In the course of several meetings with Israelis in mid-1954, American officials in both Washington and Jerusalem queried the true extent of Israel's adherence to the Western bloc. Policy-makers in Jerusalem considered this effort “to paint Israel red” a grave danger and, in order to prepare appropriate counter-measures, ordered a thorough analysis of its possible causes. That instruction produced a report which presents a fascinating summary of the broad issues affecting Israel's foreign policy orientation during the first half-decade of the state's existence. The work of a team headed by Isser Halperin (later Harel), the highly influential chief of the Internal Security Service (Shin Beth), the document analyzed with admirable clarity the rationale and manifestations of Israel's efforts to achieve special relationships with both East and West and the limitations of those efforts. Now, an entire generation later, it is possible to review the material again and to attempt an independent retrospective résumé of the various conflicting pressures which affected Israel's actions during the period of the cold war.

As we have seen, the accusations voiced by the Americans in 1954 were without any foundation whatsoever. By then, Israel had clearly formulated a foreign policy which was distinctly pro-Western – even if not formally and explicitly so. Her choice had been determined by both positive and negative considerations. Primary among the latter was the absence of a peace treaty with her Arab neighbors. The fatalistic realization that inveterate Arab hostility to her very existence would long remain a fact of Israeli life was reinforced by the failure to reach a peace treaty with Jordan in the early 1950s; it was confirmed by the behavior of Arab representatives at the U.N.

Studies of Israel's foreign policy have generally tended to minimize the importance of internal politics as a determinant of that country's external behavior. Implicitly accepting Ranke's dictum concerning the Primal der Aussenpolitik, most have proceeded from the basic assumption that external circumstances are primarily responsible for shaping relations among and between states. Whatever the salience of that approach in other cases, it hardly seems appropriate to the present instance. Indeed, a study of recently declassified documents relating to the early years of Israel's statehood suggests quite the opposite. During that period, Israel's foreign policy was to a large extent – certainly larger than has hitherto been acknowledged – determined by the domestic context within which that policy was formulated and instrumentalized.

The following two chapters will attempt to demonstrate why that was so. In so doing, they will also analyze Israel's early external relations from the perspective of the discussions conducted at the time at various forums of Mapai (the acronym of the “Israel Workers' Party”).

There are two reasons why these discussions and debates are of crucial importance. One is the overall political hegemony of that party and its leaders, a position which it had already attained within the Jewish community a long time before the establishment of Israel as an independent entity in 1948. After the termination of the Mandate, they continued in that posture. Internal party discussions on various subjects had then decisively influenced the decision-making process of the entire Zionist leadership.

With the visible hardening of the Soviet Union's official stance on aliyah from Russia and Eastern Europe in general, Israel's Foreign Ministry officials realized that Jewish emigration from those regions was impossible without the consent (in one form or another) of the Kremlin. This was especially true as an anti-Zionist line developed throughout the Eastern bloc during the winter of 1948–9, with the completion of the sovietization of those countries which the Red Army had occupied during and after the Second World War. Although the Russians did leave their satellites with some internal room for maneuver, they clearly exercised ultimate control. Accordingly, and as one Jewish Agency leader, Berl Locker, put it in June 1949: “We knew that Soviet Russia was a hard nut to crack but we looked for a way to reach her.” Six months later, Arieh Levavi's categorical assessment was that “we must reject any Soviet attempt to claim that the emigration of Jews from Rumania and Hungary is in no way a concern of the Soviet Union.”

The success of Israeli aliyah activities in Eastern Europe during the two years after late 1948 seemed to verify several assumptions: that the Soviets had not banned aliyah from those lands outright; that the leaders of those countries were perhaps less rigid regarding aliyah than was the Kremlin itself; that the Eastern bloc possessed no concerted line on the issue; and that the Israeli freedom of maneuver was therefore not as restricted as had initially been thought.

