europe relied for its energy resources.


But if ideological sympathy, French influence, the need to maintain friendly relations with oil suppliers and a rising desire to co-operate in the field of international relations and to compete with the United States in the region contributed to the Community’s consistent support for the PLO, so did the hugely successful efforts of the PLO (and its Arab allies) to complement a strategy of terror with a concerted, patient and sophisticated strategy of gaining European acceptance of the legitimacy of the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people at the UN, through the EAD or simply in direct relations with individual member states. Indeed, by the end of the 1970s (in the face of a United States policy of exclusion) it was standard practice for the PLO to focus its efforts on what Fatah (the major constituent group within the PLO and Arafat’s power base) termed the ‘democratic progressive forces’ in the European Community in order that such support would ‘reduce and eventually eliminate support for the Zionist entity, isolating it by obtaining the recognition of the PLO by these countries as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and getting maximal political and material help for the Palestinian cause.’178 It was, and continues to be, an effective strategy. NOTES 1. FT.Com, 21 January 2002; Daily Telegraph, 29 January 2002; Irish Times, 12 March 2002; Jerusalem Post, 11 April 2002; FT.Com, 11 April 2002. 2. Irish Times (internet edition), 5 February 2002. See also the EU presidency statements on the terror attack on an Israeli bus near the West Bank settlement of Immanuel, 16 July 2002, and on the Israeli missile attack on Gaza, 23 July 2002; and the statement by Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten on the loss of life in Haifa and Gaza, 6 March 2003, http://europa.eu.int/comm./ external_relations/med_mideast/news/ip03.hm. 3. In early February 2003 IDF sources calculated that since 29 September 2000 there had been a total of 16,347 attacks (7,230 in the West Bank, 8,455 in the Gaza Strip and 662 in Israel proper), which had given rise to 5,063 injured civilians and members of the security forces and 724 killed. 4. Washington Post (internet edition), 28 January 2002; Jerusalem Post, 29 January 2002; Ha’aretz (internet edition), 29 January 2002; The Independent (internet edition), 29 January 2002; The Guardian (internet edition), 9 February 2002; FT.Com, 12 February 2002; Irish Times, 20 March 2002; New York Times International, 30 March 2002; The Economist, 27 June 2002; Irish Times, 27 June 2002; The Times (London) (internet edition), 3 July 2002; The Guardian (internet edition), 10 July 2002. 5. See, for example, Evelyn Gordon, ‘A bond of Hypocrisy’, Jerusalem Post, 15 July 2002; Bret Stephens, ‘Why Europe Hates Israel’, Wall Street Journal Europe, 29 November 2001. 6. Mark Steyn, ‘War between America and Europe’, The Spectator, 29 December 2001; Ian Buruma, ‘Why do Some Europeans Express Such Irrational Rage about American and Israel?’, The Guardian (internet edition), 2 April 2002; Martin


7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

Peretz, ‘Regrets’, New Republic Online, 22 April 2002; Gerald Steinberg, ‘The Quartet, the Road Map and the Future of Iraq: A Realistic Assessment’, Jerusalem Viewpoint, No.489, Jerusalem, 15 December 2002. Ha’aretz (internet edition), 4 April 2002; Jerusalem Post, 15 February 2002; Washington Post (internet edition), 25 February 2002; Jim Hoagland, ‘A New Disconnect with Europe’, Washington Post (internet edition), 14 April 2002; Mick Hume, ‘The West is Turning on Israel Today Because It is Losing Confidence in Itself’, The Times, 22 April 2002; Daniel Pipes, ‘Europeans: From Venus?’, New York Post, 16 July 2002. Ha’aretz, 21 August 20002 (internet edition). Between 1994 and 1999 the European Community committed Euro 731.1 million (Euro 498.85 million in grants from the Community budget, Euro 215 million worth of European Investment Bank loans, and Euro 17.25 million EIB interest rate subsidies provided by the Commission). In addition, Euro 207.23 million was made available to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and another Euro 70.9 million in food aid to UNRWA. Italy did not enter the UN until 14 December 1955 and the Federal Republic of Germany did not join until 18 September 1973. See, for example, the letter from Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to Prime Minister Guy Mollet of 12 April 1956 urging France to aid Israel in the face of the Arab threat: Israel’s Foreign Relations: Selected Documents, 1947–1974, Vol.1, Jerusalem, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1976, p.349 (hereafter, Israel Documents). See also Zach Levey, Israel and the Western Powers, 1952–1960, Chapel Hill and London, 1997. Moshe Shemesh, ‘The Founding of the PLO 1964’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.20, No.4 (October 1984), pp.105–41, 108. Europe Agency Reports, 8 February 1964, 10 April 1964, 16 April 1964. Gideon Rafael, Destination Peace: Three Decades of Israeli Foreign Policy: A Personal Memoir, New York, 1981, p.100. Walter Eytan, The First Ten Years: A Diplomatic History of Israel, New York, 1958, p.212. Israel also had 15 ministers accredited to 29 countries, one diplomatic representative, three charges d’affaires, and 37 consuls-general and consuls (including honorary consuls). Financial Times, 24 January 1962; Europe Agency Reports, 11 September 1962. Jacob Abadi, ‘Constraints and Adjustments in Italy’s Policy toward Israel’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.38, No.4 (October 2002), pp.63–94, 80. Europe Agency Reports, 29 November 1962. Ibid., 22 January 1964. ‘Digest of EEC Developments and Related Matters Prepared in the Department of Finance, January 1964’, National Archives, Ireland (hereafter, NAI), 98/3/337; Europe Agency Reports, 13 May 1964. See Ambassador Sean Morrissey to the Secretary, Department of External Affairs, 5 December 1966, NAI, 98/3/337. See Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel: Setting, Images, Process, London, 1972, p.348. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Statement in the Knesset Concerning Diplomatic Relations with the German Federal Republic, 16 March 1965 in The State Papers of Levi Eshkol by Henry M.Christma (ed.), New York, 1969, p.52.


23. Robert S.Wistrich, ‘Left-wing Anti-Zionism in Western Societies’, in Robert S.Wistrich (ed.), Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary World, New York, 1990, pp.46–52, 50. 24. See Joint Press Release, EEC Official Spokesman of the Commission, 26 January 1967, NAI 98/3/337 and Summary of the First General Report on the Activities of the Communities 1966–1967, NAI 98/3/337. On the factors considered by the Community before agreeing to an association agreement with the Mediterranean states, see J.Redmond, ‘The European Community’s Approach to Association: Applicability to the Case of Israel’, in Ephraim Ahiram and Alfred Tovias (eds.), Whither EU-Israeli Relations? Common and Divergent Interests, Frankfurt, 1995, pp.129–46. 25. Lennon, Irish Ambassador, The Hague to Secretary, Department of External Affairs, 8 June 1967, NAI, 98/3/337. 26. European News Agency, 8 June 1967; Financial Times, 12 June 1967. 27. Summary of the First General Report on the Activities of the Communities 1966– 1967, NAI 98/3/337. 28. Raymond Aron, ‘Between Cabinets’, 28 June 1967, reprinted in De Gaulle, Israel and the Jews, New York, 1969, p.83; Report drawn up on behalf of the Political Affairs Committee on the Situation in the Middle East, European Parliament Working Documents, 1967–1968., Document 90, 20 June 1967. See also Europe Agency Reports, 22 June 1967. 29. Europe Agency Reports, 24 November 1967 30. Statement by Council of Ministers of France on Middle East, 2 June 1967, Israel Documents, Vol.2, p.773. 31. Raymond Aron, ‘The Age of Suspicion’, reprinted in De Gaulle, Israel and the Jews, p.21. 32. For the voting of UN member states during the UNGA Special Session of July 1967, see Arthur Lall, The UN and the Middle East Crisis, 1967, New York, 1968. 33. Raymond Aron, ‘Why?’, 7 July 1967, reprinted in De Gaulle, Israel and the Jews, p.91. 34. G.H.Jansen, Zionism, Israel and Asian Nationalism, Beirut, 1971, pp.274–75, Table 1. 35. Europe Agency Reports, 12 December 1967. 36. Counsellor, Irish Mission to the EEC, Brussels, to Department of External Affairs, 24 October 1969, NAI 99/3/136. 37. Philippe Rondot, ‘France and Palestine: From Charles de Gaulle to François Mitterand’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.XVI, No.3 (Spring 1987), pp.87–100, p.91; Alain Dieckhoff, ‘Europe and the Arab World: The Difficult Dialogue’, in Ilan Greilsammer and Joseph H.H.Weiler (eds.), Europe and Israel: Troubled Neighbours, Berlin, New York, 1988, pp.255–82, 265. 38. Statement to the United Nations General Assembly by Ambassador Tekoah, 10 December 1969, Israel Documents, Vol.1, p.456. 39. Philippe Rondot, ‘France and Palestine’, p.89. 40. Statement to the Knesset by Prime Minister Meir, 15 December 1969, Israel Documents, Vol.2, p.890. 41. George Lavy, Germany and Israel: Moral Debt and National Interest, London, 1996, p.172.


42. Howard M.Sachar, Israel and Europe: An Appraisal in History, New York, 1998, p.283. 43. Dieckhoff, ‘Europe and the Arab World’, p.278; Alan Gresh, ‘The European Union and the Refugee Question’, in Naseer Aruri (ed.), Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return, London, 2001, pp.82–6, 83. 44. Abadi, ‘Constraints and Adjustments in Italy’s Policy toward Israel’, p.81; Omer De Raeymaeker, ‘Belgium’, in David Allen and Alfred Pijpers (eds.), European Foreign Policy Making and the Arab Israeli Conflict, The Hague, Boston, Lancaster, 1984, pp.60–79, 66. 45. See the Palestinian National Covenant, 1968, reprinted in Yeduda Lukacs (ed.), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Documentary Record, 1967–1990, Cambridge, New York, 1992, pp.291–95. 46. For a comprehensive list of Palestinian terror attacks from the late 1960s until the current crisis, see Alan M.Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat and Responding to the Challenge, New Haven and London, 2002, pp.57– 78. 47. There have been three enlargements of the EC since the original six signatories signed the Rome Treaties: the entry in 1973 of the UK, Ireland and Denmark; the entry of Greece in 1981 and Spain and Portugal in 1986; and the accession of Finland, Austria and Sweden in 1995. 48. Lavy, Germany and Israel, p.176. 49. Statement to the Knesset by Prime Minister Meir, 15 December 1969, Israel Documents, Vol.2, p.890. 50. Dieckhoff, ‘Europe and the Arab World’, p.265. 51. Statement by European Community Foreign Ministers, 6 November 1973, Israel Document, Vol.2, pp.1, 064–65. 52. Statement by Foreign Minister Eban in response to the EEC’s 6 November Declaration, Israel Documents, Vol.2, pp.1, 066–67; Yediot Aharonot, 26 July 1974. 53. Statement by Foreign Minister Eban in response to the EEC’s 6 November Declaration, Israel Documents, Vol.2, pp.1, 066–67. 54. Garret Fitzgerald, All In a Life: An Autobiography, London, 1991, p.129. 55. M Abdel-Kader Hatem, Information and the Arab Cause, London, 1974, p.290. 56. Declaration of the Arab Summit Conference at Algiers, 28 November 1973, Israel Documents, Vol.2, p.1, 075. 57. The Guardian, 23 November 1973; Al-Nahar (Beirut), 4 December 1973. 58. See Arab League Summit Conference communiqué, Rabat, 29 October 1974, reprinted in Yeduda Lukacs (ed.), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Documentary Record, p.464. 59. Israeli Foreign Ministry statement on UNGA Resolution 3210, 15 October 1974, Israel Documents, Vol.3, p.104. 60. Statement by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Allon to Heads of Diplomatic Missions in Israel, 14 November 1974, Israel Documents, Vol.3, p.128. 61. This UNGA Resolution 3379 (XXX) was adopted on 10 November 1975. 62. Avi Beker, The United Nations and Israel: From Recognition to Reprehension, Lexinton Mass./Toronto, 1988, p.81. 63. Statement by Ambassador Herzog to the UNGA, 9 December 1976, Israel Documents, Vol.3, p.515.


64. Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization-People, Power and Politics, Cambridge, 1984, p.234. 65. On the wide-ranging issues dealt with at these meetings, see Derek Hopwood (ed), Euro-Arab Dialogue: The Relations Between Two Cultures, London, 1985. 66. Beker, The United Nations and Israel, p.82. 67. Palestine National Council, Political Declaration, 22 March 1977, reprinted in Yeduda Lukacs (ed.), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Documentary Record, pp. 333–35. See also Resolutions of the Thirteenth PNC, Cairo, 21–5 March 1977, reprinted in Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.VI, No.3 (Spring 1977), pp.188–97. 68. Ahmad Sidqi Al-Dajani, ‘The PLO and the Euro-Arab Dialogue’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.IX, No.3 (Spring 1980), pp.81–8, pp.90, 93. This attempt to indirectly legitimize the PLO took other forms. In May 1981 the PLO’s London representative Nabil Ramlawi was made dean of Arab ambassadors despite the fact that the UAR representative was the longest-serving ambassador in London and that Ramlawi did not have ambassadorial status. PLO sources admitted that the intention was to insert the PLO into discussions with the Foreign Office over Britain’s Middle East policy, The Times, 16 May 1981. 69. Address to Knesset by Prime Minister Rabin on the presentation of his government, 3 June 1974, Israel Documents, Vol.3, p.7. 70. See Agreement between the European Economic Community and the State of Israel, 11 May 1975, Israel Documents, Vol.2, p.211. 71. Statement by Foreign Minister Allon to Knesset on EEC-Israel Trade Agreement, 26 May 1975, Israel Documents, Vol.2, pp.218–21. 72. In return, Israel was to introduce a phased reduction in customs duties on EEC industrial imports until 1989. 73. Statement on the Middle East by members of the EEC, 29 June 1977, Israel Documents, Vol.4, pp.19–20. 74. Fiorella Seiler, King of the Armed Ghetto: Israel in the West German National Press during Menachem Begin’s First Government, 1977–1981, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 2001. See also Lily Gardner-Feldman, The Special Relationship between West Germany and Israel, Boston, 1984. 75. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) Fifth Series, Volume 940, House of Commons Official Report, Session 1977–78, 7 December 1977, p.1, 401. 76. The Times, 21 December 1977. 77. Statement on the Middle East by Heads of Government of the EEC, London, 29 June 1978, Israel Documents, Vol.5, p.442. 78. The Times, 5 November 1981. 79. New York Times, 28 March 1979. 80. Foreign Minister Dayan to Foreign Ministers of the EEC, 20 June 1979, Israel Documents, Vol.6, p.70; Address in UNGA by Foreign Minister Dayan, 27 September 1979, Israel Documents, Vol.6, p.136. 81. New York Times, 30 October 1979. 82. See speech by Michael O’Kennedy, UNGA 34th Session, 25 September 1979, Official Records of the UNGA, Verbatim Records of 34th Session, 1st to 32nd Meetings, 18 September–12 October 1979, pp.119–25, 121. 83. New York Times, 30 October 1979.


84. See Statements in Knesset by Prime Minister Begin and Labour Party Chairman Peres on the visit of Yasser Arafat to Austria, 5 July 1979, Israel Documents, Vol.6, pp.79–86. 85. The Times, 14 March 1980. Relations between Kreisky’s Austria and Israel had been poor since the premiership of Golda Meir but they reached a nadir in 1978. At that time Kreisky was quoted in the Dutch media as calling Israel a ‘police state’ and Begin a ‘political grocer’, noting that Israeli diplomats were ‘the most hated in the business’, The Times, 5 September 1978. 86. New York Times, 16 August 1979. 87. The Times, 20 February 1980. 88. Philippe Rondot, ‘France and Palestine’, p.94. 89. Yediot Achronot, 25 April 1980. 90. The Times, 6 March 1980. 91. Ibid., 28 April 1980. 92. Prime Minister Begin’s statement in the Knesset on Israel’s Foreign Policy, 2 June 1980, Israel Documents, Vol.6, pp.268–69. 93. Interview with Prime Minister Begin on Israel Television, 26 March 1980, Israel Documents, Vol.6, p.217. See also The Times, 4 January 1978. 94. Address by Foreign Minister Shamir to B’nai B’rith International Leadership, 15 August 1981, Israel Documents, Vol.7, p.123. 95. The Times, 14 March 1980. 96. Yediot Achronot, 25 April 1980; The Times, 20 February 1980. In April 1980 the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe passed a resolution calling for the rephrasing of UNSC Resolution 242 favouring the right to self-determination for the Palestinians, Foreign Ministry Statement on the Council of Europe Resolution, 24 April 1980, Israel Documents, Vol.6, p.241. 97. See the resolution of the heads of government and ministers of foreign affairs of the European Council (the Venice Declaration) of 13 June 1980, reprinted in Yehuda Lukacs (ed.), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Documentary Record, pp.17–19. 98. New York Times, 13 and 14 June 1980. 99. On the Israeli response to the Community abstention on UNGA resolution ES-7/2, 29 July 1980, see Statement in Knesset by Foreign Minister Shamir, 30 July 1980, Israel Documents, Vol.6, p.318. 100. Statement in Knesset by Foreign Minister Shamir, 19 June 1980, Israel Documents, Vol.6, p.283. 101. Le Figaro, 14 June 1980. 102. Ha’aretz, 15 June 1980. 103. Cabinet Statement in response to the Venice Declaration, 15 June 1980, Israel Documents, Vol.6, pp.276–77. 104. The Times, 17 June 1980; Press Conference with Foreign Minister Peres, 28 January 1987, Israel Documents, Vol.10, p.586. 105. The Times 18 March 1981. 106. Ibid., 14 January 1981. 107. Lord Carrington, ‘European Political Co-Operation: America Should Welcome it’, International Affairs, Vol.58, No.1 (Winter 1981–82), pp.1–6, p.4. 108. New York Times, 15 June 1980; The Times, 16 June 1980. 109. New York Times, 15 June 1980.


110. Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for a State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993, Washington DC and Oxford, 1997, p.502. 111. Interview with Foreign Minister Shamir on Israel Radio, 29 August 1981, Israel Documents, Vol.7, p.131. 112. The Times, 14 May 1981. 113. New York Times, 30 April 1981. 114. Interview with Prime Minister Begin on Israel Radio, 7 May 1981, Israel Documents, Vol.7, p.28. 115. Interview with Prime Minister Begin on French Television, 25 November 1981, Israel Documents, Vol.7, p.195; Interview with Prime Minister Begin on Israel Radio, 7 May 1981, Israel Documents, Vol.7, p.28. 116. The Times, 3 November 1981. 117. Ma’ariv, 15 May 1981; The Times, 14 May 1981. 118. Omar al-Hassan, ‘Why Lord Carrington Should Sit Down with the PLO’, The Times, 24 August 1981. 119. Athens News Agency Daily Bulletin, 24 October 1981. 120. Ibid., 3 November 1981. 121. The Times,, 4 November 1981. 122. Beate Lindemann, ‘Votes of EC Members at the United Nations on Questions Related to Israel’, in Ilan Greilsammer and Joseph H.H.Weiler (eds.), Europe and Israel, pp.303–12, 310–11. 123. Ambassador Luc de La Barre de Nanteuil, UNSC Meeting 2380, 19 June 1982, UNSC Official Records, 37th Year, Supplement for April, May and June 1982, p.1. 124. Statement on the situation in the Middle East by the Heads of States and Governments of the EEC, 28–29 June 1982, reprinted in UNSC Official Records, 37th Year, Supplement for July, August and September 1982, p.1. 125. Pamela Ann Smith, ‘The European Reaction to Israel’s Invasion’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.XI–XII, No.4–5 (Summer-Fall), 1982, pp.38–47, 44–5, 47. See also The Times, 20 December 1983 and letter from Mihalis Dountas, representative of Greece at the UN to the president of the UNSC, 18 September 1982, in Security Council Official Records, 37th Year, Supplement for July, August and September 1982, p.77. 126. See French revised draft resolution, 25 June 1982, Document S/15255/Rev. 2, UNSC Official Records, 37th Year, Supplement for April, May, June 1982, p.201. 127. Cabinet communiqué, 27 June 1982, Israel Documents, Vol.8, p.87. 128. See Egypt and France: draft resolution, document S/15317, 28 July 1982, UNSC Official Records, 37th Year, Supplement for July, August and September 1982, p. 25. 129. Address by Prime Minster Begin to the Knesset, 12 August 1982, Israel Documents, Vol.8, p.149. 130. Athens News Agency Daily Bulletin, 2 September 1982. 131. See, for example, Ben Soetendorp, Foreign Policy in the European Union: Theory, History and Practice, London, 1999, p.108; Pia Christina Wood, ‘France and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Mitterand Policies, 1981–1992’, Middle East Journal, Vol.47, No.1 (Winter 1993), p.22; and Philippe Rondot, ‘France and Palestine’, p.96. 132. Yedioth Achronot, 28 September 1981. 133. The Times, 31 August and 8 November 1981.


134. Address by Prime Minister Begin to the Knesset on the occasion of the visit of President Mitterand, 4 March 1982, Israel Documents, Vol.8, p.289. 135. Philippe Rondot, ‘France and Palestine’, p.97. 136. The Times, 20 December 1983 137. See Report on the Danish EC Presidency in the Second Half of 1982, Copenhagen, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1983, pp.33–4. 138. R.B.Soetendorp, ‘The Netherlands’, in European Foreign Policy Making and the Arab Israeli Conflict, pp.37–46, 44; The Times, 7 February 1983; New York Times, 23 March 1983. 139. Statement in the Knesset by Prime Minister Peres, 28 October 1985, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p.295. 140. Interview with Defence Minister Rabin on Israel Television, 30 December 1985, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p.374. 141. New York Times, 21 February, 1983. See also interview with Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister Shamir on Israel Radio, 23 October 1985, Israel Documents, Vol. 9, p.285. 142. Address by President Herzog to the European Parliament, 12 February 1985, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p.135. 143. Gideon Rafael, Destination Peace, p.359. 144. Address by Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister Shamir to WJC conference, 28 January 1986, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p.397. 145. Prime Minister’s Bureau Statement on ties with Spain, 17 January 1986, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p.394. 146. ‘Spanish diplomatic recognition of the PLO’, Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, Vol.XXXIII (January 1987), pp.34,901. 147. Esther Barbe, ‘Spain and CSFP: The Emergence of a Major Player?’, Mediterranean Politics, Vol.5, No.2 (Summer 2000), pp.44–63, 48. 148. Athens News Agency Daily Bulletin, 4 June 1983. 149. Kathimerini, 20 May 1983. 150. Athens News Agency Daily Bulletin, 23 June 1983. 151. Aaron S.Klieman, Israel and the World After Forty Years, New York and London, 1990, p.96. 152. Athens News Agency Daily Bulletin, 1 December 1987. 153. Statement in Knesset by Prime Minister Shamir, 12 March 1984, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p.538; Press Conference with Foreign Minister Peres, 28 January 1987, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p.585. 154. Interview with Prime Minister Peres on Israel Television, 27 October 1985, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p.291. 155. New York Times, 23 August 1986. 156. Comments by Shamir on talks with Prime Minister Thatcher, 4 June 1985, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p.198. See also address by Prime Minister Thatcher at state dinner held in her honour, Jerusalem, 25 May 1986, Israel Documents, Vol.9, p. 457. 157. See the Brussels European Declaration, 23 February 1987, reprinted in Yehuda Lukacs (ed.), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Documentary Record, p.27. 158. New York Times, 12 February and 13 May 1987. 159. Statement by Prime Minister’s Spokesman, 13 May 1987, Israel Documents, Vol. 9, p.650.


160. New York Times, 13 March 1988. 161. Ibid., 22 June 1982. 162. Ellen Laipson, ‘Europe’s Role in the Middle East: Enduring Ties, Emerging Opportunities’, Middle East Journal, Vol.44, No.1 (Winter 1990), pp.7–17, 14; Rodney Wilson, ‘The Economic Relations of the Middle East: Toward Europe or Within the Region?’, Middle East Journal, Vol.48, No.2 (Spring 1994), pp.268–87, 272; Ilan Greilsammer, ‘The Non-Ratification of the EEC-Israeli Protocols by the European Parliament (1988)’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.27, No.2 (April 1991), pp.303–21. 163. Aaron S.Klieman, Israel and the World After 40 years, p.87. 164. In 1987 32 per cent—$2.7 billion—of its total exports went to the ‘Twelve’. Speaker of the Knesset Shlomo Hillel wrote to the president of the European Parliament attacking this ‘one-sided and sharp indictment of Israel’ that was ‘contrary to the letter and spirit of existing agreements…and to the principles of free and non-discriminatory trade.’ See letter to presidents of the European Parliament, 16 March 1988, Israel Documents, Vol.10, pp.885–86. 165. See the Palestine National Council, Political Communiqué, Algiers, 15 November 1988, reprinted in Yehuda Lukacs (ed.), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Documentary Record, pp.415–19. 166. Foreign Ministry Statement on the PNC Decision, 15 November 1988, Israel Documents, Vol.10, p.998; Statement by Prime Minister Shamir on PNC decisions, 15 November 1988, Israel Documents, Vol.10, p.999. 167. New York Times, 18 November 1988. 168. Athens News Agency Daily Bulletin, 22 November 1988. 169. Ibid. 170. New York Times, 18 November 1988. 171. Ibid., 24 December 1988. 172. See Yasser Arafat’s Geneva Press Statement, 15 December 1988, reprinted in Yeduda Lukacs (ed.), The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Documentary Record, p. 434. 173. Athens News Agency Daily Bulletin, 22 November 1988. 174. New York Times, 28 January 1989. 175. See Yitzhak Shamir, Summing Up: An Autobiography, London, 1993, p.233. See also his view in ‘Israel and the Middle East Today’, Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol.III, No.2 (Summer/Fall 1996), p.68. 176. This was particularly significant in the Dutch case. See, for example, the developing Dutch position in R.B.Soetendorp, ‘The Netherlands’, in European Foreign Policy Making and the Arab Israeli Conflict, p.40. 177. See EEC Declaration on the Situation in Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East, 6 May 1980, reprinted as Document S/13925 in UNSC Official Records, Vol. 35, Supplement April, May, June 1980, p.41. 178. See resolutions of the Fourth Congress of Al-Fatah, 1 June 1980, reprinted in UNSC Official Records, Vol. 35, Supplement April, May, June 1980, p.87.

Some Trade Effects of the EMU Process on Israel TAL SADEH

The purpose of this essay is to identify some trade effects that the process of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in Europe might have on Israel. This intriguing question has not been the subject of many academic publications to date. Some work on the EMU’s economic consequences for Israel has been conducted by Israel’s Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Israel.1 The Israeli business sector has certainly been preoccupied by the issue, but is more interested in the EMU’s implications for business strategies and practices. The fact is that academic literature on EMU’s effects on third parties is altogether limited. Though the idea of a monetary union in Europe has been on and off the agenda since the early 1970s, the literature has been confined to the issue of the EMU’s effects on its members. Recently, however, there has been greater interest in third parties. Kenen has explored the effects of EMU on the functioning of foreign exchange markets and on the official and private demands for the different currencies. He also concentrated on the fiscal effects and on implications for G-7 collaboration.2 Others have focused on the role of the Euro (the new European single currency) as a global currency.3 Ghironi and Giavazzi have tried to determine the EMU’s effects on world trade and on the trade-off between inflation and unemployment among members and non-members.4 The Commission of the European Community (EC) has provided a summary of different effects and the Economist magazine has reviewed work done by a number of institutions and investment houses.5 Grahl emphasized the shifts in the world monetary and financial relations that the EMU may bring about.6 Conferences have produced some further papers.7 To be sure, the EMU process also has non-trade economic effects on Israel. First, there are a host of technical issues that banks, firms, public officials and ordinary citizens in Israel have to deal with. In addition, at the microeconomic level the EMU process brings greater efficiency to the Israeli financial sector. Ruthenberg and Elias found that banks may actually gain from the reallocation of resources caused by a single European banking market.8 Like other regional integration schemes that discriminate against nonmembers, the EMU process also diverts Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) to Europe. Since factor flows can substitute for trade flows, if the latter are subject to greater discrimination, the FDI compensates the investors for lost exports.9


Empirical work has shown how the Single Market Programme (SMP), for example, drew FDI to the EC.10 The essay proceeds as follows: the second section provides five different explanations for EMU’s effects on Israeli trade; the third section tests these hypotheses and estimates the effects on Israel’s trade with five major European countries, using the error correction method; the fourth section offers conclusions. TRADE EFFECTS European Efficiency Effects Handling a multiplicity of currencies entails costs in commissions and bid-offer spreads. Therefore, the EMU process removes a trade barrier between its members. This effect, estimated at 0.4 per cent of the EU’s GNP, resembles the abolition of border controls by the SMP.11 However, by eliminating trade barriers between the members but not between them and outsiders, the EMU, much like the SMP, is a discriminatory scheme. This is not to say that trade discrimination is necessarily the major force behind the EMU, but rather that the EMU process, aside from the trade creations, gives rise to new trade diversions.12 The absolute saving on transaction costs is shared by outsiders as well as insiders. But relative to total transaction costs the insiders’ cost declines more than that of the outsiders. This is due to higher distance-related costs incurred by outsiders, as well as the efficiency gains enjoyed by the Euro-adopting insiders. In other words, the outsiders’ competitive edge in the insiders’ markets deteriorates as their relative costs rises. This uneven change in costs is what makes the EMU process, among other things, a discriminatory trade policy.13

Tal Sadeh is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University.The author wishes to convey his gratitude to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation for its support and to Ari Aizen, Mario Blejer, Eyal Inbar, Ronit Schwartz, Ilan Susnitzky, Natan Sussman, Alfred Tovias and Asaf Zusman for their encouragement, advice, help and goodwill. This essay was originally written in 1997 while the author was a doctoral student at the Department of International Relations, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The current version was edited to take account of institutional and political developments that took place since, but the analysis was left unchanged.

152 TRADE EFFECTS OF THE EMU PROCESS ON ISRAEL

Interest Rate Effects The introduction of a single currency abolishes the previous exchange rate fluctuations between the European currencies. According to the theory of Optimal Currency Areas (OCAs), exchange rate fluctuations constitute a risk, and, therefore, a trade barrier between any given pair of countries, much like transportation costs.14 However, this hypothesis has been much debated. For example, Edison and Melvin found no worldwide empirical support for it.15 Krugman argued that oligopolistic traders are willing to suffer short-term losses due to exchange rate variations for the sake of long-term profits.16 Multinationals cancel out exchange rate profits and losses in different countries.17 Nevertheless, Frankel and Wei, Fratianni and Von Hagen, Sekkat and Dell’Ariccia do find empirical support for the exchange rate trade barrier hypothesis in Europe.18 This essay will assume that in a world of competitive risk-averse traders, exchange rate volatility does negatively affect trade. If all traders insure themselves against exchange rate fluctuations by forward contracts, then exchange rate fluctuations have no effect on trade.19 This is empirically supported also by Frankel and Wei.20 Instead, interest rates affect trade through forward exchange rates. In a forward selling deal, the exporter creates a foreign currency denominated obligation, optimally with the same maturity and size as the asset that is embodied by the foreign importer’s purchasing obligation. In this way, the currency fluctuation’s effect on cash flow is neutralized, as a gain (loss) on the exporter’s asset is offset by a loss (gain) on his obligation. Since both the obligation and the asset bear an interest, the exporter is assured in the forward deal the spot (current) exchange rate, plus the local interest, minus the foreign interest. Similarly, the importer buys forward, and is assured the spot (current) exchange rate, minus the local interest, plus the foreign interest. The interest differential in an exchange rate insurance deal amounts to a positive or a negative incentive for the trader. The exchange rate uncertainty is swapped for a certain positive or negative premium on the exchange rate. Assuming currency A carries a higher interest rate than currency B, the exporters from country A or the importers to country B (depending on the invoicing currency) receive a premium of iA-iB while the importers to country A or the exporters from country B pay the same premium. It follows therefore that exchange rate volatility encourages exports from the high-interest countries (the South) to the low-interest countries (the North), and discourages exports in the opposite direction, through the financial hedging tools. Due to the EMU process, two interest rate effects are expected on Israeli exporters, all effects being exactly the opposite in the importer’s case. The analysis assumes that in the long run the Euro’s interest rate will be higher than the hitherto lowest rate among EMU members but lower than the hitherto highest rate. In other words, due to the EMU process, Southern EMU members


see their interest rates fall, while Northern members see them rise. The two effects are: • The external effect: Since Israel’s interest rate is higher than the South’s, the EMU process increases the premium received by Israeli exporters to the Southern members of the union. On the other hand, the premium received by Israeli exporters to the Northern members of the union decreases. The North’s trade balance with Israel improves as a result of the EMU process, and the South’s worsens. Israel’s exports shift away from the North and to the South, and its imports shift in the other direction. • The internal effect: By eliminating interest differentials, the EMU process eliminates the premium enjoyed on the North’s imports from the union’s South. This may shift some of the North’s imports to Israel. On the other hand, the premium paid on the South’s imports from the North is also eliminated, shifting some of the South’s imports away from Israel. In other words, this second effect improves Israel’s trade balance with the North and causes a deterioration vis-à-vis the South (offsetting to some extent the effects discussed earlier). Israel sees a shift of its exports away from the South and to the North, and a shift of its imports in the other direction. The net effect on Israel’s trade depends, therefore, on the relative size of Israel’s trade with each of its partners. The Effects of the Euro’s Global Position There has been extensive deliberation regarding the Euro’s value in its initial years. It is expected that the Euro will acquire the status of international currency, rivalling the US Dollar. However, it is very difficult to forecast the pattern of exchange rates as there are factors suggesting developments in different ways.21 The following factors argue for the emergence of a strong Euro: • Excess reserves: The excess of currency reserves among the EMU members, due to the absence of the need to interfere in the European Monetary System (EMS) and because trade among them is no longer carried out in foreign currency. • Reserve and invoicing trade: The combined GDP and trade of the EMU members exceeds that of the US. The Dollar is overused to invoice international trade, out of proportion to the US’s share of world trade. Supported by the EU’s economy, the Euro can acquire the status of a global means of exchange, an international currency for invoicing trade, and a store of value. It is also used as a reserve currency by central banks.22 • Hard Euro policy: Since the European Central Bank (ECB) follows a hard Euro policy, the Euro’s function as a store of value should be enhanced. The Euro should attract investors much like the German Mark (DM) did in the past.


The following factors suggest the emergence of a weak Euro: • Europolitics: If Europolitics turn acrimonious, the markets will not trust the Euro. For example, the recent violations by France, Germany and Portugal of the 3 per cent fiscal deficit limit are a threat to the credibility of the Euro. Failure of the EU’s institutions to apply the sanctions and measures that the treaties and agreements stipulate could lead to divergence among the member states in long-term interest rates. • The deflationary trap: The ECB’s hard Euro policy leads it to keep interest rates excessively high in real terms, making the economic slowdown and recession harder for the member states, and putting the governments’ resolve for fiscal discipline to a severe test.23 • Capital markets: The size, depth and liquidity of American capital markets are unchallenged by European markets. Much harmonization remains to be achieved in European capital markets.24 The EC Commission claimed that the Euro would be supported by a major government bonds market.25 However, the lack of a single sovereign borrower leaves Europe with a fragmented bond market. The limit on budget deficits, enshrined in EU treaties, slows the development of the Euro Denominated Bonds (EDB) market. The possibility of withdrawing from the EMU will always loom over at least some of the member governments, making their EDBs risky. If the markets treat EDBs as offshore assets, there is no reason why New York, London or other non-Euro financial centres could not ‘steal’ the business of issuing EDBs from the Europeans.26 The factors affecting the strength of the Euro can be arranged according to immediacy and origin (see Table 1). In the immediate term, the deflationary trap is testing fiscal discipline and the durability of the union. This should make the Euro’s exchange rate especially volatile. If the union survives this period because the members abide by the rules, then the hard-Euro policy will reward it with a DM-equivalent currency, and the Euro’s value will soar. If, on the other hand, the union survives because the hard Euro policy has been dumped, then the Euro will be weaker and the other factors will be more dominant. Since capital markets account for exchange rates and the turnover of currencies more than trade, the Dollar could have an advantage over the Euro in the long run. Europolitics will also burden the Euro. In short, the Euro’s exchange rate can be expected to be fairly volatile in the initial years, fluctuating against the rest of the world’s major currencies. These swings can affect Israeli trade: whenever the Euro becomes stronger vis-à-vis the other currencies, it will shift Israeli exports from other destinations to Europe, and Israeli imports from Europe to other origins. Whenever the Euro weakens, trade patterns will reverse. Fluctuations in the Euro’s exchange rates thus have the potential to change the country distribution of the Israeli trade deficit, at the


expense of the EC when the Euro strengthens and at the expense of others when it weakens. Consumer Demand The EMU process is hypothesized to increase the economic activity of its members over time, and thus boost European consumers’ income and their demand for Israeli goods. Government Policy Public consumption and imports affect trade. But governments are not private consumers. Their purchasing decisions at least are as much politically as economically motivated. Their treatment of foreign goods is a political decision, and part of a policy. Government bias includes both discriminatory public procurement policies, and purchases (or boycotts) of foreign goods as an integral part of a foreign policy (such as arms sales).27 It is hard to say how the EMU process affects European governments’ involvement in economic life.28 But it seems that, having surrendered their monetary tools, member governments must rely much more on the fiscal ones to pursue their policies. This will either increase the tax burden in Europe, or the Maastricht Treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact that limit public deficits are adhered to, or increase the deficits if the pact is violated. Either way, this paper will assume that the EMU process might tend to increase public consumption among the members, thus increasing their biased effect on trade. EMPIRICAL EVALUATION OF THE TRADE EFFECTS The Method of Estimation To estimate the EMU’s effects on Israeli trade, this essay uses the error correction method, combining augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test, Johansen co-integration tests, and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis.29 Briefly, the error correction method is a three-step procedure. First, the unit root tests determine whether each variable in the specified equation is a stationary or non-stationary variable. The stationary variables are regarded as having only short-term relationships with other variables, while the non-stationary variables are regarded as having long-term relationships. In the second step, co-integration tests are used to estimate the long-term relationships between those variables specified in the equation, which were found to be non-stationary. In the third and final step, the OLS regression analysis estimates the short-term relationships between the stationary variables. This is first done by computing the estimated co-integration equation’s residual


series and then running the lagged residuals and the differences of all the variables on the differences of the dependent variable. In cases where the dependent variable is found to be stationary, the error correction method is not applicable (for there are no long-term relationships); the Hendry method will be used instead. In this method, the second step in the error correction method is skipped, and the OLS regression simply is run with the differences of all the variables. The EMU’s effects on Israel’s trade were estimated using the IMF’s quarterly data for the sample period 1983:3 to 1995:4. The effects were estimated separately for each of the following trade partners: Germany, France and The Netherlands, which are the major Northern EMU members; Italy, which is the major Southern EMU member; and the UK, which economically is part of the North but which for the time being has decided not to adopt the Euro. These five countries are Israel’s major European trading partners. The general specification used is as follows (all variables are expressed in natural logarithms unless specified otherwise): (1) (2) where: 1. exIt and imIt are Israel’s exports and imports to country F at period t, expressed in real Israeli Shekels. 2. yFt and yIt are respectively F’s and Israel’s GDP per capita expressed in real terms in each country’s currency, and are proxies for the income of the consumers in the country of destination. Thus a2 and b2 are considered proxies for the consumer’s income elasticity. yFt serves to test the aforementioned hypothesis regarding the EMU’s income effects on Israel. yIt, on the other hand, serves as a control variable. 3. gFt and gIt are respectively F’s and Israel’s ratio of government consumption to GDP and are proxies for the governments’ involvement in the economy. A significant coefficient points to some bias—negative or positive. Again, gFt serves to test the hypothesis regarding EMU’s fiscal effects on Israel. gIt, like yIt, is a control variable. 4. et is the real exchange rate, expressed in Israeli Shekels per one unit of the foreign currency. In accordance with economic theory, a4 is hypothesized to be positive, and b4 to be negative, or positive but smaller than one. Since trade is expressed as a revenue, that is, as a product of price and quantity, the import’s price elasticity is the sum of the effect of the price on itself and its effect on the demand for imported goods. Obviously, the former is always one in the case of a small price-taking country, and the latter is the elasticity of demand. The elasticity of the demand is negative, but can be smaller than one in absolute terms. Similarly, since the elasticity of the


supply in the home country is positive, the export’s price elasticity is always greater than one. Two of the effects that the EMU process is hypothesized to have on Israeli trade will be expressed in the Shekel’s real exchange rate against the Euro. Clearly, swings in the Euro’s exchange rate discussed above are factored into the real exchange rate. Similarly, European efficiency gains due to the EMU are represented by a reduction in the European absolute price level. As explained above, while Israeli absolute production costs are expected to decline (reducing to some extent the Israeli price level), EMU members are expected to see a greater reduction in their relative costs. Therefore, the Euro-Shekel price levels ratio is hypothesized to decline, as is the real exchange rate, until the nominal exchange rate clears this effect and the Shekel depreciates. 5. FTA is an index (not expressed in logs) that isolates the trade effects of the Free Trade Area (FTA) agreement Israel has with the EC. It scores a value of zero in periods prior to the application of the agreement and a value of one following full application. For the transition period of the FTA, the dummy variable rises gradually from zero to one, in a rough linear approximation of the volumes of trade affected by the relevant tariff reduction schedules. The FTA variable will not be used in estimating equation (1) because all the tariff reduction regarding Israel’s exports to the EC already had materialized by 1 July 1977, that is, prior to the sample period. This is another control variable. It is part of the effective real exchange rate. 6. rt is the annualized real interest rate gap between Israel and F expressed in percentage points (not in logs). It is calculated first by subtracting F’s shortterm nominal interest rate from Israel’s. This difference is then converted to real terms using the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Since the Israeli trader’s perspective is sought, the Israeli CPI is used here. rt is hypothesized to have a positive effect on Israel’s exports and a negative one on its imports. It too is part of the effective real exchange rate. Tables 2–6 present the results of the Dickey-Fuller tests and the estimated equations. In most cases, the estimation of the full form of the equation included some insignificant coefficients. In such cases, therefore, a reduced form estimation including only significant coefficients was added. This reduced form equation, in turn, was used to calculate the residual series. Discussion of the Estimations Results Israeli exports and imports: The first finding is that a portion of Israel’s exports is stationary: over the years there is no real growth in Israel’s exports to France, Italy and Britain. Variations in these exports, therefore, are only short term. On the other hand, Israel’s exports to Germany and The Netherlands, as well as its imports from all five countries, are not only non-stationary but are actually


stationary around a trend. This statistical fact is behind the trade deficits Israel has had over the years with the EC. GDP per capita: In all countries, the GDP per capita is non-stationary. In The Netherlands, Italy and Israel, it is even stationary around a trend. Therefore, GDP per capita can provide long-term explanations for trade. Over the long run, the income elasticity of Israeli goods was found to be negative (though barely significant) in Germany but highly positive in The Netherlands. It seems that German consumers buy inferior-income Israeli goods, while the Dutch buy Israeli luxury goods. Over the short run, the income elasticity of Israeli goods in Germany is definitely negative, and in The Netherlands consistently positive. Turning to Israel’s imports, in the long term the goods of all five countries (except Germany) are considered by the Israeli consumer to be a luxury. In the short run, Israel’s GDP per capita has no effect on imports, except those from the UK. An increase in EMU members’ GDP per capita, therefore, reduces Israeli exports to the EMU area in the short term (as Germany is much larger than The Netherlands) but over the long run will definitely favour Israel’s exports. The ratio of government consumption to GDP: This variable is stationary only in Italy. In the other countries, there are long-term trends in the government’s involvement in the economy; this factor can explain long-term trade patterns. In The Netherlands and Israel this variable is even stationary around a trend. Indeed, over the long run, Israel exports less to Germany as German public consumption grows. On the other hand, Israeli exports to The Netherlands increase with public consumption. Taking the size of the two countries into account, these effects seem to cancel out. In the rest of the countries public consumption was found to have no effect on Israeli exports. Therefore, the EMU process has no long-term fiscal effects on Israel’s exports to its members. The Israeli government, on the other hand, tends to buy less German and Dutch goods as it consumes more, but its treatment of French goods is unclear: there are contradictory estimations in the full form equation compared with the reduced form one. Over the short term, the British government is the only one having a (favourable) bias towards Israeli goods. Therefore, the EMU process can have positive shortterm fiscal effects on Israel’s trade only if and when the UK adopts the Euro. On the other hand, the Israeli government was found to have no bias regarding European goods in the short run. The real exchange rate: In accordance with the PPP theorem, Israel’s real exchange rate with the European countries is stationary. Therefore, the real exchange rate can only explain short-term variations in Israeli trade with Europe. A real devaluation of the Shekel of 1 per cent leads to very light increases in Israeli export’s revenue to Europe: 0.7 per cent in Germany, 0.7 in France, 0.4 in Italy, 0.7 per cent in the UK and none in The Netherlands. This seems to be at odds with conventional economic theory, which does not allow for export price elasticity to be lower than one. However, one must bear in


mind that a4 is an estimate of a sort of second derivative. It measures the sensitivity of the change in exports to the change in the exchange rate, and not the sensitivity of the level of exports to the level of the exchange rate. Over the long run, Israeli exports to Europe rise because of other factors analyzed here, and this increase is enhanced by a real depreciation of the Shekel, with an elasticity lower than one. Since the real exchange rate is stationary, it cannot by itself produce an actual rise in the level of exports. This is even more pronounced in exports to France, Italy and the UK, which are themselves stationary. Variations in Israeli exports to these countries are essentially random, with the exchange rate affecting the extent of the variation once it has occurred, but not actually causing it. Nevertheless, the coefficients’ estimates will be used as proxies for the exchange rate effect on the level of trade. The Shekel’s real exchange rate has a short-term effect of between zero and one in all countries of the sample and in both directions of trade. Clearly, to the extent that the real exchange rate affects Israel’s trade, the elasticities of the export’s supply and the import’s demand are low. If the current Israeli exchange rate policy persists, the Shekel’s real exchange rate against the European currencies will continue to be stationary. Using the estimated exchange rate coefficients, a reduction of 1 per cent in the price level of EMU members, or a nominal devaluation of one percent in the Euro’s exchange rate, causes in the short run (through a decline in the Shekel’s real exchange rate) a reduction of 0.8 per cent in exports to Germany (see Table 7). Together with a reduction of 0.7 per cent in imports from Germany, this by trade weights yields a decline of 0.6 per cent in the trade deficit with Germany. Similarly, Israel’s trade balance with France improves by 1.4 per cent, by 4.4 per cent with The Netherlands and by 0.5 per cent with Italy. By trade weights, Israel’s exports to this group of four EMU members declines by 0.5 per cent, but its imports—which are around twice its exports—decline by 0.7 per cent. Thus, Israel’s trade balance improves by 0.8 per cent. Should the UK adopt the Euro, Israel’s exports to this country will decline by 0.7 per cent for each 1 per cent decline in the real exchange rate, and its imports will decline by 0.8 per cent. Israel’s overall trade deficit with the five sample countries will improve by 0.8 per cent. The FTA factor: This variable was found to be non-stationary only because the sample period includes the transition period of the FTA agreement. Once the agreement reaches a steady state, it has no further effect on trade. Israeli exports to the European countries are unaffected in the sample period by the EC-Israel 1975 FTA, as explained above. Israeli imports from Germany and The Netherlands are similarly unaffected. Oddly, Israeli imports from France, Italy and the UK decline with the fulfilment of the FTA. This may be explained by the partial overlap of the implementation time tables of the two FTAs Israel signed with the US and with the EC. Perhaps the trade effect of the implementation of the American FTA was stronger than the trade effect of the implementation of the European FTA. This may have caused a shift of Israeli imports from Europe


to the US. Alternatively, France, Italy and the UK may have simply lost Israeli imports to other EC members. The real interest rate: The real interest rate gap is non-stationary, and in fact stationary around a trend, with all the countries of the sample. In accordance with the discussion in the first section, this gap is positively correlated in the long run with Israeli exports to Germany and The Netherlands. As anticipated, the effect is very small, but nevertheless very significant. No effect was found in the short term. Israeli imports from Italy are affected (as anticipated) in the long term, while imports from Germany and The Netherlands are, oddly, positively affected. This may be explained by the European Monetary System: through most of the sample period, the interest rates of most EC members followed the German interest rate. When Germany raised its rates, the German-Israeli interest rate gap narrowed, thus encouraging Israeli imports from Germany. At the same time, other European countries raised their rates as well, thus attracting some of the Israeli imports their way. This substitution effect may have been stronger than the direct effect of the change in the interest rate gap. CONCLUSIONS The EMU process is hypothesized to have five effects on Israel’s trade. First, by saving on transaction costs, the EMU (much like the SMP) removes a trade barrier that existed between its members. Likewise, this is a discriminatory policy, allowing insiders and outsiders alike to save on absolute costs but increasing the outsiders’ relative costs. Second, in exchange rate hedging, traders swap uncertainty with a premium (the interests differential) they either pay or receive. Thus, exchange rate volatility encourages exports from high-interest countries (the South) to the lowinterest countries (the North), while discouraging exports in the opposite direction. Due to the EMU process, therefore, interest rate changes in Europe, on balance, improve Israel’s trade balance with the South and cause a deterioration vis-à-vis the North. Although there are a few caveats to these impacts on Israel’s trade, empirical evidence tends to support them. Third, the Euro is hypothesized to be very volatile in its first years. The ECB’s policy, the member governments’ resolve to maintain the EMU, the volume of Euro-invoiced trade, the development of European capital markets, fiscal discipline and especially Europolitics—all can cause swings in its value. This volatility should affect the volume and destination of Israel’s trade.


TABLE 1 FACTORS AFFECTING THE EURO

Empirically, these three effects were found to have a muted impact on Israel’s trade. Some of the Israeli exports to Europe, as well as the Shekel’s real exchange rate with European currencies, are stationary and experience only short-term variations. Moreover, Israeli trade’s exchange rate elasticities are very low. A fourth effect of the EMU on Israeli trade was hypothesized to be growth in European consumer demand for foreign goods, and was found favourable to Israeli exports over the long term, but negative in the short term. Fifth, to the extent that the EMU process increases public consumption, a short-term positive effect on Israeli exports can be expected, if and when the UK joins the EMU. TABLE 2 DICKEY-FULLER TESTS RESULTS


TABLE 2 (Continued)


TABLE 2 (Continued)


TABLE 2 (Continued)

TABLE 3 COINTEGRATION TESTS FOR ISRAELI EXPORT EQUATIONS

Notes: 1. The coefficients’ standard errors are given in parentheses. 2. The real exchange rate was excluded from the equations because it is stationary. Similarly, missing from the table are those countries for which the Israeli exports were found to be stationary. 3. A likelihood ratio greater than the critical value rejects the hypothesis of no cointegration with the specified level of assurance. 4. All tests assume a linear deterministic trend in the data: Intercept (no trend) in CE and test VAR. Source: The estimations are based on quarterly data for the sample period 1983:3–1995:4, taken from the International Monetary Fund’s International Financial Statistics and Direction of Trade Statistics.

Notes:1. The coefficients’ standard errors are given in parentheses. 2. The real exchange rate was excluded from the equations because it is stationary. 3. A likelihood ratio greater than the critical value rejects the hypothesis of no cointegration with the specified level of assurance. 4. All tests assume a linear deterministic trend in the data: Intercept (no trend) in CE and test VAR. Source: The estimations are based on quarterly data for the sample period 1983:3–1995:4, taken from the International Monetary Fund’s International Financial Statistics and Direction of Trade Statistics.

COINTEGRATION TESTS FOR ISRAELI IMPORT EQUATIONS

TABLE 4


Notes: 1. Absolute t-statistics values in parentheses. 2. Variables with insignificant coefficients in the full form equations were excluded from the reduced form equations. Note especially that all regressions were run without intercepts, for lack of significance. The lagged CE residual coefficient is relevant, of course, only where a cointegration test was conducted. Source: The estimations are based on quarterly data for the sample period 1983:3–1995:4, taken from the International Monetary Fund’s International Financial Statistics and Direction of Trade Statistics.

TABLE 5 OLS REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF ISRAELI EXPORTS' DIFFERENCES


Notes:1. Absolute t-statistics values in parentheses. 2. Variables with insignificant coefficients in the full form equations were excluded from the reduced form equations. Note especially that all regressions were run without intercepts, for lack of significance. Sources: The estimations are based on quarterly data for the sample period 1983:3–1995:4, taken from the International Monetary Fund’s International Financial Statistics and Direction of Trade Statistics.

OLS REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF ISRAELI IMPORTS' DIFFERENCES

TABLE 6



TABLE 7 EXCHANGE RATE ELASTICITIES OF ISRAELI TRADE

Note: Trade balance elasticity is the per cent increase in Israel’s trade deficit for a given one per cent real exchange rate depreciation. Sources: Elasticity figures are taken from Tables 5–6. The share of each country in Israel’s trade is an average for the 1990s calculated from The International Monetary Fund’s Direction of Trade Statistics.

LIST OF SYMBOLS 1. iA: The nominal interest rate on currency A. 2. iB: The nominal interest rate on currency B. 3. exIt and imIt: Israel’s exports and imports to country F at period t, expressed in real Israeli Shekels. 4. yFt and yIt: Respectively, country F’s and Israel’s GDP per capita expressed in real terms in each country’s currency, 5. gFt and gIt: Respectively, country F’s and Israel’s ratio of government consumption to GDP. 6. et: The real exchange rate, expressed in Israeli Shekels per one unit of the foreign currency. 7. FTA: An index for the existence of a Free Trade Area (FTA) agreement between Israel and its trade partner. 8. rt: The annualized real interest rate gap between Israel and country F, expressed in percentage points. NOTES 1. Dalida Eini and Zalman Schifer, Haichud Hakalkali Vehamonitari Haeropi Vekivuney Hashpaato Haefshariym al Israel (The EMU and Its Possible Effects on Israel), Bank of Israel Working Paper 99.01; Marc Lüven, Hashlachot Efshariyot Shel Hamatbea Haeropi Haachid Al Israel (Possible Implications of the Single Currency on Israel), Jerusalem, Ministry of Finance International Division, 1997;


2.

3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

Daniel Amir and Marc Lüven, ‘Haichud Hamonitary Beeropa Vehashpaato Habeynleumit Veal Israel’ (The European Monetary Union and Its Effects, Internationally and on Israel), Harivon Haisreeli Lemisim (Israeli Tax Quarterly), Vol.25 (1998), pp.61–75. Peter B.Kenen, Economic and Monetary Union in Europe-Moving Beyond Maastricht, Cambridge, 1995, pp. 108–23; Peter B.Kenen, ‘Sorting Out Some EMU Issues’, European University Institute-The Robert Schuman Centre-Jean Monnet Chair Papers, No.38 (1996). Patrick F.H.J.Peters, The Development of the Euro as a Reserve Currency: The Likelihood of the Emergence of a Bipolar Monetary World and the Consequences for US European Relations, paper presented at the annual conference of the International Studies Organization, San Diego, 1996; ‘The Euro and the Dollar: Strut Your Stuff’, Economist, Vol.341, No.7988 (1996), pp.87–8. Fabio Ghironi and Francesco Giavazzi, ‘Out in the Sunshine? The Outsiders, Insiders, and the United States in 1998’, in Mario I.Blejer, Jacob A.Frenkel, Leonardo Leiderman and Assaf Razin (eds.), Optimum Currency Areas-New Analytical and Policy Developments, Washington DC, International Monetary Fund, 1997, pp.109–12. Commission of the European Communities, ‘External Aspects of Economic and Monetary Union’, Commission Staff Working Papers, No.(97) 803 (1997). ‘Why Non-Europeans Should Care about EMU’, The Economist, Vol.343, No.8010 (1997), p.92. John Grahl, After Maastricht-A guide to European Monetary Union, London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1997, pp.102–223. André Sapir, Impact of Greater Competition and Efficiency, Brussels, paper presented at the 4th ECSA World Conference on The European Union and the Euro, 1998; André Stepniak, Euro and the Candidate Countries, Brussels, paper presented at the 4th ECSA World Conference on The European Union and the Euro, 1998; Chatodom Sabhasri, EMU and the Euro: What Does It Mean For Asia and Thailand?, Brussels, paper presented at the 4th ECSA World Conference on The European Union and the Euro, 1998; P.Welfens, Euro Exchange Rate Policy: Possibilities and Limits, Brussels, paper presented at the 4th ECSA World Conference on The European Union and the Euro, 1998. David Ruthenberg and Ricky Elias, ‘Cost Economies and Interest Rate Margins in a Unified European Banking Market’, Journal of Economics and Business, Vol.48 (1996), pp.231–49. Robert Mundell, ‘International Trade and Factor Mobility’, American Economic Review, Vol.XLVII, No.3 (1957), pp.321–35. G.Yannopoulous, ‘Foreign Direct Investment and European Integration: Evidence from the Formative Years of the European Community’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol.28 (1990), pp.235–59; A.M.Rugman and S.A.Verbeke, ‘Competitive Strategies for Non-European Firms’, in B.Burgenmeier and J.L.Mucchielli (eds.), Multinationals and Europe 1992, London, Routledge, 1991; U.N.Balasubramanyam and David Greenaway, ‘Economic Integration and Foreign Direct Investment: Japanese Investment in the EC’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol.30 (1992), pp.175–93; Zeev Hirsch and Tamar Almor, ‘Europe Ninetytwo: Effects on Outsiders’, in Zeev Hirsch and Tamar Almor (eds.), Outsiders’ Response to European Integration, Copenhagen, Handelshøjskolens Forlag, 1996.


