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Why did the USSR not pay a higher political and diplomatic price in the Arab and Muslim world for its early support of Israel?

R

raharris1973

Well-known member
Why did the USSR not pay a higher political and diplomatic price in the Arab and Muslim world for its early support of Israel?

Arguably, the USSR was more decisively and wholeheartedly supportive of Israel than the United States when it counted, at the time of its founding, and during its war of independence.

Supporting examples:

  • Certainly American citizen donors gave more funds, but the United States imposed an arms embargo on the Israelis (and Arabs) while the Soviets permitted arms sales from their client state Czechslovakia during the war of independence. Arms are pretty important for war. The Israelis did also acquire US arms during the war illegally, but American citizens were prosecuted and punished for involvement in these transactions. The only state-backed arms aid program for Israel in its first war came from the Soviet bloc.
  • The US was the first to grant "de facto" recognition to Israel, but the USSR was second. And the USSR was first to grant "de jure" recognition to Israel.
  • Most migration of Jews from Europe to Palestine, while transiting the American zone of Germany, originated from countries in Europe occupied by the Soviet Union and controlled by it or its political clients.
  • The UN Partition vote - the US and USSR were 'even steven' on this. Both voted for it. Most Soviet allies voted for it (Poland and Czechoslovakia), but not all (Yugoslavia). US allies were a mixed bag - Latin America mostly yes, but with exceptions like Cuba. France and Netherlands yes, Britain and China and Greece, no.
However, even in in Israel's first decade and a half, when the US would not sell arms to Israel, (forcing it to look to Western European sellers), Israel was identified as a US catspaw and creation in the Arab and Muslim world. The US eventually sold some defensive weapons to Israel (late Kennedy Administration) and then offensive (shortly before 6 Day War, not delivered until after).

Meanwhile, the Soviet bloc role in Israel's survival and victory in 47-49 seemed to be quickly forgiven and forgotten. It didn't stop Syria from turning left and taking an international pro-Soviet alignment in early 1955 (Mar), then Egypt from doing the same (summer 1955), then Iraq following suit (1958).

Why was this the case?

(Incidentally, when American government aid to Israel really did explode (alongside a major increase in private aid and bond sales) in size after 1970 that did *not* stop Jordan from aligning closer to the US and did not stop Egypt's shift from the Soviet to US camp).
 
raharris1973 said:
Why did the USSR not pay a higher political and diplomatic price in the Arab and Muslim world for its early support of Israel?

Arguably, the USSR was more decisively and wholeheartedly supportive of Israel than the United States when it counted, at the time of its founding, and during its war of independence.

Supporting examples:

  • Certainly American citizen donors gave more funds, but the United States imposed an arms embargo on the Israelis (and Arabs) while the Soviets permitted arms sales from their client state Czechslovakia during the war of independence. Arms are pretty important for war. The Israelis did also acquire US arms during the war illegally, but American citizens were prosecuted and punished for involvement in these transactions. The only state-backed arms aid program for Israel in its first war came from the Soviet bloc.
  • The US was the first to grant "de facto" recognition to Israel, but the USSR was second. And the USSR was first to grant "de jure" recognition to Israel.
  • Most migration of Jews from Europe to Palestine, while transiting the American zone of Germany, originated from countries in Europe occupied by the Soviet Union and controlled by it or its political clients.
  • The UN Partition vote - the US and USSR were 'even steven' on this. Both voted for it. Most Soviet allies voted for it (Poland and Czechoslovakia), but not all (Yugoslavia). US allies were a mixed bag - Latin America mostly yes, but with exceptions like Cuba. France and Netherlands yes, Britain and China and Greece, no.
However, even in in Israel's first decade and a half, when the US would not sell arms to Israel, (forcing it to look to Western European sellers), Israel was identified as a US catspaw and creation in the Arab and Muslim world. The US eventually sold some defensive weapons to Israel (late Kennedy Administration) and then offensive (shortly before 6 Day War, not delivered until after).

Meanwhile, the Soviet bloc role in Israel's survival and victory in 47-49 seemed to be quickly forgiven and forgotten. It didn't stop Syria from turning left and taking an international pro-Soviet alignment in early 1955 (Mar), then Egypt from doing the same (summer 1955), then Iraq following suit (1958).

Why was this the case?