Egypt's refusal to participate in S.A.C.M.E. buried that particular idea. But it was soon replaced by another plan for the defense of the Middle East. In the summer of 1952, the Americans and British suggested the establishment of a Middle East Defense Organization (M.E.D.O.), which was to act as a planning headquarters in peacetime rather than (as the S.A.C.M.E. framework had envisioned) a direct and permanent command. Britain, the United States, France and Turkey were to provide the backbone of M.E.D.O., which was also to encompass military forces from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Arab participation was regarded as desirable, but not as immediately essential; Israel's situation was left deliberately vague.

Ultimately, the Arab states refused to participate in M.E.D.O., and by the latter half of 1952 the entire idea had been shelved. Until that outcome became clear, however, Israel was again faced with the need for decision and strategic choice. On the surface, and especially when contrasted with S.A.C.M.E., M.E.D.O. seemed to possess several advantages. It vaguely proposed some planning with Israel, not foreign bases in Israel; it did not offer any single state the sort of special status which S.A.C.M.E. had specified for Egypt; by including New Zealand, South Africa and Australia it widened the arc of Israel's possible supporters. On the other hand, M.E.D.O. still retained several of the features which had previously generated Israeli opposition to S.A.C.M.E.

Writing in 1972, Michael Brecher presented the following analysis of Israel's relations with the Great Powers:

The following chapters will examine the specifics of that process. Their purpose is to analyze the web of economic, political and military-strategic circumstances which generated an Israeli perception that the survival of the Jewish state depended on the Western bloc and, in particular, on the United States. Israeli documents demonstrate that those circumstances exerted a persistent influence on domestic deliberations with regard to Israel's international orientation and eventually persuaded her leaders to abandon their declared policy of “non-identification.” Instead of seeking to maintain correct – but unbinding – relations with both protagonists in the cold war, they felt constrained to take sides in that conflict. Whatever the costs, they concluded, Israel had to work relentlessly towards an alliance with the Western bloc, and first and foremost with its leader the United States.

In their studies of the period, Sovietologists have long surmised that the U.S.S.R. assisted Jewish emigration from the Eastern bloc after the Second World War in order to achieve her own objectives in Palestine. Prior to November 1947 Soviet support of aliyah was directed primarily towards exerting pressure on the Western powers to find a solution to the problem of Palestine; thus, she encouraged the emigration of Jewish refugees to Western and Southern Europe in order to cause embarrassment to Britain in the Middle East. After the U.N. accepted the Palestine Partition Plan that month, and especially from mid-1948 onward, the Soviets advocated the entry of the largest possible number of Jews in order to ease this first and most critical test of Israel's survival. The U.S.S.R. apparently anticipated the Israeli military victories which would ensure that Britain would not return to the land from which she had been ousted. The most striking example of Soviet activity thus motivated is to be found in the case of Poland: Russia permitted a large number of Polish Jews who had reached the U.S.S.R. during the course of the Second World War to return to Poland, whence their aliyah to Israel was facilitated. Before this process began, in the summer of 1945, some 50,000 Jews still lived in Poland; a year later some 150,000 left the country, for Germany and Austria. In 1947, 90,000 Jews remained in Poland. Thus, of the 250,000 to 300,000 Polish Jews resident in the U.S.S.R at the end of the Second World War, some 200,000 were permitted to return to their homeland (partly for internal Russian reasons too).

Russia's policy towards Israel between 1948 and the 1956 Sinai Campaign have been skillfully analyzed in two valuable works: Ya'acov Ro'i's Soviet Decision-Making in Practice – The U.S.S.R. and Israel 1947–1954 (London, 1980) and Arnold Krammer's The Forgotten Friendship (Illinois, 1974). Both books have clarified the ergonometrics of the various Soviet moves and the dynamics in the development of Russian policy. The present book aims to broaden the scope of discussion. As a preliminary to that task, I will briefly outline the main points of the development of Soviet political support for Israel in the international arena during this period.