11. Commission of the European Communities, ‘One Market, One Money’, European Economy, Vol.44 (1990). 12. Richard G.Lipsey, ‘The Theory of Customs Unions: Trade Diversion and Welfare’, Economica, Vol.24 (1957), pp.40–6; Jacob Viner, The Customs Union Issue, New York, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1950. 13. Hirsch and Almor, ‘Europe Ninety-two’, pp. 15–20. 14. Masahiro Kawai, ‘Optimum Currency Areas’, in John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman (eds.), The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economic Theory and Doctrine, Volume 3, New York, Macmillan, 1987; Ronald McKinnon, ‘Optimum Currency Areas’, American Economic Review, (1963), pp.717–25; Robert Mundell, ‘A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas’, American Economic Review (1961), pp.657–65; George S.Tavlas, ‘The “New” Theory of Optimum Currency Areas’, World Economy (1993), pp.663–85. 15. Hali J.Edison and Michael Melvin, ‘The Determinants and Implications of the Choice of an Exchange Rate System’, in William S.Haraf and Thomas D.Willett (eds.), Monetary Policy for a Volatile Global Economy, Washington, AEI Press, 1990. 16. Paul Krugman, Exchange Rate Instability, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1989. 17. Tavlas, ‘The “New” Theory of OCAs’, pp.663–85. 18. Jeffrey A.Frankel and Shang-Jin Wei, ‘European Integration and the Regionalization of World Trade and Currencies: The Economics and the Politics’, in Barry Eichengreen, Jeffrey Frieden and Jurgen Von Hagen (eds.), Monetary and Fiscal Policy in an Integrated Europe, New York, Springer, 1995, pp.202–32; Michael Fratianni and Jurgen Von Hagen, ‘The European Monetary System Ten Years After’, Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, No.32 (1990), pp.173–241; Khalid Sekkat, ‘Exchange Rate Variability and EU Trade’, European Commission DG-2 Economic Papers Series No.84 (1998); Giovanni Dell’Ariccia, ‘Exchange Rate Fluctuations and Trade Flows: Evidence from the European Union’, IMF Working Paper, No.98/107 (1998). 19. Obviously there are numerous financial instruments for hedging against currency fluctuations, such as future contracts and options. The forward contracts assumption is for the sake of simplicity. 20. Frankel and Wei, ‘European Integration and the Regionalization of World Trade and Currencies’, p.218. 21. Peters, ‘The Development of the Euro as a Reserve Currency’; ‘The Euro and the Dollar’, pp.87–8; ‘Why Non-Europeans Should Care About EMU’, The Economist, Vol.343, No.8010 (1997), p.92. 22. Kenen, Sorting Out Some EMU Issues, pp.29–30. 23. Commission of the EC, External Aspects of EMU, pp.7, 9. 24. ‘Why Non-Europeans Should Care About EMU’, p.92. 25. Commission of the EC, External Aspects of EMU, p.6. 26. Commission of the European Communities, ‘The Impact of the Introduction of the Euro on Capital Markets’, Communication from the Commission, No.11/338/97— EN–2 (1997), p.3. 27. Moshe Hirsch, ‘The 1995 Trade Agreement Between the European Communities and Israel: Three Unresolved Issues’, European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol.1, No. 1 (1996), pp.87–123; Moshe Hirsch, Eyal Inbar and Tal Sadeh, The Future


Relations Between Israel and the European Communities-Some Alternatives, Tel Aviv, 1996, pp.45–55. 28. Kenen, Sorting Out Some EMU Issues, pp.28–29. 29. W.A.Fuller, Introduction to Statistical Time Series, New York, 1976; MacKinnon, ‘Critical Values for Cointegration Tests’, in R.F.Engle and C.W.J.Granger (eds.), Long-Run Economic Relationships, Oxford, 1991; S.Johansen, ‘Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vectors in Gaussian Vector Autoregressive Models’, Econometrica, Vol.59 (1991), pp.1, 551–80.

The Road to Israeli-Spanish Rapprochement JACOB ABADI

In a speech to members of the Israeli Army’s Supreme Command on 27 March 1953, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said: ‘The Jewish people is the only one in the entire world walking in complete solitude on the historical stage from time immemorial to this day.’ He assured his audience that Israel ‘will not confine its ties to either certain areas or certain states.’1 Surrounded by hostile neighbours, the newly formed state of Israel was willing to establish ties with any country willing to grant it recognition. However, establishing diplomatic relations involved complications that could hardly be anticipated then. Israel’s foreign policy was constrained for several reasons. Soon after the state’s formation, its leaders began fostering a pro-Western orientation, which limited their ability to establish ties with countries perceived as hostile to the West. Moreover, the emergence of the Cold War and the need to maintain cordial relations with the US compelled the Israeli government to maintain distance from communist countries. One obvious example of such a limitation manifested itself clearly during the early 1950s, when Israel failed to respond favourably to China’s friendly overtures and thus missed an opportunity to establish diplomatic relations with it. Numerous critics argued that Israel had missed a rare opportunity, one which did not present itself again until the early 1990s. Another example, though less familiar to the student of Israel’s foreign relations, was the failure to establish diplomatic relations with Spain. Here too the Israeli government missed an opportunity to respond to Spain’s friendly overtures during the early 1950s. Israel’s rejection of General Francisco Franco’s friendly overtures ran counter to its general foreign-policy Western orientation.2 In this case, Israeli foreign policy-makers faced a moral rather than a practical dilemma: how was it possible to befriend a country whose leader had collaborated with Adolf Hitler during the Nazi era? The pragmatists among the foreign policy-makers favoured diplomatic relations with Spain on the grounds that Israel needed friendly ties with any country willing to offer them, and pointed out that Spain’s strategic location was a factor which no government Jacob Abadi is Professor of History at the US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs.

ISRAELI-SPANISH RAPPROCHEMENT 173

could afford to ignore. Moreover, they argued that keeping distance from Spain could only benefit the Arab states. Nevertheless, the arguments in favour of rapprochement with Spain fell on deaf ears in Jerusalem, and the Arab states managed to take full advantage of Israel’s omission. It was not until the demise of Franco’s regime in 1975 that the two counties became receptive to the idea of diplomatic ties. Rebuffed by the Israelis, the Spanish regime began courting the Arab states, with which it maintained cordial relations and began to champion the Palestinian cause. Little wonder therefore that when the Middle East peace process began to gain momentum by the early 1990s, the Arab leaders agreed that Madrid, more than any other European capital, was the proper place to hold a face-to-face meeting with their Israeli enemy. This essay argues that, despite its pragmatic tendencies, Israeli foreign policy was often determined by factors that had little to do with raison d’état and that sensitivity to world public opinion played an important role in it.3 In addition, the essay attempts to demonstrate that although Spain had good reasons to reduce its support to the Arabs, these were not formidable enough to cause a major reassessment of its Middle Eastern policy. Consequently Israeli-Spanish relations remained unfriendly, and the process of normalization was delayed until 1986. THE EARLY YEARS Spain had practically no Middle Eastern policy to speak of prior to the Second World War. With the exception of the Spanish Sahara and the small enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta on the western part of the Mediterranean basin, Muslim North Africa was of little interest to the Spanish government. Nor did the Eastern Mediterranean loom large in Spanish foreign policy. However, this attitude began to change shortly before the Second World War, when Franco’s chief propagandist, Juan Beigbeder, was instructed to speak about the vital role which Spain played as ‘the bridge between the western and eastern civilizations.’4 Franco hoped that his country’s association with the Muslim states would keep it free from the Soviet threat and from what he regarded as ‘Godless’ communism. Franco’s conservative outlook and fear of communism had a lasting effect on Spain’s Middle Eastern policy in that it kept the ties with the Arab states remarkably strong, and thus delayed the Spanish-Israeli rapprochement. Of course, Israeli foreign policy-makers were no less responsible for this outcome, and it was not until the mid-1970s that Israel began to invest efforts in an attempt to gain Spain’s friendship. In August 1976 Arab League officials in Madrid reported a strong Israeli pressure to establish diplomatic relations with Spain, and boasted that the efforts of their diplomats to dissuade Spain from adopting closer relations with Israel were so successful that Israel’s attempts remained utterly futile. These sources attributed Israel’s failure to two principal factors: the great impact made by the visit of the Egyptian prime minister to Spain immediately following Franco’s death, and the strong position taken by the Arab states, which warned Spain that


the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel would be seen by their leaders an as attempt to alienate them from Spain.5 Though somewhat exaggerated, such claims were true and throughout the entire period from the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 to 1986 Spain did not recognize Israel. Although Israel’s relations with Portugal fared better during that period, Israeli diplomacy had limited success there as well. Portugal maintained consular relations with Israel, but hesitated to elevate them to the embassy level. And while Lisbon welcomed the Israeli ambassador, it refrained from sending its own envoy to Israel.6 Following the Second World War Spain seemed totally isolated. Its antiWestern sentiments intensified when the US excluded it from a share in Tangier’s administration. Spain was also excluded from both NATO and the United Nations. Moreover, Franco’s aversion to communism ruled out any ties with the Soviet Union or its satellites in Eastern Europe. Relations with China were ruled out for the same reason. This left Spain virtually isolated in a world which still associated Franco with Hitler and Mussolini. Rejected by the Western democracies and reluctant to mend fences with the communist bloc, the Franco regime resorted to seeking friendly ties with the countries of Latin America, with which it shared a common cultural heritage. In addition, the Franco regime looked at the Arab world as a potential area for winning allies. Particularly attractive were the conservative monarchies, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia, whose aversion to atheist communism was highly appreciated in Madrid. Spain’s efforts to be accepted by the family of nations encountered many obstacles in the UN. Under these circumstances, it was imperative to secure the support of the numerous Arab states. Spain’s relations with the Arab world became closer during the 1940s and early 1950s. Already at the end of 1946 Franco granted recognition to the Arab League and sought its support in UN resolutions. In 1948 Franco established close relations with Lebanon, which bestowed upon him the Lebanon’s Order of Merit. The Lebanese charge d’affaires praised Franco for his initiative, and stated that Spain was the potential friend of all Arab states. The Egyptian government responded in a similar manner. However, officials in Cairo deemed it necessary to pressure the Spanish government to alter its policy in the Moroccan Protectorate. Therefore Arab League General-Secretary Azzam Pasha explicitly told Spain’s consul in Egypt, Alonso Caro del Arroyo, that Spain could count on Arab support in the UN but this would depend on adjustments in Spain’s policy in the Moroccan Protectorate.7 The ties with the Arab states expanded further after Spain’s refusal to recognize the newly born state of Israel. Spanish-Arab ties became even more cordial when Jewish leaders and rabbis throughout the world declared that Franco’s Second World War alliance with Hitler had caused substantial harm to European Jewry and thus portrayed him as Hitler’s collaborator. But what finally distanced Spain from Israel was the latter’s vote for the retention of the UN’s boycott of Spain in 1949. The Arab states sought to exploit this move to the fullest. Egyptian diplomats told their Spanish counterparts that both sides could


benefit from cordial relations. The Spanish regime responded to Arab overtures with alacrity. In February 1949 Spain and Egypt raised their envoys to the ambassadorial level. Jordan’s King Hussein was the first head of state to visit Spain since the early 1950s. In an effort to keep Spain and Israel apart, the Arab states began responding to Franco’s immediate political and economic needs. In 1950, when the UN debated the resolution to remove the sanctions imposed on Spain in 1946, they voted in favour. Encouraged by this friendly attitude, Franco expanded his country ties with the Arab states in every way possible. Sensitive to pan-Arab sentiments and the inflammatory impact that they might have on events in the Moroccan Protectorate, Franco began moderating his policies in the area. Indeed, what eased Spain’s acceptance in the Arab world was the fact that the policy pursued by Lt-General Garcia Valino in the Morocco Protectorate was far more lenient in comparison with that of France in its North African colonial possessions. Spanish-Moroccan relations improved significantly after Morocco pressed for Spain’s readmission into the administration of the international zone of Tangier in 1952.8 At the same time, Spanish-Israeli relations continued to be tense due to Israel’s vote against a proposal by Latin American countries, led by Peru, to remove the ban on Spain’s admission to the UN. Since all democratic socialist countries led by Australia, Norway, Belgium and Britain still regarded Franco’s regime as fascist, Israel’s ambassador to the UN felt obliged to join them in a vote of solidarity. Commenting on this difficult decision, Israel’s UN Ambassador Abba Eban writes: Nothing could have been more absurd than for Israel to show less concern than did other countries with the tremendous memories of the Hitler epoch. It was not logical for Israelis in later years to regret, as they did, a vote in which their representatives had no element of choice. We relented about Spain a few years later and voted for her admission to the UN.9 The most powerful party in the coalition government at the time was Mapai under Ben-Gurion’s leadership. Its socialist ideology, and Ben-Gurion’s sense of messianic mission which found expression in his objective to transform Israel into a ‘light unto the nations’, stood in sharp contrast to the arguments presented by the pragmatists in the cabinet and foreign ministry. The latter believed that Israel’s predicament as a country surrounded by hostile Arab states made it imperative to establish friendly relations with any country willing to offer such relations. They called on the government to ignore Spain’s fascist past. As it turned out, such appeals fell on deaf ears and the pragmatists lost the battle. In his study on Israel’s foreign policy system Michael Brecher concluded that ‘the values of nineteenth-century socialist idealism…were also instrumental in Israel’s rejection of diplomatic ties with Spain’s Fascist regime.’10 Aware of the damage that his vote had on the bilateral relations, Eban explained that Israel’s attitude to Spain was determined solely by the memory of the Holocaust.


Attempting to minimize the destructive impact of Israel’s negative vote on the bilateral relationship, he used the most tactful argument he could. His statement to in the UN on 16 May 1949, though lengthy, is worth quoting: While the Israel delegation would not for one moment assert that the Spanish regime had had any direct part in the policy of extermination, it did assert that Franco Spain had been an active and sympathetic ally of the regime which had been responsible for that policy, and thus contributed to its effectiveness… For Israel the essential point was the association of the Franco regime with the nazi-fascist alliance which had corroded the moral foundations of civilized life and inflicted upon the human race its most terrible and devastating ordeal. The Franco regime, which had accepted, welcomed and supported the prospect of nazi supremacy in Europe and indeed throughout the world, was the only survivor of that coalition. Had that supremacy been established, not only would the State of Israel not have existed and the Jewish people and their ancient civilization have vanished from the earth, but the United Nations itself would not have come into being, and democracy throughout the world would have gone down in irrevocable ruin. There were, therefore, the most compelling reasons, both universal and particular, why Israel was bound in all conscience and responsibility to vote against the draft resolution.11 A similar speech was delivered by Israeli delegate Eliashiv Ben-Horin on 31 October 1950. Israel joined Guatemala, Mexico, Uruguay and Yugoslavia in arguing that the December 1946 resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly was due to Spain’s active support for the Axis powers.12 Israeli foreign ministry officials did not fail to anticipate the detrimental results of Israel’s refusal on the future of the bilateral relationship. Franco was offended by the fact that Israel, which had just been admitted to the UN, voted against the resolution. Although Eban made it clear that the decision did not reflect Israel’s disapproval of Spain’s undemocratic regime, but was merely a consequence of Spain’s collaboration with Germany, Franco took offence, believing that his country should have been commended for its efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust. When the UN took another vote in this matter on 31 October 1950, Israel voted once more against revoking the UN recommendation, but this time there were fewer countries that did so and Spain was able to join the UN.13 Israel’s vote had a serious impact on the bilateral relations, and it would be a long time before Spain agreed to the establishment of diplomatic ties. The Spanish grudge against Israel lasted longer than anyone expected. As Eban’s biographer remarked, ‘Eban was aware that for years Spain might use this against Israel, which is what happened, even though Spain found excuses for forgiving the other forty states that voted likewise.’14 For good reasons, the Spanish government found it convenient to keep its distance from Israel. Spain’s heavy dependence on Arab oil and the advantage of having many Arab votes in the UN were factors that the Franco regime could


hardly overlook. Franco believed that friendship with the Arabs could secure his country handsome dividends in the future. As part of his campaign to enhance Spain’s value to the US, Franco sought to establish cordial relations with the Arab world. Franco’s ‘bridge-to-Islam’ policy was first announced by Foreign Minister Alberto Martin Artajo on 12 December 950. In April 1952, while Spain was in the midst of negotiations with Washington over bases, Artajo made a tour of six Middle Eastern countries, praising their sense of justice and their defence of Spain and stating that his visit opened a new era of friendship between Spain and the Arab world.15 The foreign minister also offered to mediate between Egypt and Britain and advocated the inclusion of the Arab League in the Western defence system. By way of underscoring his support for the Arab states, he refrained from visiting Israel. However, despite all these efforts, Spain’s diplomacy did not earn it handsome dividends. Not only did it further alienate Israel, but the Arab response was lukewarm. The Arab states made it clear that Spain could not hope to benefit from their friendship merely by hostility to Israel. In his meetings with Spanish officials the Secretary-General of the Arab League stated unequivocally that Spain’s attitude to the Arab world would ultimately be judged by its attitude to Morocco. Other Arab officials joined the chorus and made it clear that they were dismayed that Spain did not make any concessions to the nationalists in Spanish Morocco.16 As it turned out, the coolness in Spanish-Arab relations did not lead to improved relations with Israel. Madrid’s anti-Israeli rhetoric decreased, but no significant improvement in the bilateral relations took place. In a memorandum to Israel’s Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, the Director of the Latin American Department, Abraham Darom, said that he concurred with the opinion of many Israeli foreign ministry officials that the time had come for Israel to review its relations with Spain and to explore the possibilities of establishing normal relations with it, and recommended that preliminary steps in that direction be taken immediately. His reasons were as follows: • Spain had gradually been accepted by many countries and thus joined the family of nations. • Maintaining a distance from Spain no longer made any sense since Israel had already changed its attitude towards countries such as Japan, Austria and Germany. • Israel’s strategic interests made it absolutely imperative to maintain normal relations with all Mediterranean countries, particularly in view of the formation of a hostile Arab-Muslim bloc along the southern and most of the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. • Despite Spain’s collaboration with the Nazi regime, Israel should not forget that it had provided a safe haven for Jewish refugees during the war. Besides, Israeli public opinion had already come to terms with Spain. • Diplomatic relations with Spain would facilitate the establishment of stronger ties with Portugal.


• Rapprochement with Spain would help to promote commercial relations between the two countries. Similar recommendations were made by Elie Eliashar, the President of the Council of the Sephardi (Spanish) Community in Jerusalem, who both in the Knesset and in a letter to Sharett argued that Spain had saved many Jews during the Holocaust. Moreover, he argued that the Franco regime was no worse than those of Peron, Stalin or Tito, with which Israel had already established formal relations. Nevertheless, these attempts did not bear fruit. In a letter dated 23 March 1949 the foreign ministry informed Eliashar that diplomatic relations with Spain were out of the question. By the time the foreign ministry had changed its mind in 1953, it was too late.17 In order to understand Israel’s stance at that juncture, it is useful to rely on James Rosenau’s analysis. Rosenau defined foreign-policy behaviour by the actor’s relative attentiveness to internal and external environments, identifying four categories of such behaviour: (a) Intransigent: When a belief system leads the actor to achieve the national objective with disregard for the demands of the external environment; (b) Preservative: When the actor chooses to take into consideration both the domestic and the external pressures of the environment in order to minimize the conflict with the external forces; (c) Acquiescent: When the actor sacrifices the national objectives and responds only to external factors in order to avoid conflict; (d) Promotive: When the actor chooses to be unresponsive to both internal and external changes. According to the analysis provided by Basheer Meibar, only the first three were applied at one time or another in Israel.18 Mapai’s response to Franco’s friendly overture can clearly be characterized as intransigent. However, this was not merely a consequence of Mapai’s strict adherence to its socialist ideology but also a result of pragmatic considerations. Once Mapai began to apply its socialist ideology in the nascent state with remarkable success, it became increasingly clear that a decision to embark on an initiative aimed at improving relations with a former fascist state was in sharp contrast to its vision and the egalitarian socialist ideology. Moreover, the fear that the Herut right-wing opposition party and its leader, Menachem Begin, might exploit the matter dissuaded Mapai from extending its hand to the Franco regime.19 Begin had many supporters among the Sephardi Jews, whom Mapai did not wish to alienate. In addition, the memory of the Holocaust was alive in the minds of Israelis of European origin, many of whom were enthusiastic supporters of Mapai. For many of these survivors, Franco’s collaboration with the Nazi regime could not be dismissed as a mere raison d’état matter. Understandably, Sharett’s reaction to this memorandum was that the time was not appropriate for such a step. He wrote: It is clear to me that in the final analysis we will have to take a step towards Spain. However, in my assessment such a step at this moment is


premature. Public opinion in Israel and among world Jewry would not be amenable to such a step and even in the international arena it would not bring us benefit. The determining factor regarding Spain is that Franco’s regime was a loyal ally of Nazism and Fascism, i.e. it hoped for their victory and saw its future in a world-regime that was based, inter alia, on the graves of the Jewish people and drenched with its blood. The comparison with Italy, Austria and Japan is inappropriate here, because new regimes were established in these countries, and they turned their back, at least according to their official announcements, and some in reality, on the malignant tradition of the previous regimes. Not so Spain, in which the previous regime remained without any change of character or domestic attitude. There the continuity came to an end, but here it still exists. In any event, I do not see that the combination of the current circumstances, both domestic and foreign, lends itself to a change of attitude toward Spain.20 Sharett never forgot Spain’s negative attitude towards the Jewish effort to achieve statehood.21 Yet, despite the support of many Israelis for the government’s position, Sharett’s decision came under heavy criticism from the pragmatists among the Israeli officials for many years to come. In the view of Walter Eytan, one of Israel’s top diplomats in the early years of statehood: If we could deal with Germany, which had killed six million Jews, how could we refuse to deal with Franco’s Spain, which though Fascist, saved many Jews. The anti-Franco feeling [which was responsible for Israel’s rejection of Madrid’s overtures in 1949 for diplomatic relations] would have faded anyway. But our decision on German reparations made it easier to accept the idea of relations with Franco Spain. Then it was too late— Spain was no longer interested.22 Writing about this issue, Chaim Herzog argued that in addition to considerations of raison d’état, the formulation of Israel’s foreign policy had often involved matters such as morality and sensitivity to world opinion: A related flaw in the Israeli government’s mentality is a tendency to ignore Israel’s basic interests in favour of appeasing various elements, so we can look good in the eyes of the world. Thus, in 1952, when Spain indicated its willingness to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, Moshe Sharett, Ben-Gurion’s foreign minister, turned down the approach. I was quite critical of the decision, pointing out that we could not be guided either by events of five hundred years before—the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the Inquisition—or by the nature of the current government. If we were prepared to establish relations (as in fact we did) with the Soviet Union under Stalin, and would have been prepared to do so with the Arab


countries, with their complete absence of human rights, then the fascist nature of the dictatorship in Spain did not warrant our failure to establish relations with a country sharing the Mediterranean and of greater geopolitical importance to Israel.23 When the Suez crisis erupted in 1956, Spain began to pursue a clear pro-Arab policy, siding with Egypt while criticizing Britain and France and deploring Israel’s very existence. However, not all was well in Spanish-Arab relations. In addition to the Spanish occupation of Morocco, these relations were marred by the sudden change in Spain’s policy during the crisis. Initially, the Spanish press went to the extent of denouncing the collusion between Israel and the West against Egypt. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, French Prime Minister Guy Mollet and Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion were all condemned as war criminals. However, in the long run, maintaining such a hostile posture towards the West was not in Spain’s interest. The need to seek greater acceptance and recognition in Europe and the US intensified in view of the regime’s anticommunist ideology. Eventually, pressure by the US administration as well as by the Spanish army forced Franco to restrain anti-Western and anti-Israeli expressions, thus leading to a period of coolness in Spain’s relations with the Arabs.24 Moreover, when the spectre of Soviet penetration of the Middle East loomed larger during the Suez War of October 1956, Madrid shifted its policy to neutralism.25 However, this volte face in Spain’s Middle Eastern policy did not translate into better relations with Israel. The memory of Israel’s negative vote was still fresh in Franco’s mind. Besides, the Arab states were determined not to let their relations with Spain deteriorate. And since Israel was not ready or willing to embark on an initiative aimed at normalizing relations with Spain, the status quo in the bilateral relations remained basically unchanged. By the mid-1950s French-Israeli relations had improved to such an extent that a rapprochement with Spain was not feasible if it ran counter to French interests. Israel’s increasing reliance on French military assistance had dissuaded BenGurion from improving relations with Spain. Aware of the fact that Israel’s socialist nature and its reluctance to seek the friendship of totalitarian regimes was precisely what attracted the French, he decided to keep Franco at arm’s length.26 The Israelis were further dissuaded from improving relations with Franco by the frequent press reports regarding the existence of anti-Semitic sentiments in Spain. Nor did Spain’s pro-Arab policy, as manifested, inter alia, in UN votes, endear it to many Israelis.27 Spain’s decision on 1 April 1958 to cede Cape Juby in Spanish Sahara to Morocco in an attempt to reach a final settlement failed to resolve the issue, yet temporarily reduced the tension in Spanish-Arab relations and thus prevented rapprochement between Spain and Israel. Moreover, sporadic anti-Jewish campaigns in Spain kept Israel at a distance. Although there was no persecution of Jews in Spain at that time, the regime’s tendency to blame the Jews for the country’s ills left the Israelis resentful. Franco found the Spanish Jews a


convenient scapegoat whenever his regime was under assault. Thus, for example, on 25 and 26 March 1961 the Amnesty Conference of Western Europe, which met in Paris, demanded that all political prisoners and exiles be granted amnesty and released immediately from Spanish prisons. Spanish intellectuals and the liberal press joined the attack on Franco. In response, the Francoist press unleashed a ferocious campaign against the Jews, whom it blamed for initiating the critical campaign. Commenting on the findings of the Amnesty Conference, the Falangist journal Arriba wrote: The signatories of the appeal in favour of the release of the Spanish prisoners are a set of gentry, some of whom call themselves French but who have very odd biographies. Madame Elsa Triolet, born in Russia, a Jewess and a member of the Communist Party: Gombault and Pierre Lazareff, both Jewish journalists. Alongside such members of the Jewish and Communist teams… Father Riquet the first priest in more than a century and a half to have given a lecture in a freemasons’ lodge.28 Such accusations against Jews, while the Israeli public was preoccupied with the trial of the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, did little to turn Spain into an attractive candidate for diplomatic relations. Yet despite the absence of diplomatic relations, the two countries maintained a large measure of cooperation in various fields. But the tension did not ease because the Israelis were often active in Spain in matters unrelated to bilateral relations. In July 1961, for example, the Spanish police arrested several Mossad agents who had crossed the border from France in an attempt to catch Leon Degrelle, a former Nazi criminal from Belgium. While two members of the team, Zvi Aldouby and Jacques Finston, were tortured and sentenced to seven years in prison, the third, Yigal Mossensohn, was released. Mossensohn was a well-known Israeli writer and a former captain in the police force. He had been recruited for the operation and was under the impression that he was participating in an official government mission. After being detained by the Spanish police, he was immediately released due to a personal appeal by Ben-Gurion, who called Franco in person and urged him: ‘Don’t touch Mossensohn. Release him.’29 Despite the lack of progress in the political sphere, the contacts between the two states continued in many areas. In the summer of 1961 Spain sent representatives to participate in a conference of engineers held at the Technion in Haifa. The Barcelona Academy of Literature recognized the Israeli writer Natan Bistritzky for his Hebrew translation of the Spanish masterpiece Don Quixote.30 And before the year was over a radio-telephone service was opened between the two countries. However, bilateral trade remained modest. According to Israeli statistics, in 1960 Israel’s exports amounted to no more than $528,000 and imports to $90,000. The figures for 1961 were $147,000 and $178,000 respectively.31


During the 1960s Spain became increasingly disillusioned with its relations with the Arab world. This was due largely the fact that its efforts for acceptance by Western countries were only partially successful. And when the major Arab states, Egypt and Syria in particular, began turning to the Soviet Union for support and inspiration, Spain was even more disillusioned. Nevertheless, Franco was unwilling to turn his back on his Arab friends and he remained convinced that the Muslim societies of the Middle East were highly valuable due to their religious conservative character and hostility to communism. At the same time, the absence of any diplomatic initiative on Israel’s part kept the two countries at a distance and did not provide Franco with good reason to alienate the Arab states. In his eyes, Israel remained allied with the Western countries, which still refused to accept Spain as an equal member. Moreover, Arab unwillingness to ostracize Spain, despite what they regarded as its intransigence in Morocco, prevented Franco from severing his ties with them. Undoubtedly, the Arab states’ benign attitude towards Franco was politically motivated. They were well aware that alienating Franco might benefit Israel in the long run. Indeed, an Israeli foreign ministry official had noted in February 1966 that despite Madrid’s growing interest in promoting economic and cultural ties, the Spanish foreign ministry was not receptive to a meaningful diplomatic dialogue with Israel.32 Nevertheless, Spanish officials were by no means unanimous regarding this issue.33 Commenting on his government’s view of the Arabs, Manuel Sassot Canada told an Israeli official: ‘We are no longer impressed by their ability and their influence in the world in general and in Africa in particular.’ He revealed that influential figures in the Spanish government were actually in favour of full diplomatic relations with Israel. ‘We are the losers, not Israel,’ he concluded.34 Nevertheless, the Spanish government remained reluctant to upgrade bilateral relations. Foreign Ministry officials explained to their Israeli counterparts that their government could not afford to ignore Arab influence in the UN.35 Prior to the Six-Day War of 1967 US President Linden Johnson suggested sending a task force through the Strait of Tiran in order to test Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s intentions. Fearful that Nasser might interpret this operation as an anti-Egyptian measure, Spain joined Italy in refusing to take part in it.36 Yet at the same time, Madrid did not wish to antagonize Israel and agreed to mediate between the Jewish state and Syria prior to the outbreak of hostilities.37 Moreover, it allowed the US to use Spanish air bases in order to send arms and equipment to Israel.38 When, following the war, Jewish officials urged Spain and other countries to use their influence in the Arab world to ease the conditions of the Jewish communities there, the Spanish government not only responded positively but also agreed to extend consular protection to the Jews in Egypt.39 Yet even co-operation on such a level did not prevent Spain from further consolidating its relations with the Arab states. In order to win Arab good will, Franco found it necessary to appear as an enthusiastic champion of the Palestinian cause. Accordingly, in May 1968 Spain joined Saudi Arabia and Sudan in proposing a resolution calling for the right of the Palestinian refugees to


return to their homeland.40 And while Spain made efforts to appear as an honest broker in the Arab-Israeli conflict, its statements remained clearly pro-Arab.41 Commercial dealings with the Arab states increased too. A Spanish delegation representing the major newspapers visited Saudi Arabia at the beginning of 1969.42 In the same month Spain agreed to supply Syria with the equipment necessary to exploit the salt mines at the Tibni district.43 What made it possible for Spain to further improve its image in Arab eyes was an additional concession, which Franco was ready to make to Morocco, by ceding Sidi Ifni in the hope that King Hassan II would not claim further territory in Spanish Sahara. All along, the Arab states continued to pressure the Franco regime to adopt a more solid pro-Arab policy. He complied and statements in favour of the Arabs and the Palestinian cause were issued by the day. By the end of the 1960s a sense of pessimism prevailed in Israel regarding the future of bilateral relations. Foreign Ministry officials seemed to have lost hope of a rapprochement with Spain. Frustrated by the failure of all his diplomatic overtures, Foreign Minister Eban informed the Knesset on 7 May 1969 that ‘all efforts exerted by Israel to establish diplomatic relations with Spain have failed.’ Eban argued that Spain’s anti-Israel stance had intensified considerably after the Six-Day War, manifesting itself in a hostile voting pattern in all international forums.44 While the distance between Israel and Spain grew, Arab diplomats were meeting their Spanish counterparts with increasing frequency. SpanishArab relations had improved by the early 1970s to such an extent that when Foreign Minister Gregorio Lopez Bravo visited Egypt in January 1970, he promised his hosts that his country would not establish relations of any kind with Israel.45 When media reports speculated about the possibility of Spanish recognition of Israel, Bravo stated that ‘we have not recognized Israel and we shall not reconsider this policy unless the Arab states recognize Israel.’ At the same time, Spain did not go to the extremes of denying Israel’s right to exist. Bravo said explicitly that his statement was not meant to anger the Israelis and that ‘No one can deny Israel its right of existence and the Arabs themselves are convinced of this.’46 However, when confronted with the issue of Spain’s recognition of Israel, he felt compelled to deny Israel such recognition. In a speech to senior officers at the Spanish College for Advanced Defence Studies, Bravo explicitly said that due to its friendship with the Arabs, his country would continue not to recognize Israel. He admitted that ‘Spain was paying a high price with the present status—in information and the financial field for example.’ However, he argued that recognition ‘would bring with it unfavourable repercussions for the cause of peace in the Middle East’, and that the disadvantages of recognition ‘clearly outbalanced’ its possible gains. Like a master of tightrope-walking, Bravo avoided hostile comments against Israel while committing his country to a wide-ranging co-operation with the Arab states. However, the fear of alienating both officials in Washington and in the American Jewish community had a clear impact on the statements made by


Spanish officials. In each of his public statements Bravo extolled the virtues of Spanish-Arab relations, but was very careful to add that his country’s support for the Arabs did not mean animosity towards the Jews or Israel, and constantly mentioned the fact that his country had been acting on behalf of the Jews in Arab countries.47 While the Spanish government was keen to maintain good relations with the Arab states, there was a strong sense of solidarity with Israel among the Spanish socialists, whose representatives had occasion to meet Golda Meir, who later became Israel’s prime minister, at the meeting of the Socialist International in Vienna in 1972.48 By maintaining such an unwavering stance towards the Arab states, Franco gained great popularity among the Arab masses. Arab officials had often talked about the common heritage the Arabs shared with their Spanish brethren. For example, Libyan President Mu’amar Qaddafi went so far as to say that Spain was closer to the Arab world than any European state since Spanish blood was mixed with that of the Arabs.49 Qaddafi had his own reasons for enthusiastically promoting ties with Spain. Cordial relations with Spain fit well into his schemes aimed at a metamorphosis of the Middle Eastern order under his leadership. He regarded Spain as a useful base of operations against his perceived enemies and maintained connections with individual collaborators and saboteurs in that country. One of them, Jose Antonio Assiego, boasted that he had assisted the Libyan leader in his attempt to combat ‘international Zionism.’50 Similar expressions of solidarity with the Arab cause were uttered by prominent Spanish figures, both in the government and in public life, in conferences as well as in literary clubs. The famous Spanish dramatist Alphonso Passo praised Egypt for its ability to establish a society dominated by social ideals, despite the invasion of radical and capitalist ideas from Israel, urging the Spaniards to support Egypt’s cause since, as he put it, ‘We are Arabs by blood and culture.’51 At the same time, the Spanish pro-Arab campaign intensified at the UN. In September 1971 Spain supported a UN resolution calling on Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders, and in November 1974 it supported two resolutions declaring the independence and sovereignty of the Palestinians and providing the PLO with UN observer status.52 Spain’s support for the Arab cause was highly appreciated in Cairo. Commenting on the great value his government attached to its relations with Spain, Foreign Minister Mahmud Riad said: we attached special importance to Spain’s support of our position; it had strong relations with the US and special influence with the Latin American countries. I was received by General Franco. After I had explained the falsity of US allegations, General Franco became more convinced of the rightness of our positions, and he said that as a military man he could only command our efforts to strengthen our air defence system, because it was the duty of the Military Command to perform this task. It was impermissible to deny any country the right to safeguard the lives of its sons, and to defend its territory would never be considered a violation of a


ceasefire. This deep conviction by General Franco prompted Spain to lend more support to our stand in the UN.53 Notwithstanding its declarations of solidarity with the Arabs, Spain’s reluctance to come to terms with Israel was not as rigid as it seemed. Franco’s regime had often proved itself capable of being exceptionally pragmatic. Not only did it refrain from a direct clash with Israel, but Franco often co-operated with its leaders and thus laid the foundations for future rapprochement. Thus, for example, when asked by the Mossad to help transfer 76,000 North African Jews to Israel, senior Spanish officials co-operated in that mission despite the fact that Madrid did not formally recognize Israel.54 Spain’s attitude earned it the goodwill of many Israelis: ‘The Spanish did not ask for a penny and I have never delved too much into their motives’, recalled the former head of Mossad, Isar Harel: ‘But I thought all along they wanted to make a gesture to the Jewish people to make up for Spain’s close ties with Hitler and Mussolini during the war. Without the aid of the Spanish government this secret operation would have been impossible to carry out.’55 Spain’s desire to earn Washington’s goodwill by appearing as a dispassionate arbiter in the Arab-Israeli conflict forced its officials into a more conciliatory stance towards Israel. What drew Spain more closely to the Arab-Israeli conflict was the fact that both Arabs and Israelis used it as a battleground for their operations. The activities of both the Israeli secret services and Palestinian terrorists in its territory were a source of embarrassment for the Spanish government, making it increasingly difficult for it to appear as a dispassionate observer in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was in Spain that the Mossad recruited the former Nazi colonel Otto Skorzeny, who participated in the daring attempt to rescue Mussolini from the Italian partisans in September 1943, as a source of information about the German scientists, whose operation in Egypt was regarded as endangering Israel’s security.56 Madrid had turned into a recruiting ground for both the Mossad and the Palestinian radical organizations. Spain was one of the European countries in which the Palestinian Fatah organization established cells of university students trained to carry out terrorist actions against Israeli and Jewish targets throughout Europe.57 And it was there that the radical Palestinian faction headed by Abu Nidal assassinated the Israeli agent Baruch Cohen.58 The latter was known to have set up a network of Palestinian students, who provided him with information about the activities of the Palestinians in Spain. Abu Nidal’s group was engaged in such activities.59 When Palestinian terrorists killed the Jordanian diplomat Walid Jamal Balkiz and wounded Ibrahim Hamid from the Jordanian embassy in December 1983, the Spanish government was not only embarrassed but enraged as well. For quite some time officials in Madrid were exerting pressure on the European governments to admit Spain into the European Community and such terrorist operations tarnished the image of the Spanish government in the eyes of the European states, which for some time had been


hinting that Spain’s position in the Arab-Israeli conflict should be more evenhanded. Officials in Madrid responded by claiming that these incidents were provocations aimed at driving a wedge between Spain and the Arabs.60 In September 1985 two Israeli sailors were murdered in Barcelona, and in midJuly 1988 the Spanish police discovered the residence of Abdullah Hawari, a PLO activist who masterminded terrorist activities, and arrested two Palestinians. The Spanish government was outraged and expressed its dissatisfaction with the radical Palestinians. Particularly annoying in the eyes of the government was the collaboration between terrorist Palestinian groups and guerrilla fighters in Spain. Madrid was particularly dissatisfied with statements made by George Habash, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP-GC), a constituent organization of the PLO, who openly boasted that his group had ‘forged organic links with the revolutions of the world.’ These were not mere words. Among the numerous terrorist organizations trained by the PFLP-GC were members of the Basque ETA group.61 According to media reports, over 100 Basque guerrilla fighters received combat training in Palestinian camps in Beirut and Syria.62 Spain thus became a centre of operations for various terrorist groups, whose actions could not be controlled by the authorities. In July 1985 a bomb destroyed the Madrid office of British Airways. The Revolutionary Organization of Socialist Muslims in Beirut claimed responsibility. As it turned out, the activities of Palestinian terrorists had a salutary effect on Spain’s relations with Israel as they forced the Spanish government to cooperate with Israeli intelligence. This co-operation was essential if Spain was to avoid major catastrophes and embarrassing incidents. Thus, for example, Israeli intelligence sources informed their Spanish counterparts of an attempt by the PFLP-GC to bring down an Iberian Airways aircraft flying from Madrid to Tel Aviv on 29 October 1985. This co-operation helped prevent an explosion, and thus saved the lives of over 100 passengers.63 When Spain sought admission to the EEC, Eban took the opportunity to pressure its government to sign an agreement with Israel. In a meeting with Bravo he argued that all countries friendly with Israel would oppose Spain’s entry to the EEC unless there was a parallel agreement with Israel. According to Eban, the Spanish foreign minister was interested in giving publicity to that meeting in order to improve Spain’s image among the progressive and socialist movements in Europe.64 Israel had serious misgivings about Spain’s entry into the European Common Market. Like other Mediterranean countries, it feared losing vital commercial outlets as a result. Spain’s geographical proximity to the European markets, the low transportation costs, and the preferential tariffs from which it was about to benefit were all seen as detrimental to Israel, which was already suffering from the protectionist measures taken by the European countries. Politically, however, Spain’s entry into the Common Market had a positive effect on the bilateral relationship. In an address at the Wilson Center on 27 September 1985, Spain’s Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez said:


We aspire to reduce the level of conflict and tensions in the Mediterranean. We hope to cooperate toward a just and equitable solution to the Middle East crisis that takes into account the personality and national rights of the Palestinian people, and equally the right of all those in the region, including Israel, to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries.65 In an attempt to gain the goodwill of the Arab states, Spain pressed for a comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. When Bravo arrived in Cairo on February 1971 he asked Riad why Egypt was seeking a partial solution while telling Madrid it was seeking a comprehensive settlement with Israel on all Arab fronts. Riad explained that the specific steps taken by President Anwar Sadat were within the framework of a comprehensive settlement, and Sadat himself reassured Bravo that this was indeed his intention.66 So sensitive was the Franco regime to Arab reaction that when the US requested over-flight privileges during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, officials in Madrid found themselves in a serious dilemma. Friendship with the US required co-operation, but the fact that 90 per cent of Spain’s oil consumption came from Arab sources was a factor they could ill afford to ignore. Consequently, Spain asked the US not to launch spy flights from its bases in Spain, and its officials told the US military mission in Madrid that they earnestly hoped Washington would not request over-flight rights.67 In the end, only Portugal allowed the Americans to use its territory in the Azores for refuelling and a staging stop in the Atlantic.68 Egyptian Field Marshal Muhammad Abdel Ghani Gamasy, the celebrated hero of the Yom Kippur War, proudly recalled in his memoirs that Spain, along with Britain, Italy, Greece and Turkey, ‘refused to provide services such as landing rights, refuelling, and airspace rights to the US transport aircraft during their flight, which forced the Americans to take long and complicated flight routes to reach Israel.’69 BILATERAL RELATIONS UNDER THE POST-FRANCO REGIME It was largely due to the inertia of the foreign policy established by Franco that his successors did not make substantial changes in the country’s pro-Arab policy. However, there were compelling reasons for adhering to the established foreign policy. The outcome of the Yom Kippur War and the subsequent oil embargo imposed by OPEC demonstrated to the Spanish government how important it was to keep earning Arab good will.70 The small 11,000–strong Jewish community had little leverage on the government’s policy. Moreover, Spain’s continued conflict with Morocco underscored the importance of promoting ties with the Arab states. Officials in Madrid remained convinced that Arab friendship gave them a useful diplomatic lever against Morocco.71 In addition, Spain’s refusal to allow the US to use its bases to deliver arms


shipments to Israel earned it handsome dividends in the Arab states, and officials in Madrid seemed content with such a state of affairs. But since Israel’s refusal to mend fences with Spain was related to Franco’s collaboration with Hitler, it was inevitable that his death would usher in a new era of greater understanding between the two countries. Besides, Franco’s death occurred at a time when Israel’s image was tarnished as a result of its continued occupation of the territories captured in the 1967 war and the rising popularity of the PLO. Israel’s isolation in the international community increased considerably and a process of reassessment of policy towards Spain was underway. What helped to improve bilateral relations were the efforts made by the SpainIsrael Friendship Association. Established in 1982, the association’s main objective was to encourage understanding between the two countries. The first issue of its bulletin stated that its aim was ‘the mutual understanding of the peoples [in Spain and Israel], the development of cultural relations of all kinds and the identification of mutual affinities. [The Friendship Association]…will continue to seek the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel… Culture, greater knowledge of the two peoples, and the development of economic and commercial exchanges are also objectives we seek simultaneously.’72 The efforts made by the Israel Friendship Association’s officials were particularly effective and eventually made both governments more receptive to diplomatic relations. Aware that Franco’s death could encourage Israel to mend fences with Spain, the Arabs embarked on an intense diplomatic campaign aimed at preventing such a possibility. They threatened to cut off oil supplies and to cancel the impending $450 million loan to Spain. Faced with the spectre of losing Arab support, the Spanish government sought to reassure the Arabs that it would not alter its Middle Eastern policy. Declarations supportive of the Arab states and the Palestinian struggle for a homeland followed, and Prime Minister Adolfo Gonzalez Suarez arranged for the King to visit several Arab countries. In 1977 the PLO was allowed to open an information office in Madrid, and two years later the organization’s leader, Yasser Arafat, was cordially received in Spain. Nevertheless, these expressions of solidarity did not prevent the Spanish government from becoming receptive to better relations with Israel. Such rapprochement was one way to demonstrate Spain’s willingness to turn its back on its fascist past and to mend fences with the US. But despite the friendly gestures by the royal family towards Israel, in the form of formal visits to synagogues and meetings with Jewish leaders, there was much to be accomplished before any normalization could take place. Intense pressure resulted in the king’s visit to Egypt, where he promised not to lessen his support for the Arab cause and the Palestinians. The royal family’s visit to Saudi Arabia in the autumn of that year was designed to ward off criticism from Arab circles, and to confirm Spain’s commitment to maintaining close friendship with all Arab states. Saudi willingness to provide Spain with oil at a bargain price reassured many Arabs that Madrid was not about to change its Middle Eastern policy. Spain’s dire need for oil led King Juan Carlos to befriend King Fahd, who visited


Spain in 1984. The king’s main purpose was to guarantee the uninterrupted shipment of oil to Spain. The Spanish government repeatedly appealed to Saudi Arabia to increase its oil shipments, and by the end of the 1970s the Saudis were selling Spain 100,000 barrels a day at a special price. Nevertheless, by January 1980 Spanish oil reserves had reached an all-time low. Again, Juan Carlos was compelled to appeal to Fahd, who responded to Spain’s need with alacrity and agreed to add a further 50,000 barrels a day. In addition, Spain managed to obtain more crude oil from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. This dire need for oil led the Spanish monarch to appear as an enthusiastic supporter of the Palestinian cause, and it was only after Sadat’s decision to make peace with Israel that the road to Israeli-Spanish rapprochement was opened. From Israel’s point of view, cordial relations with Spain began to make sense even to those who had opposed rapprochement during the Franco era. The new regime’s commitment to democracy, closer ties with the West, and its quest for admission to the European Common Market were all signs that Spain was on the threshold of a new era. However, Spain was obliged to move cautiously on the road to rapprochement. Earning the goodwill of the Arabs was still essential and, since the Palestinian cause loomed so large in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Madrid had to wait for a meaningful dialogue between Israel and the PLO. Asked about his view on the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel, Suarez said that in principle he had no objection, but made it clear that his government had no intention of doing anything detrimental to its special relationship with the Arab states. He also said that his government was concerned about Israel’s continued occupation of Arab land and its refusal to recognize the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland. He expressed the hope that Israel would accelerate the peace process by adhering to the UN Security Council resolutions, and reiterated that neither his government nor his people held a grudge against Israel.73 There is little reason to doubt the sincerity of Suarez’s statement. Indeed, the king was interested in cordial relations with the Jewish state. After Egypt signed the Camp David agreement with Israel, he realized that moving towards cordial relations with Israel was not as risky as it had been earlier. He therefore encouraged his ministers to take steps in that direction. However, since the Arab states regarded the Palestinian issue as the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the king was concerned that by improving relations with Israel he might alienate the Arab world. He raised this issue with both King Hussein and King Fahd in late 1982, when they visited Madrid, and heard their strong objections to the SpanishIsraeli rapprochement. Following the king’s visit to Tunisia, local press reports claimed he had given assurances to the leaders of the Arab world that Spain would refrain from approaching Israel. However, by 1984 the king was under heavy criticism both in Israel and the US for his refusal to mend fences with Israel, being described as a recalcitrant leader determined to oppose his government’s desire for diplomatic relations. Anxious not to impair his country’s relations with the US and to prove his desire for normalization, the king urged


the government to establish diplomatic relations with Israel as soon as possible. As expected, the decision was not well received in the Arab world. When assailed by his pro-Arab critics the king said: As a personal friend of many Arab leaders I was able to intervene behind the scene. I told my Arab brothers: look, this is not a question of betraying friendship, still less of ignoring our fraternal bonds. You can ask a lot of me, but you can’t insist that a democratic state like Spain should not have diplomatic and commercial relations with other democratic states, including Israel. Reluctantly, the Arab states accepted the king’s explanation. Commenting on their reaction, he said: ‘they might not have reacted in the same way to explanations from a republican president.’74 By way of reducing Arab opposition to its rapprochement with Israel, the postFranco regime continued to act as a mediator in Arab-American relations. After Egypt severed its diplomatic relations with the US in 1967, Spain took care of American interests there.75 So sensitive was the Spanish regime to its ties with the Arab states that even the socialist regime which came to power in 1982 did not rush to improve relations with Israel. In the spring of 1983 Peres met Gonzalez, who told him that he favoured relations with Israel but stated that he was waiting to see Israel pursue a more moderate foreign policy.76 The Spanish government persisted in its efforts to maintain Arab friendship. Not only did it speak constantly in favour of the Palestinian cause, but it also co-operated with the Arabs in efforts to boycott Israel. In their analysis of the Arab boycott against Israel, Walter H.Nelson and Terence C.F.Prittie write: ‘Post-Franco Spain is in fact wooing the Arabs, and being bought up by them as well. A great deal of real estate has gone to oil-rich sheiks, and the Spanish Finance Ministry has been seeking credits of up to $3 billion from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Libya.’77 Nevertheless, officials in Madrid became increasingly aware of the need to change their attitude towards Israel. It was primarily the need to enhance Spanish ties with the US that led to increased co-operation with Israel. When called on by Washington to co-operate on matters of vital importance to the US, the Spanish government found it prudent to respond favourably. Thus, for example, in July 1986 Israeli agents delivered to Spain tons of US-made arms and spare parts. These arms were later delivered to Iran in order to obtain the release of the American hostages.78 Yet Spain was still reluctant to sever its relations even with the most radical of the Arab states. It was one of many countries to provide Iraq with arms during the Iran-Iraq War. Its companies were reported to have provided Saddam Hussein with helicopters, armoured vehicles, ammunition and bombs.79 The extent to which Spain managed to maintain an image of neutrality in the Arab world was clearly seen when the US sought a place to host the Arab-Israeli


peace negotiations. When Secretary of State James Baker asked Syrian President Hafez Assad on 15 October 1991 which city was acceptable for hosting a peace conference, Madrid seemed to him the best choice. On hearing Assad’s response, Baker wrote: ‘I knew we finally had a compromise—if the Spaniards could do it on such short notice—because Madrid was on the list of acceptable venues given to us by the Israelis.’80 In November 1993 the king and his wife arrived on a three-day visit to Israel and were received by Foreign Minister Peres. The king addressed the Knesset and the foreign ministers of both countries signed several economic and cultural agreements.81 The year 1992 marked the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Jews of Spain. The Spanish government extended an invitation to Israel’s president, Chaim Herzog, who visited Spain to commemorate the occasion. Accompanied by King Juan and Queen Sofia, Herzog visited the synagogue, where the ceremony of reconciliation took place. Herzog was impressed by the king, whom he found to be intelligent and sophisticated. He later remarked: ‘It was the first time a Spanish king had ever visited a synagogue. Queen Sofia had, however, been introduced to Judaism by a theologian who taught her about our religion.’82 Concerned about the reaction of the Arab states, the king made frequent statements reassuring them of Spain’s continued friendship. He visited King Hussein, whom he described as a ‘close friend.’ The fact that both were amateur radio operators helped cement the relationship. Above all, he endeavoured to improve his country’s ties with Morocco’s King Hassan II, whom he first visited in 1979 and again in 1986, when Hassan celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his reign. Hassan did not visit Spain until 1990, when he came to Madrid and thus paved the way for the conclusion of a bilateral treaty the following year. The bone of contention between the two countries had been Hassan’s claim to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. The Spanish king did his utmost to avoid antagonizing his Moroccan counterpart and continued to promote greater understanding with the Arab countries. In January 1989 he met Arafat in Madrid and intensified his mediation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, urging the Israelis to negotiate with the Palestinian leader. The king’s efforts culminated in hosting the Madrid peace conference in October 1991. CONCLUSION This essay has surveyed the course of Spanish-Israeli relations. Its main argument is that these relations constituted an anomaly in Israeli foreign policy, the main objective of which was to reach out to the US and the countries of Western Europe. Indeed, a thorough analysis of Israeli foreign-policy objectives reveals that the main efforts of the Israeli foreign ministry during the early years of the state’s existence were invested in Western countries. The result was that the development of Israel’s ties with the Asian states was delayed for many years. There is little wonder therefore that the most populous countries of Asia, such as


China and India, remained distant and many others were hostile to the Jewish state. As this essay has demonstrated, Israel rebuffed China’s overtures at about the same time as it rejected Spain’s. However, the Spanish case is unique in the history of Israel’s relations with the Western countries. Unlike its reaction to the Chinese overture, in which pragmatic considerations of raison d’état determined the course of the bilateral relationship, Spanish-Israeli relations were largely determined by emotional considerations. In addition, Mapai’s socialist ideology excluded friendship with a country whose leader was still associated with Nazi Germany. But even here, domestic political considerations played a significant role. The fear that right-wing parties in Israel might censure the Labour coalition for its association with a former collaborator of the Nazi and fascist regimes was so formidable that it dissuaded the government from making any attempt at rapprochement with Spain. Yet, despite the absence of diplomatic relations, both countries maintained commercial and cultural relations all along. Even in the political sphere, Spain’s policy towards Israel was never entirely hostile. Throughout the entire period between 1948 and 1986 the Spanish government not only managed to maintain some degree of co-operation with Israel but also expanded its contacts with the Arab world. With the exception of a few episodes of tension in Spanish-Arab relations, the ties remained strong. Pragmatic considerations prevailed in Madrid and the Spanish regime felt compelled to maintain cordial relations with the Arab states, particularly in view of its dire need for cheap oil. However, there were other imperatives that pushed Spanish foreign policy in a different direction and made the Spanish-Israeli rapprochement necessary. Attempting to turn its back on its fascist past, Madrid sought admission into the family of Western nations, and there was a need to mend fences with the US. Rapprochement between Spain and Israel was seen as a way to win the influential and powerful Jewish lobby in Washington. With Franco’s demise, Israel no longer saw a need to persist in its refusal to mend fences with the Spanish regime. And once the Middle East peace process got under way, it released the Spanish government from the need to tread so carefully with the Arab states. There was no longer any reason to fear Egypt’s reaction following the Camp David accords, and even the radical Arab states reacted mildly to the Spanish-Israeli rapprochement. There were no threats to cut Spain’s oil supplies or to raise oil prices. And when the Palestinian issue began to loom large in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Spanish government wisely showed sympathy towards the Palestinians, while keeping a low profile in its contacts with Israel. The bilateral relationship continued to improve when countries such as Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia began mending fences with Israel and the momentum increased even further with the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian autonomy accord.


NOTES 1. David Ben-Gurion, Army and Security, Tel Aviv, 1955, pp.350, 358 (Hebrew). 2. The notion that Israel was destined to be a Western state guarding Western values and associating itself with Europe was ingrained in the minds of the founding fathers of the Zionist movement. For example, while the founder of modern political Zionism, Theodore Herzl, believed that in Palestine the Jews would be protecting Europe against non-Western ‘cultural barbarism’, while the leader of Labour Zionism, Chaim Weizmann, argued that the Jews were destined to come to Palestine and introduce European civilization to it. The right-wing, Revisionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky wrote in a similar vein, quoting Max Nordau as saying that the Jews returned to their ancestral homeland ‘in order to push the moral frontiers of Europe.’ See Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State, Nazareth, 1978, p.28 (Hebrew); Meyer Weisgal, et al. (eds.) The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, Jerusalem, 1975, Vol.VII, No.33; Vladimir Jabotinsky, Ktavim, Vol.VII, Jerusalem, 1949, p.221 (Hebrew). 3. Ben-Gurion’s reaction to Spain’s friendly overture explains his approach to diplomacy. Shlomo Avineri has commented that despite the tough phrases attributed to Ben-Gurion, such as ‘What matters is not what the Gentiles say, but what the Jews do’, or ‘UNO-Shmuno’, he was actually extremely sensitive to world public opinion. According to Avineri, Ben-Gurion had a ‘unique blend of aggressive rhetoric and extremely cautious politics.’ See Shlomo Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State, New York, 1981, p.199. 4. Cited in Shanon Fleming, ‘North Africa and the Middle East’, in James Cortada (ed.), Spain in the Twentieth Century: Essays on Spanish Diplomacy, Westport, 1980, p.131. 5. Al-Abram (Cairo), 21 August 1976. 6. Gideon Rafael, Destination Peace: Three Decades of Israeli Foreign Policy, New York, 1981, pp.358–59. 7. Fleming, ‘North Africa’, p.133. 8. Stanley G.Payne, The Franco Regime 1936–1975, Madison, 1987, pp.426–27. 9. Abba Eban, Autobiography, New York, 1977, p.144. 10. Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel: Setting, Images, Process, New Haven, 1972, p.550. 11. Israel and the United Nations: Report of a Study Group Set Up by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, New York, 1956, pp.177–78. 12. Roger E.Sanders, Spain and the United Nations, New York, 1966, p.90. 13. George Hill, Franco: The Man and His Nation, New York, 1967, pp.407, 410. 14. Robert St. John, Eban, Garden City, 1972, p.222. 15. New York Times, 5, 9 and 28 April 1952. 16. Arthur P.Whitaker, Spain and the Defense of the West, New York, 1961, p.327. 17. Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel, p.153. 18. Basheer Meibar, Political Culture, Foreign Policy, and Conflict, Westport, 1982, pp.224– 25. 19. The aversion of the right in Israel for the Franco regime was clearly manifest during the pre-state period. Members of the militant Stern Group criticized Ben-


20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41.

Gurion for failing to enlist the support of the Spanish Republicans in order to overthrow fascist regimes everywhere. They were alluding not only to the British, who still held on to their mandate in Palestine, but also to the Franco regime. See Joseph Heller, LEHI: Ideology and Politics, 1940–1949, Vol.II, Jerusalem, 1989, pp.398–99 (Hebrew). Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel, Jerusalem, 1995, Vol.8 (1953), edited by Yemima Rosenthal, doc 27, p.51. Sharett recalled in his memoirs how Spain joined the Axis Powers in withdrawing from the Mandate Commission, whose aim was to revoke the White Paper of 1939, which imposed strict limits on the immigration and the sale of land to Jews. See his Making of Policy: The Diaries of Moshe Sharett, Vol.IV, Tel Aviv, 1974, p.320. Cited in Michael Brecher, Decisions in Israel’s Foreign Policy, New Haven, 1975, p.105. The parentheses are in the text. Chaim Herzog, Living History: A Memoir, New York, 1996, pp.122–23. Fleming, ‘North Africa’, pp.134–35. Whitaker, Spain, p.330. French Prime Minister Guy Mollet once explained why his government decided to act against Nasser during the Suez crisis: ‘It was the Spanish Republic threatened and then betrayed, that we compared to Israel. We socialists had suffered too much in 1936 for nonintervention. We would not but choose to prevent a tiny imperiled democracy from being crushed. This Israel whose annihilation by Nasser the experts had convinced us was certain and even at a precise date’ (cited in Jean Lacouture, Nasser: A Biography, New York, 1973, p.175). Iraq’s News Agency Bulletin, Baghdad, 28 December 1960. Cited in Max Gallo, Spain Under Franco: A History, New York, 1974, p.288. Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, Every Spy Is a Prince: The Complete History of Israel’s Intelligence Community, Boston, 1990, pp.119–20; Mossensohn’s interview with the authors, 6 December 1988. Jerusalem Post, 18 June 1961. Middle East Record, Vol.II (1961), Tel Aviv, 1961, p.316. Foreign Ministry to Consul General in Lisbon, Israel State Archives (hereafter ISA), 4052/2, 15 February 1066. The Count of Motrico was one of those Spanish officials who enthusiastically advocated diplomatic relations with Israel. He argued that if Spain’s relations with the Arab states were a natural consequence of common culture, then why not establish relations with Israel, the only Mediterranean state with Ladino culture, L’Observateur du Moyen-Orient et de L’Afrique, 11 March 1966, p.15. Almog to Foreign Ministry, ISA 4052/2, 9 March 1966. Eytan to Foreign Ministry, ISA 4052/2, 2 May 1966. Moshe Dayan, The Story of My Life, Jerusalem, 1976, p.394 (Hebrew). Alan Hart, Arafat: Terrorist or Peace Maker, London, 1984, p.223. The USS Liberty, fired upon by the Israelis during the Six-Day War, departed on 2 June 1967 from Rota in Spain to the eastern Mediterranean. See Edgar O’Balance, The Third Arab-Israeli War, Hamden, 1972, pp.266–67. Howard Sacher, Israel and Europe: An Appraisal in History, New York, 1999, p. 220. Middle East Record, Vol.IV, (1968), pp.H5–16._ New York Times, 24 June 1967 and 7 February 1968.


