The United States, the Soviet Union and the Arab– Israeli conflict, 1948– 67: Superpower rivalry

Four questions stand before the historian of the cold war and the Arab-Israeli conflict: 1) Did Israel and the US have a 'special relationship'? 2) Were Soviet-Israeli relations destined for failure from 1948? 3) Was the Arab-Israeli conflict insoluble because of the cold war or in spite of it? 4)Was detente between the superpowers the key to solving the Arab-Israeli conflict? Israel failed to get a security guarantee from the US because if it were granted ally status the Arab states would turn to the Soviets. Instead of a security guarantee Kennedy used the nebulous term 'special relationship', which did not bind America politically or militarily. Relations with the USSR looked promising at first, but the Zionist ideology of the Jewish state made it inevitable that relations with would worsen , since the Kremlin rejected the notion that Soviet Jews were by definition part of the Jewish nation, and therefore candidates for emigration to Israel. As for the Arabs, they were adamant that the Palestinian refugees return en mass, which meant the destruction of of Israel. No compromise suggested by the US was acceptable to to the Arabs , who were always supported by the USSR.The Soviets demanded detente cover not only the Arab states and Israel, but Turkey and Iran as well. Consequently the Middle East remained a no-man's-land between the superpowers' spheres of influence, inexorably paving the way for the wars in 1956 and 1967. Front Matter Contents List of figures Acknowledgements Abbreviations Alpha map Introduction The Soviet Union and Israel: from the Gromyko declaration to the death of Stalin (1947–53) The United States and the Cold War: from Truman to Eisenhower (1948– 53) Israel and the Soviet Union prior to the Suez Crisis (1953– 56) Sharett versus Eisenhower and Dulles (1953– 56) Israel and the United States on the road to war (November 1955–November 1956) The Eisenhower Doctrine and Israel (November 1956–January 1958) Soviet–Israeli relations after the Suez War (1956–61) How the Middle East crises affected US policy toward Israel (1958–60) Kennedy, Israel and the Cold War before the Cuban Missile Crisis (1961–62) Was Kennedy the ‘father’ of the US–Israeli alliance? (1962–63) Khrushchev, Israel and Soviet Jewry (1961–64) Was Johnson the ‘father’ of the US–Israeli alliance?: the Memorandum of Understanding (1964–65) Johnson, Israel and the Cold War: testing the Memorandum of Understanding (1965–67) The Soviet Union, Israel and Soviet Jewry (1964–67) The United States and the crisis of the Six Day War (May 14–June 5, 1967) The Soviet Union and the Six Day War (May 14–June 5, 1967) Conclusions Bibliography Index Israel's relations with each of the superpowers was determined by global factors. The dilemma facing Israel was how to reconcile its interests with those of the United States, having failed to do so with the Soviet Union. Moreover, throughout the cold war the United States considered Israel a burden rather than an asset and had to accommodate support for Israel with keeping the Arab states within the western orbit. Partisan policy could have dealt a mortal blow to the fundamental assumption of American global strategy. Namely that the Middle East should not be allowed to become a cold war arena. The book shows how the fledgling state of Israel had to manoeuvre between the superpowers to survive. This book presents a comprehensive history of the modern Middle East and Arab-Israeli conflict through the Cold War, focusing on relations between the region and the two superpowers.