The United States, the Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-67: Superpower Rivalry

301 Pages·2016·9.2 MB·English

by  Joseph Heller

i
The United States, the Soviet Union and

the Arab– Israeli conflict, 1948– 67
ii
iii
The United States, the Soviet Union

and the Arab– Israeli conflict,
1948– 67
Superpower rivalry
Joseph Heller
Manchester University Press
iv
Copyright © Ben- Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel
and Zionism 2010
The right of Joseph Heller to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by him/ her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
Published by Ben- Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and
Zionism (Sede Boqer) 2010
First English- language edition published in 2016 by
Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 1 5261 0382 6 hardback
First published 2016
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs
for any external or third- party internet websites referred to in this book,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Typeset by Out of House Publishing
v
Contents

List of figures page vii
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Alpha map xiii
Introduction 1
1 The Soviet Union and Israel: from the Gromyko declaration
to the death of Stalin (1947– 53) 6
2 The United States and the Cold War: from Truman to
Eisenhower (1948– 53) 19
3 Israel and the Soviet Union prior to the Suez Crisis (1953– 56) 33
4 Sharett versus Eisenhower and Dulles (1953– 56) 47
5 Israel and the United States on the road to war (November
1955– November 1956) 63
6 The Eisenhower Doctrine and Israel (November
1956– January 1958) 78
7 Soviet– Israeli relations after the Suez War (1956– 61) 92
8 How the Middle East crises affected US policy toward Israel
(1958– 60) 106
9 Kennedy, Israel and the Cold War before the Cuban Missile
Crisis (1961– 62) 120
10 Was Kennedy the ‘father’ of the US– Israeli alliance? (1962– 63) 135
11 Khrushchev, Israel and Soviet Jewry (1961– 64) 154
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vi Contents
12 Was Johnson the ‘father’ of the US– Israeli alliance?: the
Memorandum of Understanding (1964– 65) 168
13 Johnson, Israel and the Cold War: testing the Memorandum
of Understanding (1965– 67) 185
14 The Soviet Union, Israel and Soviet Jewry (1964– 67) 204
15 The United States and the crisis of the Six Day War
(May 14– June 5, 1967) 220
16 The Soviet Union and the Six Day War (May 14– June 5, 1967) 241
Conclusions 259
Bibliography 269
Index 282
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Figures

1 ‘Anyhow, thank you’ by Kariel Gardosh (Dosh), October
1, 1962, from So Sorry We Won! (Tel Aviv, 1967), p. 148.
Reproduced by kind permission of Michael Gardosh. page 134
2 ‘The Soviet government cancels the exchange of orchestras
with Israel’ by Yaakov Farkash (Ze’ev), September 26, 1966,
from Al Kol Panim (Tel Aviv, 1975), p. 90. Reproduced by kind
permission of Naomi Farkash Fink and Dorit
Farkash Shuki. 218
3 ‘Moscow is ready to send its football team to Israel’ by Yaakov
Farkash (Ze’ev), September 27, 1966, from Al Kol Panim (Tel
Aviv, 1975), p. 90. Reproduced by kind permission of Naomi
Farkash Fink and Dorit Farkash Shuki. 219
4 ‘The chef’s specialty’ by Kariel Gardosh (Dosh), May 15, 1967,
from So Sorry We Won! (Tel Aviv, 1967), p. 238. Reproduced by
kind permission of Michael Gardosh. 239
5 ‘Did you say something?’ by Kariel Gardosh (Dosh), May
25, 1967, from So Sorry We Won! (Tel Aviv, 1967), p. 247.
Reproduced by kind permission of Michael Gardosh. 240
6 ‘The chicken refused to be sacrificed’ by Yaakov Farkash
(Ze’ev), October 13, 1967, from Package Deal: 170 Political
Cartoons by Ze’ev (Tel Aviv, 1972), p. 12. Reproduced by kind
permission of Naomi Farkash Fink and Dorit
Farkash Shuki. 256
7 ‘No withdrawal without peace’ by Yaakov Farkash (Ze’ev),
October 17, 1967, from Package Deal: 170 Political Cartoons
by Ze’ev (Tel Aviv, 1972), p. 11. Reproduced by kind
permission of Naomi Farkash Fink and Dorit Farkash Shuki. 256
8 ‘Five points’ by Yaakov Farkash (Ze’ev), October 20, 1967,
from Package Deal: 170 Political Cartoons by Ze’ev (Tel
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viii List of figures
Aviv, 1972), p. 11. Reproduced by kind permission of Naomi
Farkash Fink and Dorit Farkash Shuki. 257
9 ‘The Israeli scorpion in the Sinai Desert’, Krokodil, 18
(1967), p. 269. Reproduced by kind permission of 20 Century
Crocodile (20centurycrocodile.ru). 257
10 ‘We are determined’, Krokodil, 18 (1967), p. 271.
Reproduced by kind permission of 20 Century Crocodile
(20centurycrocodile.ru). 258
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Acknowledgments

My thanks to Israeli diplomats Mordechai Gazit, Baruch Gilad, Yosef
Govrin and Moshe Yegar, who participated in the events recounted here
and whose generosity in sharing their knowledge and experience enabled
me to absorb the zeitgeist in which they lived and operated. I am grate-
ful to my colleagues at the Hebrew University International Relations
Department, Uri Bialer and Amnon Sella, who graciously read a large
part of the manuscript and whose comments greatly improved it. I also
owe much to other colleagues – Zvi Ganin, Yehoshua Porath, Shimon
Redlich, Eli Tsur and Norman Rose – who encouraged me during dif-
ficult times, and to the late Avraham Greenbaum and to Dan Charuv,
who helped me with translations from Russian. Special thanks go to the
staff of the Israel State Archive, in particular to its director, Yehoshua
Freundlich, and his deputy Yemima Rosenthal. I also owe a debt of grati-
tude to the staff of the National Library of Israel and to the Hebrew
University Library on Mount Scopus.
I could not have carried out my research without the dedicated assis-
tance of many Americans, including the staffs of the National Archive
at College Park, Maryland, the National Security Archive at George
Washington University, especially William Burr, the John F. Kennedy
Library in Boston, and the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Texas. I owe
no less gratitude to the British National Archives in Kew, London. I also
wish to thank the Ben- Gurion Heritage Institute at Sede Boqer and the
chairman of its editorial board, Tuvia Friling, and the editor Smadar
Rotman, who initiated the book’s original publication in Hebrew. Last
but not least, my wife Shulamit for her constant encouragement and my
sons Yair and Danny, and my daughter Dina who guided me through the
mysteries of the computer. I am grateful to Haim Watzman for translat-
ing the book into English. I am particularly grateful to Elizabeth Yuval