42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74.

Ukaz (Riyadh), 2 February 1969. Al-Thawra (Damascus), 12 February 1969. Knesset Proceedings (Hebrew), 7 May 1969. Al-Ahram, 20 January 1970. Jerba Chamieh (ed.), Record of the Arab World: Documents, Events, Political Opinions, Beirut, March 1970, p.2, 124. Record of the Arab World, February 1971, p.1,057. Pablo Castellano, Yo Si Me Acuerdo: Apuntes e Historias, Madrid, 1994, p.199. Al-Haqiqa (Tripoli), 6 May 1970. Jose Diaz Herrera e Isabel Duran, Los Secretos del Poder: Del Legado Franquista al Ocaso del Felipismo Inconfesables, Madrid, 1994, p.230. Al-Ahram, 20 January 1970. New York Times, 10 December 1970 and 23 November 1974. Mahmoud Riad, The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East, London, 1981, p.155. Aaron S.Klieman, Israel and the World After 40 Years, Washington, 1990, p.169. Cited in Ian Black and Benny Morris, Israel’s Secret Wars: A History of Israel’s Intelligence Services, New York, 1991, p.178; The Guardian, 29 September 1988. Black and Morris, Israel’s Secret Wars, p.198. David Kimche and Dan Bawly, The Sandstorm: The Arab-Israeli War of June 1967: Prelude and Aftermath, New York, 1968, p.18. The Guardian, 29 January 1973. Patrick Seale, Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire, New York, 1992, pp.156, 192._ Kameel B.Nasr, Arab and Israeli Terrorism: The Causes and Effects of Political Violence, London, 1997, p.146. Calire Sterling, The Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism, New York, 1981, p.122. Daily Telegraph, 1 December 1980. Raviv and Melman, Every Spy a Prince, p.426. Eban, Autobiography, p.482. Robert P.Clark and Michael H.Haltzel (eds.), Spain in the 1980s: The Democratic Transition and New International Role, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987, p.190. Riad, Quest for Peace, pp.193–94. Insight Team of the (London) Sunday Times, The Yom Kippur War, Garden City, 1974, pp.42, 44. Hoag Levin, Arab Reach: The Secret War Against Israel, Garden City, 1983, p.52. Muhammad Abdel Ghani Gamasy, The October War: Memoirs of Field Marshal El-Gamasy of Egypt, Cairo, 1989, p.275. As a result of the increase in the price of oil, Spain’s bill rose from 63.1 billion pesetas in 1972 to 341.6 billion in 1976, or from 14 per cent of total Spanish imports (by cost) to almost 30 per cent. This rise had a serious impact on Spain’s balance of payment, Fleming, ‘North Africa’, p.146. Ibid., p.145. Cited in Paloma Diaz-Mas, Sephardim: The Jews from Spain, Chicago, 1992, p.196 (the parentheses are in the original). Adolfo Gonzalez Suarez, ‘Interview with Yves Cuau and Andre Pautard’, L’Express (Paris), 27 June 1977, p.41. Cited in Charles Powell, Juan Carlos of Spain: Self-Made Monarch, London, 1996, p.201.


75. Ismail Fahmi, Negotiating for Peace in the Middle East, Baltimore, 1983, p.57. 76. Sachar, Israel and Europe, p.319. 77. Walter Henry Nelson and C.F.Prittie, The Economic War Against the Jews, New York, 1977, p.142. 78. Dilip Hiro, Lebanon: Fire and Embers, New York, 1992, p.125. 79. Miron Rezun, Saddam Hussein’s Gulf War: Ambivalent Stakes in the Middle East, Westport, 1992, pp.86–6. 80. James A.Baker with Thomas M.Defrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989–1992, New York, 1995, p.511. 81. Jerusalem Kol Israel Radio Broadcast in Hebrew, FBIS-NES-93–215, 9 November 1993. 82. Herzog, Living History, pp.343, 391.

The ‘Good-Natured Bastard’: Canada and the Middle East Refugee Question DAVID H.GOLDBERG and TILLY R.SHAMES

Contrary to the traditional realist theory of international relations, which defines global status and influence strictly in terms of hard attributes such as military force and economic power, other models of international relations theory tend to take a broader perspective. While not entirely discounting the role of force and wealth, these other models also consider the importance of soft attributes in determining a state’s international ranking and status.1 It is through the conscious cultivating of concepts like ‘human security’, ‘middle-powermanship’, ‘complex interdependence’ and ‘multilateralism’ that Canada has, since the end of the Second World War, been able to maintain its influence in specific sectors of global affairs despite limited military force and economic power.2 Nowhere is this fact better illustrated than with regard to Canada’s involvement in the Middle East refugee question. Though lacking the singular ability to effect fundamental change in the overall pattern of conflictual relations between Israelis and Arabs, Canada has nevertheless staked out a unique niche for itself in efforts to address the plight of Middle East refugees, both as a humanitarian problem affecting individual refugees and, increasingly, as a broader political problem involving entire communities of displaced persons. This essay tracks the historical roots of Canada’s involvement in the Middle East refugee problem from its inception, with particular emphasis on its role as gavel-holder for the Multilateral Working Group on Refugees. In addition, the essay assesses how it is that Canada can most effectively apply its limited hard and soft attributes of power and influence to the effort to facilitate a just and viable settlement of the refugee problem, both as an end in itself and as an integral part of a comprehensive regional agreement.

David H.Goldberg is Director of Research and Education for the CanadaIsrael Committee. Tilly Shames currently serves as Director of Israel Affairs for Hillel of Greater Toronto.


PRESENT AT CREATION Canada was all but destined to be involved in the Middle East refugee issue. It participated in both the deliberations of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) and the General Assembly debate over the proposed partitioning of the Palestine Mandate.3 As a country recognized for its liberal approach to international refugee questions, Canada gravitated naturally towards efforts to address the plight of the peoples displaced by the chaos and bloodshed that wracked Palestine between November 1947 and the spring of 1949. From the outset, Canada joined other international actors in defining the Middle East refugee question exclusively in terms of the estimated 650,000 Arabs who left Palestine from November 1947 onwards,4 ignoring the plight of the roughly equivalent number of Jews forced to flee from their homes and properties in Arab and Muslim countries around the time of Israel’s founding.5 Canada’s approach to the refugee problem was premised on two practical considerations. First, any steps to address the problem had to be multilateral and sanctioned by the United Nations. Second, resolution of the refugee problem was considered by Canada to be a necessary condition for the comprehensive settlement of the political and military disputes involving Israel and its Arab adversaries. However, until conditions were ripe for such a settlement, Canada would join other countries and non-governmental organizations in instituting practical means for ameliorating the immediate humanitarian conditions of the neediest of the refugees, especially those residing in camps in the Jordanianoccupied West Bank and the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip and in neighbouring Arab countries.6 The two practical considerations underlying Canada’s approach to the refugee issue were reflected in its support for United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (III), adopted on 11 December 1948. On the one hand, Resolution 194 addressed Canada’s interest in a multilateral approach to peacemaking in that it was clearly intended to provide a framework through which the UN could facilitate a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict in all its aspects, including the refugee question.7 On the other, given the universal opposition to Resolution 194 on the part of the Arabs, Canada recognized that a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict was not on the horizon and that in the interim practical steps would have to be taken by Canada and other international actors to alleviate the humanitarian suffering of the refugees. As a senior Canadian official put it at the time: ‘We would probably be prepared to support proposals based on the more realistic premise that a settlement of the refugee problem must precede a peace settlement.’8 Guided by such pragmatism, Canada became the fourth largest financial contributor to early efforts to address the refugee problem. Its initial contributions were made through the Canadian Red Cross, by arrangement with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and

CANADA AND THE REFUGEE QUESTION 199

through UN agencies established specifically to provide humanitarian relief to the Palestinian refugees.9 On 8 December 1949 Canada voted in favour of UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV), establishing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Indeed, UNRWA’s first director general, Howard Kennedy, was a Canadian. Canada’s initial contribution to UNRWA’s annual budget was $750,000, in return for which it was appointed to the committee responsible for securing financial commitments from UN member states for the agency. Despite the failure of many other countries to meet their commitments, throughout much of the 1950s and 1960s Canada maintained its level of annual contributions to UNRWA, normally between one-half and threequarters of a million dollars.10 In its public declarations regarding the refugee question, Canada articulated a position that sought to balance the interests and needs of all sides. For instance, in a May 1955 report to the House of Commons Standing Committee on External Affairs, Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester Bowles Pearson called on Israel to improve the overall situation ‘by making a constructive contribution to the refugee problem.’ Specifically, Pearson prevailed upon Israel’s ambassador to Canada to encourage his government to make ‘some token repatriation’, ‘even if… [Israel] found it more convenient to call it family reunion or something else.’11 Pearson also encouraged Israel to offer financial compensation to refugees not wishing to be repatriated, as stipulated in UNGA Resolution 194. At the same time, Pearson and other Canadian parliamentarians recognized that there were limits to what Israel could be expected to do on its own to address the refugee problem given continued Arab hostility —as poignantly reflected in the Arabs’ opposition to UNGA Resolution 194 and their rejection of Israel’s offer to repatriate 100,000 Palestinian refugees, made in the context of the 1949 Lausanne peace talks.12 Canadian parliamentarians also recognized the demographic threat that the mass repatriation of Palestinian refugees would pose to Israel’s character as a Jewish state. For instance, Pearson, addressing the House of Commons on 24 January 1956, declared that, while some compensation should be paid to the refugees by Israel for loss of land and home, ‘it is clear that so large a number cannot return to their former land… A limited amount of repatriation might be possible such as that which would be involved, for example, in the reuniting of families.’ ‘For the rest’, Pearson continued, ‘resettlement as an international operation, to which Israel among others would make a contribution, seems to be the only answer.’13 In support of the principle of resettlement, in December 1955 Canada’s Department of External Affairs announced a tentative decision to admit a limited number of Palestinian refugees, from Lebanon or Jordan, as immigrants to Canada.14 Pearson’s implied rejection of the Palestinian ‘right of return’ was reinforced by Alistair Stewart, a member of parliament from the social democratic Co-


operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) Party (precursor to today’s New Democratic Party). While expressing concern about the status of individual refugees, Stewart declared that expecting Israel to repatriate hundreds of thousands of them would be ‘asking more than any modern state would be prepared to accede to.’ Furthermore, Stewart criticized the Arab nations for using the Palestinian refugees as pawns in the political struggle to delegitimize Israel and for indoctrinating the refugees with hatred.15 This last point was seconded by Social Credit Member of Parliament A.B.Patterson, who, though favouring steps by Israel to repatriate a limited number of refugees on humanitarian grounds, argued that ‘I do not think it is too much to suggest that those who remain should now become the responsibility of the Arab countries.’16 Such early all-party criticism among Canadian parliamentarians of the ‘right of return’ is all the more remarkable given the concern expressed in some circles about a perceived tendency on the part of subsequent generations of Canadian officials to refer positively to UNGA Resolution 194 as according the Palestinians just such a ‘right.’17 Canada’s determination to stake out a balanced position on the Palestinian refugee problem was reflected in its response to the additional hardships that befell the refugees in the Gaza Strip as a result of the 1956 Sinai War. While expressing disappointment that Israel still had not offered adequate repatriation and compensation to the refugees, senior Canadian foreign-policy officer John Holmes criticized the neighbouring Arab countries for not supporting rehabilitation and resettlement projects.18 Following the Sinai War, Canada took practical steps to improve the conditions of refugees in the Gaza Strip.19 The most famous of these was the creation of ‘Canada Camp.’ Initially named for a base of Canadian military personnel participating in the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) deployed in the Sinai Peninsula between Israeli and Egyptian forces, Canada Camp—located in the Sinai bordering the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip—was transformed into a refugee camp housing Palestinians separated from their families in Gaza. As described by one analyst, ‘Canada Camp became a symbol of hardship where fathers and mothers were separated from their children by barbed wire called “the shouting fence.” In the afternoon, divided family members would gather at either side and shout back and forth, presenting new brides and relaying news of members who had died.’20 The relocation of Canada Camp to Gaza in the midto-late 1990s, a process sponsored jointly by Canada and Kuwait, was referred to by Canadian officials as indicative of the country’s unique practical contribution to the Palestinian refugee problem.21 Canada’s policy response to the refugee situation remained basically unchanged with the election of the Progressive Conservative government headed by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in June 1957. The new Secretary of State for External Affairs, Sidney Smith, voiced concern about the welfare of Palestinian refugees and committed an additional $500,000 to UNRWA for the fiscal year 1958. In January 1958 Parliament approved the allocation of an


additional $1 million worth of Canadian flour for the Gaza refugee camps, although former External Affairs Minister Lester Pearson, now leader of the opposition Liberal Party, wanted to know ‘how much repatriation and resettlement has taken place among the refugees during the past 12 months.’22 DEEPENING COMMITMENT, 1967–90 As with most other aspects of the Arab-Israeli relationship, the dynamics of the Middle East refugee question were fundamentally affected by the June 1967 SixDay War—the end result of which was a new flood of 220,000 displaced Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan. However, the majority of local Palestinians remained in the West Bank and Gaza, which during the war fell under Israeli military administration.23 The most significant development in Canada’s approach during this period was the increased tendency on the part of Canadian officials to view the refugee problem from a collective perspective. While Canada had always recognized the need to address the humanitarian needs of individual refugees, by the 1970s and early 1980s it was increasingly relating to the refugee issue as a Palestinian national problem requiring a political solution to be achieved through negotiations involving Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.24 This informal tendency became official Canadian practice in the aftermath of the massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Lebanese refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila by members of the Israel-backed Christian Phalange militia during the 1982 Lebanon War, a tragedy for which Canada held Israel largely responsible.25 However, this shift in perspective had limited practical implications for Canada’s involvement in the Middle East refugee question as long as efforts to resolve the protracted Arab-Israeli conflict remained stalemated. CANADA TAKES THE GAVEL The breakthrough in terms of Canada’s involvement in the refugee question came with the initiation of the multilateral phase of the process of negotiations that ensued from the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference of October 1991.26 At the follow-up conference in Moscow in December 1991, the Multilateral Refugee Working Group (RWG) was established (along with four other working groups dealing with arms control and regional security, economic development, water and environmental issues). The RWG was mandated to treat the refugee problem as a regional phenomenon; develop common points of reference for studying the issue; and recommend practical steps for mobilizing international resources towards improving the immediate circumstances of the most destitute of the refugees pending the completion of bilateral negotiations over their permanent disposition.27 Canada accepted responsibility for gavelling the RWG. According to many observers, Canada was accorded this honour primarily because of its reputation


for balance and non-partisanship in dealing with all sides of the Middle East conflict. Also important was Canada’s reputed sensitivity towards international refugee questions based on its own resettlement and absorption of waves of refugees and immigrants.28 From the outset, the Canadian gavel made a concerted effort to avoid counterproductive political disputes wherever possible, by insisting that all participants in the RWG scrupulously adhere to a business-like attitude and that decisions be based on consensus, and by promoting agendas that concentrated on practical matters such as devising an agreed formula for documenting the number of Palestinian refugees and their current status and needs.29 Despite such noble intentions, Canada soon found itself embroiled in heated disputes, mainly involving Israel and members of the Palestinian delegation. A dispute over Palestinian representation—specifically over Israel’s insistence that the Palestinians be represented by individuals not affiliated with the PLO or the Palestinian National Council (PNC), and as part of a joint delegation with representatives of Jordan—led Israel to decide not to participate in the first meeting of the RWG in Ottawa in May 1992. Another controversy over representation, this time about whether or not the head of the (now separate) Palestinian delegation was a sitting member of the PNC, caused Israel to temporarily withdraw its delegation from the second meeting of the RWG, also in Ottawa, in November 1992. A compromise over this latter dispute was facilitated by the Canadian gavel in intense all-night negotiations, leading the Israeli delegation to resume its participation in the November 1992 workshop. Sources close to the discussions at the time have suggested that the real purpose of the initial Ottawa sessions of the Refugee Working Group was to provide a ‘side door’ for dealing with central process and participation issues that were blocking the bilateral track of negotiations. Specifically, it was suggested that the compromise brokered by Canada at the November 1992 meeting—whereby the head of the Palestinian delegation agreed to resign from the Palestine National Council for the duration of the session —was part of a strategy designed to circumvent the Israeli embargo on direct contacts with PLO and PNC members.30 However, despite its contribution to creative methods for resolving complex representational disputes, serious difficulties involving the Canadian gavel soon arose. Central among these was the Israeli allegation of a pro-Palestinian bias on the part of senior Canadian officials.31 A former Israeli diplomat described one of the Canadian gavel-holders as ‘a good-natured bastard’—‘good-natured’ because of his determination to resolve procedural and substantive disputes while promoting a positive attitude among workshop participants, and ‘bastard’ because of the perceived tendency of members of the Canadian delegation to adopt core elements of the Palestinian narrative about the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem and the steps required to resolve it (for example, the demand that Israel accept both moral


responsibility for allegedly forcing Arab villagers to leave Palestine between 1947 and 1949, and the ‘right’ of Palestinian refugees to ‘return’ to their homes in pre-state Israel) while largely ignoring the Israeli counter-narrative. Even those Canadian diplomats who did not express overt sympathy for the Palestinian narrative were nevertheless perceived by their Israeli counterparts as more disposed towards the Palestinian and Arab perspective than Israel’s. One indicator of this alleged tendency was said to be Canada’s treatment of Arab countries hosting large Palestinian refugee populations. From the outset, two of these countries, Syria and Lebanon, refused to participate in the multilateral process until they deemed satisfactory progress had been made in the bilateral negotiations.32 Canada publicly expressed frustration over this boycott of the RWG, as well as over Lebanon’s refusal to extend basic rights to the refugees residing in the country or to consider their permanent settlement within the context of a comprehensive regional agreement.33 Despite these frustrations, senior Canadian diplomats acknowledge having made extraordinary efforts to accommodate the Syrians and Lebanese and represent their interests vis-à-vis the Refugee Working Group in absentia. For instance, the Canadian gavel agreed to remove all official references to the RWG from visits to refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon, preferring to refer to them as unofficial ‘study missions.’34 While the rationale for doing so was reportedly to secure direct access for the RWG to the refugees despite the Lebanese and Syrian boycotts, such extraordinary steps on Canada’s part were viewed by Israel as unwarranted concessions that only fed additional diplomatic recalcitrance on the part of Israel’s neighbours.35 BURNED IN EFFIGY Not only did extraordinary efforts to encourage Syrian and Lebanese cooperation go unrequited, but steps by the Canadian gavel to fulfil the Refugee Working Group’s mandate of implementing practical ideas for alleviating the suffering of Palestinian refugees elicited expressions of overt hostility towards Canada on the Palestinian ‘street.’ Take for example the reaction to the suggestion that Canada would be prepared to consider resettling Palestinian refugees within the context of a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Though perhaps generally sympathetic to repatriating Palestinian refugees in principle, Canada recognized from the outset that, in practical terms, a resolution of the refugee problem would require the permanent resettlement of a sizeable proportion of refugees in their countries of current residence or in third countries. However, this stance became problematic for Canada only when the prospects for a comprehensive IsraeliPalestinian settlement began to materialize. This was apparently the case by the winter and spring of 2000. In preliminary consultations in Stockholm to lay the groundwork for the July 2000 Camp David summit, an informal consensus reportedly emerged among Israeli and Palestinian


negotiators about a formula for resolving the refugee problem. The basic terms of reference for this consensus included the repatriation to Israel of a limited number of refugees based on humanitarian grounds and family reunification, the incorporation of additional refugees to the West Bank and Gaza based on the area’s absorptive capacity, the permanent resettlement of other refugees in the countries where they currently resided or in third countries, and the creation of an international fund to facilitate resettlement and compensate refugees for lost homes and properties.36 It was against the background of this (alleged) nascent consensus that Jean Chretien [???}, on the first official visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority areas by a Canadian prime minister in April 2000, reportedly discussed with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, the prospect of Canada absorbing Palestinian refugees (rumoured to be 15,000, primarily from Lebanon).37 This Canadian proposal, made only in general terms and conditional on the achievement of a ‘mutually acceptable deal’ involving Israel and the Palestinian Authority, was forgotten amidst the chaos resulting from the failure of the Camp David negotiations, a failure largely attributable, from an American and Israeli perspective, to Yasser Arafat’s rejection of any compromise on the refugee question.38 If initial consideration about Canada’s resettlement of refugees went largely unnoticed, such was not the case when the idea was formally re-introduced by Foreign Minister John Manley on the eve of a January 2001 visit to the region.39 While likely designed to complement and reinforce efforts by senior US diplomats to narrow Israeli-Palestinian differences at the January 2001 talks at Taba, Foreign Minister John Manley’s musings about the resettlement of refugees provoked a violent response on the part of some Palestinians, who feared that such talks would undermine international pressure on Israel to accede to the ‘right of return.’ Though probably unknown to all but a handful of Middle Easterners, Manley was burned in effigy in angry demonstrations in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza and in southern Lebanon.40 Publicly, Canadian officials downplayed the significance of the demonstrations, claiming they were ‘isolated incidents’ that did not threaten Canada’s relationship with the Palestinians or Ottawa’s ability to contribute to a settlement of the refugee problem. However, there was speculation that the foreign minister and his officials were privately concerned about how this unprecedented display of anti-Canadian sentiment would impact on Canada’s cherished status as an even-handed facilitator of Arab-Israeli peace.41 It is perhaps unfair to draw broad conclusions from this one unfortunate incident. Nevertheless, critics of Canadian Middle East policy argued that in its response to the refugee camp demonstrations, Canada might have made a significant contribution to the negotiating process. By reaffirming its support for resettlement, as one of several ‘options’ available to the refugees, and, by extension, denying support for the ‘right of return’ of refugees to Israel, it was


argued, Canada could have impressed upon the Palestinians the need for a more flexible and pragmatic approach to the refugee problem than the maximalist one projected by Arafat and the PA in the Camp David and Taba negotiations.42 As it is, Ottawa’s downplaying of the anti-Canadian demonstrations, critics charged, had the opposite effect of signalling to the Palestinians and their political leadership that Canada and other Western democracies could be intimidated from encouraging Palestinian moderation regarding the refugee problem and other final-status issues. ISSUES OF ACCOUNTABILITY Another way in which critics felt Canada might have made an important contribution to resolving the refugee question was by participating in an international campaign to reform, and demand greater accountability on the part of, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). When UNRWA was created in December 1949, with Canada’s active support and participation, the institution’s mandate was deliberately restricted to facilitating immediate humanitarian relief to the most destitute of Middle East refugees pending the conclusion of a comprehensive Arab-Israel peace settlement. However, more than five decades later no such settlement has been achieved. Sources close to the discussions suggest that in the initial meetings of the Multilateral Refugee Working Group Canada and others seriously explored the transferring of funds from UNRWA activities in the West Bank and Gaza to the PLO. Ironically, this proposal was rejected by both Israel and the PLO—by Israel because it opposed moves that would strengthen Arafat while reducing his international accountability, and by the PLO because it feared a reduction in the amount of international donations to the territories.43 Not only has UNRWA’s presence in the refugee camps not been reduced but, in the minds of many observers, it has become part of the problem rather than part of the solution to the refugee problem. Instead of helping Palestinian refugees end their dependence on foreign aid, it is argued, UNRWA has become little more than a glorified international welfare agency, as well as a source of employment for thousands of local Palestinians and, increasingly, an advocate for the Palestinian perspective.44 Evidence uncovered by the Israeli military (during ‘Operation Defensive Shield’ of spring 2002) revealed that many refugee camps, administered in whole or in part by UNRWA, had become major centres of terrorist activities against Israel.45 Israeli officials also charged that UNRWA-administered vehicles were being used to transport Palestinian terrorists and weapons through Israeli checkpoints, thereby placing some UNRWA personnel on the side of the militants.46 Was it really possible, international and Canadian critics increasingly asked, for UNRWA administrators to be oblivious about the terrorist activities occurring in their camps?47


As a founder of UNRWA and as a major contributor to the institution — Canada’s financial contribution to UNRWA’s regular operating budget is about $10–$12 million annually, with additional contributions of several more millions to periodic ‘emergency campaigns’48—Canada, it is argued, has a moral responsibility to ensure that UNRWA be held accountable for what happens in the refugee camps under its administration. Moreover, critics encourage Canada to use its influence to rally international support for significant reform of UNRWA, leading to the institution’s eventual termination, as a major step towards helping to lift the Palestinian refugees out of their institutionalized impoverishment and empowering the Palestinian people in general.49 A similar demand for accountability is also increasingly being applied to Canadian governmental institutions directly or indirectly responsible for funding efforts to assist Palestinian refugees. There are essentially two ways in which Canadian developmental assistance is transferred to refugee projects in the West Bank and Gaza. The first of these involves the direct transfer of funds between Canadian institutions and Palestinian non-governmental organizations or international NGOs working within the refugee community; Canada provides no developmental assistance directly to the Palestinian Authority.50 The institutions normally involved in the direct, bilateral allocation of developmental assistance are the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Canadian embassies in Israel and in the neighbouring Arab states hosting Palestinian refugee populations, which provide grants to agencies responsible for assisting the refugees under the ‘Canada Fund for Local Initiatives’ programme. Canada’s ‘Representative Office’ in Ramallah, jointly administered by CIDA and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, was initially established specifically for administering Canadian developmental assistance to refugee programmes in the PA areas. The direct allocation of developmental assistance constitutes a relatively small proportion of the overall Canadian support for the refugees. The bulk of Canadian funding is transferred on a multilateral basis, mostly through CIDAadministered contributions to UNRWA. Increasingly, concerns have been raised about the propriety of Canadian developmental assistance to the PA areas that is delivered through both bilateral and multilateral processes. On the one hand, as reported by Israeli investigative journalist David Bedein, in December 2000 the Palestinian Institute for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, a Palestinian NGO headed by the prominent activist Hanan Ashrawi, issued a 56– page brochure entitled Witness to History: The Plight and Promise of Palestinian Refugees. The brochure explicitly promoted the ‘right of return’ of Palestinian refugees and cited international legal support for this in UN General Assembly 194 (III). As Bedein puts it, that a Palestinian NGO would issue such a document is not surprising. ‘What is surprising’, he writes, ‘is that the brochure was funded by the Canadian government, through its Canadian Representative Office in


Ramallah.’51 Canadian support for the publication, at the rate of somewhere ‘between $1,000 and $10,000’ according to an unnamed Canadian official, was provided by the Ramallah Representative Office through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives.52 According to Bedein and other critics of CIDA activities in the PA areas, the difficulty associated with the Witness to History incident is that, by permitting its name to be associated with a publication that explicitly endorses the ‘right of return’, the Ramallah Representative Office was implying that it, and by extension the government of Canada that it represents, officially supported such a ‘right’, thereby compromising Canada’s status as a facilitator of a permanent settlement of the refugee question. As Bedein writes, by contributing in a major way to the publication and distribution of Witness to History, Canada ‘appears to have taken a partisan PLO position that will compromise any constructive role the country may play in solving the tempestuous refugee issue of the Middle East peace process.’53 Predictably, Canadian officials sought to downplay the Ramallah Office’s involvement in the contentious document. Interestingly enough, a senior Canadian official reportedly made no attempt to reduce concern that Canada’s representatives continue to misinterpret UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) as unconditionally supporting the ‘right of return’ of Palestinian refugees to Israel.54 Be that as it may, the controversy generated by public disclosure in the national media of the involvement of Canadian officials in the tendentious Palestinian publication prompted its immediate removal from the shelves of the Representative Office in Ramallah. However, the ramifications of this incident were not so easily dispensed with, and contributed to growing suspicion among many observers of Canada’s Middle East policy that the country’s bilateral and multilateral assistance to refugee programmes in the West Bank and Gaza was being used in ways inconsistent with Canadian values, including the resolution of complex international disputes through accommodation, respect for diverse viewpoints and pragmatism.55 Further fuelling such concerns were questions relating to Canada’s role in implementing the controversial new educational curriculum being used in UNRWA-administered schools in refugee camps throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. According to the New York-based Centre for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP), the new curriculum is only marginally better in its treatment of Israel than was the previous curriculum inherited from Jordan in the West Bank and Egypt in Gaza. As reported by CMIP, the new curriculum continues to defame and delegitimize Israel, thereby directly undermining the goal of peaceful reconciliation inherent in the mandates of UNRWA and other UN-sponsored agencies operating in the PA-controlled areas.56 Critics took little comfort from explanations by senior Canadian officials that Canada was not directly involved in the preparation of the controversial Palestinian textbooks, the publication of which was funded primarily by


members of the European Union. This explanation, it was pointed out, failed to take into account Canada’s considerable involvement in rehabilitating the overall infrastructure of the Palestinian educational system, including, by logical extension, the content of what is being taught in that system; it was also noted that, by funding the Palestinian school system, Canada was effectively subsidizing the production and dissemination of the controversial curriculum.57 Also disappointing to many observers is the Canadian government’s insistence that it cannot be held responsible for how CIDA contributions to UNRWA are used once the funds leave Canadian hands. Although such explanations are perhaps technically accurate, critics nevertheless contend that this does not alleviate Canada’s moral and fiduciary responsibility to ensure that development assistance in support of the Palestinian refugees, whether delivered through bilateral or multilateral mechanisms, is above reproach and is being used in ways consistent with Canadian values.58 CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS Through persistence, pragmatism and a commitment to the principles of balance, fairness and even-handedness, Canada has achieved a prominence in the Middle East refugee debate vastly disproportionate to its ranking in the traditional hierarchy of international power and influence. Canada’s influence over and commitment to the refugee question was reaffirmed by its continuing efforts to continue to fulfil the mandate of the Refugee Working Group and to deliver immediate humanitarian relief to the refugees, long after the RWG became dormant following the breakdown of the Oslo peace process and the initiation of widespread Palestinian violence in October 2000. In addition, Canada continued to be an important facilitator of informal ‘second track’ diplomacy involving Israelis and Palestinians and designed to maintain momentum vis-à-vis the refugee question pending the end to violence and the renewal of the diplomatic process. In order to continue its important contribution to the refugee question, Canada should institute the following adjustments to its Middle East policy: – Declare definitively and unambiguously its rejection of the Palestinian demand for the ‘right of return’ of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Canada’s primary responsibility with regard to the refugee debate should be to encourage all sides towards pragmatism and reasonable expectations. To this end, it should point out to the Palestinians that the ‘right of return’ is not only without basis in international law but is also impractical, inasmuch as even Israeli peace activists and ‘moderate’ Palestinians now acknowledge that the ‘right of return’ is an existential red line that the Jewish state cannot be expected to broach as it would undermine its very existence.59 Critics charge that by seemingly failing to express firm opposition to the ‘right of return’,


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Canada is fuelling false hopes on the part of the Palestinians, and thereby retarding progress towards the fulfilment of their national aspirations. Emphasize the concept of ‘options’ for Palestinian refugees, including, but not exclusively, limited repatriation to Israel on humanitarian grounds and family reunification. Canada should also help make refugees aware of other options available to them, including, as stipulated in the Camp David-Taba negotiations, the ‘right of return’ exclusively to an independent West BankGaza Palestinian state, permanent resettlement in their places of current residence and in third countries, including Canada, and the creation of an international fund to facilitate resettlement and to provide compensation for lost homes and properties. Encourage Arab host countries to resettle Palestinian refugees and accord them permanent residency (if not citizenship). Most observers, from all sides of the equation, now acknowledge that a viable resolution of the refugee question will have to involve the readiness of Arab countries hosting Palestinian refugee communities to permanently resettle them. This idea has always been rejected by these countries, which continue to insist that Israel alone must solve the refugee question by fully honouring the ‘right of return.’60 Canada, it is argued, would be making an important contribution to the resolution of the refugee question if it were to use its influence with Arab countries to affect a positive change in this attitude. While Canadian officials might emphasize the moral imperative that should impel Arab countries to help facilitate relief to their Palestinian brethren, it must also be prepared to use financial incentives to encourage the Arab countries to act on this moral imperative. For instance, Canada is being encouraged to explicitly or implicitly ‘link’ the advancement of Canadian development assistance to refugee-hosting countries such as Lebanon, to the readiness of those countries to permanently absorb refugees. Balance the need to ensure the security of all Canadians on the one hand, with Canada’s responsibility to do its part in resolving the Middle East refugee problem by resettling legitimate Palestinian refugees, on the other hand. Since the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 Canada has joined other Western democracies in tightening its immigration and refugee regulations in order to block the illegal entry of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. While such prudence is understandable, observers contend that Ottawa’s determination to protect its citizens should not obviate the possibility of absorbing a limited number of Palestinian refugees who pass the scrutiny of Canadian security and intelligence agencies, within the context of a permanent peace agreement. Recognize that the refugee question in the Middle East is not an exclusively ‘Palestinian’ one. While acknowledging the need to forthrightly address the tragic circumstances confronting Palestinians and the families of Palestinians displaced by decades of conflict in the Middle East, critics encourage Canada to also express real sensitivity about the claims of the estimated 650,000 Jews


who were forced from their homes and properties in Arab and Muslim lands around the time of Israel’s founding. It should be axiomatic that Canada’s credibility as a facilitator of a fair, equitable and permanent resolution of the Middle East refugee question can be enhanced only by its demonstrated determination to seriously address the interests of all regional refugee communities, Palestinian and Jewish alike. NOTES 1. Ken Booth and Steve Smith (eds.), International Relations Theory Today, Pennsylvania, 1995; R.J.Barry Jones, Peter M.Jones, Ken Dark and Joel Peters (eds.), Introduction to International Relations, Vancouver, 2001. 2. For theoretical explications, see Arthur Andrew, The Rise and Fall of a Middle Power: Canadian Diplomacy from King to Mulroney, Toronto, 1993; David B.Dewitt and John J. Kirton, Canada as a Principal Power: A Study in Foreign Policy and International Relations, Toronto, 1983; Tom Keating, Canada and World Order: The Multilateralist Tradition in Canadian Foreign Policy, Toronto, 1993. 3. David J.Bercuson, Canada and the Birth of Israel: A Study in Canadian Foreign Policy, Toronto, 1985; Anne Trowell Hillmer, ‘“Here I Am in the Middle”: Lester Pearson and the Origins of Canada’s Diplomatic Involvement in the Middle East’, in David Taras and David H.Goldberg (eds.), The Domestic Battleground: Canada and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Montreal, 1989, pp.125–43; Zachariah Kay, Canada and Palestine: The Politics of Non-Commitment, Jerusalem, 1978. 4. Zachariah Kay, The Diplomacy of Prudence: Canada and Israel, 1948–1958, Montreal and Kingston, 1996, p.24. 5. Ada Aharoni, The Forced Migration of Jews from Arab Countries, Haifa, June 2002; Donald Carr, ‘The Other Refugees: Jews who Fled Arab Countries Have Long Been Ignored’, Ottawa Citizen, 5 February 2001; Maurice M.Roumani, The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, Tel Aviv, 1983; Terence Prittie and Bernard Dineen, The Double Exodus: A Study of Arab and Jewish Refugees in the Middle East, London, undated. 6. Kay, The Diplomacy of Prudence, p.25. 7. Resolution 194 is wrongly interpreted by most Arabs and their supporters as according the Palestinian refugees the ‘right of return’ to their homes and properties in pre-state Israel. Nowhere is such a ‘right’ referred to in the text of Resolution 194, nor, for that matter, does a’right of return’ exist in international law. Rather, as the late respected liberal Israeli statesman Abba Eban explained (letter to the Jerusalem Post, 4 August 1989): ‘Entry into Israel is something that individuals or groups outside of Israel have a right to request and that Israel has a sovereign right to accept or reject.’ Moreover, Article 11 of the resolution is very explicit in setting as a precondition for repatriation the readiness of Palestinian returnees to ‘live at peace with their neighbours’—a situation that could not be taken for granted in December 1948, given the decisions of Arab UN member states to oppose Resolution 194 and to continue to prosecute war against Israel. On the legal aspects of the Palestinian claim of the ‘right of return’, see Ruth Lapidoth,


8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22. 23.

‘The Right of Return in International Law, with Special Reference to the Palestinian Refugees’, Israel Yearbook of Human Rights, Vol.16, 1986; and Lapidoth, ‘Legal Aspects of the Palestinian Refugee Question’, Jerusalem Letter/ Viewpoints, Jerusalem, September 2002. For competing perspectives, see Rashid Khalidi, ‘Observations on the Right of Return’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 21, No.2 (Winter 1992), pp.29–40; Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S.Migdal, Palestinians: The Making of a People, Cambridge, Mass., pp.127–56. Kay, The Diplomacy of Prudence, p.25. One of the most unique aspects of the Palestinian refugee problem is that, for a variety of political reasons, it was (and remains) the only international refugee problem to have a UN institution, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), established specifically for the purpose of caring for the Palestinian refugees. Responsibility for all other international refugee problems, historical and contemporary, has been mandated to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The implications of this distinction are not only symbolic but also substantive. See Howard Adelman, ‘Palestinian Refugees: Defining the Humanitarian Problem’, World Refugee Survey 1983. Kay, The Diplomacy of Prudence, p.25; ‘The Gaza Project.’ . Ambassador Michael Comay to Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 7 June 1955, as cited in Kay, The Diplomacy of Prudence, p.26. Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, Cambridge, 1987, pp. 275–85, 295. House of Commons debate, 24 January 1956, as cited in Kay, The Diplomacy of Prudence, p.26. ‘The Gaza Project’. Kay, The Diplomacy of Prudence, p.26. Ibid., p.26. Authors’ confidential interviews with senior Canadian officials. Kay, The Diplomacy of Prudence, p.27. E.L.M.Burns, Between Arab and Israeli, Toronto, 1962; J.L.Granatstein and David Bercuson, War and Peacekeeping: From South Africa to the Gulf-Canada’s Limited Wars, Toronto, 1991, pp.188–215; Sean M.Maloney, Canada and UN Peacekeeping: Cold War by Other Means, 1945–1970, St. Catharines, Ontario, 2002, chapter 4. David J.Abraham, ‘Canada Camp’, in Bernard Reich (ed.), An Historical Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1996, pp.100–01. A senior Canadian diplomat described the relocating of ‘Canada Camp’ from Sinai to Gaza as ‘the first time that a Palestinian refugee camp can be closed as a result of the return of all of its family members to Palestinian territory.’ See ‘Remarks by Andrew Robinson, Canadian Special Coordinator, Middle East Peace Process and Gavel’, Refugee Working Group on the Palestinian Refugee Issue in the Middle East Peace Process at the International Conference on Palestinian Refugees UNESCO, Paris, 26 and 27 April 2000. Kay, The Diplomacy of Prudence, p.28. For a detailed, first-hand account of Israel’s early strategy for dealing with what became known as the ‘1967 refugee problem’, written by Israel’s first military administrator in the West Bank, see Shlomo Gazit, The Carrot and the Stick: Israel’s Policy in Judea and Samaria, 1967–68, Washington, 1995, pp.45–8.


24. Paul C.Noble, ‘From Refugees to a People? Canada and the Palestinians 1967– 1973’, in Tareq Y.Ismael (ed.), Canada and the Arab World, Edmonton, 1985, pp. 85–106. For a detailed consideration of the factors contributing to the shift in Canada’s orientation towards the Palestinian refugee question, and of the overall evolution of Canada’s attitude towards the collective political interests of the Palestinians, see the Report on Canada’s Relations with the Countries of the Middle East and North Africa, prepared under the auspices of The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ottawa, June 1985. 25. On Canada’s reaction to the Lebanon War, see David Dewitt and John Kirton, ‘Foreign Policy Making towards the Middle East: Parliament, the Media, and the 1982 Lebanon War’, in David Taras and David H.Goldberg (eds.), The Domestic Battleground: Canada and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Montreal and Kingston, 1989, pp.167–85; Ronnie Miller, From Lebanon to the Intifada: The Jewish Lobby and Canadian Middle East Policy, Lanham, 1990. 26. The declared purpose of the second, multilateral track of negotiations was to complement and reinforce the efforts towards peacemaking being undertaken on the bilateral track involving direct talks involving the parties to the conflict. For a theoretical and empirical analysis, see Joel Peters, Building Bridges: The ArabIsraeli Multilateral Talks, London, 1994; Rex Brynen, ‘Much Ado About Nothing? The Refugee Working Group and the Perils of Multilateral Quasi-negotiation’, International Negotiations, Vol.2, No.2 (November 1997). 27. ‘Canada and the Middle East Process: The Refugee Working Group’, paper delivered by Ambassador Marc Perron to a conference sponsored by Medical Aid for Palestine, ‘Development and Nation-Building: Canadian Initiatives in the New Palestinian Context’, 8 February 1995; Rex Brynen and Jill Tansley, ‘The Refugee Working Group of the Multilateral Peace Negotiations’, Israel-Palestine Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture, Vol.2, No.4 (Autumn 1995), pp.53–8; Rex Brynen, ‘Much Ado About Nothing? The Refugee Working Group and the Perils of Multilateral Quasi-negotiation’; Howard Adelman, ‘Report of the Working Group on Refugees’, Conference on Promoting Regional Cooperation in the Middle East, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, La Jolla, California, June 1995. See also ‘Introduction to the Refugee Working Group’, posted on the website of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/peaceprocess/rwg-en.asp. 28. Remarks by Ambassador Andrew Robinson at a seminar sponsored by the Centre for Refugees Studies, York University, 12 February 1997. On the evolution of Canada’s post-1945 refugee and immigration policy, see David B.Dewitt and John J.Kirton, Canada as a Principal Power, chapter 7. 29. Brynen and Tansley, ‘The Refugee Working Group’. 30. Authors’ confidential interviews. 31. Authors’ confidential interviews with Israeli participants. 32. Brynen and Tansley, ‘The Refugee Working Group’. 33. Rex Brynen, ‘Imaging a Solution: Final Status Arrangements and Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.XXVI, No.2 (Winter 1997), p.56. As cited by Brynen (p.56), one of the Canadian gavel-holders, Andrew Robinson, noted that ‘there is much unhappiness in the international community about the treatment of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and in particular


34. 35. 36. 37.

38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45.

46. 47. 48.

49. 50.

51.

Lebanon’s non-application of international standards respecting human rights in so far as the situation of refugees is concerned.’ Remarks by Ambassador Andrew Robinson at a seminar sponsored by the Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, 12 February 1997. Authors’ confidential interviews with Israeli participants. On the Stockholm pre-negotiations, see Yossi Beilin, A Manual for a Wounded Dove, Tel Aviv, 2001 (Hebrew). See also Brynen, ‘Imagining a Solution’. Dana Harman, ‘Canada Offers to Take in 15,000 Refugees’, Jerusalem Post, 13 April 2000; Aileen McCabe and Mike Trickey, ‘Confusion over Refugees Caps Chretien visit’, Montreal Gazette, 13 April 2000. In a speech to the New York-based Israel Policy Forum on 7 January 2001, US President Bill Clinton acknowledged that a major source of stalemate at Camp David was Yasser Arafat’s insistence on the ‘right of return’ of refugees to Israel. For an alternate perspective, see Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, ‘Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors’, New York Review of Books, 9 August 2001, pp.59–65. ‘Palestinian Refugees Welcome Here’, Toronto Star (editorial), 11 January 2001; ‘Palestinian Pawns’, National Post (editorial), 15 January 2001. Sandro Contenta, ‘Refugees Search for a Future: Reaction Mixed to Canadian Plan for Palestinians’, Toronto Star, 19 January 2001. Authors’ confidential interviews with Canadian and Israeli officials. Ari Shavit, ‘The right of return at Taba’, Ha’aretz English Edition, 11 July 2002. Authors’ confidential interviews. Allison Kaplan Sommer, ‘UNRWA on Trial’, Reform Judaism, Vol.31, No.2 (Winter 2002), pp.39–42, 93; ‘Abolish UNRWA’, Jerusalem Post (editorial), 15 April 2002. Charles A.Radin, ‘UN Role in Palestinian Camps Criticized’, Boston Globe, 8 July 2002; Nicole Winfield, ‘UN Agency Accused of Being an Unwitting Partner in Terrorism’, National Post, 27 November 2002. Margot Dudkevitch, ‘UN Vehicles May Be Used to Smuggle Terrorists, IDF Says’, Jerusalem Post, 5 December 2002. ‘UNRWA’s Accountability’, Canada-Israel Committee communiqué, 19 December 2002. ‘Canada contributes additional $5 million toward poverty reduction in the West Bank and Gaza’, Press Release No.56, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 9 May 2001. ‘UNRWA’s accountability’. On Canada’s method of transferring developmental assistance, see ‘Programming for Results in Peacemaking’, Ottawa, CIDA 1998; ‘Canada’s Role in the Middle East Peace Process: “Building Peace in the Middle East”’, Canada Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade website: www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ peaceprocess/rwg-en.asp. On problems inherent in funding projects in the PA areas, see Rex Brynen, A Very Political Economy: Peacemaking and Foreign Aid in the West Bank and Gaza, Washington DC, 2000. Paul Lungen, ‘Canada Not Neutral in Mideast: Researcher’, Canadian Jewish News, 30 November 2000; David Bedein, ‘Canada’s Role in the “Right of Return”’, National Post, 23 March 2001.


52. ‘Canadian officials confirm their government financed “Right of Return” brochure’, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 25 March 2001; David Bedein, ‘Canada Stokes UN Conflict: Journalist’, Canadian Jewish News, 20 June 2002. 53. Bedein, ‘Canada’s Role in the “Right of Return”’. 54. ‘Canadian Officials Confirm Their Government Financed “Right of Return” brochure’. 55. Ron Csillag, ‘Your Taxes at Work’, Canadian Jewish News, 13 December 2001. 56. Reports prepared by the Centre for Monitoring the Impact of Peace regarding the Palestinian school curriculum and educational material are accessible at the organization’s website, www.edume.org/index.htm. For an official response to such reports, see UNRWA’s website, www.un.org/unrwa. 57. Paul Lungen, ‘CIC Says Canada Subsidizes Purchase of Anti-Israel Books’, Canadian Jewish News, 28 November 2002. 58. Stewart Bell, ‘Aid Officials Fear Money Going to Terrorists’, National Post, 29 January 2003. 59. Former Israeli government minister and prominent peace activist Yossi Beilin (‘What Really Happened at Taba’, Ha’aretz English Edition, 15 July 2002) has argued that ‘Agreement to a right of return by Palestinians to Israel means an end to the Zionist vision.’ Similar sentiments have been expressed by novelists Amos Oz and A.B.Yehoshua, both longstanding supporters of Israeli territorial concessions in negotiations with the Palestinians. See, for example, Oz’s ‘The specter of Saladin’, New York Times, 28 July 2000, and Yehoshua’s ‘Palestinians Themselves Morally Responsible’ (originally published in the Hebrew-language edition of Ha’aretz, and reprinted in English translation in Canadian Jewish News, 25 May 2000). Sari Nusseibeh, the PA’s official representative in Jerusalem, has publicly called for limiting the ‘right of return’ to areas of the West Bank and Gaza to come under permanent Palestinian control, and for exchanging this diminished ‘right of return’ for an Israeli evacuation of most Jewish settlements in the territories. See ‘Nusseibeh: Settlements for Right of Return’, Jerusalem Post, 14 Nov. 2001. 60. Rex Brynen, ‘Imaging a Solution’; Nicole Brackman, ‘Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon: A New Source of Cross-Border Tension?’, Peacewatch, No.263, 30 May 2000 (Washington Institute for Near East Policy); Simon Haddad, ‘The Palestinian Predicament in Lebanon’, Middle East Quarterly, Vol.7, No.3 (Sept. 2000); Abbas Shiblak, ‘Residency Status and Civil Rights of Palestinian Refugees in Arab Countries’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.XXV, No.3 (Spring 1996), pp.36–45; Nawaf Salam, ‘Between Repatriation and Resettlement: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.XXIV, No.1 (Autumn 1994), pp.18– 27; Rosemary Sayigh, ‘Palestinians in Lebanon: Harsh Present, Uncertain Future’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.XXV, No.1 (Autumn 1995), pp.37–53. The depth of the refusal of Arab host governments to take responsibility for resettling Palestinian refugees was reflected in Lebanese Prime Minister Emile Lahoud’s reported admission that his government had rejected an offer of $20 billion from international sources to permanently resettle the 350,000 Palestinian refugees already residing in Lebanon. See ‘Lebanon: We Refused $20 Billion’, Jerusalem Post, 15 August 2000.

ASIAN RELATIONSHIPS

The Republic of China and Israel, 1911– 2003 JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN

The relations and non-relations between the Republic of China (ROC), the founders of the modern state of Israel, and the state itself after its proclamation on 14 May 1948 can be broken down into five distinctive phases: • From 2 November 1917 to 8 June 1945, the ROC actively supported Zionism, the national-liberation movement created in the late nineteenth century with a view to re-establishing a Jewish homeland on the ancestral soil from which the Jews were exiled by the Romans in the first century AD. • From 9 June 1945 to the signing of the first Israeli-Arab armistice on the Isle of Rhodes on 23 February 1949, the ROC abstained on United Nations actions and votes leading to Israel’s creation and its admission into the world organization. • Between 24 February 1949 and 9 January 1950, a transitional period during which an independent Israel faced the dilemma of which of the two Chinas to recognize, the ROC recognized Israel, authorized the establishment of an honorary Israeli consulate in Shanghai, and voted for Israeli UN membership. Nevertheless on 9 January 1950 Israel chose to recognize the ROC’s rival, the Taiwan-based People’s Republic of China (PRC). • From 10 January 1950 to 23 January 1992, a ‘frozen period’, Israel was diplomatically isolated from both Chinas, especially after the Afro-Asian summit conferences in the Indonesian towns of Bogor and Bandung (1954–55). This, nevertheless, did not prevent Israel from engaging during this 42-year period in occasional flurries of arms sales to both Chinas. • Beginning 24 January 1992, there has been a period of normalization during which the PRC established full diplomatic relations with Israel and Israel has come to enjoy regularized interactions with the ROC. Like China’s interactions with the United States, Israeli-ROC ties are not official diplomatic relations but unofficial, non-governmental, commercial and other exchanges.1

CHINA AND ISRAEL, 1911–2003 217

THE ROC’S ACTIVE SUPPORT FOR ZIONISM, 2 NOVEMBER 1917–8 JUNE 1945 Zionists were active in China even before the Republican revolution of 1911, Jonathan Goldstein is a Research Associate of Harvard University’s John K.Fairbank Center for East Asian Research and a Professor of History at the State University of West Georgia, Carrollton, Georgia. A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION

During centuries of Sino-Western relations, several formal systems plus numerous arbitrary renditions have been used to convert Chinese words into Latin characters. In this essay I have been guided by Professor John Schrecker’s advice to let common American usage dictate which transliteration should prevail. He asks rhetorically: ‘Do we use Firenze rather than Florence?’ Chinese cities are therefore referred to as Beijing, Harbin, Nanjing, Taipei, Tsitsihar and Tianjin; regions and colonies as Hong Kong, Macao, Manchuria and Mukden; individuals as Chiang Kai-shek, Victor Hoo, Wellington Koo, Quo Tai-chi, Sun Fo, Sun Yat-sen, Tsiang Tingfu, Wu Techen and George K.C.Yeh; and institutions as the Kuomintang. I have retained Wade-Giles transliteration for Chinese words wherever I cite a published source that has used Wade-Giles or when I refer to any source published in the ROC. For most other Chinese names and terms, I have generally used the pinyin system of romanization, which is rapidly becoming universal. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank West Georgia’s Dean of Arts and Sciences Richard Miller for providing the release time which made the writing of this essay possible; West Georgia’s Learning Resources Committee for providing funding essential for this research; and Professor David Patterson of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, who offered repeated and invaluable encouragement. The following librarians assisted in locating many of the arcane materials necessary for this study: Myron House of West Georgia’s Ingram Library; Raymond Lum of the Harvard-Yenching Institute Library; and the entire staffs of the University of Southampton’s Hartley Library and of the Central Zionist Archives. Of the numerous individuals who provided editorial and research assistance with this project, the author is especially indebted to Dr. Moshe Yegar, Assistant Director-General of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs; E.Zev Sufott, Israel’s first ambassador to the People’s Republic of China and, as of 2003, the Executive Director of the Tel Aviv-based Council for the Promotion of Israel-China Relations; as well as Peter Berton, Ernest G.Heppner, Teddy Kaufman, Yaacov Liberman, Isador A.Magid and the late Boris Bresler.


mainly in the seaport cities of Shanghai and Tientsin (Tianjin) and in the Manchurian railroad cities, especially Harbin (Haerbin/Kharbin). In 1903 Nissim Elias Benjamin Ezra (1883–1936), a Baghdadi immigrant, founded the Shanghai Zionist Organization (SZA). The SZA adhered to the philosophy of mainstream Zionism as enunciated by Theodore Herzl (1860–1904) and promoted by the World Zionist Organization after its first congress in 1897. Under Ezra’s leadership the SZA and its newspaper Israel’s Messenger became the leading advocates of Zionism in China, at least until Ezra’s death in 1936.2 On 26 July 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Ezra expressed his hopes for Zionism in a letter to Zionist association headquarters in Berlin: The future of Jewry is safe in the hands of our worldwide movement. Indeed, it is the only ray of sunshine illuminating us in our dark exile. We shall next week be celebrating our ‘Black Fast,’ the day when the Jewish State had been overthrown [Tishah be-Av, commemorating the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple by the Romans in 70 AD]. The time is fast coming when we shall recover our own Jewish State and be proud of it once more.3 The first major international challenge facing Zionists in China was to secure ROC endorsement of Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917, in which ‘His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.’4 Chaim Weizmann (1874– 1952), a British Zionist leader and future Israeli president who was instrumental in the declaration’s issuance, deemed it critical that this document be endorsed by governments worldwide lest it be minimized in post-First World War arrangements for the territories of the defunct Ottoman Empire. To achieve this objective, the text of the Balfour Declaration had been submitted to US President Woodrow Wilson by American Zionist leaders and approved by him even before its public promulgation by Balfour. The declaration was publicly endorsed by the French and Italian governments in April 1920. The substance of the declaration was restated by US Presidents Harding and Coolidge and was approved by a joint resolution of the US Congress on 30 June 1922. No less important, the Balfour Declaration formed the basis of the mandate to administer Palestine, given to Britain in April 1920 by the San Remo Conference and reaffirmed two years later by the League of Nations.5 As part of this worldwide effort, the SZA utilized the good offices of local British and US officials to secure Chinese support. The SZA first approached George E.Morrison, a British political advisor to the ROC and former Beijing correspondent for the London Times. It is unclear, and extremely unlikely, that Morrison ever intervened as Ezra requested, as he was an outspoken anti-Semite for at least part of his career. However, US Minister to China Paul S.Reinsch and Judge Charles S.Lobinger of the extraterritorial US Court for China were able, in November 1918, to bring the SZA’s request before Chen Lu, the ROC’s Vice-


