Напрасная вражда. Очерки советско-израильских отношений 1948-1991 гг.

Summary

Relations with Israel are a very special part of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. They were determined not only by pure foreign policy factors, such as regional interests, the global balance of power, security considerations, geopolitical aspirations or strategic priorities. The Soviet Union had the second in its number Jewish population in the world after the United States. The Soviet regime imposed travel bans on the citizens of the country and actually impeded the realization of one of the main Zionist goals — gathering of the Jews in Israel, in the land designated as their historic home. This initial contradiction laid down the ground for the confrontation that followed. In the Soviet Union Zionism was proclaimed the worst enemy of the socialist order and communist ideology. Israel in its turn undertook persistent efforts in the international arena and through the pro-Israeli lobby in the USA with the purpose to press the Soviet regime to loosen its constraints on the Jewish population.

Besides from the early years of its existence Israel chose the pro-Western orientation and was considered by the Soviet Union an imperialist agent in the Middle East. Israel on its part held Moscow responsible for persistent tensions in the region and continued conflict because of its support to Israel’s Arab enemies.

Recently published official documents, memoirs of the authors who witnessed the events of the past reveal a complex interaction of factors which led first to the break of diplomatic relations between the two countries and then to a prolonged period of hostility and alienation between them. Only to the end of the 1980–s with the rise of Soviet perestroika which opened way for the reassessment of the Soviet foreign policy, the process of normalization between the USSR and Israel was launched.

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