Formal Russian involvement in the Palestinian problem commenced on 27 April 1947, when Great Britain officially requested that the Secretary General of the United Nations place the topic on the agenda of that body. Three weeks later, Gromyko enunciated Russia's official position. Addressing the U.N., he declared that if it were not possible to create a bi-national Arab–Jewish state in Palestine, the Soviet Union would support partition of the country into two independent halves. Primary among Russian interests in this position was the desire to eject Great Britain from the Middle East; potentially, at least, support for a Jewish state assured her of a political presence in the region. Russian policy was confirmed on 11 October 1947, when the U.S.S.R. officially stated that she supported the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (U.N.S.C.O.P.) Partition Plan and when she voted in favor of partition in the General Assembly on 29 November 1947.

An analysis of the economic ties between Israel and the leading state in the Soviet bloc perhaps best illustrates two claims already partially made above. First, that Israeli trade with the Eastern bloc was unequivocally influenced by interests of aliyah. Secondly, the notable absence of references to the aliyah of Russian Jews in Soviet–Israeli relations exerted a negative influence, at least for a certain period, on the development of economic ties between the two countries.

The most prominent feature of economic relations between Israel and the U.S.S.R. between 1949 and the latter half of 1953 is Israel's failure to attempt to expand and develop them. Between 1948 and late 1949 Russia had supplied Israel with merchandise worth some $750,000, most of which was fuel, a product that Israel desperately needed during the critical months of the 1948 War and which was hard to acquire elsewhere. She also sold Israel wheat, when that commodity was similarly hard to come by. However, Israel did not reciprocate with any of the steps taken in Eastern Europe in order to establish an economic relationship via trade agreements. Between mid-1948 and early 1949, the Israeli Economic Attaché in Moscow, Moshe Bejerano, repeatedly requested instructions regarding an agreement of this sort, emphasizing the enormous sales potential for Israeli goods in Russia, as well as the political benefits implicit in such a relationship.

Evidence recently made available in Israel reveals that the possibility of a change in Israel's foreign policy orientation was not discussed at an administrative-political level until the end of 1949. Before then, Israel's basic policy had never been debated at any senior forum. “Non-identification,” as it was sometimes termed, had been accepted as a fundamental – and publicly declared – fact of Israeli life. There existed a number of clear reasons why this should have been so. One was Israel's sense of responsibility for the fate and welfare of the entire Jewish people, which was dispersed throughout both major international blocs. Secondly, neither could Israelis ignore the historic fact that their state had been established with the agreement and support of both the superpowers. Israel owed them a certain debt of gratitude and was interested in maintaining good relations with both in order to surmount the difficulties involved in the defense of her independence. The third motive was a sincere concern for peace in the world and the wish to refrain from encouraging inter-power rivalry or intensifying it by identifying with one side or the other.

Equally compelling, although accorded very little publicity at the time, were domestic considerations. Specifically, the desire to keep peace within the ranks of the labor movement in Israel, constituted a fourth reason for Israel's “non-identification.” At a time when the political affiliations of numerous new immigrants was still undefined, this consideration was particularly weighty. Indeed, the entire fabric of the Labor Party's culture seemed to be threatened by the possibility of extremist attacks from both left and right.

Necessarily, Israel's official policy of maintaining friendly relations with the two superpowers required considerable caution in foreign policy activity; it also demanded equal care and consideration in internal public pronouncements. The difficult test for this policy was the treatment of Communism and the Soviet Union by party publicists. Mapai's party line had been strictly observed even prior to statehood. Criticism–some of it sharp–was occasionally voiced in internal debates on orientation issues with Hashomer Haza'ir, “Faction B” and later Mapam. But, in general, party members exercised restraint in oral and written pronouncements affecting the Soviet Union. The motive was essentially pragmatic–the desire to pierce the barrier between the Jewish community in Israel and Russian Jewry, and the fear that adverse comment might be detrimental. Herzl Berger, one of Mapai's ablest writers, aptly expressed this approach at a meeting of the Mapai Secretariat in March 1949: “We have been in an unpleasant situation for years; we have divided the work in the labor movement [referring to Mapai vs. Hashomer Haza'ir]–we know the truth and keep silent, while others know the truth and lie; we hear how they lie while they know the truth, and again we keep silent, because we still hope there is a faint hope to save Jews.” This line, prevalent in party publications prior to statehood, was reinforced during the early years of independence because of the official policy of non-alignment.