Minister for Foreign Affairs. Chen expressed ‘personal sympathy’ with the aspirations of the Jewish people for a national home, and wrote to SZA Chairman Elly S.Kadoorie on 14 December 1918: ‘I have the honour to inform you that the Chinese Government had adopted the same attitude toward the Zionist aspirations as the British Government.’6 In 1920 Kadoorie and Ezra were able to obtain a public endorsement of Zionism from ‘China’s George Washington’, Dr. Sun Yat-sen himself, who was then living in rue Molière in the French concession of Shanghai. Ezra persuaded the Chinese leader to send the following letter, dated 24 April 1920, for publication in Israel’s Messenger, endorsing the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine: Dear Mr. Ezra: I have read your letter and the copy of Israel’s Messenger with much interest, and wish to assure you of my sympathy for this movement, which is one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of Democracy cannot help but support…the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserve [sic] an honourable place in the family of nations. I am, Yours very truly, Sun Yat-sen7 The SZA was equally successful in obtaining endorsements for the Balfour Declaration from Japanese Foreign Minister Uchida Yasuya and Siamese Foreign Minister Devawongse.8 These lobbying efforts ultimately paid off. On 17 May 1922 ROC delegate Tang Tsai-fu supported Lord Balfour’s suggestion that the draft mandate for Palestine, including substantive portions of the Balfour Declaration, be placed on the agenda of the Council of the League of Nations. On 24 July 1922, by unanimous consent, the Council formally conferred the Palestine mandate on Britain. The Mandate Agreement included the Balfour Declaration almost verbatim as its second paragraph to the great satisfaction of Zionist leaders worldwide. With the inclusion of the Declaration, the Holy Land was placed in a distinct category, quite different from other Class A mandated territories such as Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. The agreement noted ‘the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine’ and the moral validity of ‘reconstituting their National Home in that country.’ It imposed on the British the obligation not simply to permit but to ‘secure’ the Jewish National Home, to ‘use their best efforts to facilitate’ Jewish immigration, and to encourage Jewish settlement on the land. Hebrew was recognized as an official language. A Jewish Agency, provisionally the Zionist Organization itself, was authorized to co-operate with the mandatory power ‘in the development of natural resources and in the operation of public


works and utilities.’9 Historian Howard Sachar concludes that ‘it was plain, then, from the beginning to the end [of the document] that the League award was framed to protect the Zionist redemptive effort.’10 The ROC had co-operated in that struggle. The next major interaction between the Zionist movement and the ROC occurred at the 30 April–8 June 1945 San Francisco founding conference of the UN, the successor organization to the League of Nations. The ROC, along with the US, the Soviet Union and Britain, was one of the original ‘Big Four’ powers which had established the UN. They were soon joined by France to create the ‘Big Five’ of the UN Security Council. The major worry for Zionist leaders at San Francisco was whether the British Mandate for Palestine, with its sympathetic view of Zionist aspirations, would be maintained by the League’s successor organization. They had special cause for concern as they viewed the British White Paper of 1939, which severely restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine, as a reversal of the political process set in motion by the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate. The five Arab UN members—Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria—were pressing for a scenario that had already received some support from both Britain and the US: that the UN assume trusteeship of Palestine. Such a manoeuvre, from the Zionist point of view, would be a step away from the transformation of Palestine into the Jewish homeland envisaged in the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate. Since the Jewish people, unlike the Arabs, had no recognized territory of its own and was not represented in the UN, the only way it could influence the vote on trusteeship was by lobbying individual delegations. Among the world Zionist leaders who converged on San Francisco to do this was Rabbi Dr. Stephen S.Wise (1874–1949), head of the American Jewish Congress. Along with Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856–1941) and Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965), Wise had helped formulate the Balfour Declaration and secure Woodrow Wilson’s endorsement. Also assembling in San Francisco were Zionist Organization of America President Rabbi Dr. Israel Goldstein, Canadian Jewish Congress officials Samuel Bronfman and Saul Hayes, and Eliahu Epstein (later Elath) of the Jewish Agency, the representative organization of the Jewish community of Palestine (Yishuv). According to Israel Goldstein, ‘we wished to make certain that Jewish rights in Palestine, as embodied in the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate, would not be jeopardized or diminished.’ More specifically, he and other Zionist leaders sought support for a safeguard clause to be incorporated into the as-yet-unwritten UN charter, stipulating that ‘nothing in this chapter [of the charter] should be construed in and of itself to alter in any manner the rights of any state or any peoples in any territory.’11 Adoption of such wording in Paragraph 5B of the charter would protect the existing rights of Palestinian Jews as promulgated in the Balfour Declaration and Palestine Mandate. While lines of communication were already in place between Zionist leaders and most non-Arab UN delegations, one seemingly insurmountable obstacle was


how to contact the ROC delegation. In his autobiography, Israel Goldstein describes how the initial breakthrough to the Chinese occurred: As I sat in my hotel room, racking my brains to find some way of obtaining an interview with General Wu of China’s delegation, I suddenly hit on a possible solution to our problem. While in Canada a year or two previously, I had met that picaresque character, Morris Abraham Cohen… His political connections with the Chinese community in Edmonton, Alberta, had enabled him to strike up a friendship with the exiled Sun Yatsen in 1908. Fourteen years later, when Sun became President of China, Cohen’s powerful physique made him an ideal bodyguard… After Sun’s death in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek, his successor, ensured that he would have [Cohen] as his confidant. For his services in helping to organize and train the army, this Jew was awarded the rank of general… Two years after his capture by the invading Japanese in 1941, he made his way back to Canada. It was at about that time that I encountered him in Montreal. As a result of my brainwave, I wired Cohen, urging him to fly out to San Francisco and assist us with an introduction to the inaccessible General Wu. He promptly obliged and mentioned the fact that Wu was a recent convert to Christianity… A few days later, Wu greeted us warmly and said, ‘You are my spiritual…brothers. There will be no true peace unless justice is done to the Jewish people.’ We [thereby] received…backing for our trusteeship formula at the conference.12 Other Chinese delegates were not, initially, as amenable to Zionist persuasion as General Wu. According to Eliahu Elath, despite Sun’s support for Zionism 25 years earlier, by 1945 ‘anything tending to strengthen the position and influence of Asian states in world affairs was welcomed by the Chinese. In the course of the [1945] conference the Arab states usually enjoyed the willing support of the Chinese delegation.’13 Morris Cohen saw Arab representatives ‘actively wooing’ the Chinese delegates. The Arabs stressed ‘Asian solidarity’, which, they claimed, ‘obliged’ China to oppose Zionism. The San Francisco meeting may well have been the first instance in which Zionist representatives were confronted by the political force subsequently known as ‘Afro-Asianism.’14 Cohen doubted whether a majority of the ROC delegation had ever heard of Zionism, arguing that their knowledge of Jews and Judaism was very sketchy. Fearing that ‘Arab propaganda can very well succeed if we do not take effective countermeasures’,15 he arranged a meeting for Bronfman and Wise with ROC delegate and Ambassador to Britain V.K. Wellington Koo (Ku Wei-chün or Gu Weijun). As ROC Delegate to the League of Nations between 1920 and 1922, Koo was familiar with the Palestine debate. Koo’s notes of the meeting are noncommittal, recording only that Wise urged ‘suitable provision’ to protect ‘the rights of the Jews in Palestine, so as to make it their National Home.’ To further


sway Koo, Cohen arranged another meeting on 22 May only between Koo and Elath. At that meeting, Koo told Elath of his discussions in Geneva with Chaim Weizmann and ‘expressed condolences on the disaster that has befallen our people in Europe’, adding that ‘the Chinese people, too, know the pain of persecution and discrimination based on race or nationality.’ Koo would reiterate his concern for Jewish refugees in future UN debates.16 Additionally, on 5 June Cohen introduced Elath to Hu Lin, the editor of the popular Chinese newspaper Dagong bao and a member of the ROC’s People’s Political Council. ‘[Hu] has nothing but respect for the capacity we have shown to overcome the many sufferings and obstacles in our path’, Elath reported, ‘particularly in renewing our national life in the land of our forefathers.’ Hu promised to print an article on Zionism in his paper and to visit Palestine.17 These lobbying efforts, orchestrated by the charismatic Morris Cohen, were critical to overcoming Arab opposition and winning over the Chinese. The ultimate support of the ROC and other key delegations kept Palestine a mandated territory. Article 80 of the UN Charter protected the rights of ‘any peoples’ within previously mandated lands, and has since been referred to informally at ‘the Palestine clause.’18 In summarizing the San Francisco effort, Canadian Jewish Congress official Saul Hayes concluded that ‘I am not suggesting that if we didn’t succeed there’d be no state of Israel. I am suggesting that it would have taken a great many years of hard slogging if it had ever gone into the trusteeship division.’19 In that sense, the support of the ROC was critical to the establishment of the Jewish state. ABSTENTIONS, 9 JUNE 1945–23 FEBRUARY 1949 The ROC played a somewhat different role in the UN debates of the late 1940s over whether to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states and thereby terminate the Palestine Mandate. As early as 1937 the Council of the League of Nations had discussed the partitioning of Palestine and the establishment of Jewish and Arab states there. By 1945 the League had liquidated other mandates inherited from the Ottoman Empire, leading to the creation of the Arab states of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. As the League-appointed custodian of the Palestine Mandate, Britain effectively divided that territory as early as 1922, and in March 1946 granted full independence to yet another Arab state, the Kingdom of Transjordan, located east of the Jordan River, yet was unable to find a satisfactory solution for the remnant of Palestine lying west of the Jordan River. On 24 February 1947 British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) announced his government’s intention to turn this territory over to the League’s successor organization, the UN, for final disposition. Zionist leaders were keenly aware of the fact that, at this moment, the ROC enjoyed senior status in the UN and was deeply engaged at almost every level of the organization. China was not only one of five permanent members of the


Security Council but had also been accorded the honour of being the first nation to sign the UN Charter in 1945. ROC officials were intimately involved in the disposition of Palestine and all other major UN issues. A national of each of the five permanent member states customarily held a senior position in the UN secretariat. On 2 April 1947 Britain formally requested ex-ROC Foreign Minister Victor Chitsai Hoo (Hu Shih-tseh or Hu Shih-che), who was by then Acting UN Secretary-General and Assistant UN Secretary-General in Charge of Trusteeship, to place ‘the question of Palestine’ on the agenda of the General Assembly. Britain further petitioned that ‘a special session of the General Assembly’ be convened for the purpose of ‘constituting and instructing a special committee…for the consideration [of] the future government of Palestine.’ Hoo granted Britain’s request. The session was held and on 15 May 1947 the UN dispatched to Palestine an investigative Special Committee (UNSCOP) in an attempt to resolve this difficult issue. Although the ROC was not a member of the committee, Hoo accompanied it to Jerusalem as personal representative of the UN Secretary-General.20 Even before UNSCOP’s final report was published on 31 August 1947, and could be submitted to the General Assembly, Zionists around the world began to lobby delegates as they had in 1917–22 and April 1945. By 1 September 1947 a host of preliminary UN investigative reports had solidified into a recommendation that the General Assembly partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. While the vote of every delegation was crucial in the General Assembly, most notably those of the large Latin American bloc, the vote of the ROC was significant because of its power as a Security Council member. Even if the partition plan passed, the ROC would be in a position to veto subsequent implementing resolutions on Palestine.21 In 1947 there was widespread belief within the Zionist movement that the ROC would no longer support Zionist aspirations. According to historian Dan Kurzman, ‘China’s sizable Moslem population demanded a pro-Arab stand’— sensitivities the ROC had not displayed in earlier deliberations on Palestine.22 While the Washington-based Jewish Agency emissary (and future Israeli Prime Minister and Foreign Minister) Moshe Sharett felt that China was an ‘enigma’, he sensed its importance and even foresaw its future rivalry with India, in which contest both Asian powers would woo Arab support. Sharett therefore urged that ‘special efforts be made to approach [China’s] delegation.’23 While it is unclear if any American Zionists lobbied ROC officials at this time, the indefatigable Morris Cohen, other energetic Canadians and at least one Jew still living in China itself all contacted ROC representatives.24 With respect to Canadian activity, in November 1947 Cohen’s brother-in-law Sydney Shulemson, a much-decorated Canadian Second World War air ace, was procuring arms and volunteers in Canada for the embryonic Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Shulemson learned that ROC Ambassador to Canada and ex-Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Liu Chieh would be part of China’s eight-man delegation to the UN, then meeting in Lake Success, New York. When Liu


announced that he intended to vote against the partition proposal, Shulemson sought the help of his well-connected brother-in-law. Shulemson and Cohen met Liu in the Chinese embassy in Ottawa. Cohen showed Liu a letter Sun Yat-sen had sent him many years earlier thanking him for his services and saying that China would never do anything to harm the Jewish people. On the strength of the letter and after some discussion, Liu reversed his position on the partition proposal. While it is clear that he said he would not vote against partition, there is contradictory evidence as to whether he said he would vote for partition or merely abstain.25 Simultaneously in China, Judith Ben-Eliezer (née Hasser), a stateless Russian resident of Shanghai, had taken up N.E.B.Ezra’s mantle and was, by 1947, among the most vocal Zionists there. Hasser was the founder of the Shanghai branch of the militant Zionist-Revisionists, the ideological forerunners of Israel’s Likud Party. She also edited the English-language edition of the Shanghai Revisionist biweekly Tegar (Challenge). Although Revisionism had its Chinese base in the northern city of Harbin, in 1945 the Soviet Red Army freed that metropolis from Japanese occupation and promptly declared all Jewish cultural, national and Zionist activities illegal. The Russians deported to Siberia several dozen leaders of the Harbin Jewish community, including Jewish hospital director and General Zionist leader Avraham Iosifovitch Kaufman. By 1947 the Soviets had transferred control of Harbin to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) People’s Liberation Army. In 1947 Zionism was therefore non-existent as a legal movement in Harbin. If any Zionist approach were to be made to the ROC government at its capital in Nanjing, such an initiative would have to come from Shanghai rather than Harbin.26 While Revisionists disagreed with General Zionists on the boundaries of the future Jewish state as well as on the tactics that should be used to achieve statehood, both factions were determined to do everything possible to forestall a negative UN vote on the partition plan. As early as 1946 the presidency of the Zionist Revisionist Party, then situated in Paris, instructed Hasser ‘to develop political contact with the Chinese government, especially with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.’ Hasser made a number of trips to Nanjing and presented several memoranda outlining the case for Jewish statehood to the then Deputy Foreign Minister (1947–49) George K.C.Yeh (Yeh Kung-ch’ao).27 By the summer of 1947 Hasser had won the support of ROC Vice-President and President of the Legislative Yuan Sun Fo (Sun Yat-sen’s son, also known as C.S.Sun). Sun Fo sent her the following letter: Republic of China National Government Legislative Yuan Nanking, 4th July 1947 Miss Judith Hasser


Chairman, Political Division, Executive UNITED ZIONIST-REVISIONISTS OF CHINA 20 Rte. [sic] Pichon SHANGHAI Dear Miss Hasser: In reply to your letter, I wish to state that the Zionist movement is championing a worthy cause. I am glad that the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s sympathy for, and support of, the movement have produced results. As a lover of democracy, I fully endorse my late father’s views. Assuring you of my wholehearted sympathy and wishing you success, I am, Very truly yours, Sun Fo28 On 30 August Hasser forwarded a copy of Sun Fo’s letter to the ROC’s UN delegation at Lake Success, and at some point in the autumn met in Nanjing with ROC UN delegate (and future Security Council President) Tsiang Tingfu (T.S.Tsiang).29 Clearly, Zionists of all persuasions would have been happiest had China voted in favour of the partition resolution. But on 29 November China was one of ten nations that abstained on the vote. Because 33 nations voted in favour and only 13 opposed, the resolution barely acquired the two-thirds majority necessary for its passage.30 Hasser concluded that ‘in the voting for the formation of some kind of Jewish state, China abstained because of our intervention. Originally China intended to…cast a negative vote… I had done all that could be done in the political field but, of course, put no confidence in this activity. Our fate and destiny in those critical times would be forged by the fight on the soil of Israel.’31 Hasser immediately shifted her activities from political contact with the ROC to the shipment of men and materiel from Shanghai to the embryonic Jewish state. She herself left Shanghai for Israel in November 1948.32 From the Chinese side, we have additional information as to why the abstaining vote was cast. Delegate Tsiang Tingfu told Hasser that he was wellinformed of the Zionist position. Tsiang had received a doctorate from New York’s Columbia University in 1923 and claimed that during his student days he had ‘been taught by Jewish professors’, whom he revered. More recently, in 1944, he had been China’s chief delegate to the UN’s Relief and Rehabilitation Conference and was familiar with refugee issues. Tsiang insisted that Jewry’s claim was ‘based on charity, and not on rights.’ In opposing partition, he asked: ‘How can you secure a haven for suffering Jewish masses when asking for a token state that can neither absorb your masses nor defend itself within its allotted territorial boundaries?’33


With such strongly held views on the part of Tsiang, the question remains as to why China abstained in the final balloting rather than casting a negative vote. David Horowitz, a Jewish Agency official who held negotiations with Tsiang in early 1948, asserts that China’s ‘abstention from the Nov. 29 vote had been carried out against [Tsiang’s] desires. If the Chinese Ambassador at Washington, Dr. Wellington Koo, had not intervened, there was no doubt that Chiang Kaishek’s Government would have said “No” in the crucial assembly balloting.’34 Koo, it should be recalled, had held a cordial meeting with Zionist leaders in 1945. The text of Koo’s 22 November 1947 speech to the UN General Assembly gives the following explanation of China’s abstention. He noted that while ‘no perfect solution acceptable to both parties could be found’, the Arab states should reconsider at least a modified version of the Partition proposal ‘because the peace of Palestine and the world would continue to be disturbed unless some solution were found.’35 When the Partition plan came up for actual vote one week later, delegate Liu Chieh reminded the General Assembly of what had been China’s consistent position for eight months. For some time, he argued, the Chinese delegation continued to hope…that the area of disagreement might be further reduced so as to make the plan, if not acceptable to both parties, at least less objectionable to both of them … No progress has been made in narrowing the gap…the yardstick in the measurement of any proposal must be the extent to which peace and tranquility in that part of the world may be assured by its adoption. As the present draft resolution stands, the Chinese Delegation finds it difficult to give it positive support and in accordance with the instructions of the Chinese Government, will abstain in the voting.36 The earlier arguments of Tsiang, Liu and Quo, plus Koo’s definitive 22 November statement, emphasized China’s desire for a peaceful resolution of Arab-Jewish differences and of the Jewish refugee problem. For China, the partition plan did not seem to be a feasible means of achieving those objectives. Were China simply caving in to pressure from the Arab states, it would have cast a negative vote. In abstaining, China was deferring to other UN members the complex questions of whether the partition plan might resolve the problems of Jewish refugees and of Arab-Jewish differences. This did not mean that the ROC sat on the sidelines after 29 November. On 19 March 1948, after four months of Arab-Jewish hostilities, US delegate Warren Austin urged the UN General Assembly to return the partition plan to the Security Council for additional consideration rather than implement it. The ROC, consistent with the political goals laid out by Koo in November, supported the US position. Austin had apparently acted only in consultation with the State Department and not in concert with the White House, which overruled his


position and recognized Israeli independence upon its proclamation on 14 May 1948.37 This date is a benchmark in ROC-Israel relations. Up to this point the ROC had been dealing with lay leaders of Zionist organizations. The proclamation of Israeli independence immediately elevated the ROC-Zionist interaction to the qualitatively different level of state-to-state relations. The new issue confronting both sides became the question of mutual recognition or non-recognition. For Israel, the recognition issue was intertwined with security concerns and the related need to expedite Jewish immigration from China to Israel. From the moment of its birth, when Israel was simultaneously attacked by the surrounding Arab states of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, security has been the number one priority for every Israeli government. In an attempt to achieve this objective, every Israeli government has sought diplomatic recognition from as many governments as possible in an effort to outflank its Arab adversaries. In 1948, in the words of Walter Eytan, a principal organizer and then first DirectorGeneral of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, ‘it was essential to have Israel recognized by the largest possible number of other countries’, and, of course, by the UN as well.38 A second critical underpinning of security as defined by every Israeli government has been aliya: the ingathering into Israel of as many Jews as possible. The expertise of such individuals plus the sheer specific gravity of their numbers would also bolster state security. In 1948, from the viewpoint of the Israeli government, the Jewish groups in East Asia who were most needful of ingathering were the survivors of Hitler’s Holocaust plus incongruous communities of Russian and Romanian Jews. These potential immigrants were strewn across the Manchurian railway cities, Tianjin, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Burma. Many of these individuals were wards of Jewish charitable organizations and were languishing in a stateless limbo. By far the largest East Asian Jewish community in 1948 was in Shanghai, where thousands of Central and Eastern European Jewish refugees from Hitler had found a safe haven. From 1933 to 1941 Shanghai’s status as ‘international city’ had made it the only place on earth where a Jewish refugee (or anyone else) could legally just ‘walk ashore’ without passport or visa. The international status of Shanghai was terminated by Japanese invaders in 1941. In 1942, in the spirit of ROC-American wartime amity, the US took the lead in abrogating unequal treaties of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, thereby technically returning Japanese-occupied Shanghai to ROC sovereignty. After Japan’s defeat in 1945 the city came under the direct control of the ROC.39 Walter Eytan’s pre-state master plan for what would become Israel’s foreign service designated Shanghai as a ‘second category’ city. That meant that as soon as Israeli legations were established in London, Moscow, Paris and Washington, and passport control offices in Bucharest, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Vienna, the next highest priority would be a consulate general at Shanghai to service the immigration needs not only of China but of all of East Asia.


In 1948–49 the leaders of the new state of Israel, keenly aware of their own immigration and strategic needs, observed a major power shift underway on the Chinese mainland. The challenge of receiving immigrants from the ROC had become complicated by the fact that the ROC government was losing control to Chinese communist insurgents in the regions where most Jews lived. The Chinese communists (CCP) had taken over Harbin and Tsitsihar on 26 April 1946, Mukden (Shenyang) on 2 November 1948, Tianjin on 1 January 1949, and the ROC capital of Nanjing itself on 23 April 1949. Shanghai, containing the most Jews, was contested by ROC and communist forces during the winter of 1948–49.40 However, even in the neighbourhoods where the ROC retained a foothold, its rampant corruption and a heightened xenophobia among the Chinese population at large made even long-time Jewish residents of China increasingly eager to depart for almost any destination.41 Adding a special urgency to the situation from the Israeli point of view was the fact that an incremental exodus of Jews from China was well underway by 1948. The departure had begun almost immediately upon the surrender of Japan to the ROC and its allies in August 1945 and at first was only a trickle. In the absence of a Jewish state and because of severe immigration restrictions imposed by the British, most Jews leaving China had not opted for Palestine, preferring the United States, Australia, Canada, or even Germany and Austria. By 1948, if Israel wished to tap into this exodus, it had to act quickly. The largest group of Jews still remaining in China were those committed Zionists, largely stateless Russians but also some Central Europeans, who could not legally immigrate to British Palestine before May 1948 but who were free to do so thereafter.42 For these reasons, when the leaders of Israel considered relations with China in the autumn of 1948, their specific concerns were twofold. Which of two rival Chinese governments controlled what specific parts of China? Which government could best expedite the exodus of Jews? The answers to these questions were far from certain. Perhaps the most salient factor was that although threatened, the ROC still controlled Shanghai. When Judith Hasser immigrated to Israel in November 1948, she informed Israeli parliamentary opposition leader Menachem Begin that she was ‘very keen on initiating ties both political and commercial between [ROC] China and Israel… I spoke of the possibility of Israel benefiting from business relations with [ROC] China.’43 While Hasser’s views were conveyed exclusively to a party-in-opposition, it is clear that the Labour-led government of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett was thinking along similar lines. While unwilling to go as far as extending diplomatic recognition to the ROC, in November 1948 they received ROC permission and the following month dispatched Moshe Yuval, then Israeli vice consul in New York, to ROCcontrolled Shanghai.44 Yuval was specifically designated as representative of Israel’s ministry of immigration. Under his leadership and that of Shanghai Zionist leader Yaacov Liberman, several thousand Jews left China for Israel, notably via the December


1948-February 1949 voyage of the ship Wooster Victory, which Liberman commanded. There are several possible explanations as to why Yuval was asked to function only as an immigration officer and in no sense a diplomat accredited to the ROC. First and foremost were the deteriorating conditions in Shanghai itself. Israel hedged its bets as the CCP pressed close to the city gates. Yuval’s assignment was to ‘get the Jews out’, ultimately in co-ordination with the CCP if necessary. A second reason for Yuval’s deliberate aloofness from the ROC may stem from precarious Israeli-ROC relations at that time within the UN itself. In 1948 T.S.Tsiang, who had not favoured the partition plan, became the ROC’s chief representative to that body. He had also assumed the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council. On 29 November 1948 Israel applied to that body for a recommendation for UN membership. The ROC, consistent with its 1947 votes, abstained along with five other Council members. Israel thereby failed to obtain the seven votes necessary for a nomination to be forwarded to the General Assembly. One can only assume that the ROC still sought the more allencompassing Arab-Israeli peace envisaged by Wellington Koo and would abstain from votes concerning Israel until such reconciliation was achieved. For that very reason, according to Walter Eytan, Israel ‘had no special cause for gratitude to the Formosa regime.’45 Israel nevertheless maintained its ever-sotenuous communications with the ROC. TRANSITIONS, FEBRUARY 1949–JANUARY 1950 During this period two opposite tendencies emerged in Sino-Israeli relations: the ROC drew closer to Israel, while Israel opted to recognize the PRC. By January-February 1949 there had been some progress towards the cessation of Arab-Israeli hostilities, precisely the policy goal Wellington Koo advocated in his 22 November 1947 UN address, On 24 February, on the Greek Isle of Rhodes, UN Undersecretary Ralph J.Bunche brokered an Israeli-Egyptian armistice agreement, soon to be followed by similar pacts with Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. These treaties were important enough to win this diplomat the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize. The achievement of these policy goals in all probability underlay a nearly simultaneous reversal in ROC behaviour towards Israel, and on 1 March 1949 the ROC formally recognized Israel.46 Eight days later the ROC switched its position on Israel’s application for UN membership and voted in favour of Israel’ admission, together with the majority of the Security Council members. On 11 May 1949, when the ROC and a majority of UN General Assembly members voted to accept the Council’s recommendation, Israel formally joined the world body.47 The ROC’s support for Israel’s UN admission was the last interaction of significance between the two countries until military sales brought them together again in the 1970s. From the Israeli point of view, the ROC-Israel relationship never evolved into full diplomatic recognition because of Israel’s awareness of ROC weakness, instability and ultimate loss of the entire Chinese mainland.


Israel’s best informants on that subject were the Jews still in China or emigrating from China. In November 1948, it should be recalled, when Zionist activist Judith Hasser emigrated from Shanghai to Israel, she promoted ROC-Israeli ties. By May 1949 she lamented that ‘the fall of Shanghai to the Communists on May 25 made me feel as though the ground under my feet had opened wide… Shanghai—the scintillating link between the world and the Chinese people, the cosmopolitan metropolis which had raised the status of China to a global place of pride—was now cut off.’48 From Hasser’s viewpoint, Republican Shanghai was irretrievably lost and it would be pointless for Israel to establish ties with a ‘has-been’ government. Mainstream Zionists voiced similar caveats. On 1 May 1949 Isador A. Magid, representing the Far Eastern Jewish Emergency Council in Shanghai, wrote to Assistant Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry Michael Saul Comay that communist control of the Chinese mainland seemed probable. Precisely for that reason, he argued, Israel should establish a permanent consulate in Shanghai rather than the temporary immigration office operated by Moshe Yuval. An Israeli consulate in Shanghai, albeit accredited to the ROC, would be a steppingstone towards a formal Israeli relationship with the Chinese communists. Magid wrote that ‘the Chinese Communist Authorities do not interfere with the existing consulates… If the consulate were established now, it would be possible for a representative of the Government to come to China and assume his duties after the [likely] changeover.’49 Magid’s letter was a self-serving prophecy but a little too optimistic. On 6 May 1949 Comay sent Magid two telegrams appointing him honorary Israel consul and immigration officer in Shanghai. On 14 May 1949 Cheng Kong Cee, Director of the Shanghai office of the ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, issued a formal exequatur, in Chinese and English, recognizing and authorizing Israel’s appointment of Magid. His tenure as Israeli representative in Shanghai accredited to the ROC lasted only a few weeks, until the Chinese communists ousted the ROC from Shanghai in late May. Magid’s memoirs detail his determined, but ultimately futile, effort to stay on as an Israeli official. This process was complicated by his status as a stateless Russian, causing difficulties with the Soviet consul in communist-controlled Shanghai. Magid ultimately moved on to Australia. Walter Citrin, based in Hong Kong, took over his duties organizing Jewish immigration from East Asia to Israel.50 After Magid’s failure and departure Israel nevertheless pursued diplomatic ties with the PRC along the lines he had advocated. From Eytan’s view, ‘Israel, in her own recognition policy, made a practice of acknowledging established fact… There could be no doubt that the Government of the People’s Republic was the effective government of continental China.’51 The fate of the Jews remaining in China and of some significant real-estate properties deeded to the state of Israel by departing immigrants would have to be negotiated with the de facto power on the Chinese mainland, namely the PRC.52 An additional consideration for Israel by late 1949 was the predicament it faced with Palestinian-inhabited areas within


its own borders. A rationale that would allow China to remain divided could also be applied in the Middle East. Palestinian-inhabited areas in the Galilee and Negev could be spun off into Transjordan or into an independent Palestinian state. Israel’s founding fathers did not wish to lend credence to such a precedent. By far the most important recognition consideration from Eytan’s point of view was Israel’s need to cement ties with the world’s largest nation, a goal Sharett had also mentioned at the time of the 1947 partition vote. For all these reasons, Israel chose not to reciprocate the recognition it had received from the ROC and instead extended full diplomatic recognition to the PRC. On 9 January 1950 Sharett cabled PRC Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Zhou Enlai: ‘I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that the Government of Israel had decided to recognise your Government as the de jure Government of China.’53 Zhou cabled back his ‘welcome and thanks.’54 However, reciprocal recognition between Israel and the PRC would have to wait another 42 years, for reasons explained in the next section of this essay. THE BOGOR AND BANDUNG CONFERENCES: MINIMAL ROC-ISRAEL AND PRC-ISRAEL RELATIONS, 1950–1992 While Israel was the first Middle Eastern nation to recognize the PRC, followed in the 1950s by only a handful of Arab states (Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Yemen), with most Middle Eastern nations maintaining and even strengthening their political ties with the ROC well into the 1970s,54 it was ostracized by both Chinas. The PRC’s hostility to Israel was an expression of the ‘Afro-Asian solidarity’ which Zionist leaders had sensed as far back as the founding conference of the UN in 1945. Two international gatherings, both in Indonesia, solidified both the PRC’s and the ROC’s antagonism to Israel: the December 1954 Bogor organizational meeting and the April 1955 Bandung summit conference of 29 Afro-Asian nations.55 The Bogor meeting ensured that not only Israel but also the ROC would be barred from the main gathering five months later.56 According to political scientist Michael Brecher, Israel was excluded to encourage Arab participation and the ROC was excluded to induce PRC participation. He notes that ‘the five sponsors of the Conference (Burma, Ceylon, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan) declared that all independent states in the area would be invited. But in the end exceptions were made. Israel was perhaps the most glaring because it had been recognized by the overwhelming majority of states, including three of the sponsors, India, Burma, and Ceylon.’57 The ROC was excluded even though, like Israel, it had been recognized by most states present. Similarly, to induce Black African participation, South Africa was not invited, yet the Gold Coast was— despite being a British colony two years away from independence. ‘As if to underline the inconsistency’, Brecher concludes, ‘both North and South Vietnam were invited, but the two Koreas were not.’58


Conference organizer Jawaharlal Nehru of India and host Sukarno of Indonesia thus established a precedent not only for the Bandung conference but also for future gatherings of the so-called ‘Afro-Asian’ nations. Ultimately, their categorization would come to include all ‘Third World, Non-Aligned’ nations irrespective of geographical location. Drawing on no general principle other than political expediency, they excluded the ROC, Israel, South Africa and the United States and would include the PRC, the Soviet Union, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, and the oil-exporting states of the Persian Gulf. Most seriously for Israel, when the Bandung conference convened in April 1955 Nehru accepted Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian leader in the 1948 war, as a member of the Yemeni delegation.59 Political scientist Gabriel Scheffer has characterized Hussein as ‘an arch-enemy of the Jewish national home’, perhaps an understated description of a rabid anti-Semite who had closely collaborated with Hitler in Berlin during the Second World War.60 According to historian Zvi Elpeleg, the Mufti wrote in his diaries that he ‘saw in the Bandung conference a golden opportunity to strengthen the ties of Palestine with the Eastern Muslim countries.’61 Since Israel was excluded from the gathering, no statesman dared to contradict the Mufti and his numerous Arab supporters with the exception of Premier U Nu of Burma, who would further defy Arab pressures and pay a state visit to Israel in the weeks after the conference.62 The Bandung conference froze embryonic Israeli-PRC relations. In the absence of the ROC, Arab spokesmen at Bandung had the unusual opportunity to lobby PRC chief delegate [and Prime Minister] Zhou Enlai. At a reception sponsored by Saudi Arabia, the Mufti is reported to have thanked Zhou for his support of the Palestinian cause. Zhou reportedly gave the non-committal reply that the PRC supported all oppressed peoples in their struggles for independence.63 It appears that Zhou, at least initially, was more a passive participant than an active promoter of anti-Israel rhetoric. According to the report of the Arab League Secretary-General, Zhou ‘voiced his support to the Afghani [anti-Israel] resolution’ but said that he ‘had not studied the United Nations resolutions on Palestine.’64 According to historian George Kahin, Zhou ultimately cast his vote in favour of the Arab-sponsored condemnation of Israel because he ‘saw a parallel between the problems of Palestine and Formosa [ROC]… neither [problem] could be solved peacefully unless intervention by outside forces was excluded.’65 In Zhou’s mind and in future PRC policy statements, both Israel and the ROC had become ‘tools’ and ‘pawns’ for ‘imperialism and colonialism.’66 Though the major premises for Zhou’s anti-Israelism differed fundamentally from those of Jerusalem’s Mufti or the Saudi Emir, the conclusions of both the PRC and the Arab states after Bandung were similar. Underlying this rhetoric was the PRC’s conviction that after Bandung it had much to gain by cultivating the goodwill of fellow Asians in general and Arabs in particular.67


The decades after Bandung saw both Chinas growing closer to different Arab states. Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Sudan, Syria and Yemen favoured the PRC. Saudi Arabia, despite its cordiality to the PRC at Bandung, shared a visceral anti-communism with the ROC. The Saudis therefore entertained ROC delegations at the highest level and vice-versa. In 1971 King Faisal paid a state visit to the ROC. In 1977 ROC President Yen Chia-kan paid a return visit to King Khaled, who pledged adequate oil supplies to the ROC and significant support in the international arena. Saudi Arabia signed a $153 million deal with Taiwan Power Company for electrification of parts of the kingdom. In 1977 trade between the two states totalled $632 million, with an approximate $200 million trade balance, chiefly in petroleum, favouring the Saudis. The kingdom, in turn, lent the ROC substantial sums of money via its Saudi Arabian Foundation: $80 million for a North-South Highway, $30 million for railway electrification, and $75 million for telecommunication and power-plant construction. Finally, and also as a consequence of President Yen’s 1977 official visit, the Saudis agreed to accommodate regular annual pilgrimages from Taiwan’s 40,000–strong Muslim community.68 A joint communiqué issued by King Khaled and ROC President Yen recognized the ‘legitimate rights’ and ‘selfdetermination’ of the Palestinian people.69 This viewpoint was reiterated in a 1979 joint communiqué issued in Taipei by ROC Premier Yun-suan Sun and visiting Saudi Prince Fahd. Both parties condemned Israel’s ‘aggressive policy.’ They went well beyond the UN’s peace-making Resolution 242 of 1967 and called on Israel to ‘withdraw from all of the occupied Arab territory including Jerusalem.’ Finally, they asked for ‘the self-determination and independence of the Palestinian people.’70 Understandably, according to ROC historian Bau Tzong-ho, ‘the ROC government chose an anti-Zionist stance to cater to nationalism in this region, since an ideological consensus might further the relationship already established through technological cooperation.’71 One consequence of the anti-Israel policy of both the ROC and the PRC was that Israel was caught in a bind on the question of the PRC’s application for admission to the UN. After Israel’s recognition of the PRC in 1950, it supported PRC membership on the grounds that the inclusion of the PRC would promote peace and security in Asia. By the mid-1960s, the PRC’s virulent anti-Israel rhetoric in international forums and the opening of a PLO office in Beijing in 1965 brought about a change in Israel’s attitude. According to Israeli diplomat E.Zev Sufott, who later became Israel’s first ambassador to the PRC, after 1965 ‘Israel opposed the proposal for the expulsion of Taiwan and its replacement by China. Six years later, Israel [and the US] relented and cast her vote in favour of the proposal which, in 1971, removed Taiwan and seated China in its place at the United Nations.’72 Perhaps the fullest expression of Israel’s frustrating dilemma with respect to both Chinas in this period were the instructions from Jerusalem to Israel’s Washington embassy in 1959 ‘to restrict contacts with Nationalist China to a


minimum despite the bitter disappointments in our relations with People’s China.’73 By the 1970s Israel and the ROC had reconciled themselves to a relationship that, precisely because of close ROC-Saudi ties, had to remain clandestine. While the ROC publicly pressed on to be best friends with conservative Arab states, there was a modest level of ‘officially unofficial’ ROC-Israeli economic, cultural and especially military contact.74 There have been published reports that Israel provided chemical agents to the ROC in 1984 and of the ROC’s ultimately fruitless attempts to ‘lease’ 40 Israel Kfir jet fighters in 1991.75 According to Israeli political scientist Yitzhak Shichor, the ROC’s ‘interest’ in the Kfir may well have been a ploy used by Taipei as ‘leverage against France and primarily the United States to overcome their reluctance to supply the ROC with advanced aircraft in the fact of fierce opposition and retaliation threats by the PRC.’76 The most widely publicized area of alleged ROC-Israeli arms transactions was missile technology. In 1975 Israel purchased 109 80-mile-range Lance surfaceto-surface missiles from the US and an additional 200 by the end of that decade. Some of the technology for the Lance was allegedly transferred by Israel to the ROC, which promptly developed its own very similar missile.77 There is much firmer evidence, according to Shichor, with respect to shorter-range missile technology: When the US refused to provide Taiwan with Harpoon and AIM 9L Sidewinder missiles, Israel stepped in, selling its Shafrir anti-aircraft missiles to the ROC Air Force and granting license for the local production of Gabriel 2 anti-ship (ship-to-ship) missiles and launchers. By the end of the 1980s, over 523 missiles and 77 launchers had been produced. Military cooperation and transactions also consisted of…guns and mortars (including 127mm multiple rocket launchers), Galil rifles, Uzi submachine guns, and a variety of electronic equipment and ammunition.78 Shichor’s assessment has been corroborated by the annual reports of the Stockholm-based International Peace Research Institute and by a letter from Yaacov Liberman, who by 1975 had become the ROC salesman for three major Israeli arms manufacturers. According to Liberman, IAI [Israel Aircraft Industries] sold Gabriel sea-to-sea missiles for approximately $180,000,000. Tadiran sold know-how and installed facilities for a battery plant and sold sophisticated communications equipment worth in excess of $130,000,000. Elbit and Rafael (two other Israeli exporters) sold command and control electronics worth some $150, 000,000.79 Liberman also offered his summation of the overall ROC-Israeli relationship up to 1985, when he left Taiwan:


Selling this equipment was not easy and the general political climate in Taiwan was not at all pro-Israeli. There were some exceptions and certainly Israel had some friends, especially in the science-oriented community. But the majority of highly placed Government officials, including the army and Air Force, were dealing with Israel strictly because of necessity rather than choice.80 The pro-Arab, and particularly pro-Saudi, stance of the ROC government remained firm in 1985. While reports of military transfers between Israel, the ROC and the PRC are always controversial and often unsubstantiated, the evidence suggests that Israeli arms sales to the ROC ended in 1992. Shichor writes that Shoul Eisenberg, perhaps the major intermediary in Israel-ROC arms deals between 1975 and 1985, withdrew from ROC sales in order to pursue presumably far more lucrative contracts with the PRC. ‘His key role in Sino-Israeli military relations was aptly demonstrated in 1992’, according to Shichor, ‘when Taipei was supposedly interested in buying Israeli Kfir [jet] fighters… Aware that such a deal would damage if not ruin his business in the PRC, Eisenberg had done his best to abort it well before the potential customer declined the offer.’81 FULL PRC-ISRAEL DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS AND REGULARIZED ROC-ISRAEL INTERACTIONS SINCE JANUARY 1992 On 24 January 1992 Israel and the PRC established full diplomatic relations. The background of this event is analyzed at length in Ambassador Zev Sufott’s 1997 book and 2002 article as well as in my 1999 book China and Israel, 1948–1998, to which Sufott contributed.82 The establishment of full PRC-Israeli diplomatic relations gave the ROC and Israel the leeway to create economic and cultural liaison offices in Taipei and Tel Aviv, an arrangement similar to that which the ROC enjoys with the US and many other nations. Until 1992, during Israel’s negotiations for recognition by the PRC, all ‘officially unofficial’ contacts between Taipei and Jerusalem were normally conducted via Tokyo and, on rare occasions, Hong Kong. As of 2003 the Israeli liaison office in Taipei is headed by Ambassador Ruth Kahanoff, a professionally-trained Sinologist who was Israel’s first Deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing. In non-military fields there has been an upsurge in Israel-ROC activity since the establishment of these offices. In terms of overall ROC-Israeli economic relations, between 1991 and 1997 total Israeli exports to the ROC exclusive of arms rose from $49 million to $202.8 million and imports from the ROC increased from $185.3 million to $362 million. Because of the significant increase in Israeli imports, Israel’s trade deficit to the ROC increased to $159.5 million in 1997. In 1997 Israeli exports to and imports from the ROC were nearly double those to and from the PRC, again exclusive of arms. Because of the larger volume of trade involved, Israel suffered a significantly larger balance-of-trade


deficit with the ROC than with the PRC in 1997, the difference between the two deficits amounting to approximately an additional $25 million owed the ROC. Between January and December 2002 bilateral trade had increased by approximately $100 million in terms of both imports and exports. In that 12-month period Israel exported $331 million worth of goods to the ROC and the ROC exported $430 million worth of goods to Israel, once again resulting in an approximate $100 million balance-of-payments deficit in favour of the ROC.83 In terms of ROC-Israeli cultural relations, in 1995 one of the ROC’s premier musical conductors, Lu Shao-Chia, led Israel’s Haifa Symphony Orchestra in a series of concerts in Haifa Auditorium.84 In 1997 the director-general of Israel’s Taipei office published the first Hebrew-language history of, and guidebook to, Taiwan. This 102-page volume included sections on trade associations, credit information services, law offices, translators and interpreters. The book’s author won an official commendation from the ROC’s Ministry of Economic Affairs for this effort. Other interchanges included a July 1999 visit by Taipei’s mayor to Israel, an Israeli kibbutz dance company’s visit to Taipei in January 2000, and a Taiwanese exhibit in Haifa’s Tikonin Museum of Asian Art in 2002.85 Between October and December 2002 the exhibit ‘Einstein and China’, drawn from the famous professor’s own archives in the Hebrew University Library, was displayed in Taipei, T’ai-chung and Kao-hsiung. That exhibit was originally scheduled to open in the PRC in the autumn of 2002. It was transferred to Taiwan after PRC officials objected to references in the exhibit to Einstein’s support of Israel and to the fact that at one point Ben-Gurion offered Einstein Israel’s presidency, a proposition that the elderly professor declined. In all likelihood, Beijing’s objections to the Einstein exhibit were part of the antiIsraeli diplomatic fallout after Israeli’s cancellation, under US pressure, of the sale of the ‘Phalcon’ advanced airborne radar system to the PRC.86 Fifteen years earlier, the Einstein exhibit almost certainly would not have been permitted in Taiwan either. That the exhibit was shown in Taiwan at all is testimony to how far ROC-Israeli relations have advanced since the 1980s. In 2003 Israel and the ROC have achieved a modus vivendi. The ROC, while maintaining its contacts with Israel, retains its long-term ties with the nations of the Arab and Islamic world, most notably Saudi Arabia, which also chose to recognize the PRC in July 1990. The regularization of Israel’s ties with the ROC was made possible, in no small measure, by the establishment of full diplomatic relations between Beijing and Jerusalem. NOTES 1. This essay largely deals with official ROC, and to a much lesser extent PRC, policy towards Zionism and Israel. For a fuller discussion of popular as opposed to official Chinese attitudes towards Zionism and Israel, and of PRC-Israeli relations, see: Xiao Xian, ‘An Overview of Chinese Impressions of and Attitudes Toward


2.

3.

4.

5. 6.

Jews Before 1949’, in Jonathan Goldstein (ed.), The Jews of China. Vol. Two: A Sourcebook and Research Guide, Armonk, NY, 1999, pp.33–46; Irene Eber, Voices From Afar: Modern Chinese Writers on Oppressed Peoples and Their Literature, Ann Arbor, 1980; idem, Sinim Ve-ha-Yehudim: Mifgashim Beyn Tarbuyot, Jerusalem, 2002; and Jonathan Goldstein (ed.), China and Israel, 1948– 1998: A Fifty Year Retrospective, Westport, 1999, especially pp. 179–86. The author wishes to thank the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’ Professor Pan Guang for coining the term ‘frozen period’. When Anglo-Jewish journalist Israel Cohen visited Shanghai in 1920, he characterized Ezra as ‘by far the most zealous and militant Zionist in the whole of the Far East.’ See Israel Cohen, A Jewish Pilgrimage, London, 1956, p.198. For background on Zionist activities in China, see Maruyama Naoki, ‘The Shanghai Zionist Association and the International Politics of East Asia up to 1936’, pp.251– 66, and Pan Guang, ‘Zionism and Zionist Revisionism in Shanghai, 1937–49’, pp. 267–76, both in Jonathan Goldstein (ed.), The Jews of China, Vol. One: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, Armonk, 1999. Letter: N.E.B.Ezra, Shanghai, to the Actions Committee of the International Zionist Organization, Berlin, 26 July 1914, Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, file 078154. For the text of the Balfour Declaration, see Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1948, Vol.5 (The Near East, South Asia, and Africa), Part Two, Washington DC, 1976, p.690. For a less official but possibly more accessible version of the text, see Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin (eds.), The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, New York, p.16. FRUS, 1948, Vol.5, Part Two, pp.690–91; Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, New York, 1976, pp.450, 453. Israel’s Messenger (Shanghai), 24 November 1927; Letter: Tcheng Log [sic], Peking, to Elly S. Kadoorie (copy), 14 December 1918, Central Zionist Archives (Jerusalem) (hereinafter CZA), Z4/2039. On general SZA efforts to secure support for the declaration, see Letter: Samuel Landman, London, to N.E.B.Ezra, Shanghai, 28 November 1918, CZA Z4/176. On G.E.Morrison, see Letters: G.E.Morrison, Peking, to N.E.B.Ezra, Shanghai, 15 September 1918; N.E.B.Ezra, Shanghai, to Dr Morrison, Peking, 20 September 1918, CZA; Hosea B. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, Vol.III, Taipei, 1978, pp.235, 263, 344, and Cyril Pearl, Morrison of Peking, Harmondsworth, 1970, pp.214–15. The official, December 1918 Chinese-language letter of recognition of the Balfour Declaration was addressed to the president of the Shanghai Zionist Federation. It is reproduced in Israel’s Messenger, 29 October 1929, p.10 and has been translated by Albert Dien as follows: ‘We wish to state that on 6 June of this year [1918] we received your letter that on 2 December of last year that the English association of your distinguished organization received a declaration from Balfour, Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the English government favoured the desire of Jews to establish in Palestine an area for the Jewish people to dwell…and the letter requests approval… Our national government in reference to this desire on the part of your distinguished organization is in complete agreement with the English government.’ See Rena Krasno, ‘Dr. Sun Yat-sen and the Jews’, Sino-Judaica (Menlo Park, Calif.), No.2 (1995), p.43.


7. Sun Yat-sen to N.E.B. Ezra, 24 April 1920, in Israel’s Messenger, 4 November 1927 and in The Collected Works of Sun Yat-sen, Vol.5, Beijing, 1985, pp.256–57; Yaacov (Yana) Liberman, My China: Jewish Life in the Orient 1900–50, Jerusalem, 1998, pp.117–20. In 1921, when Sun was still living in the French concession in Shanghai, he told Russian Jewish refugee David B.Rabinovitch that he ‘had long admired the perseverance and courage of the Jewish people during centuries of persecution.’ See Rena Krasno, Strangers Always: A Jewish Family in Wartime Shanghai, Berkeley, 1992, pp.89–90, 108; idem, ‘Dr’., p.42. 8. Uchida Yasuya, Tokyo, to Consul General Funatsu Tatsuichiro, Shanghai, 27 May 1922, No. 82, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives, Tokyo, cited in Maruyama, ‘Shanghai’, p. 260; ‘Count Uchida’s Friendly Actions’, Israel’s Messenger, 2 October 1921. 9. The San Remo Conference had decided on 24 April 1920 to assign a mandate for Palestine to Great Britain under the overall auspices of the League of Nations. The terms of the mandate were also discussed with the US, which was not a member of the League. The final text, confirmed by the Council of the League on 24 July 1922 and coming into operation effective September 1923, is reproduced in J.C.Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record, Vol. II, New Haven, 1979, pp.305–09, and in Laqueur, Israel-Arab, pp.30– 6. After the official ROC endorsement of the Balfour Declaration in 1918 and Sun Yat-sen’s letter of 1920, the SZA received additional endorsements and recognition from ROC leaders. On 2 November 1927, the tenth anniversary of the Declaration, ROC Admiral and ex-Foreign Minister Ts’ai T’ing-kan wrote to Ezra: ‘how quickly the tenth anniversary of the declaration has come. I hope you and your colleagues will continue to work for an independent Jewish nation. You have a wonderful history and deserve to exist as a people and a government’ (Israel’s Messenger, 7 November 1927). When Sun Yat-sen’s tomb was dedicated in Nanjing on 1 June 1929, SZA President Mrs R.E.(Sophia) Toeg was invited to the official burial ceremony. She laid a wreath on Sun’s tomb containing the Biblical verse ‘his name liveth for ever more.’ See Sophia Toeg, Shanghai, to Israel Cohen, London, 3 June 1929, CZA; Krasno, ‘Dr.’, pp.44–5. 10. Howard Sachar, A History of Israel, New York, 1976, p.129; idem, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East: 1914–1924, New York, 1969, pp.280–81; Hurewitz, Middle East, Vol. II, pp.305–06. 11. Isreal Goldstein, My World as a Jew: The Memoirs of Israel Goldstein,Vol I, New York, 1984, p.149; Selig Brodetsky, Memoirs: From Ghetto to Israel, London, 1960, p.246. See also Eliahu Elath, Zionism at the UN: A Diary of the First Days, Philadelphia, 1976; Michael R. Marrus, Samuel Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam, Hanover, 1991; Abba Eban, Personal Witness, New York, 1992; and Gabriel Sheffer, Moshe Sharett: Biography of a Political Moderate, Oxford, 1996. Louis Lipsky and Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver were two other Zionist leaders who were active at the San Francisco meeting. See Daniel S.Levy, TwoGun Cohen: A Biography, New York, 1997, pp.240–41. 12. Goldstein, My World, Vol.I, pp. 151–52; Levy, Two-Gun, pp.241–42; Marrus, Samuel, pp.339–40. The ‘Wu’ Goldstein refers to is almost certainly the general, b. 1888, who preferred to romanticize his name Wu Te-chen but was also referred to as Wu Te Chen and Wu Tieh-cheng. In 1926 Wu became commander of the 17th Division of the Chinese Army and in 1929 a member of the Chinese Nationalist


13. 14. 15.

16.

Party’s (Kuomintang) (KMT) Central Committee. He served as mayor of Shanghai in 1932–36 and governor of Kwangtung Province in 1937–38. In 1939 he assumed the rank of Minister, KMT Board of Overseas Affairs. In October that year Cohen accompanied Wu on a goodwill tour on behalf of the ROC to the Philippines, Dutch East Indies and Malaya, China Handbook 1937–1944, p.621; Randall Gould, China in the Sun, New York, 1946, pp.354–55; Levy, Two-Gun Cohen, pp. 136–257 passim. In December 1948 Wu became ROC Minister of Foreign Affairs. On 1 March 1949 he was the ROC official who recognized the state of Israel: Letter: Wu Te Chen to Moche Shertok [sic], 1 March 1949, State of Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives (hereinafter MOFA), Folder 41/150/A.Howard L.Boorman (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol.I, New York, 1967, pp.450–51. Wu appears in an historic photograph of the late 1940s or early 1950s drinking a toast with Cohen and ROC Minister of Foreign Affairs George K.C.Yeh (Yeh Kung-chao), Levy, Two-Gun Cohen, London, 1954, photo opposite p.272. Elath, Zionism, p.17. Ibid., p.111. Ibid., p.111. Elath also recorded Rabbi Stephen Wise’s conversation with Chinese delegate Wu Yi-fang, who was also a member of China’s People’s Political Council. Ms Wu was apparently so unfamiliar with Judaism that she asked Wise whether Jews were Catholic or Protestant, Elath, Zionism, p.45. Wellington Koo (1887–1985) is also referred to as Ku Wei-chün or Gu Weijun. Speech of Wellington Koo before the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question of the United Nations, Lake Success, New York, November 1947, United Nations Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly, Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question, Summary Records of Meetings (25 September–25 November, 1947), New York, 1947, p.172. On 25 February 1998 the ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Atlanta, Georgia, provided me with xeroxed copy of a typewritten and annotated document which they described as Wellington Koo’s 22 November 1947 speech to the UN. I subsequently published excerpts from that document and attributed them to Wellington Koo in my book China and Israel, pp.36–39. Wellington Koo in fact delivered a different text on 22 November, cited above. The first part of the 25 February 1998 document, from ‘In participating’ to ‘can be found’, is the text of the ROC delegate Jiang Tingfu’s 11 October 1947 speech to the UN. See: United Nations Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly. Sixth Committee, Legal Questions. Summary Records of Meetings (16 September–26 November, 1947), New York, 1947, p.65. The second part of the 25 February 1998 document, from ‘Ever since’ to ‘voting’, is the text of ROC delegate Liu Chieh’s 28 November 1947 speech to the UN. See: United Nations Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly Verbatim Record, Vol.II (13 November– 29 November, 1947), New York, 1947, pp.1379–1380. Diary of Wellington Koo, No. 17, (5 April–7 June, 1945), Box 216, Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collection, cited in Levy, Two-Gun, p.242. Elath commented that ‘in the Chinese delegation to the conference Koo is second only to the Foreign Minister, T.V.Soong… He was, for many years, his country’s permanent representative to the League of Nations’, Elath, Zionism, p.152. See also China Yearbook, 1958–


17. 18. 19.

20.

21.

22.

23. 24.

25.

1959, Taipei, 1958–9, p.624; Levy, Two-Gun, p.242; Boorman, Biographical, Vol.II, pp.255–9; Marrus, Samuel, pp.338–40. Elath, Zionism, pp.251–52; Levy, Two-Gun, p.242. Leland M.Goodrich, et al., Charter of the United Nations: Commentary and Documents, New York, 1969, pp.494–95. As further evidence of Cohen’s closeness to the top echelons of the ROC, Hayes related the incident of ‘walking down the street with him and three other people were walking down the street—Ambassador Wellington Koo, H.H.Kung, and T.V.Soong [the latter two, brothers-in-law of Chiang Kai-shek]. And, by God, the first thing I know is they embrace the man, so this business of knowing them wasn’t any put on.’ See Saul Hayes quoted in Dusty Vineberg, ‘How Two-Gun Cohen Influenced History [sic]’, Montreal Star, 5 May 1973, p.F-4. United Nations Resolutions Adopted by the General Assembly During Its First Special Session from 28 April to 15 May 1947, Lake Success, 1947, pp.6–7; China Yearbook 1958–1959, p.608; J.Eugene Harley, Documentary Textbook on the United Nations, Los Angeles, 1950, pp.1,034–35; Eban, Personal, p.96. Historian Howard Sachar reported that ‘the pivotal bloc of votes in favor of the resolution— not less than 40 per cent of the United Nations membership— ultimately was cast by the Latin American delegations. Zionist pressure here was minimal… These Latin governments, with few interests either way in the Middle East, accepted the majority report at face value. Simple compassion for the displaced persons unquestionably influenced their decision.’ See Sachar, History, p. 294. The one notable Latin American exception was Nicaragua, in which case Boston Zionist leader Lewis Weinstein lobbied President Anastasio Somoza. The tenuous connection here was that Somoza had been hospitalized in Boston several years earlier and had come to know several Jewish Bostonians. See Lewis H.Weinstein, Masa: Odyssey of an American Jew, Boston, 1989, passim. Kermit Roosevelt makes the unsubstantiated allegation that ‘influential Americans’ exerted ‘political and economic pressure’ on ‘Haiti, Liberia, the Philippines, China, Ethiopia, and Greece’ to sway their votes on the partition resolution. See his ‘The Partition of Palestine: A Lesson in Pressure Politics’, Middle East Journal, Vol.2, No.1 (Jan. 1948), pp.14–15. Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948, New York, 1970, p.18. The Indian historian M.S.Agwani has asserted that ‘modern Asia has viewed the Zionist claim with suspicion and disapprobation [due to] the incompatibility between the anti-colonial upsurge in Asia and…the Zionist movement.’ See M.S.Agwani, ‘The Palestine Conflict in Asian Perspective’, in Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, The Transformation of Palestine, Evanston, 1971, p.443. For Sharett’s attitude, see Sheffer, Sharett, pp.224, 258. One author claims, without naming names, that ‘unofficial but highly effective economic leverage was applied to the Chinese.’ See Howard Sachar, Europe Leaves the Middle East, 1936–1954, New York, 1972, p.501. In a 1991 interview Shulemson insisted that ‘Liu said he would support the [partition] resolution.’ Liu did give at least one speech at the UN defending the ROC’s abstention. An extremely high-ranking ROC diplomat, Liu was a former ROC Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs (1945–47), China’s representative on the UN Trusteeship Council in 1947, and President of the UN Security Council in 1948–49. In the late 1940s he served simultaneously as ROC Ambassasdor to


26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31. 32.

33. 34. 35.

Canada. See China Yearbook 1957–58, p.635; China Yearbook 1958–1959, p.640; China Yearbook 1962–63, p.843; China Yearbook 1978, p.582; Eddy Kaplansky, ‘But for a Quirk of Fate’, Jerusalem Post, 29 November 1991, p.15; name list and background of ROC delegation to November 1947 United Nations meeting, ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, provided by Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Atlanta, Georgia, 25 February 1998. According to David Horowitz, a Jewish Agency official who took part in negotiations with the ROC in 1948, ‘China chopped and changed three times. The first time it was against partition, then it was for it, and finally it abstained.’ See David Horowitz, State in the Making, New York, 1953, p.281. In another book, he asserts that ‘the Asian countries remained firmly and unitedly opposed to us. China changed its position three times, and then, finally, yielding to American pressure, agreed to abstain.’ He provides no source for this allegation of American pressure. In fact, one Asian country, the Philippines, voted in favour of partition. See David Horowitz, In the Heart of Events, RamatGan, 1980, p.196. Judith Ben-Eliezer, Shanghai Lost, Jerusalem Regained, Tel Aviv, 1985, p.281; Isador A. Magid, ‘I Was There: The Viewpoint of an Honorary Israeli Consul in Shanghai, 1945–1951’, in Goldstein, China, pp.41–45; China Yearbook 1958– 1959, p.688; Bresler, ‘Harbin’s’, pp.211–14; Liberman, My, pp.132–34, 163–76. Yeh would serve as ROC Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1949 and 1958 (BenEliezer, Shanghai, p.281); China Yearbook 1957–58, p.678; China Yearbook 1978, p.637. Letter: Sun Fo, Nanking, to Judith Hasser, Shanghai, 4 July 1947, CZA; BenEliezer, Shanghai, pp.348–49; photocopy of letter in Betar Sin=Betar v Kitae=Betar in China: 1929–1949, Tel Aviv, 1973(?), p.109; China Yearbook 1957–58, p.654; China Yearbook 1958–1959, p.662. Jiang Tingfu (1895–1965) is also referred to as Tsiang Tingfu, T.F.Tsiang and Chiang Tingfu. Sinologist John K.Fairbank writes that Jiang, at age 36 in 1932, was ‘already the leader in the study of China’s modern history’. Fairbank devotes an entire chapter, entitled ‘T.F.Tsiang and Modernization’, to his teacher, John K.Fairbank, China Bound, New York, 1982, pp.85–93; Ben-Eliezer, Shanghai, pp. 349–50; China Handbook 1937–1945, p.646; Boorman, Biographical, Vol.I, pp. 354–58; Vol.II, p.280. Warren Austin, US Representative to the UN, to Secretary of State George C.Marshall, 29 November 1947, in FRUS, 1947, Vol.1 (The Near East and Africa), p.1291; Eban, Personal, p.123; Sachar, Europe, p.504; Kurzman, Genesis, p.25. Ben-Eliezer, Shanghai, pp.350–51. Ibid. A similar conclusion was reached by Shanghai Zionist leader Yaacov Liberman, who began to ship men and materiel to Palestine in 1947 and himself immigrated to Israel in 1948. See Liberman, My, p.164 and passim. Ben-Eliezer, Shanghai, pp.349–50; China Handbook 1937–44, p.568; China Yearbook 1957–58, p.663; China Yearbook, 1958–1959, p.672. Horowitz, State, pp.32–3. Koo was also ROC Ambassador to the United States from 1946 to 1956. United Nations, Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly, 25 September–25 November 1947, Lake Success, 1947, p.172. For statements by Liu and Quo, see United Nations General Assembly, Official Records (1947), First Special Session Plenary Meeting, April 28–15 May 1947, Vol.I, pp.152–54;


36.

37.

38. 39. 40.

Second Session, Plenary Meeting, 16 September–29 November 1947, Vol.II, pp. 1379–80. Tsiang Tingfu was also familiar with relief and refugee work, having been director of the Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration from 1944 to 1947 (China Yearbook 1957–58, p.663). UN speech of Liu Chieh, 28 November 1947, United Nations Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly Verbatim Record, Vol.II (13 November–29 November, 1947), New York, 1947, pp.1379–80. In his November statement Koo was reiterating sentiments that ROC UN delegate Quo Tai-chi had expressed in UN debate the previous spring. Quo had argued, in the broadest humanistic terms, that ‘the Jewish people, which has contributed so much to the world…deserves a national home of some sort, deserves a place it can call its own… Coming from a country the majority of whose population is neither Jewish nor Moslem nor Christian, may I say to our Jewish and Arab friends that unless we love our neighbours as ourselves, there will be no peace in the Holy Land… No political or economic programme can…solve the problem until Islam and Jewry and Christendom return to the teachings of the prophets.’ See United Nations General Assembly, Official Records, First Special Session, Plenary Meeting, 28 April–15 May 1947, Vol.I, pp.152–54. Kuo Tai-chi, who preferred Quo Tai-chi, was born in 1888 and served as ROC Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1941–42 (China Handbook 1937–44, p.588). In the early winter of 1948, in the critical months between the passage of the partition plan and Israel’s declaration of independence, three Jewish Agency representatives (Aubrey Eban, David Horowitz and Chaim Greenberg) met in New York with Tsiang Tingfu, who had by then become head of the ROC UN delegation. Horowitz characterized Tsiang as ‘one of our sworn adversaries [who] could not understand why we did not assimilate.’ The meeting, according to Horowitz, ‘had no practical result’, with the unsympathetic Tsiang terminating it with the statement that ‘he awaited instructions from his government.’ See Horowitz, State, pp.332–33. FRUS, 1948, Vol.I (The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Part 2), p.714; Sheffer, Sharett, p.304. As early as 24 February 1948 Austin had asked the Security Council to ‘look into the Palestine situation’ with a view to keeping the peace rather than enforcing partition. On 19 March he reiterated the views of Loy Henderson, Chief of the US State Department’s Division of Near Eastern and African Affairs, that ‘there seems to be general agreement that the [partition] plan can not now be implemented by peaceful means.’ Austin proposed that the General Assembly reconvene in special session to consider the establishment of a temporary trusteeship over Palestine. Austin’s statement contradicted US support for the 29 November partition vote, a position which President Truman reiterated to Chaim Weizmann in a White House meeting as late as 18 March. Austin’s unilateral action was overruled by the White House and US support for partition remained unchanged. See Israel Goldstein, My World, Vol.I, pp.217–18; Sachar, Europe, passim; Kurzman, Genesis, p.19; Southern Israelite (Atlanta), 26 March 1948. Walter Eytan, The First Ten Years: A Diplomatic History of Israel, New York, 1958, pp.214, 241. Ernest G.Heppner, Shanghai Refuge: A Memoir of the World War II Jewish Ghetto, Lincoln, 1993, p.40. Eytan, First, pp.206–10; China Yearbook 1978, pp.405–08. The PRC was officially established in Beijing on 1 October 1949.


41. On how post-war xenophobia and ROC corruption, especially in Shanghai, affected the Jewish population, see Liberman, My, pp.155–63, 223. 42. Among the first to go were those ideologically committed individuals who had always viewed China only as a port in a storm. At one extreme, those emigrants included the ultra-Orthodox students and faculty of the Mirrer Yeshiva, who left Poland and Lithuania in the summer of 1940 and found haven in Shanghai. At an opposite ideological extreme, in July 1947 a contingent of the left-leaning Association of Democratic Germans in Shanghai (Gemeinschaft der Demokratischen Deutschen in Shanghai) repatriated to Germany aboard the US troop carrier Marine Lynx. The New Jerusalem for many of those anti-fascists would be the German Democratic Republic. The association (Gemeinschaft), while clearly anti-fascist, included a wide range of political views and made up only part of a much larger group of Germans repatriated from China in 1945–47. The total group included many individuals who went back for family or other personal reasons, for example, one partner was not Jewish and still had family in Germany, an elderly person did not wish to try starting over in another country, or an individual felt especially strong ties to the German language and culture. Additionally, several dozen Jewish families who were long-time residents of China were among some 5,000 to 8,000 Russians who repatriated to the USSR between 1945 and 1948 for ideological and economic reasons. By 1948, as the ROC’s fortunes continued to worsen, Shanghai Zionist leader Yaacov Liberman observed an ‘hysteria of exodus’ gripping ‘the entire stateless community’, those who were firmly ideologically committed as well as those who were not as ideological. He noted that ‘embassies and consulates were flooded with desperate requests for entrance visas.’ The most sought-after destination was the United States. Liberman’s own parents departed for Cuba (Liberman, My, pp.159–60). On the exodus of the Mirrer Yeshiva, see Isaac Lewin, Remembering the Days of Old: Historic Essays, New York, 1994; Zorah Warhaftig, Refugee and Survivor: Rescue Efforts During the Holocaust, Jerusalem, 1988; and Chaim Shapiro, ‘Escape from Europe: A Chronicle of Miracles’, Jewish Observer (New York), May 1973, pp.20– 24. On Jews who repatriated to Germany and Austria, see Telegram: JOINTCO, Shanghai, to JOINTDISCO, New York, 24 July 1947, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, New York; ‘Association of Refugees from Germany’, in Ossie Lewin (ed.), Almanac Shanghai 1946/47, Shanghai, 1947, p. 81; Georg Armbruster, ‘15,000 appelliern an die Welt’, in Leben im Wartesaal: Exile in Shanghai 1938–1947, Berlin, 1997, pp.74–77; Sonja Muehlberger, ‘From Shanghai to Berlin’, Points East, Vol.13, No.2 (July 1998), pp.1–11. On China’s Russian Jews returning to the USSR, see Sam Ginsbourg, My First Sixty Years in China, Beijing, 1982, p.199; Liberman, My, pp.57, 95–97, 151–65; and Magid, ‘I’, passim. On the problems Shanghai Jews had trying to enter the United States, the most sought-after destination for refugees even pre-war, see Heppner, Shanghai, pp.172–74. The problem for refugees generally, and especially for those originally from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, was that a national quota system made for long delays. As a result, many refugees returned home, especially to Austria, or chose Canada or Israel as springboards for eventual migration to the United States. 43. Ben-Eliezer, Shanghai, p.385.


44. Letters: Eliahu Elath, Washington DC, to V.K.Wellington Koo, Washington, DC, 16 November 1948; Arthur Lourie, New York, ‘TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN’, 25 November 1948, State of Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives, Jerusalem, (hereinafter MOFA) 2554/13, 2555/13/3; Eban, Personal, p.179; Liberman, My, pp.223–34. 45. Eytan, First, pp.188–89. 46. On 1 March 1949 Wu Te-chen cabled Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett that ‘the Chinese government has officially accorded recognition to the State of Israel.’ See Telegram: Wu Te Chen to Moche Shertok [sic], 1 March 1949, MOFA 41/150/ A. The same folder contains Israeli UN Ambassador Aubrey (Abba) Eban’s letter of the same date to Tsiang Tingfu acknowledging ROC recognition of Israel but not extending Israeli recognition to the ROC. 47. UN General Assembly Resolution 273, passed at the Assembly’s 207th meeting of 11 May 1949, granted Israel’s membership by more than a two-thirds majority vote, Eban, Personal, pp. 170–95, ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs communications forwarded to the author by Chihung Hwang of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office of the Republic of China, Atlanta, Georgia, 23 April 1998; Eytan, First, pp. 15–16. 48. Ben-Eliezer, Shanghai, p.440. 49. Ironically Israeli diplomats would make the same argument 35 years later as justification for upgrading a moribund Israeli consulate in Hong Kong. See Letter: Isador A.Magit [Magid], Shanghai, to Michael Saul Comay, Jerusalem, 1 May 1949, MOFA 2555/3; Goldstein, China, pp.95–106. 50. Two telegrams from Comay to Magid dated 6 May 1949, both courtesy of Isador A.Magid; Isador A.Magid; Exequatur by Cheng Kong Cee, Director of the Shanghai office of the ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Chinese and English, Shanghai, 14 May 1949, courtesy of Isador A.Magid; Magid, ‘I’, pp.41–5. On Israel’s Hong Kong consulate as a stepping-stone to diplomatic relations with the PRC, see Reuven Merhav and Yitzhak Shichor, ‘The Hong Kong Connection in Sino-Israeli Relations’, in Goldstein, China, pp.95–106. 51. Eytan, First, pp.188–89. 52. Deed of Gift…between the Shanghai Jewish Club and the Government of Israel, February 1, 1949; Deed of Gift…between the Shanghai Ashkenazi Jewish Communal Association and the Oheil Moishe Synagogue…and…the Government of Israel, 4 May 1949, MOFA 2555/13/3. According to Yaacov Liberman, by the time Isador Magid became honorary Israeli consul in Shanghai in mid-1949, ‘more than 50 per cent of the Jewish population of Shanghai were out of China.’ See Letter: Yaacov Liberman, San Diego, to the author, 7 August 1998. Most likely the last Jewish resident of Shanghai from the pre-1949 community was Max Leibowitch, who died there on 3 January 1982 and was buried in Hong Kong’s Jewish cemetery in March 1982. See ‘Dr. Ephraim’, ‘The Jewish Chinese Relationship: The Jewish Community on Taiwan’, typescript in Hartley Library, University of Southampton, UK (hereinafer HL). Other sources on the post-1949 exodus of Chinese Jews include the confidential report of Monty Jacob, World Jewish Congress, New York, 4 April 1967, HL; Letter: Andre Jabes, Geneva, to Natan Lerner, Tel Aviv, 13 March 1972, MS 237.8/93, HL; Liberman, My, passim; Lev Rubashov, ‘The Jews of China’, Jewish Frontier, Vol.35, No.7 (July-Aug. 1968), p. 26; Josef and Lynn Silverstein, ‘David Marshall and Jewish Immigration from


53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

China’, China Quarterly (London), No.75 (Sept. 1978), pp.647–54; and Eytan, First, chapter 8, entitled ‘Israel in Asia’, pp.177–91. Telegram: Moshe Sharett to Chou En Lai [sic], 9 January 1950, MOFA folder 41/ 150/A. Walter Eytan pointed out in a 1 March 1952 memorandum to G.S.Bajpai of the Indian Foreign Office that ‘because she has always felt herself to be an integral part of Asia, Israel was among the first countries to recognise the People’s Republic of China (January 1950). She has maintained friendly relations with that republic ever since. No other country in the Middle East has recognised the People’s Republic of China’ (File 2554/12, MOFA). Zhonghua renmin gonghegno duiwai guanxi wenjian (Collected Documents on the Foreign Relations of the Peoples’ Republic of China), Beijing, 1957, Vol.II, pp.22– 23, as cited in Shichor, Middle East, pp.21, 177, 216. On the American attitude towards Israeli recognition of the PRC, see the definitive research on the subject by Israel’s first ambassador to the PRC: E.Zev Sufott, ‘Israel’s China Policy 1950–92’, Israel Affairs, Vol.7, No.1 (Autumn 2000), p.95. He concludes: ‘Neither domestic reservations in Israel, nor pressure against the recognition by the United States, are discernible in the official documentation of the period. Israel’s Washington embassy was consulted at the end of October 1949 and confined itself to a recommendation to refrain from recognition until a reasonable number of states outside the communist bloc confer prior recognition, there being no advantage in prematurely alienating the existing Chinese authorities [that is, the ROC]. However, Israel’s Ambassador [Abba Eban] on hearing the news of the recognition on local radio, cabled apprehensions of negative reactions in otherwise friendly US circles. Jerusalem’s response was that the decision had been unanimous and that the embassy’s reservations were ex post facto. Thus Israel’s American interests and priorities…were barely existent in the initial act of recognition.’ On Israeli-ROC relations between 1950 and 1992, see Tzung-ho Bau, ‘The Policy of the Republic of China Toward the Middle East’, in Yu San Wang (ed.), Foreign Policy of the Republic of China on Taiwan, New York, 1990, p.116; China Yearbook 1958–1959, pp.202–08. Israel-PRC relations reached a high-point in the 1950s with an official, albeit unreciprocated visit of a high-level Israeli delegation to Beijing in April 1955 to address exclusively commercial ties. See David Hacohen, Yoman Burmah: Rishmei Shlichut 1953–1955, Tel Aviv, 1963, extracts translated as ‘Behind the Scenes of Negotiations between Israel and China’, New Outlook (Tel Aviv), Vol.6, No.9 (Nov.–Dec. 1963), pp.29–44; Hacohen, Eit Lesapir, Tel Aviv, 1974, translated by Meachem Dagut as Time to Tell: An Israeli Life, 1898–1984, New York, 1985 (see especially pp.219–45). For records of the Bandung conference, see Asian Recorder (New Delhi), 23–29 April 1956, pp. 191–92. David Kimche, The Afro-Asian Movement: Ideology and Foreign Policy of the Third World, Jerusalem, 1973, pp.52, 67, 73, argues that at the Bandung conference Pakistan and the PRC ‘were to outdo the Arabs in their attempts to condemn Israel… There was very little to show for any Afro-Asian, or even Asian, solidarity or ideology… There was very little agreement on any subject.’ See also Michael Brecher, ‘Israel and Afro-Asia’, International Journal (Toronto), Vol.16, No.2 (Spring 1961), pp.107–37; Sufott, ‘Israel’s’, p.101. Brecher, ‘Israel’, pp.116–17. Kimche adds that ‘as a consolation prize to Pakistan for agreeing to the inclusion of Peking, the others agreed to her demand to exclude Israel.’ See also Kimche, The Afro, pp.51–52.


58. Brecher, ‘Israel’, p.117. 59. On the Mufti’s participation at Bandung, see Mohamed Hassouna, The First AsianAfrican Conference, Cairo, 1955, pp.46, 91. 60. Sheffer, Sharett, p.14. Documents from German archives captured by the Allies in the Second World War reveal the Mufti as a willing Nazi collaborator. See ‘Haj Amin Husseini Dies; Ex-Palestine Grant Mufti’, New York Times, 5 July 1974, p. 24; Sidney Sugarman, ‘Grand Mufti’s Link with the Nazis’, Jewish Chronicle (London), 26 November 1993. 61. Zvi Elpeleg, The Grand Mufti, London, 1993, pp.131–32. 62. Arab participants at Bandung included Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Palestinian politician Ahmed Shukairy, and Lebanon’s Charles Malik. Hacohen, Time, pp.214–18. 63. Elpeleg, Grand, p.132. 64. Hassouna, First, p.94. 65. George Kahin, The Asian-African Conference, Port Washington, 1972, p.16; Sufott, ‘Israel’s’, pp.103–04. 66. Lillian Craig Harris, China Considers the Middle East (London: Tauris, 1993), pp. 109–10. 67. Long-term Israeli UN and US Ambassador and Foreign Minister Abba Eban, who had negotiated with Tsiang Tingfu in 1948, concluded that by 1992 ‘India and China [which] had spurned Israel in the name of ‘nonalignment’ discovered that there was no sense in this alienation. Competitive nonalignment was no longer a doctrine or a practice. There was nobody with whom not to align.’ See Eban, Personal, p.638; Kimche, Afro-Asian, pp.74, 266. 68. Bau, ‘Policy’, p.116; China Yearbook 1958–1959, pp. 207–8; 1978, pp.6–8, 335– 36. 69. China Yearbook 1968, pp.6–7. 70. Bau, ‘Policy’, p.117. 71. Ibid., p.116; Sufott, ‘Israel’s’, pp.97, 106. 72. Sufott, ‘Israel’s’, pp. 97, 106. 73. ‘Relations with People’s China’, Asian and African Division memorandum, 16 October 1959, MOFA, cited in Sufott, ‘Israel’s’, p.106. 74. For obvious security, political and commercial reasons, the military aspect of this relationship has been shrouded in secrecy. As Israeli political scientist Yitzhak Shichor has observed, Israel, the ROC, and ‘most if not all governments are reluctant to disclose details of their arms transactions.’ Shichor recorded the comment of Professor Aharon Kleiman, who wrote the definitive study on Israel’s arms sales, that Kleiman spent two years of his life trying to figure out the size of Israel’s military exports but ultimately failed. See Yitzhak Shichor, ‘Israel’s Military Transfers to China and Taiwan’, Survival, Vol.40, No.1 (Spring 1998), pp. 68–91. 75. The original allegation concerning chemical weapons appears to have been ‘Israel is reported to have provided chemical agents to Taiwan, and advice on CW [chemical warfare] matters to the Chinese [unclear which Chinese]’, Jack Anderson, ‘The Growing Chemical Club’, Washington Post, 24 August 1984. On the proposed Kfir deal, see ‘Israel Sells to China, Leases to Taiwan’, International Defense Review, Vol.24, No.9 (Sep. 1991), p.907.


76. On the demise of the Kfir deal, see Shichor, ‘Israel’s Military Transfers’, p.73; Asher Wallfish, ‘IAI Presses Rabin on Kfir Sales to Taiwan’, Jerusalem Post, 4 August 1992. 77. On the alleged transfer of Lance technology, see Andrew Mack, ‘Missile Proliferation in the Asia/Pacific Region’, in Trevor Findlay (ed.), Chemical Weapons and Missile Proliferation, Boulder, 1991, pp.41–2; Aaron Karp,‘The Frantic Third World Quest for Ballistic Missiles’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol.44, No.5 (June 1988), p.17; and Arthur Manfredi, ‘Ballistic Missile Proliferation Potential of Non-Major Military Powers’, United States Congressional Research Service Report to Congress, 16 August 1987, p.45. There have been similar unsubstantiated allegations of Israeli transfer of US Patriot missile technology to the PRC. On this matter, Shichor concludes that ‘allegations that Israel had transferred Patriot technology to China were particularly humiliating… Following its denials, Israel agreed that its Patriots would be examined by a joint US State-Defense [sic] Department team. The team found no evidence of unauthorised transfer and Israel was cleared by the State Department in early April 1992, yet not by the CIA and the Defense Department, which still believed that Israel had provided Beijing with technical documents that an on-site inspection could not reveal.’ See Shichor, ‘Israel’s Military Transfers’, pp.82–3. There is no unclassified version of the team’s report and the State Department did not even issue a press release on it because the issue was so sensitive. At a 2 April 1992 press conference, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutweiler did state publicly that ‘our team found no evidence that Israel had transferred a Patriot missile or Patriot missile technology. We plan no further action on this question with Israel and consider the matter closed.’ See also Warren Strobel and Bill Genz, ‘U.S. Can’t Pin Israel, Drops Probe’, Washington Times, 2 April 1992, pp.1, 4. 78. There have been similar unsubstantiated allegations of Israeli transfer of US Patriot missile technology to the PRC. See Shichor, ‘Israel’s Military Transfers’, pp.72–3. 79. Letter: Yaacov Liberman, San Diego, to the author, 7 August 1998. On Gabriel-2 and Shafrir missile sales to the ROC, see also World Armaments and Disarmament: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook, New York, 1983, pp.275, 350; and Jerusalem Post International Edition, 16 February 1985. According to SIPRI, Israel licensed production of the Gabriel–2 in the ROC beginning in 1977. 80. Letter: Liberman to the author, 7 August 1998. 81. Shichor, ‘Israel’s Military Transfers’, p.86. It is unclear whether the PRC was aware of the scale of these and other ROC-Israeli arms transactions. If the PRC did know, it is unclear to what degree such an awareness impacted on the PRC’s decision to undertake an arms trade of its own with Israel after 1979. More likely, a PRC-Israeli arms trade evolved out of the PRC’s own need, on its Indian, Laotian, Mongolian, Soviet and Vietnamese frontiers, for advanced weaponry that had been combat-tested against Soviet armament. The US, under its Taiwan Relations Act, continues to arm the ROC, albeit in decreasing amounts, while recognizing the PRC. The PRC tolerates these sales because it desires access to vast US markets and because the US is a superpower. It is extremely unlikely that the PRC would have tolerated any significant Israeli arms sales to the ROC after 1992. Nor would Israel have wanted to take the heat for conducting such exchanges. As has already been suggested in this essay, Israeli


82.

83.

84. 85.

86.

foreign policy is motivated by a hard sense of self-interest, and Israeli interests are different from those of the US. The US is willing to take the heat for ROC arms deals because of its naval interests in the Pacific Ocean, its long-term interest in Taiwan’s people and their democratic development, and, not incidentally, the generous courting of US politicians by the ROC government. Israel does not share those primary interests. E.Zev Sufott, A China Diary: Towards the Establishment of China-Israel Diplomatic Relations, London: Frank Cass, 1997; Sufott, ‘Israel’s’, pp.94–118; Goldstein, China. The Israeli sources for these figures are Foreign Trade Statistics Quarterly (Jerusalem), Vol.43, No.2 (April–June, 1992), p.40; Vol.49, No.2 (April–June, 1998), pp.30–3; and Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly (Jerusalem), Feb. 2003, ‘Trade Countries-Imports and Exports’. According to the Preliminary Statistics of Export and Import, Taiwan Area, Republic of China, Taipei, 7 Jan. 1998, Table 9, the ROC’s exports to Israel from January to December 1997 totalled $313.6 million, imports from Israel totalled $226.2 million, and the trade balance in favour of the ROC totalled $87.4 million. It is unclear on what basis these ROC figures are formulated, that is, whether they include such military-related hardware as electronics. If such numbers are added in, they may explain discrepancies between ROC and Israeli sources. Both the Israeli and ROC sets of numbers indicate a balance of trade favouring the ROC. ‘Taiwan Straits: The Best Musicians Go Abroad’, Jerusalem Post, 13 Feb. 1995, p. 5. Gad Modai, Taiwan, Taipei, Israel Economic and Cultural Office, 1997. As of 1998 Modai is head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce (email: Yigal Caspi, Director, North East Asia Division, MOFA, to the author, 10 April 2003). On the politics of the Einstein exhibit, see Craig S. Smith, ‘Albert Einstein, Political Pawn’, Bulletin of the Igud Yotzei Sin (Tel Aviv), Vol.49, No.375 (April 2003), p. 11 (reprinted from New York Times); Jonathan Goldstein, ‘Einstein and SinoIsraeli Ups-and-Downs’, Points East, Vol.17, No.3 (Nov. 2002), p.4; Bangor Daily News (Maine), 9 Aug. 2002, p.A13; Carroll Star News (Georgia), 11–17 Aug. 2002, pp.7, 10. On the cancellation of the Phalcon deal, see the following articles all by Jonathan Goldstein: ‘Phalcon Indemnification’, Jerusalem Post, 18 Jan. 2002, p.4A; ‘The Phalcon Phenomenon’, Jerusalem Post Internet Edition, 22 Jan. 2002; Points East, Vol.17, No.1 (March 2002), p.14; Jewish Georgian, Vol.13, No. 1 (Nov.-Dec. 2002), p.25; ‘Working toward a “Win/Win” for All Concerned’, Carroll Star News, 3–9 Feb. 2002, pp.8, 16; ‘America, China, Israel, the Phalcon, and Indemnification’, Times Georgian, 4 Jan. 2002, p.4A; Bangor Daily News, 18 Jan. 2002, p.A 13; ‘Shimon Peres in Beijing’, Virginia Review of Asian Studies, No. 4 (Fall 2002), pp.31–2; ‘Shimon Peres’ Visit to Beijing in Historical Perspective’, Points East, Vol.17, No.2 (July 2002), p.4; Jewish Georgian, Vol.12, No.5 (July– Aug. 2002), p.14; and ‘Shimon Peres in Beijing’, Bangor Daily News, 5 April 2002, p.A15.

Israel-India Relations: Seeking Balance and Realism P.R.KUMARASWAMY

The prolonged absence of formal relations with India was a unique but bitter foreign-policy experience for Israel. In both cases, a people with strong cultural and historic roots reclaimed its statehood around the same time and from the same colonial power, the British Empire. Among the few societies in Asia committed to democratic pluralism, a close relationship between Israel and India would only have been a natural development. With no direct conflicts or disputes, these nonIslamic countries in a region dominated by Islam could have forged close cooperation in a number of fields. Yet for over four decades such co-operative relations failed to materialize. This relationship, or non-relationship, is unique even in Israel’s long history of diplomatic isolation. For various political, ideological, religious or social reasons, a number of Third World countries have refused to recognize the Jewish state. Very often Israel has been portrayed as a ‘Western implant’, ‘an artificial creation’, ‘an imperialist stooge’ or simply as ‘the Zionist entity.’ To a number of Islamic countries the establishment of Israel was an affront. Even those nonWestern states which benefited from their ties with Israel gradually severed diplomatic connections. As a result, at the height of Israel’s isolation the stateless Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had more diplomatic representations in the world than the Jewish state. India’s case, however, was quite different. Unlike some of the other notable countries of the Third World, India had recognized the Jewish state shortly after its formation. Even in the absence of any vital political, economic or cultural interests, it was planning to establish a resident diplomatic mission in Israel. Initial delays, primarily due to pressing domestic problems, budgetary considerations and lack of personnel gradually assumed strong political and ideological dimensions. Absence of formal contacts between the two pre-state nationalist leaderships further contributed to a lack of appreciation of each

250 ISRAEL-INDIA RELATIONS

other’s constraints and priorities. Consequently, the prolonged Israeli overtures remained unrequited. On 29 January 1992, when it decided to establish full and formal diplomatic relations with Israel, India became the last major non-Arab and non-Islamic country to do so. It ended an anomalous and controversial situation that had prevailed for over four decades. During his tenure as prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi (1984–89) initiated certain incremental measures towards normalization. The final credit for completing the process, however, went to the pragmatic leadership of P.V.Narasimha Rao. His decision to establish relations with Israel fulfilled a promise made by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, to his Israeli counterpart, David Ben-Gurion, in early 1952. The inability of Nehru and his successors to forge diplomatic relations with Israel underscores the limitations within which India’s Israel policy operates as well as Israel’s prolonged isolation in the international arena. Like many other countries, India began to taste and exploit the ‘Israel card’ in trying to promote its interests with Arab and Islamic countries. Since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 strong sympathies for the Arabs have become an integral part of its policy towards the Middle East. The roots of this pro-Arab policy, however, should be traced to the early 1920s when the Indian nationalist movement emerged as a staunch supporter of the Arab position on Palestine. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Small Jewish communities have been living in India for centuries without fear or persecution. The cultural tolerance and the assimilationist trends of Hinduism meant that neither anti-Semitism nor pro-Zionism struck deep roots in the country. India and its nationalist leaders were unable to comprehend the ‘Jewish problem’ that haunted Europe for centuries and to sympathize with the Jews. Even Western-educated leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, who understood the suffering and persecution of the Jews, were not able to appreciate the logic behind the Zionist longing for a Jewish national home.1 India’s position on the ‘Jewish question’ or the demand for a Jewish national home in Palestine was radically different from that of the West. This position was not only unsympathetic towards the Jews but also strongly pro-Arab. Not only did India have a small number of Jews, but under the British it also had the largest Muslim population in the world. This combination of factors drove the Indian nationalists to view Jewish aspirations in Palestine through an Islamic prism. For instance, in April 1921 Mahatma Gandhi observed:

Dr PR Kumaraswamy is Associated Professor, Centre for West Asian and African Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.


The Muslims claim Palestine as an integral part of Jazirat al-Arab. They are bound to retain its custody, as an injunction of the Prophet … The Jews cannot receive sovereign rights in a place, which has been held for centuries by Muslim powers by right of religious conquest. The Muslim soldiers did not shed their blood in the late war for the purpose of surrendering Palestine out of Muslim control.2 This statement, made after the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 but before the proclamation of the British mandate for Palestine in July 1922, ruled out a Jewish state or sovereignty in Palestine. Around this time the Muslims of the subcontinent were agitating for the restoration of the caliphate, which had just been abolished by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). This struggle, known as the Khilafat movement, was perceived by the Indian nationalists as a vehicle for the long cherished Hindu-Muslim unity.3 The Indian National Congress began using Islamic terminology to explain its position towards the Middle East. Reflecting the tone set by Gandhi, in 1922 the annual session of the Congress Party demanded that ‘[the] effective guardianship of Islam and Jazirat-ul-Arab [be freed] from all non-Muslim control.’4 When the Khilafat struggle lost its momentum over the years, a new trend was ushered in. The Palestine question became a major foreign-policy agenda of the Congress Party when the rival Muslim League (the forerunner of Pakistani nationalism) began to adopt a more vociferous position on it. While reluctant to imitate the League’s demand for the cancellation of the Balfour Declaration, the Congress Party expressed support for ‘the Arabs of Palestine in their struggle for independence against British Imperialism.’5 The Indian nationalists denounced the British for making contradictory promises to Jews and Arabs over Palestine. At the same time, it sought an amicable solution to the Palestine problem and urged the Jews ‘not to seek the shelter of the British Mandatory and not to allow themselves to be exploited in the interest of British Imperialism.’6 Invoking the principle of the right of self-determination in 1938, it declared: ‘While sympathizing with the plight of the Jews in Europe and elsewhere, [the Congress Working] Committee deplore that in Palestine the Jews have relied on British armed forces to advance their special claims and thus aligned themselves on the side of British Imperialism.’7 In short, the party’s prime concerns were the linkages the Jewish community in Palestine maintained, or was compelled to maintain, with the mandatory power rather than the validity of their claims. Following repeated requests from his Jewish friends, in November 1938 Mahatma Gandhi observed: ‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.’8 Likewise, since the late 1920s, as the principal player in formulating the foreign policy of the Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru provided an ideological framework for that policy. While admitting the prolonged suffering and subjugation of the Jews and their history of being ‘unwelcome and undesirable


strangers’ everywhere, he was swayed by anti-imperialism, which endeared him to the Arab position. Speaking in March 1947 at the Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi, also attended by a Jewish delegation from Palestine, he declared: ‘Palestine is essentially an Arab country and no decision can be made without the consent of the Arabs.’9 This predisposition towards the Arabs cannot be understood without examining the position of the pre-state Jewish leadership towards the Indian nationalist struggle. For a long time India did not figure prominently in the Zionist struggle for nationhood. Being a British colony, India was partly responsible for this indifference. This alone does not explain the subsequent Zionist interest and interactions. Like the positions of the Congress Party, Zionist interest in India was also motivated by Islamic considerations. From the early 1920s onwards the Indian nationalists, especially Gandhi, were advocating a pro-Arab position on Palestine. For long the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, sought to Islamize the Palestinian problem and British India became his prime target. He and his emissaries visited India seeking political as well as financial support for his endeavours and before long established links with the nationalists and important Muslim leaders in India.10 India was deemed important primarily because of its vast Muslim population and because of the prospects that this could influence the policies of both the British and the Muslim communities around the world vis-à-vis Palestine. Indeed, influential British officials were sufficiently alarmed by this potential reaction to oppose the Balfour Declaration.11 The strategy to Islamize the Palestinian problem took an interesting turn in January 1931 when the Mufti offered to inter the body of Indian leader Mohammed Ali in al-harem al-sharif in Jerusalem. Conscious of the political implications of such a move, WZO President Chaim Weizmann met the late leader’s brother Shaukat Ali in London and sought his assistance in moderating the Mufti’s position towards the Jews.12 This was the first known contact between the Zionist leadership and an Indian leader. However, before long Shaukat Ali became a strong supporter of the Mufti’s plans to internationalize the Palestinian problem. A few months later, accompanied by the British Zionist leader Selig Brodetsky, Nahum Sokolov, who had replaced Weizmann as head of the WZO, met Gandhi on 15 October 1931 in London. The first encounter with Gandhi was necessary because of their concerns with ‘the efforts which were being made by some Muslims, particularly Shaukat Ali, to draw Palestine into the ambit of Indian communal problem.’ Therefore, the two leaders sought Gandhi’s assurance that ‘no attempt to bring the problem of Palestine into the discussion of the [ongoing] Round Table Conference or into the atmosphere surrounding those discussions, would meet with his approval.’13 Once he agreed to this request, the Zionists’ interest in India diminished. An earnest effort to secure the support of the Indian nationalists did not begin until mid-1936, when Immanuel Olsvanger came to India as the first Zionist


emissary. Once again, this visit followed disturbances in Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine over Jewish immigration. Even though Olsvanger met a number of Indian leaders, his efforts were anything but successful. Besides these attempts, there were no contacts between the two nationalist movements and none of the leading personalities of the Zionist movement either wrote to their Indian counterparts or tried to meet them in person. In contrast, the Arab nationalists, especially the Mufti, forged close personal ties with the Indian nationalists. Furthermore, even while seeking Ghandi’s support and understanding, the Zionist movement was unable or unwilling to express its support for India’s struggle for freedom. The realization of a Jewish national home in Palestine depended to a large extent on the British, as the country’s ruling power, and their willingness to fulfil the commitments made in the Balfour Declaration and incorporated into the Mandate. Yet, because of its regional interests, there was considerable doubt about the British ability and willingness to fulfil that commitment. Under such circumstances, any endorsement of the Indian struggle against the British would have further weakened the position of the Zionists visà-vis the British. As a result, even the belated contacts with India did not lead to any desire on the part of the Zionist leadership to seek a political alliance with their Indian counterparts. These contacts were confined to seeking Indian support and to drawing historical parallels between the two peoples without offering any reciprocal support for the Indian cause. This lack of Indian understanding of the Jewish problem and Zionist indifference towards India significantly shaped India’s policy towards Israel. Even the Jewish suffering at the hands of the Nazis and the Holocaust did not affect India’s basic position vis-à-vis Palestine.14 After the war it even opposed any linkage between the Jewish refugees in Europe and the fate of Palestine. THE PARTITION OF PALESTINE It was the 1947 election to the 11–member United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) that provided India with an opportunity to articulate its position in the international arena and thus influence the destiny of Palestine. After weeks of deliberations a seven– member majority recommended partition as the desirable solution. Representing Asia at the Committee, India adopted an overtly pro-Arab position and, along with Iran and Yugoslavia, proposed a minority plan that called for the formation of a federal Palestine with adequate internal autonomy for the Jewish population.15 This plan was dead on arrival. While ‘autonomy’ fell far short of the Jewish demand for statehood, the Arabs were not willing to make any concessions to the Jews and sought the creation of a unified Arab state in Palestine. As a result the Indian plan earned the dubious distinction of being rejected by both contending parties and was never discussed at the UN. Thus when the General Assembly voted on the majority plan on 29


November 1947, India joined the Arab and Islamic countries in opposing the partition of Palestine. The establishment of Israel, however, created a new political reality and India found itself unable to be indifferent. Traditionally its recognition policy has been cautious. As a fellow member of the international community, Israel had expressed its willingness to fulfil its international obligations. It managed to secure the recognition of a number of important countries, including a few Islamic states. The negative vote from India did not prevent Israel from becoming a member of the United Nations. After prolonged deliberations and considerable hesitation, in September 1950 India recognized the Jewish state.16 This recognition assumed additional importance in the light of India’s attitude towards the All-Palestine Government proclaimed on 22 September 1948. A few days later Ahmed Hilmi Pasha, the premier of the ‘Government’, sought India’s recognition.17 Despite its prolonged support for the Arabs and opposition to the partition of Palestine, India was reluctant to recognize the newly proclaimed entity.18 In the words of one Indian official, ‘[the] claims of this government for recognition are no stronger than that of the Government of South Korea posing as the national Government of all Korea. Realistic approach would suggest our ignoring their claims and not acknowledging their telegram.’19 While hesitating to respond to the Israeli request for recognition, India felt it inappropriate to recognize the Palestinian claim, and, conscious of the legal implications, it refrained from formally acknowledging the Palestinian request for recognition. Although the official statement concerning Israel’s recognition did not refer to diplomatic relations, there were indications that India was favourably disposed to such a move. In December 1950 it felt that because of ‘financial stringency’ a mission in Israel would have ‘to wait for more propitious times.’20 A firmer Indian commitment came less than two years later, when Nehru told visiting Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Walter Eytan of India’s desire to establish a resident mission in Israel.21 Following Eytan’s visit a ministry official was asked to prepare the budget and work out other financial details for a resident Indian mission in Tel Aviv. There is an element of justification in the Israeli claim that the prolonged absence of diplomatic relations, though pragmatic from the Indian point of view, was a breach of faith and commitment. At the same time, the lack of Indian enthusiasm to open a mission in Israel was neither exceptional nor unusual. Unless there were pressing political, economic or cultural considerations, it was extremely hesitant in opening new missions. Israel was not a high-priority area for India. Financial constraints and scarcity of personnel led India either to postpone opening new missions or to make its missions responsible for a number of neighbouring countries. For instance, until mid-1950s its Cairo mission was looking after India’s interests in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.


NON-RELATIONS AS POLICY On the eve of India’s independence a section of its elite hoped that the partition and formation of an Islamic state in South Asia would free India from the Islamic-Arab constraint. One such person, K.M.Panikkar (later India’s ambassador to China and Egypt), even assured the Zionist leaders in April 1947 that ‘once Pakistan is established, Hindu leaders and politicians may well take a pro-Zionist line.’22 However, what began primarily as a practical problem of finding budget and personnel gradually became a political issue. The factors that compelled India to adopt a pro-Arab position before its independence continued, albeit in a different form. Though couched in ideological terms during the freedom struggle, their rivalry with the Muslim League partly influenced the policies of the Indian nationalists towards Palestine and their opposition to the Jewish demands for statehood. Since 1947 this concern has taken two distinct forms, namely Pakistan and the domestic Muslim population. As a state conceived to be the homeland of the Muslims of the subcontinent, Islam became an important instrument of Pakistani foreign policy and the Middle East—its natural target. India was apprehensive of the Pakistani attempts to establish an Islamic forum in the Middle East. Indian leaders have often underscored ‘similarities’ between Israel and Pakistan and reiterated their opposition to states being created on the basis of religion. The dispute between India and Pakistan over the predominantly Muslim province of Kashmir intensified the efforts of both countries to seek allies and friends in the region. When the Kashmir dispute first came up for discussion at the UN, there were seven Arab states and this number grew gradually. India was apprehensive of losing the Arab support to Pakistan over its policy towards Israel. For instance, in May 1949 the Indian ambassador to Washington, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, assured her Israeli counterpart that India’s recognition might take place ‘soon after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute.’23 India’s failure to invite Israel for the 1955 Bandung Afro-Asian Conference, the forerunner of the Non-Aligned Movement, was partly attributed to its apprehensions over Pakistani moves in the Middle East.24 However, the absence of diplomatic relations did not inhibit Pakistani commentators from accusing India of conspiring with the ‘Zionist enemy’ to threaten and undermine the larger Islamic world. The traditional Indian support for the Arabs and the Palestinian cause was painted as a farce and a camouflage for its clandestine relations with the ‘Zionist enemy.’25 In the domestic arena, Maulana Abdel Kalam Azad, a senior Congress leader and Nehru’s adviser on Arab affairs,26 appeared to have played an important role in the absence of diplomatic relations. In the words of Michael Brecher, Azad was also fearful of the consequences of diplomatic relations with Israel on India’s position in the Arab world. An unstated but bitter rivalry with


Pakistan for Arab support on the Kashmir dispute was then at its height… Azad (and Nehru) was also concerned about the possible impact of a welcoming gesture of Israel on India’s large and insecure Muslim minority, Pakistan would probably have fanned the flames of communal hatred in India by reference to Israel. This might have affected the loyalty of India’s Muslims and would, in any event have been a shock to their already bewildered state of mind following the Partition riots and mass migration, with the aftermath of distrust among many Hindus. Was an exchange of diplomatic missions with Israel worth all these risks?27 Though it was never admitted in public, the perceived opposition of the domestic Muslim population played a critical role in the prolonged absence of diplomatic relations. Gradually a host of regional and international developments and considerations prevented any meaningful interaction and understanding between India and Israel, and India’s Israel policy became one of the most controversial aspects of its foreign policy. The absence of diplomatic relations drew widespread criticisms in both India and abroad. The Nehru-Nasser friendship proved to be a turning point in India’s negative attitude towards Israel. The Indian prime minister saw the Egyptian president as the symbol and manifestation of the nascent Arab nationalism and anti-colonialism. Nasser’s commitment to secularism and socialism and his opposition to the US-sponsored Cold War-based military blocs endeared him to India. Before long Cairo became an important factor in India’s Middle East policy and India’s proximity with it continued until Nasser’s death in September 1970. Against this backdrop, the Israeli invasion of Sinai in 1956 infuriated Nehru, not only because of the attack on a fellow member of the Afro-Asian world and a close ally of India but mainly because it was done in collaboration with Britain and France, the two ‘imperialist powers.’ Shortly after the commencement of hostilities, Nehru told Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian parliament) that ‘in view of the existing passion’ diplomatic exchanges were not possible.28 Since then ‘the time is not yet ripe’ became the standard Indian position towards Israel. Israel’s growing international isolation especially following the Arab-Israeli conflicts of June 1967 and October 1973 further underscored the Indian position. Even though the vocal segment of the opposition took the Indian government to task for its pro-Arab position during the June war, normalization gradually became a marginal issue in Indian politics. Support for Israel was confined primarily to anti-Congress elements. Even the formation of the first nonCongress government in New Delhi in 1977 did not alter Israel’s fortunes. The impact of the much-publicized incognito visit by Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan in August 1977 was minimal. Prime Minister Morarji Desai expressed his inability to modify India’s position without significant changes in Israel’s policy vis-à-vis the occupied territories.29 In short, the visit proved to be more controversial than productive.


The absence of diplomatic relations did not imply the lack of formal contacts between the two countries. Following the outbreak of the Second World War a number of Jewish refugees from Europe took asylum in India. From the late 1940s onwards India became a transit point for the emigration of Jewish refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Following the establishment of Israel a number of Jews emigrated from India. Therefore within months after India’s recognition Israel opened a separate immigration office in Bombay and in December 1950 appointed F.W.Pollack, a leader of the Jewish community in Bombay, as its ‘Trade Commissioner for India and South East Asia.’ This office was gradually upgraded as ‘Consular Agent’ and then Honorary Consul in January 1953. Within months a more formal arrangement was made and in June 1953 Gabriel Doron was appointed the first Israeli consul in India.30 From 1953 until the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, 15 consuls headed the Israeli legation in India. There was a certain lacuna in consular ties. Although most of them were career diplomats, their legal status remained vague. Israel contended that though resident in Bombay, they were accredited to the government of India. But India repeatedly emphasized that the office was merely a consular mission and not a full-fledged embassy; yet in the initial years there were no restrictions on the consuls’ movements except in sensitive strategic areas on the borders. During Nehru’s tenure the Israeli consuls had regular and easy access to the ministry of external affairs and often met the Indian prime minister.31 However, in the 1970s their movements were restricted to the state of Maharashtra, of which Bombay (later Mumbai) is the capital. Following a controversial interview in 1982 Israeli Consul Yossef Hasseen was declared persona non grata and for a while India refused to accept his successor.32 Occasionally visa restrictions were imposed on people holding Israeli passports and even Israelis who had originally emigrated from and had relatives in India often endured difficulties in obtaining visas from the Indian missions in Europe.33 Likewise, the absence of ties did not inhibit Indian and Israeli diplomats from interacting in third countries and at the United Nations. There was a number of low-level official and semi-official visits between the two countries. Nor did the absence of relations prevent India from seeking Israeli help in the agricultural, and even military fields. For example, India sought and obtained limited quantities of small arms and ammunitions during its conflicts with China in 1962 and Pakistan in 1965.34 Any discussion of India’s Israel policy would be incomplete without a brief examination of its policy towards the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Reflecting its reluctance to recognize the All Palestine Government in 1948, India adopted a careful policy towards the PLO. Even though it was conducting official and semi-official discussions with it, India’s recognition was not forthcoming. The absence of an Arab consensus towards the role and status of the PLO was a major inhibiting factor.


The recognition of the PLO as the ‘sole representatives of the Palestinian people’ by the 1974 Rabat pan-Arab summit and Jordan’s begrudging acquiescence to this fact gave a new impetus to Indian-PLO relations. In January 1975 India recognized the Palestinian organization and permitted it to open an office in New Delhi. In March 1980 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi granted diplomatic recognition to the PLO by upgrading its office to that of a full-fledged embassy, with all diplomatic immunities and privileges.35 In November 1988 India became one of the first non-Arab countries to recognize the state of Palestine proclaimed by the Palestine National Council in Algiers. Since then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has been received in India as a head of state. NORMALIZATION AND AFTER Rajiv Gandhi, who assumed office following the assassination of his mother Indira in October 1984, signalled a fresh Indian approach towards Israel.36 His lack of ideological orientation together with an improvement in Israel’s international image combined to produce the breakthrough. Though unable to completely reverse the traditional course of Indian policy, he initiated a number of moves in this direction. Unlike his predecessors, Gandhi openly met Israeli officials and pro-Israeli elements in the United States and, while avoiding any categorical statements about a reappraisal, his actions clearly indicated a shift in Indian perceptions. Normalization figured prominently in his talks with American officials and the question was widely discussed in the Indian media. In September 1985 Rajiv Gandhi met his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres during the annual UN General Assembly session. This was probably the first meeting of its kind between the prime ministers of the two countries and, though generating no major breakthrough, the importance of its occurrence cannot be overstated. A few months later Israel was allowed to post a regular vice-consul in Bombay to replace Yossef Hasseen who had been expelled in June 1982. In 1988 after a gap of six years the Israeli representation was elevated to the pre-1982 position of consul. During Gandhi’s tenure both countries played the quarter-final fixture of the Davis Cup Tennis Tournament in New Delhi in July 1987. Initially there were apprehensions that political considerations would prevent such a highly visible sporting encounter. In fact, the event had the opposite effect as in the run-up to the match the question of normalization generated a lively and public debate in India that was favourable towards Israel. The nascent normalization gained momentum in June 1988 when during his visit to the US Gandhi met a group of Jewish leaders to discuss the issue. Later that year India formally extended the jurisdiction of the Israeli consul to the southern Indian state of Kerala which has a significant number of Jewish communities, some of which, known as the Cochin Jews, had been immigrating to Israel since 1948. Visa regulations were relaxed for Israelis of Indian origin and Israelis were again allowed to attend international conferences hosted in


India.37 Private trade between the two countries began to flourish, leading to the blacklisting of a number of Indian diamond firms by the Damascus-based Arab Boycott Office in 1986. In January 1989 India hosted an Anti-Defamation League delegation as well as US Congressman Stephen Solarz. The question of normalization figured prominently during their discussions with Foreign Minister Narasimha Rao and other senior officials. There were also suggestions that Israel passed on sensitive information to India concerning Pakistan’s nuclear programme and that it had even sought Indian assistance for an Osiraq-type pre-emptive strike against Pakistani nuclear installations at Kahuta.38 At the same time, a number of impediments prevented Rajiv Gandhi from pursuing the normalization process to its logical conclusion. The outbreak of the intifada significantly eroded Israel’s international standing and India was not immune to that process. Israel’s involvement in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, especially its military-intelligence co-operation, was viewed with suspicion and anger in India. It was feared that Israel’s involvement in the conflict would strengthen Colombo’s determination to impose a military solution on the ethnic conflict and thereby undermine India’s interests in the region.39 Furthermore, rapid erosion in his domestic popularity and electoral reversals suffered by the Congress Party in a number of regional elections significantly limited Gandhi’s capacity for far-reaching changes in his Israeli policy. Following the defeat of the Congress Party in November 1989 India entered an era of political uncertainty. The two minority governments succeeding Gandhi were too preoccupied with their survival to offer substantive foreign-policy initiatives, especially with regard to Israel. The growing political instability led to early parliamentary elections in 1991. During an election rally near the southern city of Madras, a suicide bomber believed to be a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) assassinated Rajiv Gandhi. Narasimha Rao, who did not even contest the elections, soon emerged as the consensus candidate for the leadership of the Congress Party, and on 21 June 1991 he was sworn in as India’s prime minister. Within days after Rao had assumed office terrorist violence in the Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir brought India’s Israel policy under public scrutiny. A group of Israeli tourists came under attack from Kashmir militants, who killed one tourist and kidnapped another. In view of the grave situation, the government declared that normal consular restrictions would not impede the handling of the humanitarian problem. Prime Minister Rao agreed to the visit of a senior Israeli diplomat, Moshe Yegar, to co-ordinate the release with Consul Giora Becher. After days of hectic behind-the-scenes negotiations, the militants released the Israeli tourist. During his brief stay Yegar, who was then heading the Asia Desk in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, met senior officials in New Delhi. Even while feigning to follow the policies of his Congress predecessors, Rao not only signalled a new approach towards Israel but managed to bring the normalization process to its logical conclusion. In a well-publicized move on 16


December 1991 India voted with the majority of UN members in repealing the 1975 General Assembly Resolution equating Zionism with racism. As one of the original supporters of the infamous resolution, this marked a significant departure from the past. Not surprisingly, this move did not please pro-Arab elements in India but, undeterred by the opposition, the government began negotiations with Israel over normalization. Within days after the UN vote ‘preliminary’ discussions were held between a senior Indian diplomat in Washington and the visiting head of the Israeli foreign ministry. On 29 January 1992 India formally announced its decision to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. A number of international as well as domestic developments enabled Rao to attain normalization with Israel. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union weakened the Non-Aligned movement and reduced its ideological hostility towards Israel. Having ushered in an economic liberalization process, Rao looked to the West as India’s prime partner and supporter and the absence of relations with Israel was seen as an impediment to improving relations with the industrialized world, especially the United States. It was not accidental that the decision to establish diplomatic relations was announced on the eve of Rao’s visit to New York to attend a summit meeting of the United Nations Security Council members. The inauguration of the Madrid peace process in October 1991 further enhanced Israel’s international position. The willingness of the Arabs and the Palestinians to seek a negotiated settlement altered the basic rules of the ArabIsraeli conflict. By its very nature, a negotiated settlement implied the willingness of both parties to abandon their maximalist demands and to seek a compromise solution. Once the Arab states and the Palestinians embarked on this course, there was no compelling reason for India to maintain the status quo. The absence of fundamental conflicts between India and Israel eroded any need to continue the situation of non-relations. The Madrid process also signalled the end of Israel’s prolonged political and diplomatic isolation. In a reversal of past policies, a number of countries began to interact with Israel or to upgrade the level of diplomatic contacts with the Jewish state. The inauguration of the Madrid conference was partly facilitated by the willingness of the erstwhile Soviet Union to re-establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Likewise, China abandoned its longstanding anti-Israel rhetoric and established diplomatic relations with Israel in January 1992.40 India’s ability to play any meaningful role in the Middle East peace process depended on its willingness to establish normal relations with all parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict including Israel. Not to be left out of the process, India announced its decision within days after the Chinese move.41 Above all, Rao’s decision to normalize relations with Israel appears to have been a considered move aimed at seeking a balance and pragmatism in Indian foreign policy. By becoming a prisoner of its idealism and rhetoric, India had divorced itself from political realism, with consistency ironically becoming the


guiding principle of its policy towards the ever-turbulent Middle East. While extending political support for the Arab and Islamic countries of the region, it was unable and unwilling to seek reciprocity. Even the political and military support of some of these countries for Pakistan during the 1965 and 1971 IndoPakistani wars did not modify this trend. Normalization was partly aimed at remedying this situation. Shortly after the establishment of relations J.N.Dixit, India’s Foreign Secretary (Permanent Under-secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs) publicly stated: ‘What have the Arabs given us, if I may ask? Did they vote for us in the Kashmir issue? Were they supportive of us when we had the East Pakistan crisis [in 1971]?’42 In the past, such criticisms had been confined to opposition quarters which were highly critical of the Congress governments for their failure to establish diplomatic ties with Israel.43 Even though some of the Arab countries were displeased with the move, normalization did not evoke any adverse response from the region. Contrary to past fears and apprehensions, the newly established relations with Israel did not inhibit India from pursuing productive relations with a number of Middle Eastern countries. The improved ties with Iran and the highly publicized visit of President Hashemi Rafsanjani in April 1995 offered a vivid demonstration that normalization did not inhibit India from improving its relations with other countries of the region. Shortly after the January 1992 decision India opened its embassy in Tel Aviv followed by a similar Israeli move in New Delhi.44 Since then a host of official, semi-official and non-official visits has taken place between the two countries. The brief but very public visit of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in May 1993 and a week-long visit of President Ezer Weizmann in December 1996 were the highlights of the bilateral relationship. While the former took place when the Congress Party was in power, the latter occurred when the opposition came to power, indicating the evolution of a national consensus for a close and cooperative relationship with Israel. Aside from these two high profile visits, during the tenure of Israel’s Labour Party (1992–96) a host of Israeli cabinet ministers, senior officials and business delegations visited India. Reciprocating this, a string of Indian ministers, diplomats and government officials visited Israel to promote political, economic and cultural contacts between the two countries. Except for a minor controversy over the visit of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in July 1993,45 the relations remained free of problems. Neither the deportation of some 400 Hamas militants in December 1992 nor the murder of 29 Muslim worshippers in Hebron by an Israeli zealot in February 1994 evoked adverse reactions from India. Since the start of normalization both sides have significantly consolidated their security co-operation. Without much publicity and disclosures both countries are silently pursuing serious discussions, dialogues and dealings in the military and security spheres. During the first six years after normalization there were over 50 defence-related exchanges and developments between the two


countries. Prolonged neglect and indifference do not appear to be inhibiting both countries from pursuing military transactions and co-operation. While both sides are extremely reluctant to discuss the issue, it appears that this relationship is not confined to Israeli arms sales to India. Largely revolving around the air force, it also covers areas such as intelligence co-operation, naval patrol and counter-terrorism. Though they do not share a common enemy or threat perception, India and Israel share the common objective of seeking technological independence and qualitative superiority. Numerous strategic projects presently undertaken by both countries are not different and provide the basis for a strategic partnership. India’s searches for technology and Israel’s need for economizing defence research are complementary and can be the foundation for any sustained and long-term partnership.46 The domestic support for normalization is, however, not unanimous. A significant segment of the Indian intelligentsia is unable and unwilling to appreciate the need for close political relations with Israel. It views normalization as a betrayal of the traditional Indian commitment to the Palestinian cause. Even the establishment of ties more than four decades after India’s recognition of the Jewish state was portrayed as a hasty and unnecessary move. In their view, India ‘should have waited till the ground realities in the West Asian theatre changed substantially so as to remove the very basis of our decades-old anti-Israeli policy.’47 Some went so far as to portray the decision as an anti-Muslim alliance, if not a conspiracy.48 Prime Minister Rao’s decision was opposed even by an influential segment of the Congress Party. Senior cabinet minister Arjun Singh warned of the consequences of normalization for fear that this decision might affect Muslim support for the Congress and would be a departure from the Nehruvian framework Indian foreign policy.49 Partly due to similar considerations, former Prime Minister V.P.Singh also registered his opposition to normalization. Another Congress parliamentarian, a senior aide to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, described Peres as a ‘terrorist’ during the latter’s visit to India in May 1993.50 A similarly negative attitude towards normalization was also shared by some of the opposition figures closely identified with the left. Such criticisms become particularly harsh when related to defence cooperation, especially in counter-terrorism. Because of its ‘failure’ to curb terrorism, Israel’s ability to help India in this critical arena is seen to be limited. Even those who are otherwise reconciled to normalization react emotionally over security co-operation with Israel. India has both the capacity and the experience to overcome all threats from Pakistan without outside help, and ‘to give an impression that India will tackle this threat with [Israel’s] expertise or experience sends the wrong signal to many people both at home and abroad.’51 Any serious evaluation of the emerging relations between the two countries cannot ignore certain trends as well as impediments. There is a greater Indian reluctance to maintain high-level political contacts with Israel. In the absence of prolonged relations, political contacts provide both a framework and an impetus


for greater co-operation between the two countries. The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin apparently made an unsuccessful bid to visit India during a state visit to the Far East. Likewise, prolonged persuasion from the military establishment preceded the decision to post a military attaché in Israel.52 There are indications that India is yet to integrate and internalize Israel into its Middle-East policy. Like the US State Department, the Indian foreign-policy establishment is largely staffed by Arabists, and a significant number of the diplomats posted to Israel have previously served in, or would be going to, Arab countries. Historical legacy, economic interests and geo-strategic considerations necessitate a pro-Arab stand. This is further compounded by Israel’s inability to integrate itself as a Middle Eastern power. Consequently, any proposal emanating from the Indian mission in Tel Aviv would have to be weighed against possible repercussions from other parts of the region. Even well-meaning proposals are naturally buried in the bureaucratic muddle in New Delhi and inevitably lead to delay and indecision. The election of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister in May 1996 further complicated the picture. The slowing of the peace process during his tenure considerably weakened Israel’s diplomatic position. A number of Arab and Islamic countries which had sought semi-official ties with Israel either froze or suspended the process of normalization. The Netanyahu government’s confrontation with the Clinton administration was further compounded by the conservative and inward-looking worldview of some of its coalition partners. India was not immune to these developments. Israel’s policies towards China and Pakistan do pose certain concerns in India. Rarely discussed in public, Israel’s military co-operation with China does threaten some of India’s strategic interests. Despite the disagreements over the nature and extent of this relationship, it is generally agreed that since the 1970s Israeli-Chinese military co-operation has involved technological transfers and upgrading.53 Such co-operation not only enhances the capabilities and modernization programmes of China but also improves the quality of its arms exports. As a traditional customer of China, Pakistan would thus indirectly benefit from this military co-operation. Moreover, even while seeking relations with India, Israel has long sought to court Pakistan. There are indications that these overtures have not gone unreciprocated and representatives of both countries have been in regular contact and even reached limited understanding over sensitive matters. Although India should not be unduly concerned about Israel’s relations with its immediate neighbours and historic rivals, it cannot be indifferent to any close strategic cooperation and partnership between the Jewish state and China and Pakistan.54 CONCLUSION Since the late 1990s a number of critical factors have enabled both countries to strengthen and consolidate their relations. To a large extent, normalization with


Israel ceased to be a contentious issue in domestic Indian politics and even the communists, the erstwhile torchbearers of anti-Israeli policy, have come around, with their veteran leader visiting Israel in the summer of 2000. By adopting a professional approach to national security issues, both countries have diversified their military-security relations and such ties form a critical component of the bilateral relations. Their fight against international terrorism and the need for greater inter-agency co-operation were highlighted by the formation of a special task force on terrorism and routine and periodic consultations between their security agencies. The September 11 atrocities have reminded both India and Israel of the vulnerability of the democratic nations to international terrorism and driven them to intensify their co-operation. Above all, India’s nascent strategic affinity with the US has been further conducive to greater Indo-Israeli cooperation. Hence, in contrast to the widespread international criticism of Israel following the launching of the Palestinian Intifada in September 2000, India’s newly found friendship with the Jewish state has not been unduly affected. NOTES 1. In May 1933, writing to his daughter Indira, Nehru observed: ‘They [the Jews] had no home or nation, and everywhere they went they were treated as unwelcome and undesirable strangers… They were humiliated, reviled, tortured and massacred; the very word ‘Jew’ became a word of abuse, a synonym for a miser and a grasping money-lender. And yet these amazing people not only survived all this, but managed to keep their racial and cultural characteristics, and prospered and produced a host of great men… Most of them, of course, are far from prosperous; they crowd in the cities of eastern Europe and, from time to time, suffer ‘pogroms’ or massacres. These people without home or country…have never ceased to dream of old Jerusalem, which appears to their imaginations greater and more magnificent than it ever was in fact.’ See Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History, New Delhi, 1987, fourth imprint, pp.762–63. 2. Young India, 6 April 1921, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, New Delhi, 1958, Vol.19, p.530. 3. For a detailed discussion, see Gail Minoult, The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India, New York, 1982. 4. A.M.Zaidi and S.G.Zaidi (eds.), The Encyclopaedia of the Indian National Congress, New Delhi, 1977, Vol.8, p.542. 5. Ibid., Vol.9, p.538. 6. Ibid., Vol.11, p.427. 7. Ibid., p.497. 8. For discussions on Gandhi’s position vis-à-vis the Palestine question, see Gideon Shimoni, Gandhi, Satyagraha and the Jews: A Formative Factor in India’s Policy towards Israel, Jerusalem, 1977; Margaret Chatterjee, Gandhi and His Jewish Friends, Houndsmills, 1992; P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘Mahatma Gandhi and the Jewish National Home’, Asian and African Studies (Haifa), Vol.26, No.1, March 1992, pp. 1–13.