While Israel's representatives in Washington worked to interest the Americans in various strategic plans at the end of 1950, policymakers in Jerusalem were confronted with a new problem. Acting on the several hints which had been dropped in the United States, the British made a significant move. On 15 January 1951, William Strang (Permanent Under-Secretary at the British Foreign Office) asked Israel's Ambassador in London to obtain his government's authorization for a visit to the country by General Robertson. As presented by Strang, the British plan was to use the visit to explore the idea of a pact with Israel, or as he put it: “Some kind of alliance with [Israel] either on a regional basis [if possible] or also bilateral.” Specifically, he had two concrete ideas in mind. One was the establishment of British bases in Gaza which might be connected by a corridor to Jordan; the other was the construction of British bases in Israel itself. The feeling in Israel was that both suggestions had arisen as a result of the difficulties which the British were encountering in negotiations for the continued maintenance of their bases in Egypt.

In Jerusalem, Robertson's visit was authorized. The proposals which Strang submitted before Robertson's arrival, however, became the subject of debate at the very highest level. The full details of the discussions are not known although it is clear that among the participants were Ben Gurion, Sharett, Walter Eytan (Director General of the Foreign Ministry), Michael Comay (who was the ministry official responsible for the British Commonwealth) and Reuven Shiloah, an influential security and intelligence expert.

Among the nations of the world Israel is unique. Founded in 1948, it is small in size and population, located in a critical geographic area, and has been, especially prior to the June 1967 War, strategically vulnerable. It is surrounded by hostile neighbors and has lived in a state of continuous siege since the achievement of its independence. Its immediate origins were highlighted by the explicit support of two world bodies, the League of Nations and the United Nations. It enjoys the support of a world-wide constituency haunted by memories of the Second World War which exterminated almost the entire European Jewish community. It was created as a homeland for the Jewish people as a whole, and as a consequence a larger number of persons identifying with the state live outside its borders than within. Finally, it has found itself involved in no less than five wars during its short history. It is these wars and the basic factor underlying them – the conflict with the Arab states – which has drawn a wide range of political and academic attention to the foreign policy of Israel.

Inquisitiveness with regard to one of the principal states in the Middle East notwithstanding, little of scholarly worth has been published on the subject up to the early 1970s. Prominent in its absence until then was an academic analysis of one of the state's significant characteristics – its global foreign policy orientation between East and West. The broad outline of the subject is, however, generally known.

Israel was created in the midst of war. Jewish national aspirations for political independence, reinforced after the Second World War, met with increasing opposition from the Arab states and from the Arab population. As early as December 1946, Ben Gurion warned the Political Committee of the Zionist Congress: “The major problem is defense. Until recently it was only a question of defending ourselves against the Palestinian Arabs who occasionally attacked Jewish settlements. But now we confront a totally new situation. Israel is surrounded by independent Arab states … which have … the capacity to acquire arms … While the … Palestinian Arabs do not endanger the Jewish community, we now face the prospect of the Arab states sending their armies to attack us … We are facing a threat to our very existence.”

This danger became more concrete late in 1947 when the U.N. General Assembly adopted the plan to partition Palestine. The prospect of total war created severe problems for the Jewish leadership in Palestine, prominent among which was the acquisition of arms. Military equipment was unavailable, the British government maintained a tight control over the possession of weapons in Palestine while extending financial and military support to two of the Arab states on the future Jewish state's borders, Egypt and Jordan. Furthermore, at the end of 1947, the U.N. imposed an embargo on the sale of arms to Palestine. Against this background, it is hardly surprising that in September 1947 Ben Gurion considered the acquisition of military material to be of “prime importance.” Such was the background to the Czech-Israeli connection.