9. Asian Relations: Report of the Proceedings and Documentation of the First Asian Relations Conference, New Delhi, March–April 1947, New Delhi, 1948, p.70. 10. Taysir Jbara, Palestinian Leader Hajj Amin al-Husayni Mufti of Jerusalem, Princeton, 1986, pp.63–4, 113. 11. Leonard Stein, The Balfour Declaration, London, 1961, pp.496–501. 12. Central Zionist Archives (Jerusalem), File S25/3048. 13. Note of the interview by Selig Brodetsky, 15 October 1931, Central Zionist Archives, S25/3535. 14. For a discussion, see P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘India and the Holocaust: Perceptions of the Indian National Congress’, Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies (Saskatoon, Canada), Vol.3 (April 2000), pp.117–25. 15. For the complete text, see United Nations General Assembly, United Nations Special Committee on Palestine: Report to the General Assembly, New York, 1947, Vol.1, pp.59–64. 16. For a discussion, see P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘India’s Recognition of Israel, September 1950’, Middle Eastern Studies (London), Vol.31, No.1, Jan. 1995, pp.124–38. 17. Ahmed Hilmi Pasha, Cairo to Foreign Minister of India, d.30 September 1948, National Archives of India (New Delhi), National Archives of India (New Delhi), FO 46(1)– AWT/48. 18. For a discussion on this issue, see P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘India and the All Palestine Government’, Strategic Analysis (New Delhi), Vol.13, No.10, January 1991, pp.1, 163–72. 19. Note by J.S.Mehta, d.4 October 1948, National Archives of India (New Delhi), FO 46(1)– AWT/48. 20. Prepared notes for parliamentary questions, nd. National Archives of India, (New Delhi), Ministry of External Affairs, File no. 23 (7)–AWT/50. 21. A detailed account of Eytan’s discussions with Nehru and senior foreign ministry officials in February 1952 can be found in New Delhi Diary, Israel State Archives, F.O. No.2383/21. See also Walter Eytan, The First Ten Years: A Diplomatic History of Israel, London, 1958, pp.169–70; and S.Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography, New Delhi, 1976, Vol.2, p.170. 22. This statement was made to the nine-member Jewish delegation from Palestine that came to India to attend the Asian Relations Conference in early 1947. For a discussion on Panikkar’s position, see P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘K.M.Panikkar and Indo-Israeli Relations’, International Studies (New Delhi), Vol.32, No.3, Sept. 1995, pp.327–37. 23. Summary of the note by Eliyahu Eilat on his meeting with Mrs. Pandit, d.12 May 1949, Israel State Archives, Documents on the Foreign Policy of the State of Israel, Companion Volume No.4, Jerusalem, 1986, p.17. 24. Michael Brecher, The New States of Asia: A Political Analysis, London, 1968 reprint, pp.210–11; Brecher, India and World Politics: Krishna Menon’s View of the World, London, 1968, p.79. 25. For one such detailed account, see Muhammad Hamid, The Unholy Alliance: IndoIsraeli Collaboration against the Muslim World, Lahore, 1978. This attitude has, however, intensified since India established diplomatic relations with Israel. 26. M.S.Agwani, ‘Ingredients of India’s Arab Policy’, Indian and Foreign Review (New Delhi), Vol.10, No.12, 1 April 1973, p.12.


27. Brecher, The New States of Asia, p.130. See also Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol.2, p.170. 28. Lok Sabha Debates (India), Series1, Vol.9, part.II, 20 November 1956, col.595. 29. For a first-person account, see Moshe Dayan, Breakthrough: A Personal Account of the Egypt-Israel Peace Negotiations, New Delhi, 1981, pp.26–9. 30. Shimon Avimor, Relations between Israel and Asian and African States: No. 6, India, Jerusalem, 1991, p.382 31. Personal conversations with some of the Israeli consuls who served in Bombay. 32. He accused the Indian politicians of being ‘afraid’ of the Arabs and denouncing Israel to ‘prove to the Arabs that you are doing more than Pakistan.’ See Sunday Observer (Bombay), 27 June 1982. 33. For a critical review of the visa controversy, see ADL International Report: India’s Campaign against Israel, New York, 1987. 34. Personal conversions with Israeli diplomats in Jerusalem. 35. This contrasted with the Israeli consul stationed in Bombay, often seen as ‘India’s diplomatic Siberia’ and without any diplomatic status or privileges. 36. For a detailed discussion, see P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘India and Israel: Prelude to Normalization’, Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.19, No.2 (Winter 1995), pp.58–70. 37. India Today (New Delhi), 31 October 1989, p.163. 38. Sunday Observer (New Delhi), 17 January 1988; Wolf Blitzer, Territory of Lies, New York, 1988, pp.168–69. 39. P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘The Israeli Connections of Sri Lanka’, Strategic Analysis (New Delhi), Vol.11, No.11, Feb. 1987, pp.1, 41–55. J.N.Dixit, India’s High Commissioner in Colombo during that period, offers a detailed first-person account of this problem in Assignment Colombo, New Delhi, 1996. Though there are numerous references to Israeli involvement affecting India’s Sri Lankan policy, Dixit does not specify the concerns. 40. Yitzhak Shichor, ‘Hide and Seek: Sino-Israeli Relations in Perspective’, Israel Affairs, Vol.1, No.2 (Winter 1994), pp.188–208. See also P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘China and Israel: Normalization and After’, China Report (New Delhi), Vol.34, Nos.3–4, July–Dec. 1998, pp.265–86. 41. P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘South Asia and Sino-Israeli Diplomatic Relations’, in Jonathan Goldstein, Fresh Perspectives of Sino-Israeli Relations, 1948–1998, Boulder, 2002, pp.131–52. 42. J.N.Dixit interview with Week, 9 Feb. 1991, p.37. 43. For example, during the June 1967 war some opposition members of parliament decried that India was acting like ‘the fourteenth Arab state.’ 44. At the same time, because of past contacts and the presence of a Jewish community until early 2003 Israel retained its consulate in Bombay. 45. See Lisa Freedman, ‘The “—— ” Symphony Orchestra’, Jerusalem Post, Weekend supplement, 23 July 1993, p.6. 46. A detailed discussion can be found in P.R.Kumaraswamy, India and Israel: Evolving Strategic Partnership, Security and Policy Studies No.40, Ramat Gan, 1998. See also P.R. Kumaraswamy, ‘The Limitations of Indo-Israeli Military Cooperation’, Contemporary South Asia, Vol.5, No.1, March 1996, pp.75–84. 47. Bansidhar Pradhan, ‘India’s policy towards the PLO’, in Riyaz Punjabi and A.K.Pasha (eds.), India and the Islamic World, New Delhi, 1998, p.73. See also


48. 49.

50. 51. 52. 53.

54.

Punyapriya Dasgupta, ‘Betrayal of India’s Israel policy’, Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), Vol.27, Nos.15–16, 11–18 April 1992, pp.767–72. Pradhan, ‘India’s policy towards the PLO’, p.81. J.N.Dixit, My South Block Years: Memoirs of a Foreign Secretary, New Delhi, 1996, p.311. Interestingly, Arjun Singh subsequently became one of the senior Indian leaders to make an official visit to Israel. Mani Shankar Aiyar, ‘Chutzpah’, Sunday (Calcutta), 6 June 1993, pp.14–17. A.K.Pasha, India and OIC: Strategy and Diplomacy, New Delhi, n.d., p.42. The final decision was further delayed by bureaucratic procrastination and the first attaché did not arrive until early 1997. For background studies, see Bates Gill and Taeho Kim, China’s Arms Acquisition from Abroad: A Quest for “Superb and Secret Weapons”’, Oxford, 1995; P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘The Star and the Dragon: An Overview of Israeli-PRC Military Relations’, Issues and Studies (Taipei), Vol.30, No.4, April 1994, pp.36– 55; and ‘The Military Dimensions of Israel-China Relations’, China Report (New Delhi), Vol.31, No.2, April 1995, pp.235–49. P.R.Kumaraswamy, ‘Israel-China Military Relations: India’s Red Lines’, Strategic Analysis, Vol.18, No.6, September 1995, pp.781–92; and ‘Israeli-Pakistani Normalization: Green Light from India?’, Strategic Analysis, Vol.21, No.9, December 1997, pp.1355–65.

Japan and Israel: An Evaluation of Relationship-Building in the Context of Japan’s Middle East Policy RAQUEL SHAOUL

Japanese policy towards Israel since the commencement of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1952 has been influenced by domestic political and economic interests (in particular Japan’s dependency on Middle East oil) and by political and strategic developments in the Middle East. Two main factors, however, have been chiefly responsible for the nature of Japan’s Israel policy over the years: Japanese compliance with the Arab economic and business boycott of Israel and the American factor. These two interrelated variables have determined both the quality and the pace of development of the Israeli-Japanese relationship, though their prominence has been the result of specific circumstances and political events at any given moment. This article analyzes the development of the Israeli-Japanese relationship since its inception, focusing on the period when relations became closer and more complementary, that is, the period of gradually improving relations from the mid-1980s to the present, which includes the building of prosperous economic and diplomatic ties and Japan’s more open and positive attitude towards Israel. An analysis of the development of Israeli-Japanese relations ought to be able to highlight not only the vulnerability of the relationship, but also its place in Japan’s overall Middle-East policy. Despite the two countries’ unique relationship in many aspects Japan’s motives and policies towards Israel resemble her foreign policy towards other Middle East countries. We note this not to discount the peculiarities of Israel’s links with Japan, but to provide a more balanced perspective in order to properly understand them over the years. Evaluating the progress of Israeli-Japanese relations with particular reference to the Arab boycott and the American factor, we will see that Japan’s foreign policy towards Israel may be viewed, to a large extent, as a coherent part of her general Middle East policy.

Raquel Shaoul is Lecturer in the East Asian Studies Department at Tel Aviv University.

JAPAN AND ISRAEL 269

THE IMPACT OF THE ARAB ECONOMIC BOYCOTT ON ISRAELI-JAPANESE RELATIONS Japan’s compliance with the Arab economic boycott of Israel dealt a severe blow to the prospect of any mature, fully developed relationship with Israel.1 The boycott has coloured the attitude of Japanese business towards Israel up to the present day. However, Japan’s compliance has been in her national interest, and not exclusively the result of Arab coercion. Within this framework we detect two periods during which Japan’s change of attitude towards Israel was shaped largely by her different interests. First Period: 1952–19852 The Arab economic and business boycott of Israel was initiated immediately after the creation of the Arab League in October 1945, almost three years before the establishment of the state of Israel. It took its present form in 1949, though it reached full maturity only after the 1973 war and the subsequent oil crisis.3 For most of this period major Japanese companies engaged in very limited trade with Israel, if at all, and mainly through third parties. Japanese banks did not extend credit to Israeli banks, and no economic study mission, of the type organized frequently by official economic bodies in Japan, was sent to Israel. Furthermore, there were no direct air links between the two countries, and Japanese investment in Israel and joint ventures with Israeli companies were nonexistent. Moreover, many Japanese firms interpreted the Arab boycott in a more stringent manner than the Arab countries themselves. As one leading Japanese official told the New York Times: ‘The Japanese are more Arab than the Arabs themselves in observing the boycott.’4 This behaviour was expressed in measures such as Japan’s refusal to use Israeli flagged ships, even though no company was ever placed on the boycott’s blacklist for shipping its wares on Israeli freighters through non-Arab waterways and to non-Arab ports. Marubeni-Iida, Sumitomo Shoji Kaisha and Gosho repeatedly refused to ship anything on the Israeli-owned Gold Star Line, which services Japan. Japanese firms have refused to sell to Israel, although no Arab regulation prohibits the selling to Israel of finished consumer or other non-military goods. As a result, despite the existence of diplomatic relations between Japan and Israel since 1952, no Japanese cabinet minister was to visit Israel until 1988.5 But despite Japan’s attitude towards the boycott, it would be incorrect to claim that no trade relations at all existed with Israel. Large firms like Nippon Electric, Mitsubishi Electric, Kokusai Electric, Yuasa Battery, Toshiba, Oki Electric, Sharp and Japan Radio, which refused to trade directly with Israel, did sustain trade relations indirectly through ‘dummy’ companies. In addition, several major Japanese firms did deal directly with Israel, although they chose to do so secretly. For example, during the early 1970s the


Yuasa Battery Company provided goods to Israel on condition that its name did not appear on its products. Another example is Mitsui. It initially refused to trade with Israel, but Toyo Trading and Engineering, one of the 50 companies of the Mitsui group, was set up to arrange deals in countries of political sensitivity for Japan, such as Israel. Subsequently, in the late 1960s direct trade relations between Mitsui and Israeli firms began. Thus ambiguity, rather than any formal economic tie, was the key to transactions between Japanese and Israeli firms. Beyond the aforementioned secrecy and the fact that many Japanese firms trading abroad were large concerns, in several instances some companies within the same product area traded with Israel while others refused to do so. This fact underlines the extent to which the boycott of Israel was arbitrary. One notable example is the situation of Yamaha in the early 1970s. Although Yamaha Piano and Yamaha Motors had the same president at that time, while the piano and music company controlled approximately 22 per cent of the music market in Israel, Yamaha Motors refused to trade with Israel due to the Arab boycott. In November 1967 Yamaha Motors was quoted as stating that ‘our company’s policy [is] not to export to your country [Israel].’6 There was selective Japanese importation of such Israeli goods as polished diamonds, potash and citrus. This ‘selective boycott’ of Israel is well exemplified by Japan’s diamond trade with Israel. In contrast to other goods, diamonds were not seen as potentially jeopardizing Japan’s economic interests in Arab markets, and no special boycott limitations were applied to this particular product. In other words, Japan was able to disregard the Arab boycott and continue to do business both with Israel and the Arab nations, depending on her particular interests. In the same manner, Israel imported major Japanese items such as ships, auto parts for assembly in Israel, textiles and electronic equipment. Japanese shipyards have built many ships for Israel, including oil tankers. Israeli shipping companies like Zim and El-Yam traded with Japan until the end of this period. For example, in 1967 Fuji Heavy Industries ended its compliance with the boycott and Subaru cars were sold openly on the Israeli market. A comparison between Japan’s bilateral trade relationship with the Arab countries and with Israel during the period under review may not refute the effect of the Arab boycott on Israeli-Japanese trade relations, but does provide a more balanced view of the boycott’s policy and actual consequences. Since the early 1970s Japan’s trade in the Middle East has been focused mainly on the oil-producing countries in order to overcome the deficit caused by her oil imports from the region. She has dealt mainly with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran, while Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq have been important trading partners since the early 1980s. Nevertheless, Japan has engaged economically in the region in a selective way: while enhancing her economic ties with the oilproducing countries, she has avoided closer links with other Middle East countries.


Japan’s trading approach to Israel in this manner is very similar to her relations with the non-oil producers of the region—Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Sudan. Japan’s volume of trade with these countries has been small. In fact, the volume of Japan’s imported goods from Israel from 1973 to the early 1980s was far higher than figures for goods from Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya and even Egypt, even though no boycott policy dictates applied to the latter countries. For instance, Japanese imports from Israel for FY1978, which were worth US $173 million, were more than double those from Egypt, which totalled $83 million, and this trend remained stable until the early 1980s. Japan’s imports from Israel in FY1974, a year after the oil crisis trauma, totalled $65 million, larger than her imports from Syria, Sudan, Jordan and Lebanon combined ($46 million), and, if imports from Qatar ($22 million) are included, Japanese imports from all five countries, worth $68 million, only slightly surpass the figure for Israel. This holds true also for FY1975: Japanese imports from Israel of $89 million surpassed those from Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Qatar combined, which accounted for $72 million. As for FY1979, despite the second oil crisis, Japanese imports from Israel reached almost $202 million, while Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt between them accounted for only $171 million. Japan’s decaying economic relationship with the Middle East in general is considered to be chiefly the result of an almost total lack of direct investment in the region, due both to a collective rationalization of MITI (the Ministry of International Trade and Industry) and Japan’s reluctance to invest in regions of political and strategic instability.7 Hence Japan’s avoidance of direct investment in Israel, though more strict and public in contrast to other Middle East countries, has not been at variance with her economic policy in the region as a whole. Looking at Japan’s policy towards Israel in the context of its Middle East policy as a whole therefore provides an additional explanation for Japan’s compliance with the Arab boycott, beyond those based mainly on the familiar scenario of Arab political pressure on Japan.8 Japan’s compliance with the Arab oil-producers’ political demands was largely based on, first, her own economic interests and, second, on Israel’s economic policy towards Japan. Japan’s Economic Interests Two main elements constituted Japan’s economic interest in the Middle East. They became complementary with Arab demands, resulting in de facto Japanese compliance with the Arab boycott. They were, first, Japan’s need for a stable and cheap flow of Middle East oil and, second, Japan’s subsequent need to increase her exports to the Middle East oil-producing countries in order to overcome the trade imbalance resulting from her vast oil imports. The nature of Japan’s government/industry relationship was receptive to boycott compliance. In contrast to the United States, which passed legislation


making it illegal to comply with the Arab boycott and took firm measures to oppose it,9 the government of Japan did not see fit to adopt such a policy. Japanese firms which flatly refused to trade, supply or buy from Israel admitted that their position was partly rooted in what they considered to be a lack of governmental protection of their economic interests. Although the US requested Japan to establish a policy that would resist Arab pressure—a policy aimed at affording government assistance to Japanese companies who defied such pressure —the Japanese government did not undertake any significant measures to protect its industry against Arab blackmail. The government’s formal position was that ‘in Japan, as a free country, each company behaves according to the dictates of its own interest.’ Tokyo has claimed publicly that it does not exercise any influence over the trading activities of the private sector, which supposedly acts independently of government regulation. In other words, ‘companies refusing to trade with Israel are acting on their own and no national policy is involved in this regard.’10 In the words of a foreign ministry spokesman in 1969, ‘although some small and medium sized companies have been boycotted by the Arabs, it is of no concern to the government… If a company wants to do business with Israel we don’t object. But we don’t help either.’11 Nevertheless, it is imperative to notice that Japan applied this policy in a selective manner. In many instances, large commercial firms trading with the Middle East were assisted to a considerable extent by the various ministries of the Japanese government, especially in cases where economic investment was seen as a key tool for guaranteeing Japan’s strategic interests in the region.12 Similarly, the Japanese private sector, under the auspices of MITI, was divided into two categories. There were the big concerns that refused to trade with Israel, and the small and medium-sized enterprises that showed willingness to trade with her, depending on the profits expected to materialize from each contract. Because of this ‘role division’ among Japanese firms, whereas in some areas the boycott caused extensive damage—in chemicals and phosphates for example—in other areas such as optical and musical instruments (primarily pianos) and diamonds, it had a lesser impact. In other words, the overlapping of private and government economic interests has been the reason for the large firms’ compliance with the Arab boycott, these interests being in the size and consumption capacity of the Arab markets. The markets of the Middle East oilproducing countries absorbed a high percentage of Japan’s exports in comparison to the Israeli market, due to the vast difference in size between Israel’s population and that of the Arab world. Moreover, adopting a policy based on the ‘private interests of each company’ made it possible for the Japanese government to explain why it could not oppose the boycott. This policy excuse also enabled Japan to avoid American political pressure, by pointing out the government’s incapacity to control private enterprise. An additional factor that limited trade relations between Japan and Israel was the structure of the Japanese market. In common with various American goods


and without any linkage to the Arab boycott, several Israeli products had difficulty penetrating the Japanese market. This was mainly the result of protectionist legislation, together with the complicated bureaucratic routine that characterizes Japanese industry. One example of this can be found in Israeli efforts since the late 1950s to legalize citrus exports to Japan. Japan’s plant protection laws, for fear of the Mediterranean ‘fruit fly’ mosquito, prohibited the import of such products. Hence the Mitsui Company, although very interested in Israeli agricultural goods in the early 1970s, in order to break Zenkoren’s monopoly in this area could not realize its trade intentions with Israel. The Japanese market structure had prevented it. Israel’s Counter-policy towards Japan Several economic factors are seen as equally responsible for the lack of development of Israeli-Japanese trade relations over the years, factors that go far beyond Japan’s compliance with the Arab boycott of Israel. The economic limitations of the Israeli market in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s are one reason for Japan’s unwillingness to invest in Israel. The Israeli market and its commodities were not very tempting for Japanese industry. As the president of the Empire Trading Company, U. Takezaki, pointed out in a 1967 letter to the American company International Mercantile Corporation: ‘As far as international trade is concerned, Arab countries have lots of items to offer to us whereas Israel only has diamonds, and few other items we can buy from them.’13 Likewise, as Sholomo Amir, the Israeli General Consul in New York, stated in January 1966, ‘the efficiency of the Arab boycott on Israeli imports, investment and sales to Japan is also due to the fact that we have to realize that Israel has not much to offer to Japan… According to the present reality and as for the near future, it seems that Israel will not be able to provide development projects for Japanese companies.’14 Thus, for example, Israeli potash exports to Japan have been limited not only because of the boycott but also because of objective conditions, such as the quality of Israeli potash. The Japanese wanted large crystals, which Israel had some difficulty in producing. Israel’s economic unattractiveness was also illustrated by the continual postponement by the Japanese counterparts of the opening of a Bank Leumi Le Israel branch in Tokyo, mainly because of the small scale of the bank’s contractual operations in and with Japan. Moreover, the Arab boycott succeeded not only in intimidating Japanese firms that may have wished to trade with Israel, but also crippled Israeli economic initiatives vis-à-vis Japan. The Israeli perception that any increase in imports from Japan would not remove or reduce the consequences of the boycott became a disincentive to trade with her.15 From the late 1970s onwards the government of Israel intensified its antiboycott activities. Israeli importers were notified that ‘special approval’ was required for purchases from foreign firms that had complied with the Arab boycott.


Firms discriminating against Israel were placed on a special list and imports of their products were restricted and required a special licence. This reduced their chances of trading with a large portion of Japanese industry. Likewise, Moshe Bartur the Israeli ambassador in Tokyo, explained: From our experience in cases of serious Japanese offers, such as that of the Japanese United Steel Company to build the ‘big’ oil pipeline between Eilat and Ashdod, this was rejected in favor of the German contractor, although the Japanese offered a lower price… The same happened in Kawasaki’s case. Although our pressure did succeed in canceling Kawasaki’s rejection and obtaining their agreement to trade with Israel, Israel bought nothing from them… We must create mutual economic interests with Japan and for that purpose stable government policy is required.16 The ambassador’s complaints, which centred on the lack of serious Israeli government effort to promote trade relations with Japan, were partly the result of Israel’s traditional trade orientation to the West, namely towards Europe and the US rather than Asia. Israel’s incentive to increase her exports to America and Europe was due to favourable credit conditions and familiarity with these markets through past experience. After reviewing the limitations of the Israeli market during this period, one can safely say that had there been no boycott pressure on Japan, her trade with Israel would probably have been of similar volume and pattern to her dealings with the various non-oil-producing Middle East countries directly involved in the ArabIsraeli conflict, such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. In retrospect, the ‘limitations of the Israeli market’ argument becomes more valid when reviewing the present Israeli-Japanese trade relationship, which is undergoing intense development, not only as a direct result of the easing of the Arab boycott, but also because of the high potential for co-operation between the two countries in the various branches of high technology. Second Period: 1985 to the Present Whereas the legal structure of the Arab League’s boycott remains unchanged, its de facto status has changed significantly.17 Although apparent steps towards a possible solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict18 have contributed to Japan’s eventual non-compliance with the boycott, Japan’s decision to upgrade her economic relations with Israel is based on several additional factors, which we will now consider. First, the ‘Arab oil shock’,19 the incremental deterioration of the Arab states’ economies, forced Arab League members to do business in a less selective way due to the huge slump in oil prices at the beginning of the 1980s. Moreover, the international system, as in the early 1990s largely headed by the US, increased


pressure on Arab countries to end the boycott. In contrast to previous times, on this occasion America’s stature was translated into political influence. For example, Kuwait declared that it would no longer participate in the secondary aspect of the boycott as of June 1993. It is reasonable to assume that the Kuwaiti change of attitude was partly due to the country’s ties to US policy in the wake of Operation Desert Storm. Likewise, the Co-operation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) declared their non-adherence to the secondary and tertiary aspects of the boycott in September 1994; the Casablanca Declaration followed in November 1994, the Taba Meeting and Declaration in February 1995. Second, a one-sided pro-Arab policy has proved to be an unsatisfactory guarantee of preserving a stable flow of oil to Japan, as a result of the many regional events and conflicts that have broken out since 1979, in particular the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (1990). As a result, Japanese policy-makers’ perceptions of the IsraeliArab conflict have also been changing. Until the early 1990s this conflict was seen as the central focus of Middle East instability, despite the parallel existence of various inter-Arab and Arab-Muslim conflicts. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait allowed Tokyo to observe the disunity within the Arab world. In contrast to previous hostilities,20 Desert Storm was unique in the sense that the Arab countries went to war among themselves, with one side under the political and strategic leadership of an external power, the United States. Japan came to realize that the Israeli-Arab conflict was not the only factor endangering stability in the Middle East: the inter-Arab conflict was also a threat to such stability. Moreover, the signing of the Oslo accords in September 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) enabled Japan to involve herself in the peace process, and the new reality also contributed to intensified political contact between Israel and Japan. Moreover, Israel’s non-retaliation policy towards Iraq during the Gulf War was highly appreciated by Japanese policymakers and by the Japanese media.21 This contributed to a more positive Japanese attitude towards Israel. Third, Japan’s ongoing economic recession, which began in the early 1990s, and the difficult present conditions, have led her to understand that without technological advance she will be unable to ensure her place in the world economy in the next decade. Japan’s awareness that the Israeli market has something to offer in the areas of high technology and products such as electronic chips and semi-conductors has contributed to her present openness to the Israeli economy. In recent times, the economies of Israel and Japan have become complementary, and this has been the major motivation for the upgrading of the two countries’ economic links. Furthermore, selling her hightech products has become imperative for Japan, due to tough competition from a number of Asian countries for the Middle East market in electrical goods and automobiles. Because Japanese products are usually more expensive that those of South Korea or Taiwan, and because of the appreciation of the yen,22 Japan is


in danger of losing her economic leverage in the region. In the words of a spokesman for the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), ‘Israel is our new emerging market.’23 Moreover, Israel’s special trade agreements with Europe and the US are encouraging Japanese trading companies such as Itoman24 and Sumitomo to invest in Israel. An additional potential area of economic cooperation between Japan and Israel is Eastern Europe. Israel’s large population of recent Eastern European and Russian immigrants is seen by Japanese businessmen wanting to enhance their interests in Eastern Europe as an important human resource—those who speak the language and understand the mentality of the peoples of Eastern Europe could play a bridging role between Japan and that region. As Koichi Naito, General Manager of Nissho Iwai Corporation in Tel Aviv, has said: ‘the two countries have much to gain from working together, particularly in third countries such as Russia.’25 Fourth, Japan has also realized the political costs and economic risks inherent in her continued discrimination against Israel. In other words, it is necessary for Tokyo to cease complying with the Arab boycott in order to reduce pressure from the US Congress and the American Jewish community in the aftermath of the Gulf War. Over the years, Japan’s compliance with the Arab boycott has been viewed by America as contradicting her advocacy of free international trade. America has complained of Japan’s hypocrisy regarding, on the one hand, her call for the end of protectionism and unfair discrimination against Japanese goods in the US market, and on the other, her refusal to condemn the Arab boycott and trade with Israel.26 Though American disappointment with Japan’s policy on Israel is not new, the 1991 Gulf War, which proved the US to be the main factor in guaranteeing the Gulf’s oil supply to the world, gave the US additional credibility and influence in Japan. American opposition to Japanese discrimination and arbitrary interference with the free flow of commerce has, in the form of counter-boycott legislation,27 been reflected in the various Congressional and Senate initiatives to end the boycott. On 21 March 1991 Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and eight other Senate supporters of Japan sent a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu in which they criticized Japan’s compliance with the Arab boycott and urged Kaifu to encourage trade with Israel. Another letter (22 March 1991) from Representative Mel Levine to Japanese Ambassador Ryohei Murata expressed concern over Japan’s discriminatory economic policies towards Israel during the Gulf crisis, and urged Japan to consider providing aid to Israel to compensate for the latter’s war costs. Although Japan declared, during Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s visit in December 1994, that she would rethink her policy on the Arab boycott, it should be noted that some scholars28 see the Japanese as renouncing the Arab boycott as early as 1991. This is due largely to Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu’s meeting in


California with President Bush in April that year, at which Bush urged Kaifu to ignore the boycott. Toyota’s decision to begin selling cars to Israel, which was made public in June and encouraged other major Japanese companies such as Mazda and Nissan to follow Toyota’s lead,29 lends support to this argument. Japan’s condition for renouncing the boycott was an Israeli freeze on the establishment of settlements in the occupied territories: ‘there should be a simultaneous suspension of the Arab boycott against Israel by Arab nations and of the establishment of settlements in the occupied territories by Israel.’30 This condition was a reflection of the Arab states’ talks with US Secretary of State James Baker one month previously, in which they agreed to such a linkage,31 and demonstrates that Congress’s ability to persuade Japan to end her compliance with the boycott has varied, being dependent on the specific circumstances of the times. The American Jewish lobby32 became a central factor in Japan’s attitude to the Arab boycott. Various steps were taken by the Jewish business community, including the creation of direct contacts between hundreds of US businessmen and their Japanese counterparts, in order to persuade the latter to ease their boycott of Israel. For example, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations frequently sent delegations to the ambassador of Japan in order to express their concern in this regard. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL) promoted meetings in the US with Japanese diplomats, with members of the American-Japanese Chamber of Commerce, and with the USJapan Trade Council Center. The Israelis, however, understood that the American Jewish lobby, despite its vociferous activism, did not really have the means to jeopardize Japanese sales to the American market. But one should not underestimate Japanese businessmen’s perception of the Jewish lobby’s economic position in the US. They saw it as capable of jeopardizing US goodwill towards Japan, especially in major areas such as metals, electronics, textiles and optical equipment, where large Jewish manufacturers and importers were to be found. As noted by Ben-Ami Shillony, Japan was aware of Israel’s importance to the American government and the American public, and the Japanese were quick to note that a substantial share (some claimed it was as high as 40 percent) of their exports to the US was handled by Jewish businessmen.33 THE END OF THE BOYCOTT AND RISING ISRAELIJAPANESE POLITICAL RELATIONS Once Japan had ended her boycott, growing economic contacts between Japan and Israel hastened the opening of a new and high-level political dialogue. Nevertheless, Japan’s fear of Arab displeasure became tangible again in 1990– 91 during the Kuwait crisis and subsequent Gulf War. Despite the gradual, if slow, upgrading of her relations with Israel since the mid-1980s, in the first three


weeks of January 1991 the Japanese government discontinued all diplomatic, economic and political ties with Israel, including the suspension of mail delivery to Israel, though this was primarily due to the fact that airlines were not flying to Israel at that time, and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait suffered the same fate.34 In addition, the Japanese media ignored political developments between the two countries, such as the talks on improvement of the ‘Double Taxation Agreement.’ It is imperative, however, to analyze Japan’s behaviour in the context of her overall Middle East policy at that time. Japan’s reaction to the Gulf War was one of panic—to a large extent due to her still-fresh memories of the first oil crisis— and this was to influence directly her policy on Israel. Japan’s reluctance to support any military response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was based on its domestic constitutional-political constraints as well as her fear that such action might provoke a more serious conflict in the Middle East. As a result, disassociation from the region was the only real option for Japan. Moreover, as publicly voiced by diplomat Hanabusa Masamichi, Japan’s reluctance to involve herself in the conflict was based on the understanding that ‘it made little difference who controlled Kuwait, since experience had shown Japan that “whoever controls oil will be disposed to sell it”.’35 Japan’s deteriorating relationship with Israel in early January 1991, however, applied to a large extent also to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Japan decided to dissociate herself from any country in the region considered a party to the war. However, it appears that in the long term Japan’s relations with Israel have not been damaged by the war. On the contrary, the Gulf War and its consequences triggered their faster upgrading. Given the slow progress of these relations during the early and mid-1980s, it seems most likely that without the Gulf War no radical improvements would have taken place. In compensation for Japan’s behaviour during those first three weeks of January 1991, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Hisashi Owada was sent to Israel during Operation Desert Storm, and a few months later, in May, Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama visited Israel.36 Moreover, as recalled by Max Livnat, Japan’s change of attitude towards Israel was evidenced even before the end of the war, when Moshe Shnitzer, then President of the Israeli Diamond Trade Center, together with a delegation of the Israeli Diamond Exchange, paid a visit to Japan (in the first week of January) in order to participate in a diamond trade fair. The timing of the visit and the fact that at that time several Iraqi Scud missiles were landing on the city of Ramat Gan, where the diamond exchange is located, makes this visit a significant one, especially if one recalls Japan’s reluctance to have any kind of ties with countries affected by the war. However, one of the initial and most significant political contacts between Japan and Israel was the February 1992 visit of a delegation of Israeli businessmen to Japan. This Israeli delegation held several crucial meetings with formal/governmental agencies as well as with private companies. These included meetings with Gaimusho (the Japanese Foreign Ministry) and MITI officials, and


with economic organizations such as the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Federation of Bankers’ Association of Japan, the Export-Import Bank of Japan, the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and the Japan Center for International Finance (JCIF). The delegation also met high-ranking managers of private companies such as Itoman, Mitsubishi, Sanyo, Sumitomo, Sony, Marubeni and Toshiba.37 The climax of the delegation’s visit was a seminar on Israel organized by the Keidanren (Japanese Federation of Economic Organizations) on 13 February 1992. About 80 Japanese executives participated in the seminar, and this event marked an unprecedented shift in Japan’s attitude towards Israel. According to Elchanan Harel’s report38 (Harel is a former chairman of the Israeli-Japanese Friendship Society and Chamber of Commerce), the meeting with Okamatsu Sozaburo, Director-General of the International Trade Policy Bureau of MITI, was of great importance. In this meeting, Tzvi Koren, Chairman of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, objected to MITI’s delay in granting export licenses for advanced industrial technology bound for Israel. During February 1992 MITI was to approve almost all export licence applications, even those that had previously been blocked. Although one cannot show a direct link between the 1992 Israeli delegation meeting with MITI and the subsequent change of that ministry’s export policy, it is important to note the proximity of these two events. Through the meeting with Okamatsu Sozaburo, the government of Israel also formally invited the Minister of International Trade and Industry to visit Israel, an invitation which was taken up by Noboru Hatakeyama, MITI’s Vice-Minister, in the autumn of 1992. Japan’s acceptance of the Israeli invitation, and the political and economic implications of Hatakeyama’s visit, was a turning point in the two countries’ political relations. Hatakeyama’s visit gave, for the first time, formal support for dialogue between industrialists, and as a result the first mission of the Keidanren to Israel, headed by Masaya Myoshi, was sent in April 1993. The Keidanren also set up an ‘Israeli desk’ designed to gather information and co-ordinate activity on Israel. The 1992 Israeli delegation also met Dr Rokuro Ishikawa, Chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. This encounter was highly significant because the latter is regarded as one of the most important commercial organizations in Japan, representing more than 1.5 million trade entities and coordinating the activities of 502 city chambers of commerce and industry, and the meeting resulted in a greater awareness within the Japanese market of the economic relevance and opportunities of the Israeli market. Moreover, in May 1993 official representatives of the nine largest Japanese trading companies visited Israel, and since then many Japanese companies have sent their representatives to investigate the Israeli market. Reciprocally, the Israel-Japan Capital Markets Delegation visited Japan in November 1993 on a trip organized by the Capital Markets Committee of the Israeli Chamber of Commerce. As a result of this visit, the Israeli capital market was explained, for


the first time, to the relevant audience in Japan at two seminars arranged by the Keidanren and JASDA (the Tokyo Exchange), and attended by approximately 200 representatives of commercial and investment banks, brokerage firms, venture capital companies, insurance companies and trading companies. An understanding was reached by the relevant authorities, JASDA and the Japanese Treasury, to promote the designation of the Israeli Stock Exchange for direct investment by Japanese entities, conditional on an official approach by the Israeli Stock Exchange and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.39 In 1994 the Japanese words ‘Sogo Sosha’ entered the vocabulary of IsraelJapan economic relations, symbolizing the entrance of the giant Japanese corporations40 into the Israeli market. Large companies such as Nagasa and Marubeni, along with smaller trading companies connected with the Mitsui concern,41 began to translate their relentless processes of fact-finding into actual co-operation deals and project initiations. In spite of the prolonged recession in Japan from the early 1990s until the present, economic dialogue between Japan and Israel has improved significantly. Israeli exports to Japan have grown considerably. Though these suffered some reduction during 1991–92, an inverse correlation between imports and exports at that time is reflected in Israeli imports from Japan, which grew by approximately 60 per cent in 1990 and by 48 per cent in 1991. Moreover, Israeli exports to Japan were augmented again during 1994–95. Japan’s positive attitude and openness towards the Israeli market were based on Japanese expectations that as a result of the peace process various projects for the development of regional infrastructure would be created. However, 1995 can be regarded as the turning point in commercial and economic relations.42 Israeli exports to Japan peaked in 1995, increasing by 35 per cent over 1994 and reaching US $1.3 billion, most of the increase being in the hi-tech sector. Machinery and tools exports to Japan increased by an impressive 42 per cent, amounting to $172 million, while those of electronic equipment practically doubled, to a total $67 million.43 Although the volume of Israeli exports to Japan for FY1996 was slightly reduced in comparison to that of 1995, at $1.2 billion, Israeli imports from Japan in 1996 had grown to $1.1 billion. In both 1995 and 1996 Israel was one of the few countries in the world to record a trade surplus with Japan. Furthermore, the fact that the share of diamonds in total exports to Japan has fallen by about 28 per cent over the last decade—in 1986 the diamond trade was still responsible for almost the entire trade content between the countries with a share of 73 per cent, while in 1998 it had decreased to 45.2 per cent—has contributed to the building of more complex and interrelated connections between the two countries. In order to understand the magnitude of change in the development of trade between Japan and Israel, it is sufficient to say that during the late 1960s and the early 1970s diamond exports accounted for 90 per cent of total Israeli exports to Japan.


According to Focus Japan (Jan.–Feb. 2000), ‘In contrast [to the traditional diamond trade] there is a substantial growth in high-tech fields such as telecommunications, computers and biotechnology.’44 In the words of Elad Levy, Economic Minister at the embassy of Israel in Japan, ‘High-tech products have been our second-ranking export category for the last few years. And this trend continues to rise.’45 Prime Minister Tomiichi Muruyama’s visit to Israel in September 1995,46 during a regional tour that also saw him visit Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and the Gaza Strip, led to an agreement to establish a representative office of JETRO in Israel by 1997; the office was opened in Tel Aviv in October that year. The incremental technological exchange between the countries is also reflected in the series of high-ranking JETRO official missions that visited Israel in February and March 1999. In contrast to previous missions,47 these came to Israel not only to explore Israeli software that might suit the Japanese market, but also to seek increased technological co-operation between the two countries. Moreover, recent visits by highly-placed politicians such as MITI’s minister in February 1999, and that of JETRO’s chairman Noboru Hatakeyama in November 1999, backed up these missions.48 These events are viewed by Israel’s economic sector as a very important signal and as moves that will enable large Japanese trading companies to enter the Israeli market. However, the growth of Israeli exports to Japan will also depend on Israeli efforts to invest in Japan. In this regard, small-to-medium-sized Israeli hi-tech companies have failed to enter the Japanese market because they lack the funds to survey, promote and market their goods in Japan. Moreover, although trade relations between the two countries have been increasing significantly, in the financial sector there is still only modest progress. This is, among other things, due to Japan’s business community’s reluctance to invest in regions perceived as unstable. Nevertheless, as a result of the improved economic relations between the two nations, agreements were signed in April 1993 on avoidance of double taxation, in 1995 on scientific co-operation, and in 2000 on air services. US-JAPANESE BILATERAL RELATIONS AND THEIR IMPACT ON JAPANESE POLICY TOWARDS ISRAEL Japan’s desire to support US policy in the Middle East, and America’s expectation that she should do so, has played a crucial part in the history of Israeli-Japanese relations. The central role that the US played in shaping Japan’s foreign policy in general and her Israel policy in particular, is based mainly on the primacy Japan accords to her bilateral relations with the US.49 Japanese policy-makers have not been inclined to jeopardize their country’s relations with the US because of disagreements over Middle East policy. In this regard, Japan has seldom strayed far from the American position. In Michael


Sterner’s words, ‘Japanese relations with the US are fundamental to Japan’s economic health and national security. If a true conflict emerged between these relations and Japan’s third world interests, there is little question that the former would be perceived as the more important.’50 Hence disagreements on Middle East regional policy were, and are, likely to be of secondary importance in contrast to Japanese-American bilateral relations, despite the fact that disagreement on several regional issues has arisen from time to time and Japan has opted in a number of instances for a more independent policy.51 Japan has had several opportunities to emphasize her loyalty to American Middle East policy. Among these have been the Washington Energy Conference of February 1974, in which she supported American energy plans; her support of the US stance towards the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979; and her formal recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization, via Japan’s first official meeting with a PLO representative in December 1988, only eight hours after the US had announced its decision to open a dialogue with the Palestinians.52 However, the most outstanding example of Japan’s respect for America’s Middle East interests has been her reluctance to break off diplomatic relations with Israel over the years, in spite of pressure from other Middle East countries. Despite declarations of pro-Arab policies such as the ‘Nikaido Statement’,53 and despite her compliance with the Arab boycott of Israel, in most of these cases Japan has not openly confronted the US, and has tried hard not to upset America. Even before the Israeli-Japanese rapprochement of the early 1990s Yasuhiro Nakasone, who became prime minister in 1982, is regarded as one of Japan’s most nationalist leaders of the post-Second World War period, and is well known for his pro-Arab position and his efforts to develop independent links with the Arab oil-producing countries,54 emerged as a reliable pro-US politician who would consequently support good Israeli-Japanese relations. During King Hussein of Jordan’s visit to Tokyo in 1984 Nakasone even called on Arab nations to recognize the state of Israel.55 Japan’s policy dilemma in the Middle East in general has been the problem of how to act, or react, in cases where her interests are jeopardized due to contradictory demands from the US on the one hand and from the region’s oilproducing countries on the other, and the consequent danger of retaliatory measures from both. This has also characterized Japan’s policy towards Israel. In this context, until the early 1990s, and even up to the present day though to a lesser extent, Japan’s Israel policy has developed two main characteristics. First, it was formulated ambiguously, depending on whether Japan needed to justify her actions to the Arabs or to the Americans. This strategy was seen in some instances as problematic, since it created discontent either on the AmericanIsraeli or the Arab side, or on both, contributing to more gaiatsu, or external pressure from the US. Nevertheless, whenever Japan has deferred to American pressure regarding Israel, she has been able to manipulate the situation successfully, playing the ‘victim’ card and claiming that her Israel policies are


the result of US pressure rather than her own choice. In this way Japan has continued to advance her various interests with Israel whilst deflecting Arab/ Muslim criticism. In other instances, Japan has fallen in line with Europe’s Middle East policy in order to forestall American criticism. An example of this is the statement by the Chief Secretary of the Japanese cabinet, Susumo Nikaido, which presented a proArab position. His words were viewed as supporting the EEC’s call (of 6 November 1973) for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. Likewise, Japan’s support of the EEC’s Venice Declaration of 13 June 1980 highlights this approach. At the beginning of the Gulf crisis, on 2 August 1990, the Japanese were quick to condemn the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and to freeze Kuwaiti assets held in Japan. However, in contrast to the US, Japan did not impose a total ban on trade with Iraq and occupied Kuwait. Japan’s real change in policy was to come when she aligned herself with the EEC countries’ decision of 4 August to impose economic sanctions on Iraq. And more recently, Japan has supported the EEC’s call for an end to the Arab boycott of Israel, making this conditional on Israel’s suspension of settlement-construction in the occupied territories. Second, Japan has kept a low political profile towards Israel over the years. However, this has been partly due to US constraints on Japan. It is important to bear in mind that Israeli-Japanese relations have been just one aspect of US interests and policy in the Middle East. Though Japan and the US have a major common interest in ensuring the supply of Middle East oil—this has encouraged cooperation between the world’s leading oil consumers to safeguard political stability in the region56—Japanese and American interests in the Middle East have also diverged at times, depending on the particular issue at stake. Competition for market share in the wealthier Middle East oil-producing countries’ markets from the late 1970s is an example of this. In spite of the fact that Japan has faced severe difficulties in ‘courting’ the countries of the Middle East—in comparison to the US, with its large proportion of weapons and military technology in its total imports to that region—she has succeeded remarkably well in developing a market share in the oil-producing countries. American-Japanese competition in Middle East markets such as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states substantiates this claim. In 1970 Japan had a 9 per cent market share of machinery and equipment exports to the Middle East, while the US share was 23 per cent. By 1982 the Japanese share had increased to 23 per cent, while that of the US was about 20 per cent.57 Likewise, the US has been reluctant to see a high Japanese political profile in the Middle East and in the region’s peace process, a fact that has consequently influenced Israeli-Japanese relations. The timing of the Middle East peace process in the early 1990s has enabled Japan to commit itself politically for the first time to the region without paying a high price, that is, without risking her oil supply and without jeopardizing her


bilateral relations with the US. The progress of the peace process since the Madrid talks has also helped the gradual improvement of relations between Israel and Japan. However, the ‘New Middle East’ also poses potential problems for JapaneseAmerican relations. Japan’s new, relatively high political profile in the Middle East calls for increased and more overt economic intervention in the area, which could create a ‘threat’ to particular American economic interests in the region. On the other hand, because America wants to hasten the implementation of the peace process, presently it is America which more than ever needs political partners committed to supporting its policies in the Middle East. Hence the situation where Japan needed American approval for her Middle East policies is changing. It seems that today the US has to take into account the Japanese view of its policies in the region if it is to receive Japanese co-operation. Nevertheless, Japan’s recent complaint to the Quartet members58 over their refusal to include her in this forum supports our argument.59 Criticism was also voiced by opposition parties in the Diet, with remarks such as ‘Japan has a very light presence when it comes to the Middle East peace process.’60 The Quartet’s aim was to organize a Middle East conference that would convene in the summer of 2002. The government of Japan was alarmed by the possibility that it might not be invited to this conference. As one senior diplomat quoted in The Japanese Morning Press Highlights put it: ‘If Japan is not invited to this summer’s conference… Japan may again come under criticism as a mere cash dispenser.’61 Some observers suggest that domestic criticism in Japan persuaded the US to allow her to participate in the conference. But the conference did not take place: the Quartet met several times during the autumn and winter of 2002 and began to evolve a three-phase ‘road map’ for Israeli-Palestinian peace and for Palestinian statehood to be achieved within three years.62 America refused to include Japan in the Quartet, but instead asked her to become part of a task force.63 Secretary of State Colin Powell commented: ‘Japan made it clear to me that they wanted to play a more active role because they believed they had something to bring to the table—not only money, but capacity and ideas… And so, one way to bring in that Japanese perspective and that Japanese capacity was through the creation of the task force.’64 Powell’s statement reflects to a large extent the US desire to maintain Japan’s secondary role within the peace process. Likewise, Japan was not invited to participate in the British-sponsored conference of 13–14 January 2003, at which representatives from the US, the UN, the European Union and Russia (the so-called Quartet), Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt discussed the need for reform of the Palestinian Authority and for the continuation of the peace process. Japan has claimed that her ‘newcomer’ status in the Middle East makes it difficult for Middle Eastern countries to appreciate her role in the region compared to that of Western countries. Japan has also claimed that Israel underestimates her contributions to the peace process and treats them as secondary to those of the US or Europe.65 Japan feels that she is still regarded as


a secondary player in the peace process, partly because of the profound psychological roots of her dependent relations with the oil-producing countries, which has long made her politically vulnerable. The US attitude towards Japan in this regard confirms the ‘newcomer’ argument. CONCLUSIONS To what extent has the present deadlock in the peace process, underlined in late 2000 by the eruption of the second Palestinian intifada, negatively influenced recent achievements in Israeli-Japanese relations? Even before the second intifada erupted Japanese disappointment with the political deadlock had been explicit. Against the background of events such as the Har Homa incident, the Japanese government decided to send Deputy Foreign Minister Shunji Yanai to the region to play a role, albeit a modest one, in helping put the peace process back on track. In November 1998 Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi wrote to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Arafat urging both sides to implement the Wye River Agreement.66 Likewise, in March 2002 Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sent personal letters to the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia and to Chairman Arafat. The gist of the letters was the same in each case: ‘It is the urgent task of the international community to work on both parties [Israel and the PA] to end the interchange of violence.’67 Formal statements have declared Japanese willingness to continue to participate in the Middle East peace process: ‘Japan will continue to take part in the international effort to underpin the peace process by taking every opportunity to talk with the parties concerned, and by extending assistance to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.’68 This does not, however, mean that there is no potential for damage to bilateral relations. On the contrary, there are several possible sources of instability. There is still a profound reluctance within the Japanese economic community to invest in the Israeli market because of a possible renewal of the Arab boycott. In the mid-1990s the continuing deterioration of the peace process, especially on the Palestinian track, led to a resurgence of Arab rhetoric against Israel. For example, in April 1997 Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo recommended that Arab states cease normalizing relations with Israel and restore the economic boycott.69 Another example of Arab criticism that linked the peace process deadlock with the possibility of a renewal of the boycott is found in the Palestinian Authority’s call of June 1997 on all Arab media to intensify the boycott in the spheres of information and culture. On top of this Chairman Arafat’s speech at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) conference in New Delhi in April 1997 was followed by a NAM resolution calling on member states to freeze ties with Israel, and for United Nations members to impose an economic boycott against Israeli companies and organizations operating from conquered territories including Jerusalem.70 Likewise, the Arab Journalists’ Union in


Damascus recently expressed its opposition to any ‘direct or indirect’ normalization of relations with Israel. The Arab’s League’s latest resolutions71—to reactivate the economic boycott, close Israeli offices and missions in member nations and halt the normalization of relations with Israel—may not lead Japanese companies to avoid or withdraw from doing business with Israel, but could have harmful effects on the newly emerging and co-operative Israeli-Japanese economic relationship. This is because Arab League resolutions of this kind highlight once again the political instability that characterizes the Middle East region as a whole. In other words, any damage caused by the deadlock in the peace process will not appear as Japanese compliance with a‘new’ Arab boycott, but rather as reluctance on the part of private Japanese companies to invest in Israel. Israel is still regarded as being part of a region that lacks political and economic stability. Nevertheless, it is well-known that the Japanese learning curve concerning the potential ‘risk’ of trading with Israel has to some extent lagged behind the changing regional and international circumstances. In this regard, Japanese perceptions could well become a serious impediment to relationship-building. Furthermore, the future development of Israeli-Japanese relations will largely depend on Japan’s evaluation of the importance of her continued participation in the peace process as a means of promoting her international position, as well as her recognition that co-operative relations with Israel could enhance her relations with the US. We might add to these variables the recent increased importance of the Middle East region in Asia, especially for China and Japan, due to the huge increases in oil consumption by these two countries. The recent visit of Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi72 to Israel in June 2002, and Japan’s own proposal of a road map for the peace process,73 demonstrates not only Japan’s interest in maintaining her close political contact with Israel, but also her understanding of the importance of politically contributing to the peace process. As Kawaguchi put it: ‘in the peace process, it is important to give priority to three areas—security, reconstruction and politics. Japan will be able to contribute in these three areas.’74 Though the success of Japan’s road map is still questionable, it seems that this initiative is one of political significance. Likewise, Kawaguchi’s decision to appoint Tatsuo Arima Ambassador in Charge of Middle Eastern affairs—a special envoy responsible for mediation between Israel and the Palestinians, and a co-ordinator of views with the US in this regard—highlights two facts which have no precedent in Japan’s relationship with Israel and the peace process: the appointment of Arima himself, with his distinguished career and reputation,75 points to Japan’s serious desire to play a more significant role in the peace process; and Arima’s appointment is the first time that Japan has set up an ambassadorial post for Middle East reconciliation. The EU has had one in place for several years; it is presently occupied by Miguel Moratinos.


Arima’s visits to the Middle East, whether accompanying Foreign Minister Kawaguchi or on his own,76 have been designed to conduct mediation activities in order to achieve a ceasefire. This is clearly a significant upgrading of Japan’s political commitment to the region. As Arima told Egyptian television during his visit to that country: ‘The purpose of this visit is to express Japan’s utmost determination to contribute to and participate in all aspects of the peace process.’77 Two additional examples of Japan’s closer relations with Israel and her intention to upgrade her political involvement are the continuous presence of Japanese Self-Defence Force (SDF) personnel in the Golan Heights since February 1996 within the framework of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) and the unprecedented diplomatic activity in June 2001 of Japan’s ambassador to the Lebanon, Naoko Amaki, which was aimed at helping Israel gather information on four Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Hezbollah movement. NOTES 1. The damage caused by the boycott to the Israeli economy is almost impossible to quantify accurately due to the lack of credible data, but, according to Israeli figures, over the past four decades the Arab boycott is estimated to have cost the Israeli economy some $40 billion, Roy Isacowitz, ‘Anti Boycott Efforts Stepped Up’, The Forward, 1991. 2. This period runs from 1952, when diplomatic relations between the two countries began, to 1985, the year that saw the first exchanges of high-ranking diplomats, demonstrating a change of attitude towards the boycott as well as further impacting on economic relations. 3. The boycott prohibits importation of goods and services of Israeli origin into boycotting countries—what is known as the ‘primary boycott’. The ‘secondary boycott’ discriminates against foreign companies doing business with Israel. The secondary boycott was responsible for the formation of a blacklist of foreign companies. An additional boycott, the ‘tertiary boycott’, blacklists goods produced by any firm with components made by any blacklisted company. 4. New York Times, 17 August 1969. 5. Sousuke Uno was the first foreign minister to visit Israel, in 1988. 6. Cited in a letter from Howard Golden of the Hillel Foundation to Abraham H.Foxman of the ADL, 25 April 1969, Ministry of Foreign Affairs File 3190/6, Israel State Archives (hereafter ISA). 7. Japan’s low foreign investment in the Middle East from 1973 to the present is reflected not only in volume but also in scope. The Middle East share of total Japanese FDI accounts only for 0.5–3.0 per cent in average (as for the 1980s and 1990s). 8. Different articles have dealt with Japan’s compliance with the boycott of Israel. See Anthony Lerman, ‘Japanese Compliance with the Arab Boycott of Israel’, Institute of Jewish Affairs Research Report No.2 (1991); Charles Gurdon, ‘The Arab


9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

Boycott of Israel’, JIME Review, No.25 (1994); Willy Stern, ‘Japan: A Willing Participant in the Arab Boycott of Israel’, Middle East Review, Vol.21, No.1 (Fall 1988). During the 1970s the US government passed several pieces of anti-boycott legislation, including the 1976 Ribicoff Amendment to the Internal Revenue Code, and the 1977 Boycott Amendments to the Export Administration Act. New York Times, 21 April 1968. Ibid., 17 Aug. 1969. One outstanding example is Mitsui’s project in Iran, named the IJPC (The IranJapan Petrochemical Company). For further discussion, see Kazuo Takahashi, ‘The Iran-Japan Petrochemical Project—A Complex Issue’, in Kaoru Sugihara and J.A.Allan (eds.), Japan in the Contemporary Middle East, London and New York, 1993, pp.83–93. Ministry of Foreign Affairs File 3162/6, ISA. Ibid. David Oberman, ‘Two Way Trade Influenced by Mid-East Peace’, Israel-Japan 1994, Tel Aviv, 1994. Ministry of Foreign Affairs File 3189/7, ISA. Disagreement between Arab League members has been observed over how to manage procedures for a formal revoking of the boycott. Up to 1994, only a few League countries continued to adhere to the secondary aspect of the boycott. Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco did not enforce various aspects of the boycott, while Egypt has detached itself totally from it since 1980. Jordan formally terminated its adherence to all aspects of the boycott on 16 August 1995. During the early and mid-1990s, several steps are worth noting: the formal establishment of relations between Israel and Jordan (December 1994); the Israeli liaison office opened in Rabat (Morocco) on November 1994, as well as a similar Moroccan office in Tel Aviv (March 1995); the Israeli-Tunisian announcement in October 1994 of the countries’ intention to establish low-level diplomatic relations as a first step towards normalization; Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s visit to Oman (December 1994). For further discussion on the ‘Arab Oil Shock’, see Eliyahu Kanovsky, Another Oil Shock in the 1990s? A Dissenting View, Washington DC, 1987; Eliyahu Kanovsky, OPEC Ascendant? Another Case of Crying Wolf, Washington DC, 1990. We refer to the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88). Following the 1991 Gulf War an office of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) was opened in Jerusalem, reporting constantly to Japan on Israeli and Middle Eastern affairs. The yen, which jumped by more than 20 per cent in the summer of 1993 as part of a general trend since 1986, resulted in high prices when purchasing Japanese goods in comparison with similar US or European goods. See Gurdon, The Arab Boycott of Israel’, p.30. Itoman have also shown interest in selling Israeli goods in China. Jerusalem Post, 20 December 1996. None of Japan’s major trading houses or large commercial firms did business openly with Israel; these were the same companies that launched a large-scale lobbying effort in the US against protectionist legislation. Among these companies


27.

28.

29.

30. 31.

32.

33. 34.

35. 36.

37. 38.

39. 40.

41.

were Toshiba, Nissan, Toyota, Mazda, Mitsui, Mochida, C.Itoh, Nippon Steel, Hitachi and Sumitomo. During the 1990s, among the various acts of counter-boycott legislation calling for punitive action against foreign companies who supported the Arab boycott against Israel are the Pro-Competitiveness and Anti-Boycott Act of 1991, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY1993, and the Anti-Economic Discrimination Act of 1994. Ikeda Akifumi, ‘Japan’s Relations with Israel’, in Kaoru Sugihara and J.A.Allan (eds.), Japan in the Contemporary Middle East, London and New York, 1993, pp. 155–56. Toyota’s decision was made public at the time of Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama’s visit to Israel (Mitsubishi had been selling cars in Israel since 1988 but through an intermediary). Additional evidence of Japan’s new attitude towards Israel is found in Nemic-Lambda’s becoming, in 1991, the first Japanese company to establish a plant in Israel. Jerusalem Post, 28 July 1991. Saudi Arabia announced that it would be prepared to relax the boycott if Israel would halt its settlement activities. Later, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was also to support this proposal. Within the Jewish lobby group were the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJAC), which promoted American legislation and activities against the Arab boycott of Israel, and several other groups, including the AntiDefamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the American Jewish Congress (AJC), and AIPAC. Ben-Ami Shillony, ‘Japan and Israel: The Relationship that Withstood Pressures’, Middle East Review, Vol.18, No.2, (1985–86), pp.17–18. Interview with Max Livnat, former minister of economic affairs at Israel’s embassy in Tokyo (1990–97), Jerusalem, 6 Jan. 2003. The renewal of Japanese mail delivery to Israel, via European countries, began on 7 February 1991. John B.Judis, ‘Burden Shirking: A Free Ride for the Japanese in the Gulf”, New Republic, 4 March 1991, p.22. Among the prominent visits paid by Japanese diplomats to Israel since then are Foreign Minister Koji Kakizawa in 1994; Special Envoy Kabun Muto in 1994; Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in 1995; Foreign Minister and Special Envoy Yohei Kono in 1995; Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda in 1996; and Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura in 1999. Interview with Elchanan Harel, former chairman of the Israel-Japan Chamber of Commerce, Tel Aviv, 23 December 2002. E.S.Harel, ‘Delegation of Israeli Businessmen to Japan February 9–20, 1992—A Summary’, Tel Aviv, 25 March 1992, pp.1–22, Interview, Tel Aviv, 23 December 2002. Israel-Japan Friendship Society and Chamber of Commerce, Israel-Japan 1994, Tel Aviv, 1994. Companies such as Sumitomo, Nissho Iwai, Tomen, Mitsubishi, Nichimen Kanematsu, Marubeni and Itoh Chu had visited Israel for protracted periods during 1994. The Toshiba group, which is closely connected with Mitsui, began to sell all its goods in Israel in 1992–94.


42. On 5 April 1995 the Inter-American Development Bank Annual Conference held a ‘Special Seminar for the Japanese Delegates’ in Jerusalem. Due to this occasion, a large number of high-placed representatives of the Japanese government, Japanese banks, securities and insurances companies came to Jerusalem. 43. Ruth Shuster, ‘Japan: Rising Sun over Israel’, Link, Vol.6, No.51 (1996), p.43. The declining diamond trade is also connected with Japan’s economic recession, diamonds being a ‘luxury item’. 44. JETRO, ‘Trade with Japan: Israel from Diamonds to High-tech’, Focus Japan, Vol. 27, No.1 (2000), p.16. 45. Ibid., p.16. 46. The success of Muruyama’s visit to Israel was due to previous visits of highranking politicians, such as those of Foreign Minister Koji Kakizawa and Special Envoy Kabun Muto, both in 1994. 47. Delegations from MITI’s National Agency for Science and Technology and the Keidanren had visited Israel in April 1993, January 1995 and July 1996. 48. During 1999 additional high-ranking Japanese visited Israel, including Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura; State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura; and Senior State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Shozo Azuma. 49. This is due to the Japan-US Security Treaty, which provides for an American military presence near or in Japan, regarded as vital both to protect Japan and as a means of promoting stability in Asia. Recent world-systemic changes leading to a more unipolar ‘pax Americana’ have made American commitment to Japan even more crucial today than in the past. 50. Michael Sterner, ‘The Middle East Factor in US-Japanese Relations’, in Ronald A.Morse (ed.), Japan and the Middle East: Alliance Politics, Washington DC, 1986, p.75. 51. A Japanese policy that is relatively more independent of the US is detected in Japan’s relations with Iran after the Revolution and to the present, which are referred to as ‘Critical Dialogue’. 52. Alan Dowty, ‘Japan and the Middle East: Signs of Change?’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol.4, No.4, (2000), p.3. 53. After the first oil crisis, on 22 November, the first formal Japanese adoption of a pro-Arab and pro-Palestinian stance was published. The ‘Nikaido Statement’ of November 1973 was formulated by Nikaido, then the chief cabinet secretary, and claimed, among other things, that: ‘The Government of Japan will continue to observe the situation in the Middle East with grave concern and, depending on future developments, may have to reconsider its policy towards Israel… The inadmissibility of occupying or taking territory by force, a plea to Israel to withdraw from all the territories occupied in the 1967 war, respect for the territorial integrity of all countries in the area, and recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.’ See, for further discussion, Yasumasa Kuroda, ‘Japan and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’, in Edward J.Lincoln (ed.), Japan and the Middle East, Washington DC, 1990, pp.40–49. 54. Nakasone’s pro-Arab position was inferred partly because of his previous experience in the Middle East, while serving as MITI minister during and after the first oil crisis, and as president of the Japan-Palestine Friendship League until his election as prime minister in 1982—although Nakasone himself claimed that the


55. 56. 57. 58.

59.

60. 61. 62.

63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69. 70.

71. 72.

pro-Arab label was inaccurate. See Nakasone Yasuhiro, The Making of the New Japan: Reclaiming the Political Mainstream, Surrey, 1999, p.195. Ben-Amy Shillony, ‘Japan and Israel: The Relationship that Withstood Pressures’, p.24. Of the total world consumption of oil–67.9 million barrels a day in 1995–one-third is consumed by the US and Japan. Bernard Reich and Cheryl Cutler, ‘Japan’, in The Powers in the Middle East: The Ultimate Strategic Arena, Bernard Reich (ed.), New York, 1987, p.292. President Bush’s speech on the Arab-Israeli crisis (4 April 2002) and Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to the Middle East and Europe were followed by a meeting in Madrid in the same month between the US and representatives from the European Union, the UN and Russia, forming the so-called ‘Quartet’. Japan was not invited to this meeting. Israeli politicians have expressed gratitude towards Japan’s economic contribution. In the words of Shimon Peres, while visiting Japan in August 2000, ‘Economic peace was just as important as diplomatic peace’ (). American Embassy, Public Affairs Section Office of Translation and Media Analysis, Japanese Morning Press Highlights, 9 May 2002, p.4. Ibid., p.4. The three-phase plan statement was issued on 17 September 2002. The first phase, ending in mid-2003, calls for an Israeli withdrawal to positions it occupied in September 2000, and for Palestinians to hold free and credible elections. The second phase proposes the creation of a Palestinian state, leading to a final phase (2004–05) of negotiations between the two parties aimed at achieving a permanent solution. See Office of International Information Programs, US Department of State. As an alternative, the US asked Japan to join a new international task force under the auspices of the Quartet. This comprised the Quartet members, plus Japan, Norway, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which would strive to implement quartet decisions. US Department of State, Washington DC, 25 July 2002. Personal interview with a high-ranking Israeli official, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem, 14 October 1996. The Wye River Agreement was signed on 23 October 1998. Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘The Middle East Peace Process’, 25 March 2002. Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Statement of the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry on the February 26 decision of the Government of Israel on construction of housing in Eastern Jerusalem’, 27 February 1997. Jerusalem Post, 1 April 1997. See also Washington Post, 1 April 1997. ‘ADL Says Non-Aligned Nations’ Call for Economic Boycott and Freezing of Ties with Israel is Counterproductive to Peace Process; Urges US to Tell Arafat Such Policies are Unacceptable’, ADL News, 9 April 1997. In September 2001, for the first time in eight years, the Arab League, under Syrian pressure, re-imposed a secondary boycott of Israel. Visits previous to Kawaguchi’s included one in January 2002 by a Japanese delegation led by the secretaries-general of the three ruling coalition parties of Japan: Fuyushiba Tetsuzo (Komeito Party), Nikai Toshihiro (Conservative Party)


73.

74. 75.

76. 77.

and Yamasaki Taku (LDP). Yamasaki was to pay an additional visit to Israel only few months later in May 2002. During her visit Foreign Minister Kawaguchi announced Japan’s ‘road map’ assistance to the Palestinians. The ‘road ‘map consists of four phases: assistance during the current situation; ending the violence and resuming a dialogue; resumption and development of the peace negotiations; and assisting the development of a Palestinian state. American Embassy, Public Affairs Section Office of Translation and Media Analysis, Japanese Morning Press Highlights, 4 June 2002, p.8. Arima has served in such posts as head of the Cabinet Counsellor’s Office of External Affairs and ambassador to Germany and has been a government envoy since 1998. Arima also visited Egypt and Jordan in August 2002. (emphasis added).

ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH WORLD

Towards a Conceptual Framework of World Jewish Politics: State, Nation and Diaspora in a Jewish Foreign Policy SHMUEL SANDLER

Organized into a number of contrasting frameworks, contemporary world Jewry presents a problem to scholars of international and comparative politics accustomed to study political phenomena that may be clearly defined and categorized along political boundaries. Nineteenth-century Europe found it difficult to absorb the Jews because of their peculiar status as a distinct nation lacking a state at a time when Europeans were striving to establish and legitimize the primacy of the nation-state. The problem was further compounded by the birth of the Jewish state, which had been intended, inter alia, to terminate the Jewish exilic existence and to unify the Jews within one political entity.1 Since 1948 one could speak of a Jewish state, a Jewish nation, a Jewish diaspora, a Jewish people, Jewish communities, and both Jewish national and international, or transnational organizations, all existing concurrently. The purpose of this essay is to articulate a conceptual framework that would encompass these elements. Starting with the foreign policy of the Jewish state, the task here is more difficult than analyzing the foreign policy of any other state. Israel finds itself in a very small group of democratic polities that follow the original intention of the doctrine of self-determination, namely that the nation does indeed define the state.2 This definition, which causes many constitutional problems and domestic complications, is also carried over to the foreign policy sphere. Israel as a Jewish state is a divided polity in all respects: the nation is divided between a territorial state and a diaspora, the state is divided between Jews and Arabs, and the national land or territory, as perceived by the Jewish primordial narrative, is also divided between Jews and Palestinians. Hence, limiting the analysis to the Jewish dimension of Israeli foreign policy would not make the task simpler. A combination of international Jewish and Israeli politics and foreign policy seems to be the right way to pursue in the enterprise of building an appropriate conceptual framework of world Jewish politics.3

Shmuel Sandler is Professor of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

STATE, NATION AND DIASPORA IN FOREIGN POLICY 295

APPROACHES TO WORLD JEWISH POLITICS How should a conceptual framework encompassing all aspects of Israel and organized world Jewry be constructed? Several attempts have been made in recent years to construct a theoretical framework that could explain the Jewish predicament. While these efforts were aimed at answering different questions from those posed here, they are nevertheless instructive in that they make certain germane points that should be explored before attempting to develop an organic framework that combines Jewish studies with world politics. One such approach is the study of comparative diasporas. Originated by a group of scholars coming from the study of ethnic and inter-communal politics, its aim has been defined as ‘contribut[ing] meaningfully and systematically to a new field of study: the study of networks created by ethnic groups which transcend the territorial state’.4 In line with this reasoning, it has been suggested that the Jewish diaspora is not a unique occurrence and that it is not a contemporary but a historical phenomenon.5 While significant from a scholarly perspective, the comparative diasporas school’s approach to the Jewish case seems to be at odds with John Armstrong’s pioneering work on diasporas. It is also this author’s assumption that the Jewish diaspora experience, even when compared to other structures, must not lose its uniqueness.6 The Jewish diaspora preceded by far the emergence of its contemporary homeland and functioned as an historical entity prior to the creation of the state of Israel. It is therefore doubtful whether the study of diasporas, most of which trailed their respective states’ existence, could serve as a framework that explains contemporary world Jewish experience. A theoretical framework to compare diasporas, while important as a tool for explaining a principal phenomenon in world politics, dilutes the inherent characteristics of both world Jewish politics and the Jewish state-diaspora international behaviour.7 The antithetical approach to comparative diasporas is that of the Jewish polity. Daniel J.Elazar, as part of his exploration of the field of Jewish political studies, developed the concept of a World Jewish Polity. Having traced it to the Hellenistic world, Elazar demarcated the Greek term politeuma as a concept designed to describe ‘phenomena such as the worldwide Jewish polity of that age.’ In light of the growing recognition ‘in the western world, at least, that there are other forms of political relationship than those embraced within the nationstate, that polity is a far more complex condition than statehood, and that it can involve multiple relationships not all of which are territorially based’,8 the case is made for adopting the theory of a Jewish polity as a conceptual framework. In another work, Elazar and Stuart Cohen went one step further and extended the Jewish polity to include not only spatial boundaries but also temporal ones.9 They laid out an impressive theoretical framework based on institutions that seemed to hold out for the Jewish people both in their homeland and in exile. Yet despite this conceptual breakthrough, missing in this study is a theoretical


framework for contention with the international politics aspect in the behaviour of the World Jewish Polity. The closest attempt to contend with world Jewish politics and the construction of a conceptual framework for analyzing Jewish foreign relations was made by Charles Liebman, who, together with Mala Tabori, even assembled an annotated bibliography of Jewish international activity. In his introduction to the bibliography, Liebman warrants Jewish political studies on the merit of the ‘assumption that there really is a Jewish polity, that is, an international Jewish community with a political life, political values, political aspirations, a political tradition and at least the semblance of political structure.’10 Liebman suggested the undertaking of a study concerning both Jewish political life beyond the state of Israel and a small number of diaspora Jewish communities and the national systems within which Jewish communities live.11 In the rest of the introduction as well as through the structure of the bibliography itself, it is possible to detect a vague outline of a framework that regrettably was never pursued further. In short, three approaches exist. One identifies diasporas as international actors but fails to attribute any unique feature to the Jewish diaspora. Another explores the Jewish polity as a unique phenomenon but does not address its international behaviour. The last approach suggests a study of Jewish international activity but lacks a theoretical framework for this endeavour. THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS The task of creating a theoretical framework must by definition also be influenced by approaches and theories of international politics. In the last three decades the main questions asked by scholars in this discipline have related to the role of the state, the place of international and transnational actors, the role of institutions and norms in international politics, and the process of identity and interest formation and other rudimentary issues that for a while seemed to have been satisfactorily resolved.12 Without going into any of the theoretical postulates attending the debate, it is clear that the advent of world politics theory is critical for defining world Jewish politics in conceptual and operational terms. Realism in its classical form put the emphasis on the state’s pursuit of national interests defined in terms of power. In its modern version—neo-realism—the emphasis has shifted to insecurity as a result of the diffused structure of the international system. Nevertheless, the two approaches share a central common denominator and a concomitant shortcoming in that both consider the state the basic unit of interaction. The pursuit of security in an anarchical international system is the main function of every state. States are likewise similar in the tasks that they face, though not in their abilities to perform them. The differences are of capability not of function, asserted Kenneth Waltz, widely considered the founder of neo-realism.13 In their overriding emphasis on the state, however, scholars of international politics tend to ignore one major phenomenon, and the defining element of the


basic unit of the international system: the nation. The nation-state, which has been at the conceptual centre of the study of international politics at least since the end of the First World War, was not solely a simple legalistic-territorial construct. The recent events taking place in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and the rebirth of the old-new nations in that part of the world have demonstrated the pertinence of the ethnic nation as a relevant variable influencing the state’s formulation of its interests. By distinguishing the nation from the state, through the concept of ethno-nationalism, it is possible to recognize the role of a dynamic and cultural feature that has given birth to unrealized aspirations that influence the foreign policy of polities. But the contemporary global system is not merely composed of sovereign national states. International integration in Europe and the birth of the European Union, the growing role of multi-national corporations and interdependence relationships, points to the existence of actors, issues and interactions on the world scene that have been ignored or undervalued by the international politics paradigm. Alongside power politics, as Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye argued, the web of global interactions is also managed by rules and standards that have evolved to accommodate the growing interdependence between states and international organizations.14 With the end of the Cold War, the world-politics approach has evolved into what came to be known as institutionalism, which relates primarily to rules of states’ behaviour and international norms and as such they have only a limited bearing on our enterprise.15 This theoretical overview cannot be complete without mentioning the politics of identity, which has drawn attention in the current literature of political science and international relations. In recent years it has been customary to divide the literature on ethno-nationalism between ‘primordialists’ like Anthony D.Smith and ‘instrumentalists’ like Ernest Gellner and Bendict Anderson.16 In the field of international relations, constructivists like Alexander Wendt and others have also opposed the primordialist approach but have instead concentrated on power politics and identity.17 TOWARDS A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK What is presented below is an eclectic framework—the result of both a lack of an all-embracing theory of world politics and the difficulty of placing Israel and world Jewry within a precise framework. The three approaches—diaspora, polity and international activity—described above lay the ground for the study of the Jewish people as a collective entity. World Jewry is organized into a number of contrasting frameworks that exhibit elements which in their worldwide performance cannot be fully understood without the application of all the three approaches to international relations theory. The structure of world Jewry exhibits a sovereign state and a diaspora. World Jewry carries a long historical memory that constitutes the identity of the state and its ethno-national aspirations, and binds those Jews who constitute ethnic groups in the diaspora.


The state interacts with trans-state organizations, shares institutions and sets a common agenda with a large diaspora, which lends itself to exploration in accordance with the interdependence paradigm. For the moment, in trying to formulate world Jewish politics despite the abovenoted difficulties, the following attempt has a limited goal: to demarcate what constitutes both the core and scope of this field of study. The first task is formidable, for in order for World Jewish Politics to truly qualify as a bona fide field of study, it must first be based on a core and cannot just be a hodgepodge of contributions from various fields of study. The Core Because of the nature and norms of international politics, where states are still the major actor, Israel’s raison d’etat has enjoyed priority, and will continue to do so in the future, over that of other non-sovereign Jewish communities. Israel’s paramount role is also enhanced by the fact that it is the only place in the world where the Jews constitute a majority and, with the current rate of assimilation in the West, it is certain to become the largest Jewish community worldwide in the near future. As such, the security of the state has been sanctified and elevated above the ordinary plane accorded to this institution in international politics, which is already very prominent. Israeli leaders as well as many of their diaspora counterparts have elevated the survival of the state of Israel to a normative level.18 The constant threat of annihilation posed by the Arab states has justified that sensitivity and the demands for broad margins of security, and has narrowed Israel’s capacity for risk-taking for the sake of peace. Taking into account Jewish traditional sensitivities to security and the location of Israel in the Middle East, one can assume that security will continue to predominate both the Israeli state and the Jewish diaspora agenda. Another dimension of the core of contemporary world Jewish politics relates to the politics of identity. Israel’s definition as a Jewish state burdens the polity with temporal and spatial obligations. Ethno-nationalism describes the impact of the historical baggage that nations carry with them in their political behaviour.19 With an over 3,000-year history made up of two national destructions, followed by innumerable atrocities culminating in the Holocaust, a Jewish foreign policy exceeds the normal national traumas that influence collective decision-making processes or decision-makers.20 The marvel of reconstruction of Jewish independence after almost two millennia on the historic Land of Israel, and the revival of its ancient language, infused an ethnic national element into Israeli identity to a degree that may be unique among Western democracies.21 The ethnic dimension bears also on the role of the historic land. While lacking a national territory for almost two millennia, the Jews carried with them a very vivid memory of a homeland that dictated most of their ritual life. The lack of a national territory on the one hand, and the central role that the Land of Israel played in Jewish collective memory on the other, helps explain the paramount


role of land in Zionism and the rift in Israeli society and polity since 1967. The fear of losing the state of Israel in the struggle to keep the integrity of the Land of Israel after two millennia of exile and the attendant desire to surrender parts of the ancestral homeland for the sake of solving the Palestinian problem, or even the achievement of peace, have created deep and lasting divisions not only among Israelis but also within diaspora Jewish communities. The strength of the state of Israel and the Land of Israel must thus be explained as resulting from both statism and Jewish ethno-nationalism.22 The ethno-national definition of Israel is also present in the ethnic fabric of Israeli society. The relations between Israeli Arabs, who constitute around 18 per cent of the total population, and Jews spill over the domestic arena.23 Living in a region overwhelmingly dominated by Arabs in a land that Arabs consider their historic patrimony, bordering on an autonomous Palestinian entity, and conceivably a state, does not promise an integrated Israeli nation-state but rather structural ethnic pluralism that will also have a bearing on foreign-policy issues. The re-emergence of ethno-nationalism in the international environment does not augur domestic tranquillity but rather more internecine strife, a trend that implicitly will have an impact on Israeli foreign policy. Another divide that is found at the core—the religious-secular one— also relates to the identity of the Jewish state and world Jewry. Unlike the previous category, when approaching the question of religious identity one meets both state and diaspora at the centre. Both are split along comparable lines with opposing segments confronting each other for a place at the core of the polity. Even though the schism in both Israel and the diaspora is not as dichotomous as it is often presented by ethnic entrepreneurs on both sides of the divide, the distance between secular and Orthodox Jews, despite a broad middle spectrum, is nevertheless widening.24 With the return of religion to the public sphere in many countries in the world this struggle is of ever greater importance.25 Scope The scope of world Jewish politics, or international Jewish activity, differs even more than its core from that of other polities. The first element here is interest. Unlike many other diasporas, the world Jewish polity is composed of a state and a diaspora, both active in foreign and world affairs. What this implies in terms of international politics is that the scope of the national interest and national power of both entities exceeds the boundaries of a state or a worldwide community. On the normative level, the state interest must take into account the well-being of diaspora communities. The existence of a Jewish diaspora forces Israel to be involved in international political activities that are remote from its natural habitat. In turn, the diaspora communities as collectives—though exposed to the charge of ‘dual loyalty’ between their state interest and that of the Jewish people as a whole, the state of Israel, or a particular Jewish community—would


normally find cognizance to non-governmental direct relations with Jewish communities of other states, or even the state of Israel. The second ingredient in the scope of world Jewish politics is Jewish national power. Here again, both the resources of the state of Israel and diaspora Jewish communities come into play, as well as the combination of both entities. Such a measurement of power exceeds the conventional definition of state power which is normally confined to the boundaries of the state, and that of the alliance politics relationship which is ad hoc by definition and limited to a congruence of short-term interests. Since its early years of statehood, the Israeli leadership has noticed the potential of utilizing Jewish communities abroad, especially in the West, for the advancement of the interests of the Jewish state. In recent years, the existence of an influential American Jewish community has provided Israel with an image of a power broker in Washington that many of the new countries tried to court on their way for American assistance. But the Jewish-Israeli connection works both ways: the American Jewish community exceeds its relative weight in American society also because of its special relations with a foreign sovereign state and its responsibility for Jewish communities all over the globe. The third element differs from interest and power. It is the relationship of interdependence between Israel and various Jewish communities. Interdependence theory argues that despite the strength of the state, national interests and the military dimension in international politics, world politics could not be explained solely in terms of the aspirations of states in disregard of the machinations of non-state actors. Consequentially, under conditions of complex interdependence, relations between states may be determined by factors other than military power.26 While Liebman has already defined the relationship between Israel and American Jewry as interdependent and tested it on several case studies, this model must be further investigated and explored.27 In particular, one may add the role of norms, such as the Jewish norm of ‘Kol Israel Arevim Ze La-ze’ (All of Israel are responsible for each other). On the basis of Liebman’s findings, and notwithstanding the claim by Israeli scholars that Israel’s foreign policy has invariably subordinated diaspora interests to raison d’état considerations, interaction between Israel and Jewish communities cannot be confined to pure realpolitik, namely the advancement of Israeli interests even at the cost of sacrificing the interests of a Jewish community or vice-versa.28 Indeed, the underlying assumption of the interdependence school is that political interaction is not inevitably determined by power considerations. The relations between Israel and Jewish communities in the diaspora are definitely one of multiple channels of interaction, and thus must be seen overall as determined by a co-operative rationale. Jewish policies and the Jewish agenda have traditionally been debated and the decisions which have emerged were the result of a bargaining process which Israel did not always dictate. Research based on a number of case studies of Israeli handling of the normative demand, emanating from its definition as a Jewish state, to take into


account the interests of diaspora Jewish communities points to mixed results. The most outstanding case study, and one that corresponds to the above thesis, is the insistence of American Jewry on the right of Soviet Jews to choose their future dwelling without losing Jewish philanthropic assistance. Despite its reluctance to assist this exodus so as to encourage Soviet Jews to come to Israel, Jerusalem relented to the policies of Jewish international organizations such as HIAS. In contrast, in the 1960s Israel ignored the pressure of South African Jewry not to give in to Black African countries’ anti-Pretoria campaign. Similarly, in the early 1960s Israel succumbed to French pressure to keep Algerian Jewry intact and failed to pursue a determined effort to bring them to Israel.29 The lesson to be learned from these examples is that interdependence theory does not ignore power. In accordance with this theory, power in world politics serves as an instrument of influence, as a relationship and as a process of interaction that is not confined to states. Hence, US Jewry should not be deemed a device of Israeli foreign policy but rather the second most important actor in world Jewish politics. Its weight in numbers, wealth and influence in the political system of the most powerful nation on earth puts the American Jewish community in a pivotal position. Israel’s economic and strategic dependence on the US gives that Jewry additional leverage both on the global scene and on interJewish relations. At the same time, American Jewry’s ability to play such a prominent role in foreign affairs, which in turn enhances its status in American society, is possible only because of Israel’s existence. The influence of other Jewish communities on Israel and world Jewish politics is even more complicated. Should they be ranked according to their influence on their governments, their individual power or the power of their host societies? Consider the case of Soviet Jewry. Despite its position as the second largest Jewish community after the Holocaust, and its residence in the second superpower, Soviet Jewry did not hold any political power over its government. While this fact was noted by David Ben-Gurion in the early days of statehood, no other Jewry played such a prominent role on the world Jewish agenda as Soviet Jewry.30 The salient actors participating in the interplay of Jewish international relations have been the state of Israel and the more powerful diaspora communities such as the British, French, Canadian and Argentinian Jewries. The realities of power would thus influence also the realm of world Jewish politics. The role of other Jewish communities in more peripheral countries in determining the Jewish political relations fluctuates with the changing political realities and issues. North African Jewry was salient during the early 1960s, Soviet Jewry the 1970s, and Ethiopian Jewry during the 1980s. The eminence of the communities will be determined by a combination of factors such as their ability to influence their host countries and through them the international system as well as the rest of world Jewry. Finally, in accordance with the interdependence model, it is appropriate to develop a parallel key to measure the role of both international and trans-


national Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and the World Zionist Organization, as well as national organizations in the diaspora with interests in foreign-policy formulation such as the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith, and the Anti-Defamation League. These organizations have developed in recent years a division of labour with the World Jewish Congress concentrating on the issue of Jewish assets plundered from Jews in Europe during the Second World War, while the ADL, loyal to its role and title, has continued to investigate and alert world public opinion to the spread of anti-Semitism. With time, the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), replacing the Presidents’ Conference of Major Jewish Organizations, has become the major organization lobbying for Israel.31 This division of labour confirms the existence of world Jewish politics in which the norms and identity of state and diaspora constitute the core of a worldwide Jewish polity, whose scope encompasses interest, power and interdependence among the various organs that include communities and organizations. CONCLUSIONS The subject of the world Jewish politics of Israeli foreign policy deserves further research and theoretical exploration. Past experience exhibits a multifarious judgment. Several components have been outlined in this essay. Chief among them are the interest and responsibility of the state of Israel as defined by its identity as a Jewish state. This definition implies two themes. In a world of nation-states, the most sacrosanct duty of a polity is not to endanger its existence for the sake of any other cause— even a Jewish one. Justification for this maxim assumes also that the survival of the Jewish people depends on the survival of the Jewish state. Israeli foreign policy, however, because of its complex identity must be inspired by the Jewish definition of the state. This request is especially pertinent because such a denotation served both the raison d’être and raison d’état of the polity. At the same time, the core of world Jewish politics consists also of the interest and identity of a Jewish diaspora increasingly involved in foreign affairs. The growing legitimacy of this involvement, as well as the recognition by scholars of world politics that international relations must exceed state-centrism, calls for the emergence of a theory of world Jewish politics whose core and scope consist of the interest and identity, power and norms of both state and diaspora. Another component in the conceptual framework of this study is international Jewish activity which encompasses the scope of interest and action of Jewish communities and organizations that exceed the boundaries of a Jewish foreign policy. Interdependence, which characterizes the association between the state of Israel, Jewish communities around the globe and organizations, suggests on the one hand a relationship in which considerations other than power also play a role. On the other hand, even such a structure cannot ignore power as evidenced, inter


alia, by the leverage on Israeli foreign policy of the US Jewish community—the largest and most powerful diaspora Jewish community. This essay is hopefully a first step in the articulation of a world Jewish politics theory. Further development would require exploration of both the temporal and spatial dimensions, as well as the identification of the main issue-areas that cut across national boundaries. In the search for uniqueness, one must look also for values that epitomize the Jewish approach to the world. The notions that come to mind are Or La-goyim (A Light Unto the Nations), Tikun Olam (Mending the World), and Am Le-vadad Yisshkon (A Nation that Dwells Alone). Putting these and other norms in their proper context should also be the task of a world Jewish politics theory. On the way to developing such a theory, students of Jewish politics should not be deterred by a fear of playing into the hands of those who believe in an international Jewish conspiracy. Academic and intellectual deliberation cannot be inhibited by such prejudice despite its prevalence among anti-Semites and Muslim ideologues even today. NOTES 1. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, New York, 1946, pp.153–54. 2. For this categorization, see Eliezer Don-Yehiya and Baruch Susser, ‘Democracy versus Nationalism: Israel as a “Deviant Case”’, Democratic Culture, No.1 (1991), pp.9–10. 3. For further discussion of the notion of a ‘Jewish Foreign Policy’, see Shmuel Sandler, ‘Is There a Jewish Foreign Policy?’, The Jewish Journal of Sociology, Vol.29, No.2 (Dec. 1987), pp.115–21. 4. Gabriel Sheffer (ed.), Modern Diasporas in International Politics, London, 1986, p. 1. 5. Idem., At Home Abroad: Diaspora Politics, Cambridge (forthcoming). See also Yossi Shain, Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the US and Their Homelands, New York, 1999; and idem, ‘Multicultural Foreign Policy’, Foreign Policy (1995), pp.69–87. 6. John Armstrong, ‘Mobilized and Proletarian Diasporas’, American Political Science Review, Vol.70, No.2 (Jan. 1976), pp.393–408. 7. Another notable work is Eliezer Don-Yehiya’s edited volume on the relations between Israel and diaspora Jewry. While sensitive to the special conditions of the Jewish experience, it hardly touches on the international dimension of this interaction. See Eliezer Don-Yehiya (ed.), Israel and Diaspora Jewry, Ideological and Political Perspectives, Ramat-Gan, 1991. 8. Daniel J.Elazar, ‘Israel, American Jewry and the Re-emergence of a World Jewish Polity’, Annual of Bar-Ilan University Studies in Judaica and the Humanities, XVI– XVII, p.90. 9. Daniel J.Elazar and Stuart Cohen, The Jewish Polity, Bloomington, 1985 10. Charles S.Liebman, ‘The Study of International Jewish Activity’, in Mala Tabory and Charles Liebman, Jewish International Activity: An Annotated Bibliography, Ramat-Gan, 1985, p.12.


11. Ibid. 12. The outset of the debate was defined as one between the World Politics and the State-Centric approaches. See Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, Boston, 1977. See also Robert O.Keohane (ed.), Neoralism and Its Critics, New York, 1986; American Political science Review, Vol.91, No.4 (Dec. 1997), pp.899–935. 13. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Addison Wesley, 1979, pp.88–99. 14. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye Jr., Power and Interdependence, chapters 1–3. 15. John Mearsheimer, ‘The False Promise of International Institutions’, International Security, Vol.13, No.3 (1995), p.8. 16. See, for instance, Walker Connor, ‘Nation Building and Nation Destroying’, World Politics, 1972; A.D.Smith, The Ethnic Revival, Cambridge, 1981; Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, Oxford, 1983; and Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, New York, 1991. 17. Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy is What States Make of It: the Social Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization, Vol.46, No.2 (Spring, 1992). 18. Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel, London, 1972, p.232. 19. On ethno-nationalism, see Walker Connor, ‘The Politics of Ethno-nationalism’, Journal of International Affairs, Vol.27, No.1 (1973), pp.1, 21. On the Jewish case, see Gideon Shimoni, ‘Jewish Nationalism as an Ethnic Nationalism’, in Jehuda Reinharz, Gideon Shimoni and Yosef Salmon (eds.), Jewish Nationalism and Politics: New Perspectives, Jerusalem, 1996, pp.81–92. 20. Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel, pp.229–47. 21. Eliezer Don-Yehiya and Baruch Susser, ‘Democracy versus Nationalism’. 22. Shmuel Sandler, The State of Israel, The Land of Israel: The Statist and Ethnonational Dimensions of Foreign Policy, Westport, 1993, chapter 9. 23. Hillel Frisch, ‘The Israeli Arabs and Israeli Foreign Policy: Minority Participation in Ethnonational Politics’, in Sasson Sofer (ed.), Peace Making in a Divided Society: Israel After Rabin, London, 2001, pp.119–140. 24. Daniel J.Elazar and Shmuel Sandler, ‘The Battle over Jewishness and Zionism in the Post-Modern Era’, Israel Affairs, Vol.4, No.1 (Autumn 1997), pp.14–21. 25. See two special issues devoted to ‘Religion in the Public Square’ in Jewish Political Studies Review, Vol.11, Nos.1–4 (Spring and Fall 1999). 26. Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, pp.23–37. 27. Charles Liebman, Pressure Without Sanction: The Influence of World Jewry on Israeli Policy, London, 1977, chapter 2. 28. Efraim Inbar, ‘Jews, Jewishness and Foreign Policy’, Jewish Political Studies Review, Vol.2, No.3&4 (Fall, 1990), pp.167–73. See also Giora Goldberg, ‘The Jewish Factor in the Israeli Reaction to the Doctor’s Plot in Moscow’, in DonYehiya (ed.), Israel and Diaspora Jewry, pp.183–203. 29. Yitzhak Mualem, The Jewish Dimension in Israel’s Foreign Policy: Between RealPolitics and General Jewish Goals, a dissertation submitted to Bar Ilan University (Ramat-Gan, March 1999). See also Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel, pp.234–35. 30. Shmuel Sandler, ‘Ben-Gurion’s Attitude towards the Soviet Union’, The Jewish Journal of Sociology, Vol.21, No.2 (Dec. 1979), pp.150–54. 31. Daniel J.Elazar, People and Polity (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), p.78.

Post-Zionism in the Oslo Era and the Implications for the Diaspora DANNY BEN-MOSHE

Post-Zionism is an ideological and cultural process that seeks to remove or reduce the Jewish and Zionist characteristics of the state of Israel. It proliferated in the mid-1990s in part due to the advancement of the Oslo peace process, which allowed Israel to reflect on its internal character.1 However, with the onset of Israeli-Palestinian violence in September 2000, issues of survival have resumed their precedence leaving little scope for post-Zionism.2 The current conflict has shattered many of the premises upon which post-Zionism was predicated, such as the belief that Israel is accepted internationally in the spirit of universalism, including by its Arab neighbours. Despite the post-September 2000 decline in post-Zionism and the concomitant rise in nationalism, issues associated with the ‘Al Aqsa intifada’ such as reservists refusing to serve in the territories or the revived Four Mothers movement, reflect an individualism, universalism and rejection of the sanctity of the Israel Defence Forces that is characteristic of post-Zionism. Furthermore, the underlying factors that gave rise to post-Zionism remain,3 such as Orthodox-nonOrthodox relations, as evidenced by the success of the anti-Orthodox Shinui party in the 2003 general election. With issues such as the dismantling of settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza an inevitable part of any peace deal, a resumption of a meaningful peace process will sharpen the focus between the two nominal sides of the post-Zionist debate—the secular left and the religious right. It is likely that post-Zionism will return once again to the fore either when the peace process resumes in a meaningful way, or if the current state of conflict becomes the norm for the foreseeable future. This will have implications for the diaspora, the focus of this article and a group long neglected in the literature on post-Zionism.

Danny Ben-Moshe is Associate Professor and Director of the Social Diversity Key Research Area at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.


DEFINING POST-ZIONISM In his 1999 book The Postzionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israel Culture, Laurence Silberstein stated: ‘In a general sense, postzionism is a term applied to a current set of critical positions that complicate Zionist discourse, and the historical narratives and social and cultural representations that it produced. Like the term Zionism, postzionism encompasses a variety of positions.’4 These positions are both diverse and conflicting. Professor Yosef Gorny identified two types of post-Zionism: positive and negative.5 Post-Zionists are not homogenous so within these categories the post-Zionists may only subscribe to some of the negative and positive ideas respectively. Positive post-Zionists, who have also been described as a-Zionists,6 contend that Zionism has accomplished its primary goals: establishing a Jewish state with a Jewish majority for whom Hebrew is the language of daily use, in a country which is capable of exercising self-defence and has a developed economy, despite experiencing economic difficulties as a result of the post-Camp David debacle. Positive post-Zionists do not oppose the historical role of the Zionist idea and movement, but believe that with its goals achieved, Israel should enter a post-Zionist, or post-ideological era, otherwise known as the normalization of Israel. Negative post-Zionists are anti-Zionist, and hence reject the doctrine of Jewish nationalism in the belief that it is colonialist in nature and racist in practice. As such, they argue that it prevents the creation of a democratic state of all her citizens which they hope will replace what they argue is the existing Jewish state of unequals. As an example of this inequality, which negative post-Zionists contend has been reinforced by the ‘Al Aqsa intifada’, they refer to the 2000 cabinet decision to initially approve a bill that would limit settlement on state land to Jews only.7 While there are important differences between these two types of post-Zionism, they share a common value of individualism, which Yaron Ezrahi described in his 1997 book Rubber Bullets as the most important aspect of the ‘profound internal change in Israeli society, culture and politics.’8 In contrast to the traditional Zionist-Israeli ethos of service and sacrifice for the collective good of the state of Israel and the Jewish people, negative postZionists are concerned about other individuals, specifically Israeli Arabs. Negative post-Zionists argue that as long as Israel is a Jewish state by definition, Arabs in Israel are by definition denied civic equality. In the words of Haifa University post-Zionist sociologist Uri Ram, ‘the Israeli Arabs are separate and unequal.’9 By contrast, positive post-Zionists are concerned for themselves as individuals, an attitude manifested through increased materialism. As a 1997 American Jewish Committee discussion paper on post-Zionism noted, ‘many Israelis feel that enough of the collective Jewish goals have been achieved to turn attention to other things, such as raising one’s own personal standard of living.’10 It is

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specifically because of Israel’s unique role of being a state with a historic mission of preserving the Jewish people, that post-Zionism is of particular concern. As Robert Wistrich observed, normalization ‘seems to me a very understandable human wish: an end to ceaseless sacrifice; to the kind of demands that living in Israel places on citizens, whether in terms of taxation or the number of days served in the army each year; to the levels of stress and anxiety.’11 Individualism is intimately related to the pursuit of ‘normalization’ that takes precedence over Judaism and Zionism for positive post-Zionists. Post-Zionist critic Yoram Hazony, Director of the Conservative think-tank the Shalem Centre, cited an article by Gideon Samet in the newspaper Ha’aretz welcoming the 1993 Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles as an example of the post-Zionist pursuit of normalization. Samet wrote: ‘Madonna and Big Macs the most peripheral of examples of…a “normalness” which means, amongst other things, the end of the terrible fear of everything that is foreign and strange… Only those trapped in the old ways of thinking will not recognize the benefits.’12 Such materialistic, universalistic and individualistic manifestations of post-Zionism have ramifications for the diaspora. NEGATIVE POST-ZIONIST PERSPECTIVES TOWARDS THE DIASPORA Negative post-Zionists have three primary and interrelated objectives: to advance the normalization of Israel; for Israel to be fully integrated into the Middle East; and for Israel to become a liberal-democratic state for all her citizens. Negative post-Zionist perspectives towards the diaspora are determined by the extent to which such ties are compatible with these ideals. In pursuing these, negative post-Zionists deny the notion of a Jewish nation and the Zionist maxim of negating the golah (diaspora). Ties to the Diaspora are an Obstacle to the Normalization of Israel Negative post-Zionists believe that ties to the diaspora prevent the state’s normalization because the diaspora infringes upon Israel’s sovereignty and curtails the development of a normal national identity and consciousness. Negative post-Zionists trace this to the earliest days of Zionism. As Boas Evron claimed in his seminal 1988 post-Zionist book Jewish State or Israeli Nation?, ‘The vision of “a nation like all nations” began to erode [during the Yishuv] as a result of the ties between the Zionist parties in Palestine and their mobilization and financing sources abroad.’13 Although negative post-Zionist attitudes towards the diaspora entered mainstream debate in the mid-1990s, they were articulated by the secular left from the 1970s onwards when Zionist mythology began to unravel in the


aftermath of the 1973 war. In 1983, for example, Joseph Agassi, Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, and Yoella Har-Shei, a journalist with the left-wing Al Hamishmar, argued that by calling for diaspora Jews to emigrate to Israel, Israel must serve as ‘pioneer and rescuer and recipient of Diaspora support, political and financial’. Agassi and Har-Shei maintained that this meant that ‘normality in the Jewish state [is] impossible as long as the Jewish Diaspora exists.’ In practical terms, ‘the chief result is that all Israelis—Jewish and nonJewish alike —are robbed of their sense of national identity’, leading to ‘the perpetuation of Jewish abnormality in Israel.’14 Evron expounded on the view that ties to the diaspora impinge upon the development of a unique national identity by arguing that: ‘The constant financial and political dependence of the state on the support of foreign Jews, mainly in the United States, also undermined the sense of a separate nationality of the Israelis born or bred in the country.’15 He also argued that through the use of financial resources received by Israelis from the diaspora, the Israeli ‘establishment has also done its best to suppress the growth of an independent national consciousness in the Israeli population, which might have led to estrangement from the Diaspora and the establishment’s power sources there.’16 An additional and related effect of ties between Israel and the diaspora, according to negative post-Zionists, is the limitation it places on Israeli sovereignty. Evron contended that the relationship ‘implies that the state is a tool of the Jewish people, and as such any Jew has rights in it and a say in its affairs.’ Claiming that this creates a situation in which the diaspora Jew can force Israel to behave in a particular way, he concludes that ‘This is tantamount to an infringement of the sovereignty of any country where Jews live and to a statement that the Jewish citizens of all countries owe political allegiance to an external sovereign body.’17 Regional Integration One reason why post-Zionism is currently off the political agenda is because its tenets appear inconsistent with events following the collapse of the Camp David peace talks between American President Bill Clinton, Palestine Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. However, in the optimistic environment generated by the 1993 Oslo agreement, negative post-Zionists called for Israel to become a fully-fledged member of the region. Evron envisaged ‘regional’ and ultimately ‘federal collaboration’ between Israel and Arabic-speaking countries, with Israel’s ‘integration in and becoming a fully legitimate member of the Middle Eastern system.’18 Negative post-Zionists maintain that their goal of regional integration cannot be achieved while Israel maintains close ties to the diaspora, primarily because calls for Israel’s integration into the Middle East, according to Evron, ‘works at cross purpose with the country’s links to world Jewry’, which ‘suggest the priority of Western culture.’19


When faced with what they believe to be a choice between the Jewish diaspora and the Arab-Islamic Middle East, negative post-Zionists choose the latter with significant implications for the diaspora. This was demonstrated by the case of an ‘Israeli professor [who] argued that the study programs of American Jews should be reassessed because… Israel is entering a post-Zionist era where Israel has to look to the wider Middle East rather than emphasize her Jewish character.’20 Ties to the Diaspora Prevent Democracy and Equality of Citizenship As noted above, securing full equality for Israel’s non-Jewish citizens is an important post-Zionist objective. This was clearly enunciated by Uri Ram, who declared in 1995 that ‘the time is now ripe for the formation of a post-Zionist sociological agenda… Zionist sociology promoted the idea of an identity among unequals and the inclusion of the others; post-Zionist sociology should promote the idea of an equality among non-identicals and the inclusion of the others.’21 The relationship with the diaspora was viewed by negative post-Zionists as a fundamental obstacle in the pursuit of equality of citizenship as it putatively entrenches a system of inequality. Evron made clear what this meant and called for ‘a constitution imposing complete equality upon its citizens, thus abrogating the preferred status of the Jewish people in the state.’22 Describing how the Declaration of Independence refers to Israel as the state of the Jewish people, Evron noted that ‘Israel grants Jews the world over, even those with no interest in Israel, extraterritorial rights that it denies to its nonJewish citizens. It was a foregone conclusion that, even apart from the active discrimination they suffer, these minorities would feel like barely tolerated, unwanted second-class citizens.’23 Severing ties with the diaspora thus became a key element in the negative post-Zionist campaign to rectify the inequality of citizenship by facilitating the establishment of a fully democratic environment for Israel’s non-Jewish minority. Evron argued the need for this by describing how ‘the Israeli Jew would consider a Hebrew-speaking Christian (or Muslim) who studies in the same schools and fulfils the same civic duties, including military service and sharing the risks involved, as much closer to him than Diaspora Jews.’24 For negative post-Zionists the inequality experienced by Israel’s non-Jewish citizens is directly related to Israel’s ties to the diaspora. Evron observed how the ongoing campaign to bring Jewish immigrants to Israel exerts constant pressure on the non-Jewish minority, cramping and inhibiting it in order to clear space for more Jewish immigrants. This is not a situation in which a stable majority claims precedence over a stable minority with which it has lived symbiotically for generations. The minority’s condition in this case is not static, since the majority group


aspires to increase its own numbers, thereby reducing the proportion of the minority within it.25 Israel’s Arabs have long held the negative post-Zionist view that Jewish immigration negatively impacts on their status. At a time of mass immigration from the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s the Israeli Arab community objected, expressing concern that this immigration could lead to housing shortages and unemployment,26 while Dr Raymond Jubran of the Histadrutaffiliated Institute for Economic and Social Research described how Jewish immigration led to a situation in which ‘the Arabs in Israel are not considered a part of the national planning process of the State of Israel. The waves of Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union have further exposed the conditions of economic and employment uncertainty in Israel in general, and have reduced and restricted future employment opportunities for the Arabs in particular.’27 It is due to this and similar attitudes to Jewish immigration that some Arabs in Israel, the main beneficiaries of the negative post-Zionist proposition, have endorsed this stance. In 1986 the Israeli Arab writer Anton Shamas proposed ‘that the gates of aliyah and automatic citizenship will close in 2008.’28 Dr Ahmad Sa’ab of the Progressive List for Peace argued that if Jews like those in the former Soviet Union faced problems such as anti-Semitism, solutions should be found in those countries rather than by bringing them to Israel.29 The Arab position on Israel’s needing to change from being a Jewish state to a state of all her citizens was manifest in the candidacy of Arab MK Dr Azmi Bishara for the premiership in the 1999 Israeli elections. He called for Israel to be a state of all its citizens rather than a particular religious bloc, stating ‘the vision embodied in my candidacy is a separation of citizenship from religion. It is a dream of normalization of Israeli democracy.’30 Denial of Jewish Peoplehood Jews have traditionally been regarded as members of both a religion and a nation, but post-Zionists reject this, claiming Judaism is only a religion and not a nationality. As Evron stated, ‘the shift of the national definition from ethnicity or religious allegiance to territoriality will entail change in the nature of the connection between Israeli Jews and the Jewish world. This connection will then cease to be a state-political one and move more to the cultural and economic spheres.’31 Indeed, a joint 1997 Israeli-Diaspora discussion paper on post-Zionism observed that ‘perhaps the most dangerous implication of post-Zionism is its denial of Jewish Peoplehood.’32 Illustrative of such sentiments, post-Zionist Yitzhak Laor said of Australian Jewry in 1995: ‘I don’t give a damn for them. I mean they are not my people anyway.’33 In directly negating Theodore Herzl’s rallying cry ‘we are a people, one people’ and the Zionist belief that Jews have a right and need for a homeland like


every other people, negative post-Zionists contend that Jews can lead full lives as Jews in their countries of residence in the diaspora. In fact, to claim otherwise offends the negative post-Zionists’ liberal sensibilities of the civil society protecting minority rights. As is demonstrated below, this idea has the potential to resonate in the diaspora. Negating the Negation of the Golah Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, a cultural critic of Zionism, has addressed the notion of the ‘Negation of the Diaspora’ as a central tenet in Israeli political and cultural discourse. In his view, this concept enables Israelis to avoid a critical evaluation of their past, particularly in relation to the Palestinians, placing the geographic area of the state of Israel in Jewish time alone, rather than in the Middle Eastern space where it resides. In a series of articles in the Hebrew journal Theory and Criticism, RazKrakotzkin argued that because Israeli history was seen in the context of European Jewish history it did not allow the cultural space for Palestinian narratives (and other narratives that did not fit this view, such as that of Mizrachi Jewry). As Raz-Krakotzkin wrote: the definition of Zionist settlement as an expression of ‘shelilat hagalut’ [negation of the diaspora] and ‘shivat haam’ [the return of the nation] to its homeland prevented relating to the collective yearning of the local Arab population and its perspective. It [also] undoubtedly made it impossible to turn the fact of this collective’s existence into an essential foundation for establishing a new Jewish identity. The historical conception of shelilat hagalut, the emptiness of Jewish time that separates the loss of sovereignty over the land and its renewed settlements, is completed in a direct way through the image of the land—the place for the realization and resolution of history—as an empty land.34 For Raz-Krakotzkin, this has a practical contemporary political implication in determining views on matters such as rights to the land. It follows that for RazKrakotzkin, only by negating the negation of the golah in its traditional Zionist sense can Zionist ‘myths’ be overcome to allow the political and cultural inclusion of the Palestinians. POSITIVE POST-ZIONIST PERSPECTIVES TOWARDS THE DIASPORA While negative post-Zionist attitudes towards the diaspora become established through an examination of their ideology, positive post-Zionist attitudes towards the diaspora are largely predicated on practical rather than ideological concerns. Specifically, these concerns include the socio-economic well-being of individual


Jewish citizens of Israel and their general quality of life in the pursuit of normalization as opposed to individuals focusing on Jewish and Zionist values and collective concerns. The way this impacts on the diaspora must be deduced by an assessment of various trends, such as Israeli attitudes towards their sense of belonging to the Jewish people and the commitment or otherwise of Israelis to diaspora Jews settling in Israel. Membership of the Jewish People? An important development in relation to the distancing of Israelis from the diaspora is a sense of Israeliness over Jewishness. This was expressed in 1995 by Yehiel Leket, at the time Chairman of the Jewish Agency: The major principle of Zionism was the establishment of a Jewish State for Jewish people, and today this principle is under question. Many young people here are Israelis first and only. They do not regard other Jews as belonging to the same ‘nation’, only to the same religion. It is only Judaism that they believe they have in common.35 The concern expressed by Leket is supported by empirical data. Asked in 1996 ‘How do you perceive yourself? Firstly Israeli or Firstly a Jew?’, 47.84 per cent of trainee state schoolteachers said firstly a Jew while 99.06 per cent of trainee state religious school respondents answered in this way. Similarly, while 52.1 per cent of state schoolteachers responded that they were firstly Israeli, only 0.94 per cent of state religious respondents gave this response. This led researcher Dr Yair Auron to conclude that the national Jewish identity and attitudes towards the Jewish people in the past and present times is a ‘vulnerable point in the Jewish national identity and education of non-religious youth.’36 According to Auron, whose findings appear in Table 1 below, non-religious youth ‘do not consider themselves in a deep, meaningful sense as part of the Jewish people. They relate to the term “Jewish People” (Am Yisrael) mainly in the restrictive sense of Jews residing in Israel’, whereas the colloquial meaning of the word was generally taken to mean the entire Jewish people.37 Auron based his observation on his 1996 survey where trainee teachers from State Secular (SS), State Religious (SR) and Ultra-Orthodox (UO) were asked about their affinity or lack of affinity to the respective communities in the Diaspora.38 It is trends reflected by statistics such as these that led Rabbi Michael Melchior, the minister with responsibility for diaspora affairs in the Barak government, to state in 1999: ‘I want to create an awareness in Israel, which unfortunately hardly exists here today, that we are part of a Jewish world.’ He reflected: ‘If we lose consciousness that there are Jews outside the borders of the state of Israel, then we have lost a basic part of our Jewish identity.’39


TABLE 1 TRAINEE STATE SCHOOLTEACHERS’ ATTACHMENT TO DIASPORA COMMUNITIES

Aliyah The result of Auron’s findings that Israelis looked more inward and were concomitantly detached from the diaspora demonstrates, when compounded by the individualization described above, an unwillingness to have diaspora Jews come to Israel and a reluctance to make the personal sacrifices for this process. This was manifest in the Israeli attitude towards Jewish immigration to Israel or aliyah that is based on the Zionist notion of Kibbutz galuyot, ‘the ingathering of the exiles.’ A study of Israeli attitudes to aliyah in the mid-1990s thus provided an indication of their attitudes towards and commitment to the diaspora—a traditional Zionist ideal. In 1995 Shlomo Hillel, World Chairman of Keren Hayesod, the body charged with raising funds in the diaspora, pronounced: ‘In this country [Israel], public opinion is sharply divided on virtually every subject, but the one thing on which there is unity is the necessity and importance of immigration and absorption.’40 However, trends at the time indicated that there was at best growing indifference, and at worst growing hostility, towards diaspora Jews and the perceived burden caused by their immigration. This was seen particularly in relation to the mass immigration from the former Soviet Union since 1989. Resentment concerning the rights and social-welfare benefits extended to immigrants from the former Soviet Union were placed on the national agenda in 1994 when Ora Namir, the Social Welfare Minister in the government of Yitzhak Rabin, advocated selective immigration because ‘one-third of the immigrants [from the former Soviet Union] are elderly, one-third are disabled…and almost one-third are single mothers.’41 Although her statistics were inaccurate, Namir’s call for selective aliyah won wide public support with a phone poll on Radio Galei Tzahal in which 1,280 respondents agreed with her remarks and 300 disagreed.42 While phone polls are not scientific, this result was reflective of the public mood towards immigration in Israel. More data about Israeli attitudes towards immigrants was provided in a June 1997 poll for Israeli radio, which found that a third of Israelis were ‘frightened’ by immigrants, more than 40 per cent thought they received too much


governmental assistance, and 63 per cent opposed encouraging mass aliyah from the former Soviet Union. A 1994 Jewish Agency study found that 51 per cent of the public believed that there was no longer a need for Israel to accept further immigration.43 The emphasis of positive post-Zionism on the contemporary non-Zionist individualistic quality of life and other concerns led to these positions taking precedence over once-dominant traditional Zionist beliefs. One area where this became pronounced, especially in relation to the overcrowding Hillel described, was in the environmental movement that identified a clash between immigration and protection of Israel’s environment. It is in this context that an article in an Israeli nature magazine called for a limitation on immigration for ecological reasons.44 In conclusion, unlike the negative post-Zionists, the positive post-Zionists do not explicitly call for a severing of ties with the diaspora. However, the effect of prioritizing themselves and their socio-economic welfare, the ascendance of nonZionist concerns such as the environment, and the dilution of their Jewish identity, means that the positive post-Zionists identify less with, and are less willing to make sacrifices for, the diaspora. IMPLICATIONS OF POST-ZIONISM FOR THE DIASPORA The convergence of negative and positive post-Zionist views towards the diaspora have implications in relation to the Law of Return in Israel and the role of Israel as both a model and a factor in diaspora Jewish identity. The Law of Return The Law of Return, described by A.B.Yehoshua as ‘the moral basis of Zionism’, was a legislative reflection of the prevailing Zionist ethos at the time of its enactment. As David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, explained: ‘This law lays down not that the State accords the right of settlement [in Israel] to Jews abroad, but that this right is inherent in every Jew by virtue of his being a Jew if it be his will to take part in settling the land. This right preceded the State of Israel, it is that which built the State.’45 The law’s status is such that as the embodiment of the raison d’etre of the state, its repeal would represent a rejection of the very belief upon which the state was built. Amending the Law of Return is a post-Zionist objective consistent with the pursuit of normalisation for, as Uri Ram said, ‘rather than national integration, the focus of such a [post-Zionist] agenda should be the issue of membership in a modern democratic society.’46 Similarly, the Israeli author Amos Elon stated that there is [a] need to move ahead to a more Western, more pluralistic, less ‘ideological’ form of patriotism and of citizenship. One looks with envy at


the United States, where patriotism centered on the constitution: naturalization is conferred by a judge in a court of law: identity is defined politically and is based on law, not on history, culture, race, religion, nationalist, or language.47 The demand by negative post-Zionists that the Law of Return be repealed is consistent with their pursuit of a state of all her citizens. As Professor Asher Kasher, who oversaw the proposal for what was regarded as a post-Zionist Code of Ethics for the Israeli Defence Forces, explained: ‘Regarding other Jews seeking to settle in Israel, their requests should be considered in the same way as any other request for citizenship [as] other countries proceed in this manner.’48 The view that repealing the Law of Return is a necessary precondition for implementing a Western-style democracy is shared by ‘New historian’ negative post-Zionist Ilan Pappe.49 For positive post-Zionists, calls to amend the Law of Return are instead consistent with their quality of life concerns and the belief that the need for aliyah is over. Amos Elon reflected in 1996: If the task that the Zionists had set themselves is soon to be accomplished, it could be argued that as a form of ‘affirmative action’, the Law of Return, too, has become redundant. The law poses serious problems anyway’, he said referring to the potentially millions of people in developing countries who described themselves as being the lost tribes of Israel and therefore potentially eligible to enter Israel under the law of return. ‘Yet the country is already as crowded as Holland or Singapore. It is running out of space, clean air, and water’.50 Proposals to amend the Law of Return have been closely watched by diaspora organizations. In 1995, for instance, David Clayman of the American Jewish Committee observed: The debate on Israel’s Law of Return and open door policy also reflects Israel’s changing attitudes to its responsibilities toward Diaspora Jewry.’51 Similarly, in the same year the World Jewish Congress noted: ‘The resolution of the debate on the Law of Return will have a profound affect on Diaspora Jewry’s relations with the State of Israel and its inhabitants.’52 While the repeal of the Law of Return seems unlikely as long as the IsraeliPalestinian conflict rages, the convergence of both negative and positive postZionist interests on this matter indicates that the law could be repealed or amended. Although protests from both within Israel and the diaspora would be expected, other considerations could ultimately make such a change possible. Those factors include: preserving the right of Jewish rescue; recognition of the diaspora’s permanence; a minimal practical effect of repealing of the Law of Return; non-Jewish emigration; and Third-World economic immigration.


Preserving the Right of Jewish Rescue While both negative and positive post-Zionists seek to amend the Law of Return, they are unlikely in the first instance to seek complete severance with the diaspora. Instead, they will ensure some provision of temporary asylum for endangered Jews. In this vein, Professor Asher Kasher said: ‘I would limit the automatic right to receive Israeli citizenship to Jewish refugees who are oppressed in their countries of origin for being Jews.’53 For the diaspora, what can be described as the ‘insurance policy’ principle will remain. However, there is a difference between temporary refuge and permanent citizenship. As Agassi and Har-Shei said: ‘the law could simply offer all Jews, persecuted because of their Jewishness, adequate refuge. The right of residents to, in turn, seek naturalization could be left to a naturalization law.’54 Similarly, Evron explains that in his vision of a post-Zionist Israel it should be assumed that certain principles of political preference of the Jews will be kept, such as the readiness to grant asylum to any Jews who are persecuted for their Jewishness… This asylum will not be accompanied by automatic citizenship. To gain that, the refugee would have to face ordinary tests of citizenship, which would be indifferent in respect of religion and nationality.55 With provision for emergency situations provided, amendment to the Law of Return may be acceptable to the diaspora. For example, Carl Sheingold, then Senior Analyst at the Council of Jewish Federations in New York, said in 1997 that providing changes to the law were carefully drafted with provision for Jewish refugees in emergency situations, such changes may be deemed acceptable.56 However, in such a scenario Israel would be fulfilling a humanitarian obligation not too different from the temporary residence already offered to refugees by many countries, such as that extended to Kosovansring in the Balkans conflict, rather than a legal provision that represents and reflects the state of Israel being the state of the Jewish people. Post-Zionist motives could also undermine these provisions for emergency situations, such as limiting the number of refugees and wishing to extend a universalist Israeli refugee policy to all people without limiting the policy to the particularism of Jews. Moreover, while the right of emigration in emergency situations may be maintained, denying the principle of automatic and permanent rescue suggests that the temporary right would also be challenged under particular circumstances in the future. Recognition of the Diaspora’s Permanence Diaspora groups may also welcome a legislative change as there would no longer be an Israeli statute that could be interpreted as a rejection of the viability and


legitimacy of diaspora Jewish communities. David Clayman states that one reason Israelis ‘do not understand, appreciate or particularly care about American Jewry’ is in part because of Shlilat HaGolah. He argues that ‘perhaps the time has come for Israel to stop justifying its existence by denigrating Jewish life outside of Israel.’57 Indeed, a diaspora that is increasingly assertive about its permanence, which is in turn increasingly accepted by the Israeli establishment, may welcome the recognition that such legitimate change would reflect. Diaspora groups have long objected to the Zionist maxim of ‘negation of the golah’, a call to leave their diasporic places of birth and residence for the ancient homeland. Diaspora groups have long argued that the goal of negating the golah is at odds with Israel’s role as a spiritual centre, one that is all the more important in this era of Jewish continuity. Longstanding Jewish Agency official Mordechai Bar-On stated: ‘it is impossible…to nourish one whose very existence one negates.’58 Although philosopher Eliezer Schweid maintains that it is possible to adhere to the principle of negating the golah while working with diaspora communities,59 more recently Jewish Agency Chairman Avraham Burg and think-tanks such as the Israel-Democracy Institute60 have called for the negation of the golah. Elements of post-Zionism thus have the potential for resonance in the diaspora. As Silberstein points out, a ‘recurring theme in the writing of postzionists is the need to open spaces for the voices of those who have been designated as the Other in Israeli society, including Diaspora Jews.’61 This enables the diaspora to have its position recognized and understood. Indeed, such recognition would be a triumph for the diaspora in terms of finally overcoming the Zionist maxim of ‘negation of the golah’, while concomitantly recognizing diasporic manifestations of Judaism currently denied full recognition in Israel, such as Conservative and Reform Jewry. There is also another synergy between post-Zionist and diasporacentric thinking. Agassi and Har-Shei, for example, have long rejected Zionism’s ‘illiberal view that does not grant discriminated national minorities the possibility of succeeding in the fight for equal rights’62 and claim that the logic of Zionism ‘that Israel will not support Western Jews in their struggle against discrimination, except by offering them refuge… is the most unpleasant aspect of the new Zionist myth for liberal minded people.’63 Proto-post-Zionist Benjamin Beit Hallahami similarly rejected the Zionist notion that diaspora Jews are foreigners and ‘immutable aliens’,64 contending that the success of the diaspora ‘is no less amazing than that of Zionism.’65 This view is consistent with other post-Zionist notions of the supremacy of universalism. Post-Zionist logic provides that if universalism should be applied as an a priori principle in Israel, then the same should apply for the diaspora. Furthermore, recognition of the permanence and legitimacy of the diaspora that Israeli post-Zionists offer may resonate in a diaspora that has its own form of post-Zionism. There has long been diasporic hostility to the primacy of Israel in Jewish life, expressed for example in the work of Jacob Neusner, and the


diaspora is increasingly asserting itself as an equal partner with Israel, reflecting a form of neo-Dubnovism or neo-Bundism.66 With most Western Jews having never visited Israel, let alone learnt to speak Hebrew, neo-Bundist ideas resonate more to a new generation of diaspora youth who have a genuine sense of belonging in the multicultural societies in which they reside. The move by diaspora communities such as those of Australia and Canada to seek actively Jewish immigrants from South Africa and Argentina in the 1990s and early 2000s, in an attempt to make their communities more viable,67 reflects their own post-Zionism.68 Minimal Practical Effect of Repeal of the Law of Return In the debate about the Law of Return it is pertinent to note that in real terms, subject to the absence of a significant rise in anti-Semitism that would lead to a rise of Jewish refugees, changes to the Law of Return would be of limited practical significance, especially to the Western diaspora. The reality is that an overwhelming majority of the generations that lived through the Holocaust and witnessed the establishment of the state of Israel chose to remain in the diaspora rather than make their home in the new sovereign Jewish state. Of the 2.6 million immigrants who have immigrated to Israel since independence in 1948 only 8 per cent come from the Western Hemisphere and Oceania, that is, Australia and New Zealand.69 Even in the former Soviet Union the majority of Jews have chosen to remain or have chosen third countries such as Germany in preference to living in the Jewish state. South African Jewry, whose official organizations extol their Zionist values, has in its mass exodus of both pre- and post-apartheid South Africa opted for other diasporas such as those of Australia and Canada rather than Israel. The reality is that following on from the diaspora’s rejection of the ‘negation of the golah’, only a tiny minority of diaspora Jews, especially from the West, is using the Law of Return to make aliyah. Non-Jewish Emigration The Law of Return provides that the right to immigrate extends not only to those born of a Jewish mother in accordance with the Jewish law of matrilineal descent or those converted to Judaism in accordance with Jewish law, but that it also extends to those with a Jewish grandparent on either side.70 Subsequently, problems arise as a result of this definition because the intent of the act is effectively negated as it facilitates the immigration of non-Jews. This has been the subject of much debate in Israel in relation to the Jewishness of immigrants and their relatives from the former Soviet Union. According to a World Jewish Congress report on the subject, in 1999 60 per cent of Russian immigrants were not Jewish according to Halacha and 38 per cent lacked a Jewish father.71 Similar concern about the Law of Return being used to facilitate


non-Jewish immigration arose with the immigration of Ethiopian Jewry, the other major case of recent years. Many of the relatives of the Jewish immigrants are known as Falasha Mora, who are Ethiopians of Jewish ancestry who adopted Christianity about a century ago. According to the 1995 World Jewish Congress report on the Law of Return, ‘it was the prospect of the Falasha Mura coming to Israel that sparked the re-evaluation of the Law of Return.’72 Third World Economic Immigration With the peace process contributing to an environment in which Israel had a GDP greater than that of some European countries there was concern that economic immigrants would find a way of ‘being’ Jewish so that they can settle in the state of Israel. With groups numbering in their millions claiming to be ‘lost’ Jewish tribes existing in countries such as India, Africa, Nigeria and Peru,73 the Israeli daily Ma’ariv editorialized that ‘what appears as a curiosity today, could become a severe problem tomorrow, if and when tens of thousands of Asians and Africans flood into Israel, relying on the Law of Return.’ The paper speculated that ‘they would want to bring with them family members, who have never heard of Israel, but would be happy to improve their economic situation at the expense of the Jewish people.’74 It is therefore reasonable to conclude that Israelis would be increasingly inclined to amend the Law of Return if only to safeguard their increasingly important standard of living in the face of Third-World economic migration. The Possibility of Change Although opponents of change frequently cite the fear of opening a Pandora’s box as the reason for their opposition to changing the Law of Return, sensible and realistic changes to the law may be necessary to ensure that its true intent remains. Proposals have been made which address these issues, such as that by the chief rabbis of Israel to delete the line in the law that grants rights to anyone with a Jewish grandparent. Another suggestion by left-wing politician Yossi Beilin is that only non-Jewish relatives and spouses of a Jew who are prepared to convert to Judaism be allowed to enter under the Law of Return.75 Ultimately, the combination of the lack of diaspora need and desire for a Law of Return opens the way for a carefully amended lawthat would provide refuge in an emergency situation. ISRAEL AS A MODEL AND FACTOR IN DIASPORA JEWISH IDENTITY Silberstein points out that Zionism and the state of Israel provided diaspora Jewry with the ‘group identity’ they had searched for since the late eighteenth century. He contends that Zionism and Israel are ‘major factors in shaping the


ways in which Jews in the United States and other countries position themselves as Jews. Basic Zionist concepts such as the Jewish people, nation, and homeland came to play a major role in the identity construction of such Jews. Throughout the world, Jews came to view the connection to Israel as one of the foundations of their Jewish identity.’76 It follows that Israel affects Jewish identity and community life in the diaspora in many fundamental ways that could be affected by post-Zionism. These include: education; Israel’s role as the spiritual centre of the Jewish people; Israel serving as the unifying point for world Jewry; Israel as a symbol of Jewishness; Israel serving a role to counter anti-Semitism; and Israel’s role in the Holocaust and the rescue of Jews in distress. Education Israel is a central feature of Diaspora Jewish education and there is increasing pressure for diaspora Jewish educators to adopt a post-Zionist model. As Michael Lerner, the editor of the left-wing American Jewish magazine Tikkun, has argued: ‘the rosy picture of a voluntary Arab exodus in 1948, a picture still held by many Jews in the 1990s and taught in Jewish schools, must eventually confront the serious work of Israeli historians who now recognize that the Zionist movement played a significant role in creating the Palestinian refugee problem.’77 Post-Zionism poses a pedagogic dilemma for diaspora Jewish educators, who are charged with holding Israel up as a role model yet simultaneously conveying her wrongdoings. Such a balancing act is difficult, and adoption of the postZionist idea of Israel’s ‘original sin’ could instill post-Zionist values in graduates of Jewish day schools in the diaspora. The need to reconsider education about Israel in the diaspora in the light of post-Zionism has proved to be a real issue. For example, on publication of The Twentieth Century, the 1999 Israeli textbook that adopted the new Israeli historian’s view that Israel was not the military underdog that survived heroically against the odds in the 1948 War of Independence, Australian Jewish day schools had to consider whether they would have to review their approach to teaching Israeli history.78 This educational dilemma is not confined to formal education, but also to the Zionist youth movements, with representatives of Australia’s socialist Zionist Hashomer Hatazair embracing the philosophy of the New Israeli historians.79 David Clayman of the American Jewish Congress contends that ‘Zionism should mean teaching, inculcating and experiencing the inextricable bond between the land, the people and the State of Israel.’80 However, with postZionism rejecting notions of Jewish land, Jewish peoplehood and Israel as a Jewish state, this is an educational role a post-Zionist Israel could not and would not embrace.


The Spiritual Centre Following the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey that found a 52 per cent assimilation rate in America, diaspora Jewish leaders identified Israel as a key part of its Jewish continuity strategy. As Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, wrote in 1994, ‘The Israel of continuity must become Jewry’s classroom, the Diaspora’s ongoing seminar in Jewish identity. Once Israel saved Jews. In the future it will save Judaism.’81 The main way Israel is identified as countering assimilation is through structured Israeli programmes for youth and students, such as the Birthright. However, if public and indeed private life in Israel is one devoid of Judaism, in what Yoram Hazony described as the post-Zionist desire for ‘an Israeli politics without traditional Judaism’,82 if Israel becomes a nation of ‘Hebrew speaking goyim’, as Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz phrased it, Israel will be unable to provide Jewish inspiration for visiting diaspora Jews.83 Post-Zionism, a form of national assimilation, could thus exacerbate diaspora assimilation. Other post-Zionist related factors could be further obstacles to the diaspora identifying with Israel as a spiritual centre, such as the consumer society that has led to an increasing gap between rich and poor in Israel. With the diaspora’s strong identification with social justice, which for many diaspora Jews is the manifestation of their Jewish identity, they may no longer identify with an Israel far removed from the egalitarian ethos that prevailed in her formative years. This would be compounded by other factors that have caused a strain in Israeldiaspora relations, from the ‘Who is a Jew’ debate to differences over the peace process. The Unifying Point of World Jewry Jews are an eclectic people for whom Israel has served as a unifying factor. As Rabbi Sacks acknowledges, Israel ‘has united Jews worldwide as never before,’84 while Progressive Rabbi David Goldberg has commented on how ‘Zionism became the bond uniting Diaspora Jewry.’85 In his 1986 book Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews Jonathan Woocher described denial of support for Israel as the only heresy of American Judaism.86 It follows that in the absence of Zionism, world Jewry would lack such a unifying factor. Religion is unlikely to take the unifying role that Israel has, for in addition to the majority of Jews being secular, the disputes between Orthodox and Progressive Jews indicates that religion has become an issue which divides rather than unifies world Jewry. As a result of post-Zionism, not only could division occur between Israel and the diaspora, but divisions within the diaspora could also arise. It is therefore possible that post-Zionism may contribute to the fragmentation of not only the Jewish community in Israel and between Israel and the diaspora, but also of diaspora Jewish communities themselves.


A Symbol of Jewishness Creating a post-Zionist state of all its citizens, rather than a Jewish state, would entail altering the Israeli national flag and anthem. This is based on the argument that Arabs cannot be expected to identify with the current flag embracing the image of a Jewish prayer shawl with the Star of David and the anthem referring to the ‘Jewish soul.’ One of the first indications that these ideas had moved from the periphery into the mainstream became evident when Micha Goldman, Deputy Minister for Education in the Rabin government, said: Since we are now in the midst of the peace process and want to enable all of the citizens of the state to raise the flag and sing the anthem, we certainly should consider how to make it possible for the Arab citizens to sing the anthem. I do not rule out changing the most difficult section of it [Jewish soul] to Israeli citizens who are not Jewish.87 This also relates to the quest for regional integration noted above, for as leftwing activist Dan Leon wrote: ‘the ultimate failure [to change the anthem] would be failure to coexist with our Palestinian neighbours and gradually to integrate peacefully into the Middle East. Our ability to build harmonious relations with Israeli Arabs is part of this.’88 Diaspora communities are able to identify with the Israeli collective because the symbols of the state are Jewish symbols they share, such as the Star of David on the flag and the ancient Menorah. If these Jewish symbols were replaced by neutral post-Zionist symbols, they would have less resonance in the diaspora. Anti-Semitism Another change that post-Zionism could bring about in the diaspora, albeit less immediate and direct, is a subconscious one relating to anti-Semitism. If, as BenGurion said, the establishment of the state ‘straightened the back of Jews everywhere’,89 it remains to be seen whether this pride and confidence would be diminished in a post-Zionist era. While the majority of diaspora Jewry, particularly Western Jewry, has not made aliyah, the fact of Israel’s existence has contributed to providing them with the confidence to assert their political rights, with the knowledge that Israel would be there ‘just in case.’ In a post-Zionist era, it is possible that without such sanctuary diaspora Jewry would subconsciously scale down their domestic political activity, wary of a potential anti-Semitic backlash. It is also conceivable that in the absence of a Jewish state to contend with morally, diplomatically and militarily, anti-Semites may feel freer to act against their own Jewish populations.


New Jewish Identities Post-Zionism is primarily about Jewish identity. As such, the way it develops its themes will, as Silberstein has argued, ‘have much to do with the ways in which these identities are understood and lived in the future.’90 With post-Zionism representing a range of cultural and political ideas, these ideas about identity will be diverse rather than monolithic. Secularization is likely to be the most significant, although the least ideological of these with Yaron Ezrahi noting that ‘the evolution of Israeli secular Jewish identities is likely to influence the shaping of Jewish peoplehood and civilization in ways very different from that of American Jewish secularism.’91 Although to be secular is not by definition equivalent to being post-Zionist, with religion a major component in the response to the diaspora assimilation, this is a matter of direct relevance for diaspora Jewry. The Holocaust and the Rescue of Jews in Distress The Holocaust is a major element in both diaspora and Israeli identity, but the role of the Yishuv, the Zionist leadership in Palestine, during the Holocaust has been placed under the microscope as part of the post-Zionist debate.92 There are two dimensions to this that may impact on the Israel-diaspora relationship. First, the debate focused on the Zionist motives and attitudes towards the diaspora. According to post-Zionists, the Yishuv failed to rescue the diaspora because, as Sternhell argued, ‘Zionism was an operation to rescue the nation and not an operation to rescue Jews as individuals.’93 This explains what Evron described as ‘the amazing and horrifying path to the catastrophe that overwhelmed Europe’s Jews.’94 He argued that similar motives explain Israeli actions that jeopardized the fate of Middle Eastern and Soviet Jewry. If, as postZionists contend, Zionism is about using diaspora Jews to help Zionism instead of helping diaspora Jews, diaspora Jews could re-assess the value of Zionism to them. Second, if the post-Zionist universalist view of the Holocaust led to its being regarded in Israel as one of many humanitarian disasters instead of a unique event, this would be at odds with the diaspora’s particularism in the memorialization of the Holocaust, which has a significant role in diaspora Jewish identity. This would further compound divisions between a post-Zionist Israel and the diaspora. CONCLUSION A detailed critique of post-Zionism is beyond the scope of this study. However, it should be noted that proposals have been made to address issues raised by postZionists without severing ties with the diaspora.95 Much of the post-Zionist thesis makes presumptions about the diaspora which do not necessarily reflect


the wishes and experiences of this community, such as whether the diaspora wants Israel to sever ties with it in order for diaspora Jews to be more accepted in their countries of origin. There is a clear inconsistency in the post-Zionist argument which, on the one hand, claims to be doing things that will help the diaspora, yet on the other ignores the diaspora’s most pressing demand, which is for Israel to play a leading role in Jewish continuity. The Israel-Palestinian fighting that has been ongoing since September 2000 has not only set back post-Zionism in Israel but has also led to a re-strengthening of Israeli-diaspora relations, which is seen as a crucial element in Israel’s first National Security Estimate written in the aftermath of the collapse of the Oslo process.96 Diaspora communities which in the aftermath of the Oslo process no longer had their traditional role of political and fundraising support for Israel turned inward to deal with assimilation. Since September 2000, however, old agendas have returned. Whereas in 1993, after signing the Oslo agreement, the then prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, asked diaspora communities to keep out of Israel’s foreign policy affairs with foreign governments, the current Sharon government has turned to the diaspora for as much political support as possible. This is not just a concern of the elites, with research of Israeli trainee teachers since September 2000, for example, showing a greater sense of affinity with Jews around the world.97 The extent to which the collapse of the Oslo peace process led to a return to traditional Zionist strategies was illustrated in 2002 when Prime Minister Sharon said he wanted to bring a million Jews to Israel over the next decade, as this will be ‘the best contribution to development, security, and the peace we are looking for.’98 During this period the Law of Return has been used by French Jews citing increased anti-Semitism as a reason for their migration and Jews from Argentina who arrived following that country’s economic collapse in 2002. The wave of anti-Semitism across the world that followed the collapse of the Oslo peace process, which was highlighted during the 2001 United Nations World Anti-Racism Conference in Durban, in conjunction with anti-Semitic beliefs such as Holocaust denial, which have become mainstream in parts of the Islamic world, indicates that anti-Semitism remains more of an ongoing factor in Jewish life than it was believed to be when post-Zionism was at its peak. There is also a risk, however, that the events surrounding the current conflict can compound the diminishing Israel-diaspora relations. While Israel has turned to the diaspora for solidarity, particularly in the form of tourism and special programmes in Israel, the diaspora has not responded in the desired way, an issue post-Zionists may later exploit. Thus, while the collapse of the Oslo peace process set back post-Zionism, it also laid new foundations for it. For example, while the campaign for Israel to be a state of all its citizens will be retarded by revelations of complicity in terror by Arab citizens of Israel, post-Zionists will point to the increased discrimination against Israeli Arabs as a result of the terror to further their case, seen by the prospect of Israeli Arabs having their citizenship


revoked and Israeli Arab parties being temporarily banned from running in the 2003 general election. In terms of the Law of Return, the push for repeal will be supported by the fact that foreign workers and ‘lost tribes’ continue to arrive despite the ‘Al Aqsa intifada’, indicating that Israel remains attractive to Third-World migrants despite the ongoing terrorism. While Prime Minister Sharon may be calling for more Jewish immigration, post-Zionists will be cognizant of the effect of such immigration on Israel’s non-Jewish minority, the peace process and the environment. If concerned about post-Zionism, the diaspora will have to develop a response to it. One factor that may need to be considered is Western aliyah, the absence of which has for many years been a point of friction between Israel and the diaspora.99 This must be considered one of the contributing factors to the rise of post-Zionism, as non-Western aliyah is a vindication of the anti-Zionist case. Furthermore, because diaspora communities have not, for historical reasons, adopted the extreme secularism of Israel, they can help to create a new Jewish middle ground in Israel that may in turn help keep the Jewish state Jewish. As the Labour Party’s Shlomo Ben-Ami commented while still a minister in the Barak government, ‘Israel needs to inject into its tissues a large amount of Diaspora Jewishness.’100 The diaspora can also help the development of civil society in Israel given its experience in this regard, especially in the West, where civil society and Jewish identity and practice are viewed as compatible. The Israel-Diaspora relationship must evolve and it can evolve in a way that does not enhance post-Zionism. For example, perspectives and policies on the negation of the golah have effectively changed among Zionists without the radical break post-Zionists seek. Similarly, the Law of Return can be amended without its being post-Zionist. However, post-Zionism has the potential to transform the nature of Israel-diaspora relations, with its re-evaluation of Jewish identity leading to a separation between the two. In the diaspora, the potential resonance of post-Zionism must be considered in the context of younger generations of diaspora Jews who are less attached to Israel than their parents and grandparents were. The temporary reprieve from post-Zionism resulting from the IsraeliPalestinian fighting presents an opportunity to rethink Israel-diaspora relations and the implications of post-Zionism for this relationship. Whether a new Zionist basis for Israel-diaspora relations will occur remains to be seen. NOTES 1. Prior to the Camp David summit in 2000 the then Prime Minister Ehud Barak was about to embark on a ‘secular revolution.’ 2. Arieh Livneh, ‘Post-Zionism Only Rings Once’, Ha’aretz, 26 September 2001.


3. For example, Education Minister Limor Livnat stated in October 2000: ‘I feel we are on a precipice, about to collapse, because of our lack of values. Without our national pride, what do we have to look for here? It is not an easy country to live in’, Jerusalem Post, 24 October 2001. 4. Laurence J.Silberstein, The Post-Zionism Debates: Knowledge and Power in Israeli Culture, New York and London, 1999, p.2. 5. ‘Zionism Then and Now’, Tel Aviv University News, Winter 1996–97, p.26. 6. Eva Etzioni-Halevy, The Divided People: Can Israel’s Breakup Be Stopped?, Oxford, 2002. 7. The decision was aimed at overturning a Supreme Court ruling that the law was broken when an Arab family was forbidden from settling in Katzir in northern Israel. 8. Yaron Ezrahi, Rubber Bullets: Power and Conscience in Modern Israel, New York, 1997, p.66. 9. Uri Ram, The Changing Agenda of Israeli Sociology, New York, 1995, p.107. 10. Rochelle Fursternberg, Post-Zionism: The Challenge to Israel, Tel Aviv, May 1997, pp.18–19. 11. Robert Wistrich, ‘Israel Past and Future’, Partisan Review, Vol.3 (Summer 1996), p.462. 12. Yoram Hazony, ‘The End of Zionism’, Azure (Summer 1996), p.75. 13. Boas Evron, Jewish State or Israeli Nation, Indiana, 1995, p.185. 14. Joseph Agassi and Yoella Har-Shei, ‘The Nation of Israel: Between Israelis and Jews’, New Outlook (October—December 1983), pp.43–4. 15. Evron, Jewish State, p.201. 16. Ibid, p.250. 17. Ibid, p188. 18. Ibid, p.244. 19. Steven Bayme and Charles Liebman, Post-Zionism: The Challenge to Israel, Tel Aviv, May 1997, p.vi. 20. Ibid, p.v. 21. Ram, Changing Agenda, pp.206–07. 22. Evron, Jewish State, p.192. 23. Ibid., pp.186–87. 24. Ibid., p.192. 25. Ibid,, p.187. 26. Kul al-’Arab, 28 September 1990 and al-Ittihad, 20 September 1990, cited in Arabs in Israel, Vol.1, Issue 2, 1 Nov. 1990, p.1. 27. Arabs in Israel, Vol.1, Issue 19, 8 Sep. 1991, p.2. 28. New Outlook, May/June 1986. 29. Arabs in Israel, Vol.1, Issue 2, 1 Nov. 1990, pp.1 and 4. 30. Jerusalem Post, 7 February 1997. 31. Evron, Jewish State, pp.243–44. 32. Bayme, Post-Zionism, p.vi. 33. Jewish Democrat, Vol. 5, No.1 (Spring 1995), p.7. 34. ‘Exile in the Midst of Sovereignty: A Critique of “Shelilat HaGalut” in Israeli Culture’, Theory and Criticism, Vol.4 (1993), p.44, quoted in Silberstein, pp.179– 80.


35. Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), Leadership Mission Israel, ECAJ 1995, p.8. 36. Yair Auron, ‘Jewish-Israeli Identity among Israel’s Future Teachers’, Jerusalem Letter/View Points, Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, No.334, 1 May 1996, p.3. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., p.5. 39. Australian Jewish News, 3 Sep. 1999, p.26. 40. ECAJ, Leadership, p.7. 41. Jerusalem Report tenth anniversary edition, www.jrep.com/info/10thanniversary/ 1996/ Article–5.html, accessed 2 Nov. 2001. 42. Jerusalem Post, 4 Oct. 1994, p.3. 43. Re-evaluating the Law of Return, Policy Dispatch No.5, Institute of World Jewish Congress, Jan. 1995, p.4. 44. David Clayman, The Law of Return Reconsidered, Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, 16 July 1995. There is a range of related environmental developments in Israel. For example, the government agency the Parks Authority called for cutting the nation’s birth rate to zero in order to protect the parks. See Yoram Hazony, ‘The End of Zionism’, Azure (Summer 1996), p.81. Elsewhere, both the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the Israeli Union for Environmental Defence have initiated legal proceedings against the Jewish National Fund, which has traditionally been regarded as the Zionist environmental movement, contesting the environmental impact of some of their projects. See Australian Jewish News, 9 Oct. 1998, p.16. 45. Re-evaluating the Law of Return, p.2. 46. Ram, Changing Agenda, p.206. 47. Amos Elon, ‘Israel and the End of Zionism’, The New York Review of Books, 19 Dec. 1996, pp.27–8. 48. Al Hamishmar, 20 Dec. 1991, p.15, quoted in Tzvi Hauser, ‘The Spirit of the IDF’, Azure (Spring 1997), p.51. 49. Silberstein, The Post-Zionism Debates, p.8. 50. Elon, ‘Israel’, p.28. 51. Clayman, The Law of Return Reconsidered, p.4. 52. Re-evaluating the Law of Return, p.5. 53. Al Hamishmar, 20 Dec. 1991, p.15, quoted in Tzvi Hauser, ‘The Spirit of the IDF’, Azure (Spring 1997), p.51. 54. Agassi and Har-Shei, The Nation, p.42. 55. Evron, Jewish State, p.244. 56. Interview with author, New York, 18 August 1997. 57. Clayman, David, Current Israeli Attitudes Toward American Jews, Los Angeles, 2001. 58. Bar On, Mordechai, ‘Post-Revolutionary Zionism’, New Outlook (Oct.–Dec. 1983), p.26. 59. Eliezer Schweid, Is There a Case for the Diaspora?, World Zionist Organization, Department for Education and Culture, Jerusalem, 1984. 60. Hazony, The End, p.82. 61. Silberstein, The Post-Zionism Debates, p.3. 62. Agassi and Har-Shei, The Nation, p.41. 63. Ibid., p.43.


64. Benjamin Hallahmi, Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel, New York, 1993, p.56. 65. Ibid., p.27. 66. Simon Dubnov (1860–1941) advocated Jewish autonomism in the diaspora, while the Bund, a party active in Eastern Europe in the first quarter of the twentieth century, called for Jewish national autonomy in the countries in which Jews lived. 67. The Jerusalem Report, 16 Aug. 1999, p.3. 68. The factors that explain post-Zionism in Israel, such as globalization and postmodernism, are also experienced by diaspora Jews, which helps the post-Zionist message resonate in these communities. For example, in 1998 the then editor of the Australian Jewish News, David Bernstein, tried to imagine life as a dispossessed Palestinian, the quintessential post-Zionist deed of imagining the other, The Age, 14 May 1998 p.A17. 69. Israel’s population to reach 6 million during 50th year of independence, Central Bureau of Statistics, 31 December 1997, URL: www.mfa.israel-imfa.gov.il. 70. Naomi Feinstein Kessler, ‘The Law of Return’, Link, Passover 1995, p.4. 71. Israel Contemplates the Future of Aliya, Policy Dispatches No.45, Feb. 2000, World Jewish Congress. 72. Re-evaluating the Law of Return, p.4. 73. Clayman, The Law of Return, p.4. 74. Ma’ariv, 13 July 1997, URL: www.mfa.israel-mfa.gov.il. 75. Clayman, The Law of Return, p.3. 76. Silberstein, The Post-Zionism Debates, p.9. 77. Michael Lerner, Jewish Renewal, New York, 1995, p.228. 78. The Australian Jewish News, 24 Sep. 1999, p.7. 79. See Letter to the Editor, Australian Jewish News, 15 Sep. 1995, p.18. 80. Clayman, Current Israeli Attitudes. 81. Jonathan Sacks, Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren?, London, 1994, p.98. 82. Yoram Hazony, Commentary, May 1996, p.31. 83. Australian Jewish News, 19 May 1995. 84. Sacks, Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren?, p.96. 85. David Goldberg, To the Promised Land: A History of Zionist Thought, London, 1997, p.250. 86. Jonathan S.Woocher, Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews, Bloomington, 1986, p.77. 87. Ha’aretz, 13 April 1995. 88. Jerusalem Post, 19 May 1995, p.5. 89. Moshe Pearlamn, Ben Gurion Looks Back, London, 1965. 90. Silberstein, The Post-Zionism Debates, p.10. 91. Yaron Ezrachi, Current Israeli Attitudes Toward American Jews, Centre for Policy Options, University of Judaism, Los Angeles, 2001. 92. Dan Michman (ed.), Post-Zionism and the Holocaust: The Role of the Holocaust in the Public Debate on Post-Zionism in Israel (1993–1996), A Collection of Clippings, Research Aids Series No.8, Faculty of Jewish Studies, Bar-Ilan University, January 1997. 93. Zeev Sternhell, The Founding Myths of Israel, New Jersey, 1998, p.51. 94. Evron, Jewish State, p.171.


95. In terms of the national anthem, one proposal is to replace ‘neshema yehudi’ (a Jewish soul) by ‘neshema yisraeli’ (an Israeli soul), a term which both non-Jewish Israelis and Jews outside Israel could identify with. Post-Zionist views on the Law of Return would be hard to maintain when the eventual Palestinian state has its equivalent. Environmental concerns can be attributed to, and addressed through, a plethora of domestic factors. 96. The Jerusalem Report, 2 Dec. 2002, p.42. 97. Pinson Halleli, Rethinking Israeliness: Perceptions of Students from Three Different Social Groups in Israel, paper delivered at Association of Israeli Studies Conference, Vale, May 2002. 98. Jerusalem Post, 14 January 2002. 99. Mati Golan, With Friends Like You, New York, 1992 and David Vital, The Future of the Jews, Cambridge Mass., 1990. 100. Jerusalem Post International Edition, 8 Oct. 1999, p.8.

Abstracts

Towards Distant Frontiers: The Course of Israeli Diplomacy Sasson Sofer Conventional historical wisdom accords Israeli diplomacy a secondary or even marginal place in securing Israel’s national interests. This article argues that despite the dominance of military considerations and some apparent lacunae, Israeli diplomacy has scored some remarkable successes. The article examines the principles of Israeli foreign policy, the domestic and conceptual sources nourishing it, and the problems of international orientation. Israel is accepted, for the first time, as an integral part of the international community, but the prospects for constructing new diplomatic strategies or of finding a proper regional role remain obscure. David Ben-Gurion’s Zionist Foreign Policy, 1938–48: The Democratic Factor Allon Gal In the face of Britain’s retreat—at a time when the situation of European Jewry had disastrously deteriorated—from its international commitment to help establish in Eretz Israel (Palestine) a national home for the Jewish people, David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Yishuv and the Jewish Agency for Eretz Israel, did not succumb to despair and violence. Instead, he adopted a predominantly politicaldiplomatic course, curved democratically to activate for the Zionist cause American Jewry and the American public in general. This strategy, basically derived from the democratic tradition of the Zionist movement and the Yishuv, vindicated in the establishment of the State of Israel, in part of Eretz Israel, against heavy odds and with the recognition of the United States and American Jewry. Thus, the Zionist drive for an American alignment employed democracy as a means to achieve Jewish independence, and also worked further to form the state itself as quintessentially democratic.

ABSTRACTS 331

Influence and Arms: John F.Kennedy, Lyndon B.Johnson and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel, 1962–1966 Abraham Ben-Zvi This article examines the relationship between Israel and the United States in the years immediately preceding the June 1967 War. In doing so, it challenges the widely held view that prior to Israel’s victory in that war the United States refrained from any significant strategic relationship with the Jewish state. In particular, by examining in detail the decision of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to sell advanced military hardware —the Hawk short-range antiaircraft missile, the M-48A Patton tank and the A-4E SkyhawK fighter-bomber— to Israel in the first half of the 1960s, it clearly shows that the seeds of a strategic partnership had been planted prior to Israel’s comprehensive defeat of its Arab opponents in 1967. Indirect Pressure: Moscow and the End of the British Mandate in Palestine Arieh J.Kochavi Soviet efforts to undermine Britain’s position in the Middle East after the Second World War encountered an Anglo-American determination to deny Moscow a foothold in the region. As Britain appeared politically most vulnerable in Palestine, the Kremlin set out to influence events there by helping to bring an end to the mandate, without initially committing itself to either the Arabs or the Jews. Ignoring British demands to the contrary, it allowed more than a quarter of a million Jews to flee from Eastern Europe both to Displaced Person camps in Germany and Austria and to Palestine. The escalating Cold War made it difficult for London to counter effectively the indirect pressure Moscow was thus able to bring to bear on British policy-makers. Blocking Peace: Britain and the Israeli-Jordanian Conflict, 1949–51 Jonathan Sless Contrary to claims by revisionist historians, far from seeking to promote peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours in the wake of the 1948 Palestine War, between 1949 and mid-1951 at the very least Britain prevented the Jewish state from making peace with the one Arab state eager to do so: Jordan.


The Effects of Changes in the International Environment on the Future of the Middle East Benny Miller This essay discusses four types of international influence on the Arab-Israeli conflict and peace process. It addresses the current international situation of US hegemony vis-à-vis the Middle East and its beneficial effects on the regional peace process. Yet this hegemony may not endure over the long run, and may be replaced by three scenarios: US disengagement from the Middle East, which will lead to a great-power vacuum in the region; the competitive involvement of other major powers (notably Russia, China and the Europeans) in the region alongside the US; and the co-operative involvement of several status quo powers. The article examines the likelihood of these scenarios, as well as their potential implications for regional security and shows that the current international situation of US hegemony, especially following the Iraq War, is the most beneficial for progress in the Middle East peace process. The PLO Factor in Euro-Israeli Relations, 1964–1992 Rory Miller The breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations following the Camp David meeting in the summer of 2000 highlighted the fundamental divisions that exist between Israel and the European Union on matters relating to Palestinian rights and Israeli responsibility for the ongoing conflict. This article argues that Europe’s staunch defence of the Palestinian side at this time has its roots in more than two decades of Euro-PLO relations. As such it examines the nature of European support for the PLO prior to the signing of the Oslo accords in the early 1990s and, in particular, it evaluates the impact that Europe’s consistent policy of supporting a political role for the PLO in negotiations has had on its political and economic relationship with the Jewish state. Some Trade Effects of the EMU Process on Israel Tal Sadeh This essay estimates five effects of the EMU process on Israel’s trade with five major European countries, using the error correction method: (1) An increase in outsiders’ relative costs; (2) A change of interest rates in Europe; (3) An enhanced volatility of the Euro; (4) An increase in insiders’ welfare; (5) An increase in insiders’ public consumption. Empirically, the first three effects are found to be muted. The fourth effect will boost Israeli exports over the long term, but reduces exports in the short term. The fifth effect will increase Israeli exports in the short term if the UK joins the EMU.

ABSTRACTS 333

The Road to Israeli-Spanish Rapprochement Jacob Abadi This essay provides an analysis of Israeli-Spanish relations from the establishment of the state of Israel to the present. Its main argument is that these relations constituted an anomaly in Israel’s foreign policy, the main objective of which was to strengthen ties with the countries of Western Europe. Israel’s approach to Spain was determined by both emotional and practical considerations. Successive Israeli governments avoided rapprochement with Spain not only because of its association with Nazi Germany but also in order to avoid criticism from the opposition parties. Yet, despite the absence of full diplomatic relations the two countries maintained close contacts in many fields. Spain sought to improve relations with Israel in order to demonstrate willingness to turn its back on its fascist past, to play a greater role in Middle Eastern affairs, and to improve its ties with the US. However, rapprochement with Israel would not have been possible without the demise of Franco’s autocratic regime. The ‘Good-Natured Bastard’: Canada and the Middle East Refugee Question David H.Goldberg and Tilly R.Shames This essay reviews the history and political dynamic of Canada’s involvement in the Middle East refugee problem. Among the signposts noted are the evolution of Canada’s policy response to the humanitarian needs of peoples displaced by the first Arab-Israeli war (1948–49), including early support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA); Canada’s wielding of the gavel for the potentially volatile Multilateral Refugee Working Group (RWG); and Canada’s efforts to continue providing practical support for the refugees even as the Oslo peace process collapsed amid the rubble of the Camp David-Taba peace talks and the ‘al-Aqsa intifada’. The essay concludes that despite its lack of hard attributes of international power and influence, Canada has much to contribute to a resolution of the Middle East refugee question. The Republic of China and Israel, 1911–2003 Jonathan Goldstein The relations between the Republic of China (ROC), the Zionist founding founders, and the state of Israel can be broken down into five distinct phases: (1) Active support for Zionism from the Balfour Declaration of 2 December 1917 to August 1945; (2) From September 1945 to the signing of the first Israeli-Arab armistice on Rhodes in February 1949, the ROC abstained on the UN votes leading to Israel’s creation and its admission into the world organization; (3)


Between February 1949 and September 1950, the ROC recognized Israel, authorized the establishment of an Israeli consulate, and voted for Israeli UN membership. Nevertheless on 1 September 1950 Israel chose to recognize the ROC’s rival, the People’s Republic of China (PRC); (4) From October 1950 to late January 1992, Israel was diplomatically isolated from both Chinas, though it engaged in an occasional flurry of arms sales to both countries; and (5) On 24 January 1992 the PRC established full diplomatic relations with Israel and Israel has come to enjoy regularized interactions with the ROC. Israel-India Relations: Seeking Balance and Realism P.R.Kumaraswamy While fulfilling long-cherished Israeli aspirations, normalization established a balance and realism in Indian Middle East policy. Without abandoning its traditional ties with the Arab and Islamic countries of the Middle East, India is actively pursuing closer relations with Israel. Having lost more than four decades due to mistrust and indifference, normalization provides an opportunity for both countries to improve understanding and co-operation. Since the late 1990s a number of critical factors have enabled these countries to strengthen their relations. The events of September 11 have reminded both India and Israel of the vulnerabilities of democracies to international terrorism and compelled them to intensify their co-operation. Above all, India’s newly found strategic friendship with the US appears to work in favour of greater Indo-Israeli co-operation. Japan and Israel: An Evaluation of Relationship-Building in the Context of Japan’s Middle East Policy Raquel Shaoul This article evaluates relationship-building between Israel and Japan from 1952 to the present in the context of Japan’s Middle East policy as a whole, while focusing on the period in which this relationship became closer and complementary, from the mid-1980s to the present. Two central elements are detected as major influences on Israeli-Japanese relations: Japan’s compliance with the Arab boycott of Israel, and Japan’s bilateral relations with the US. Nevertheless, in contrast to previous studies, which have emphasized these variables, this article argues that a proper understanding of their relative influence on Japan’s foreign policy towards Israel can be detected only within the framework of Japan’s overall Middle East policy.

ABSTRACTS 335

Towards a Conceptual Framework of World Jewish Politics: State, Nation and Diaspora in a Jewish Foreign Policy Shmuel Sandler Contemporary world Jewry is organized into a number of contrasting frameworks, which together present a challenge to contemporary political science. Since 1948 one could speak of a Jewish ttate, a Jewish nation, a Jewish diaspora, a Jewish people, Jewish communities, and both Jewish national and international or transnational organizations, all existing concurrently. The purpose of this essay is to articulate a conceptual framework that would encompass these structures. Its departure point is that limiting the analysis to the Jewish dimension of Israeli foreign policy would not be accurate. A combination of international Jewish and Israeli politics and foreign policy seems to be the right way to pursue the building of an appropriate conceptual framework of world Jewish politics. The theoretical framework presented here draws from many fields of study. Starting with comparative diaspora studies, Jewish political studies, comparative politics, and international politics, this essay demarcates what constitutes both the core and scope of world Jewish politics. At the core it posits both the Jewish state and the Jewish diaspora, defining their interests in terms of survival and identity. The scope of world Jewish politics encompasses unique interests and power, a distinct structure of interdependence, and a normative value system. Post-Zionism in the Oslo Era and the Implications for the Diaspora Danny Ben-Moshe Post-Zionism was a prominent ideological and cultural development in Israel during the 1990s. It was closely related to the peace process, Israel’s place in the Middle East and the issues concerning what sort of state Israel should be. PostZionism receded from the Israeli agenda with the outbreak of Palestinian-Israeli violence in September 2000, but its underlying issues remain. After profiling postZionism, this article considers these respective post-Zionist perspectives towards the diaspora and the implications they have for it.

Index

Abdullah ibn Hussein 77–100 Abu Nidal 191 Ahdut Ha-avoda 22–3 Algeria 107, 240, 263 Allon, Yigal 126, 133 American Jewish Committee 14, 15, 314– 15 American Jewry 13–27, 34, 225–7, 282–3, 328–9 Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry (1946) 62, 69, 72 Anti-Semitism 124, 330–31, 332 Aqaba 78, 79 Al-Aqsa intifada 110, 123, 313, 332 Arab-Israeli conflict 25, 26, 30, 38, 110, 111, 112, 113 Arab League 86, 132, 139, 144, 178–9, 180, 275, 279, 280, 292 Arab Legion 78, 85–6 Arafat, Yasser 123–4, 135, 136, 138, 140– 42, 146, 147, 148, 194, 198, 210, 211, 263, 292 Aron, Raymond 127 Assad, Hafez 197 Attlee, Clement 97 Austin, Warren 234 Australia, 236, 238, 326, 328 Austria 62, 63, 64, 72, 183, 184, 236 Azzam, Abdel Rahman 179

Barbour, Walworth 46 Barak, Ehud 210 Beersheba 78 Begin, Menachem 135, 137–8, 139, 184 Belgium 124, 125, 128, 129, 134, 146, 148 Ben-Gurion, David 50, 177, 180–81, 185, 186, 255 and Jordan 31, 79–100; and Europe 125; and JFK 39–42; and Israeli self-reliance 4; and law of return 322; and the Palestinians 39–41; pre-state foreign policy 13–27 Ben-Zvi, Yitzhak 15 Berlin, Isaiah 21 Bernadotte, Folke 80 Bevin, Ernest 60, 62, 68–9, 78, 94, 229 Biltmore programme (1942) 22, 23, 24 Bosnia 114 Brandeis, Louis D. 15, 18, 227 Brandt, Willy 135 Britain 5, 14, 16, 17, 22, 25, 31, 60–73, 77– 104, 125, 130, 131, 133, 136, 137, 139, 146, 148, 193, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 254, 255, 257, 261 Brodetsky, Selig 257 Bulgaria 60, 65, 70, 71 Bunche, Ralph 237 Bundy, McGeorge 37, 38, 45, 48

Baker, James 197, 282 Balfour Declaration 15, 21, 61, 225, 256, 257 Bandung Conference (1955) 239–41, 260– 61

Callaghan, Lord James 134 Camp David Accords (1978) 3, 138, 139, 144, 148, 196, 199

336

INDEX 337

Camp David Summit (2000) 123, 210, 211, 314 Campbell, Sir Ronald 81–2 Canada 203–17, 326 Carrington, Lord 138, 139 Cheysoson, Calude 141 China 43, 105, 106, 112, 114, 115, 116, 177, 198, 223–44, 263, 266, 268 Chirac, Jacques 143 Clinton, Bill 110 Cold War 6, 7, 105–6, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 118, 177, 261, 265 Comay, Michael 238 Cuba 43 Cunningham, Sir Alan 73 Cyprus 60 Czechoslovakia 26, 60, 64, 72 Dayan, Moshe 82 D’Estaing, Giscard 136, 139 De Gaulle, Charles 128, 129, 141 Denmark 130, 137, 142, 146 Desai, Morarji 262 Dietrich-Genscher, Hans 142 Dinstein, Zvi 44 Douglas, Louis 89 Douglas-Home, Sir Alec 131 Dumas, Roland 146 Eban, Abba 1, 126, 131, 138, 180, 181–2, 189, 192 Eden, Anthony 185 Egypt 29, 30, 31, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 60, 61, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 87, 88, 90, 93, 94, 109, 124, 125, 129, 132, 134– 5, 141, 147, 148, 178, 179, 180, 185, 187, 188, 189, 193, 195, 196, 199, 227, 234, 240, 276, 291 Eilat 78 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 30, 33, 37 Elath, Eliyahu 227, 228 Enlai, Zhou 239, 240 Eritrea 60 Eshkol, Levi 4, 45–7, 49–55, 126 Ethiopia 60, 68 European Union 106, 116, 117, 123–76, 192–3, 289

Evron, Ephraim 54 Eytan, Walter 184–5, 234, 237, 259 Fahd, King 195, 241 Faisal, King 241 Farouk, King 87 Feldman, Myer 33–4, 38, 39–41, 45, 52 France 98, 115, 123, 124, 125, 128–9, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 141, 144, 146, 148, 180, 185, 186, 261 Franco, Francisco 177–99 Frankfurter, Felix 227 Furlonge, Geoffrey 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92– 3, 94–9, 97–8 Galilee 238 Gamasy, Muhammad Abdel Ghani 193 Gandhi, Mahatma 255–6, 257–8 Gandhi, Rajiv 255, 263, 264, 265, 268 Gaza Strip 78, 79, 80, 83, 110, 124, 127, 206–7, 210, 212, 216, 313 Germany 46, 48–9, 51, 60, 62, 63, 115, 125, 126, 128, 129, 131, 133, 134, 136, 137, 139, 142, 146, 177, 182, 183, 185, 198, 236 Glub, Sir Baghot 78 Gonzalez, Felipe 193, 196 Gottwald, Kelement 63 Greater Syria 90 Greece 60, 132, 139–41, 143, 145, 193 Gromyko, Andrei 69, 73 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) 280 Gulf States 109 Gulf War (1991) 107, 109–10, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284 Habash, George 138, 192 Hadassah 18, 23 Haifa 80, 81 Harman, Abraham 45, 54 Harriman, Averell W. 49 Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Hojjat al-Islam 267 Ha-shomer Ha-tzair 23, 24, 328 Hassan II, King 188–9, 197–8 Hebron 110 Helm, Sir Knox 84, 85, 86, 89–90, 91, 93, 99


Herzog, Chaim 142, 185, 197 Hijaz 90 Histadrut 16 Hitler, Adolf 177, 179, 180, 190, 235 Holocaust 124, 125, 181, 183, 184, 185, 235, 258, 331 Hungary 60, 64–5, 67, 72 Hussein ibn Talal 30, 31, 32, 52–3, 197 Hussein, Saddam 110, 113, 197 Husseini, Hajj Amin 240, 257 India 198, 239, 254–70, 292 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 47, 49, 50, 51, 55 Intifada 145, 264 Iran 107, 112, 116, 197, 267, 276 Iraq 30, 31, 60, 78, 93, 97, 109, 110, 112, 197, 227, 240, 276 Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) 197, 280 Iraq War (1003) 106, 108–9, 115, 118 Ireland 125, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136, 137, 140 Irgun Zvai Leumi 7 Israel and Africa 7; and Austria 183; and Britain 77–104; and Canada 203–17; and China 198, 223–44; and Egypt 134–5, 148, 196; and Ethiopia 1, 8; and EU 1, 7, 53, 123–76 and France 6, 50, 128–9, 186; and Germany 46, 48–9, 51, 128–9, 183, 185; and India 198, 254–70; and Iran 1, 7, 8; and Japan 183, 273–93; and Jewish Diaspora 301–34; and Jordan 1, 77–104; and Latin America 5, 7; and the Netherlands 124, 127, 128, 129; and nuclear programme 46–55; and Palestinians 8; and the PLO 110, 123–55; and the Soviet Union 5, 60–76;

and South Africa 5; and Spain 177–99; and Taiwan 233–41; and Third World 1, 254; and Turkey 1, 7, 8; and the United States 1, 4, 6, 7, 13–59, 84, 177; invasion of Lebanon (1982), 139, 140– 42; law of return 323–4, 326–7, 332; pre-state situation 60–76; war of independence 25, 26, 39 Italy 128, 129, 132, 134, 137, 142, 184, 193 Jabotinsky, Ze’ev 15, 16 Japan 114, 116, 183, 184, 236, 273–93 Jerusalem 29, 32, 33, 42, 43, 46, 55, 77, 80, 84, 90, 94, 95, 96, 126, 130, 178, 183, 257 Jessup, Philip 79 Jewish Agency 13, 15, 20, 232, 233, 322 Jewish Diaspora 5, 14, 18, 186–7, 190–91, 255, 331–4 Jewish refugees 61–72 Johnson, Lyndon B. 35, 42–59, 188 Jordan 29, 30, 31, 32, 42, 43, 49, 52–3, 60, 68, 72, 77–104, 109, 110, 124, 126, 144, 147, 179, 199, 207, 208, 227, 234, 238, 276, 291 Juan Carlos, King 195, 196, 197 Kaddoumi, Farouq 141–2 Kemal, Mustafa (Ataturk) 256 Kennedy, John F. 29–42 Kirkbride, Sir Alec 78, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 99–100 Knesset 3, 88, 126, 133, 135, 141, 183, 189 Komer, Robert 35, 37, 38, 44–5, 46, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54 Korean War 91, 95 Kreisky, Bruno 135 Kuwait 195, 276, 280, 283, 284 Labour Movement/Party 1, 2, 4, 6, 14, 24, 50, 142, 144, 147, 180, 184 Latrun 83

INDEX 339

Lausanne talks (1949) 79 League of Nations 226–7, 229 Lebanon 61, 81, 129, 139, 140, 209, 210, 234, 276, 291 Libya 60, 107, 112, 190 Lie, Trygve 70 Likud 142, 144, 146, 184 Lipsky, Louis 18 Luxemburg 124, 125, 128, 133, 137, 146 McDonald, James 84 McNamara, Robert 45, 54 McNeill, Hector 67 Madrid Conference (1991) 109–10, 207–8, 266 Maghreb 126 Mapai (see Labour movement) Marshall, George 70 Mediterranean 60, 61, 69, 71, 79, 84, 126, 128, 133, 178, 183, 185, 192 Meir, Golda 41, 44, 129, 131, 133, 190 Milosevic, Slobodan 114 Mitterand, Francois 141, 144 Mollet, Guy 185 Molotov, Viacheslav 69–70 Morocco 92, 109, 179, 180, 182, 185, 187, 188–9, 194, 197–8, 199, 240 Mossad 190–91 Mount Scopus 83, 94, 95, 96 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 32, 37, 43, 47, 50, 125, 127, 188, 261 NATO 179 Negev 79, 81, 83, 89, 92, 238 Nehru, Jawaharlal 239, 255, 256–7, 259–62 Netanyahu, Benjamin 269 Netherlands 124, 127, 128, 129, 137, 146, 148, 323 Neumann, Emanuel 19, 22 North Korea 113 OPEC 131, 193, 195, 276 Oslo process 3, 110, 123–4, 147, 215, 332 Ottoman Empire 60, 225 Pakistan 260–61, 263, 268

Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC) 79, 90, 91 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 109, 110, 123–55, 192, 194, 195, 208, 209, 254, 263, 281 Palestinian Authority (PA) 110, 147, 210 Palestinian-Israeli conflict 22, 23, 60, 178, 189, 193, 195, 196, 240, 260–61 Palestinian refugees 39–40, 203–17 Papandreou, Andreas 139, 141, 143 Pearl Harbour 21 Pearson, Lester 205–6 Peres, Shimon 50, 126, 135, 142, 143, 144, 147, 196, 197, 264, 267, 268 Persian Gulf 7, 60 Poland 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 72 Portugal 142, 146, 179 Post-Zionism 313–34 Qaddafi, Mu’amar 190 Qaeda 108 Qatar 195, 276 Rabat Summit (1974) 131, 263 Rabin, Yitzhak 1, 131, 142, 147, 268, 282, 332 Radical Islam 116 Rafael, Gideon 5, 125 Reagan Plan (1982) 141 Revisionist movement 2, 5, 17, 231 Rhodes talks (1949) 93 Riad, Mahmud 190, 193 Rifai, Samir 81, 82, 84, 85, 92, 93–6 Romania 60, 64, 65–8, 70, 71, 72, 73 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 19, 21 Rusk, Dean 35, 44, 51 Russia (see also Soviet Union) 5, 6, 95, 105, 106, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117 Sadat, Anwar 131 Saudi Arabia 31, 43, 61, 109, 179, 195, 227, 241, 276, 284, 291 Schmidt, Helmut 139 September 11 106, 107, 108, 111, 113, 117 Shamir, Yitzhak 136, 138–9, 142, 143, 144, 146, 147 Sharett, Moshe 95, 182–5, 236, 238


Sharon, Ariel, 333 Shiloah, Reuven 82–3, 85, 87, 91–2, 93–4, 96 Silver, Abba Hillel 19, 22 Six-Day War (1967) 29, 32, 33, 36, 43, 55, 126–7, 147, 188, 189, 262 Sokolov, Nahum 257 South Africa 326 Soviet Union (see also Russia) 30, 45, 47, 52, 60–76, 108–9, 129, 146, 185, 186, 226, 231 Spain 142, 177–99 Stalin, Joseph 70, 183, 185 Strang, Sir William 92–3 Sudan 60, 93, 240, 276 Suez Canal 60, 79 Suez War (1956) 30, 185–7, 206, 261 Syria 41, 61, 85, 96, 98, 107, 109, 110, 112, 131, 187, 188, 197, 209, 210, 227, 234, 240, 276 Taba Summit (2001) 211 Taiwan 223–44 Tel Aviv 94, 99, 269, 287 Thatcher, Margaret 144 Tito, Josip Broz 183 Transjordan, see Jordan Troutbeck, Sir John 77 Truman, Harry 24, 25, 69, 78 Tunisia 133, 146, 199 Turkey 60, 109, 193 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 195, 276 United Nations 106, 117, 118, 179, 180, 181, 182, 186, 190, 195, 224, 229, 236, 241, 263, 264, 265 and Iraq War (2003) 108–9; and Lebanon 140–41; and Palestine Question 69, 73, 80, 96, 127, 130; Partition Resolution (1947) 3, 72, 78, 124–5, 146, 227; Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) 127–8, 130, 131, 138, 145; Security Council Resolution 338 (1973) 138, 145; UNRWA 205, 211–15;

Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) 69, 70, 204, 230, 258–9 United States 1, 4, 6, 13–59, 61, 62, 63, 71, 73, 79–80, 81, 89, 105–19, 148, 177, 179, 182, 185, 193, 196, 197, 199, 225, 226, 234, 235, 263, 268, 287–91 Vedrine, Hubert 123 Venice Declaration (1980) 137–9 Vietnam 239 Vyshinskii, Andrei 69–70 Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 107–8, 113 Weizman, Ezer 147 Weizmann, Chaim 13, 15, 21, 22, 24, 225, 257 West Bank 32, 79, 81, 82, 84, 87, 88, 89, 91, 110, 124, 127, 207, 210, 212, 216, 313 White Paper (1939) 61 Wilson, Lord Harold 134 Wilson, Woodrow 15, 21, 225, 227 Wise, Stephen 227 World War I 6, 14, 15, 60, 225 World War II 15, 17, 60, 178, 179, 180 World Zionist Organization 13, 22, 224–35 Yarmuk 80 Yat-sen, Sun 226, 231 Yemen 240, 241 Yishuv 13, 21, 26, 331 Yom Kippur War (1973) 131, 193, 262 Yugoslavia 68, 128, 181, 259 Zionism 3, 6, 7, 13–27, 61, 65, 130, 148, 149, 223–37, 254–7

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