(Incidentally, when American government aid to Israel really did explode (alongside a major increase in private aid and bond sales) in size after 1970 that did *not* stop Jordan from aligning closer to the US and did not stop Egypt's shift from the Soviet to US camp).
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I think it may have been simply because the Soviet Union changed its position and became pro-Arab.
 
Coiler said:
Maybe because Israel policy, even for a middle eastern country, isn't the be-all and end-all of everything?
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There may be something to this.

In the first 10 years of Israel's existence, through the 1950s, the U.S. might have paid a higher political price for its association, and assumed association, in the regional mind with Britain, than with Israel.
 
Truman was pro-Israel, but Eisenhower and the Republican establishment basically viewed them as scrappy and annoying. The Pale-Male-Yale Protestant establishment in the State Department and Republican party generally didn't like the Israelis very much, and it seems to only be a very very late 20th century thing where the tune on Israel started to change. It sort of began with the Neoconservatives (ergo, hawkish Democrats) moving into the GOP camp with Reagan, but even in the Reagan Administration pretty much everybody other than Reagan himself was pissed over the Osirak bombing. The Arab monarchies and Britain were viewed as the safer bet to cozy up with in Republican circles.

The US didn't really start to take pro-Israel positions until after the 1967 war when they were no longer viewed as a nutso basket case, but rather a useful ally which could punch back hard and provide valuable intelligence ... and also a country to sell weapons to. Pre-1967, Israel's main patron was France (who had tough relations with Arab states because of the Algerian issue). When France left Algeria, France was able to sort of befriend Arab states.

The Soviet support for Israel early on was so brief (maybe 4 years?) and mostly comprised of symbolic statements (and letting the Czechoslovaks send Nazi surplus weapons over) rather than any tangible stuff. Plus, the Soviets denounced the Suez Crisis (because it was a great way to rhetorically distract from their own crushing of Hungary) which helped boost the Soviet image in the region. The Soviets also funded various Arab nationalist movements and were able to sort of say 'yes, we supported the Zionists against Arab forces, but those were reactionary western puppet monarchies, no the true voices of the Arab people such as Nasser and other Nationalist-Republican Arab Socialists.'



The oft-overlooked factor in Arab-Israeli analysis is that hating on Israel and supporting the Palestinians was a means of boosting the legitimacy of Arab governments be they nationalist-republican or conservative-monarchy. The Soviets managed to firmly back the nationalist-republican movement which denounced the monarchies, the Zionists, (and, to a lesser extent, the idea of Lebanon as something other than an Arab country) as forces of colonialism. The counterargument is that the Zionists viewed their movement as a kind of undoing of Roman colonization, the Hashemites thought themselves the traditional and proper leaders of the middle east since they were descended from the prophet, and the Maronites had long had a sort of distinct sense of sense which, while part of the Arab world, wasn't quite Arab. There are facts and there are narratives.
 
Jackson Lennock said:
The oft-overlooked factor in Arab-Israeli analysis is that hating on Israel and supporting the Palestinians was a means of boosting the legitimacy of Arab governments be they nationalist-republican or conservative-monarchy.
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Good post, but I don't think that factor is actually very overlooked, at least not in the alternate history community.
 
Jackson Lennock said:
The Soviet support for Israel early on was so brief (maybe 4 years?) and mostly comprised of symbolic statements (and letting the Czechoslovaks send Nazi surplus weapons over) rather than any tangible stuff. Plus, the Soviets denounced the Suez Crisis (because it was a great way to rhetorically distract from their own crushing of Hungary) which helped boost the Soviet image in the region. The Soviets also funded various Arab nationalist movements and were able to sort of say 'yes, we supported the Zionists against Arab forces, but those were reactionary western puppet monarchies, no the true voices of the Arab people such as Nasser and other Nationalist-Republican Arab Socialists.'
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this does feel mildly like 6d chess, but i assume that's only if it worked, which it clearly fucking didn't
 
Kimkatya said:
this does feel mildly like 6d chess, but i assume that's only if it worked, which it clearly fucking didn't
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Eisenhower didn't back up France, Britain, and Israel during the Suez Crisis precisely because the US had just denounced the Soviet crushing of Hungary and he thought the US would look hypocritical. He later considered that call one of his biggest mistakes from when he was President.
 
Jackson Lennock said:
Eisenhower didn't back up France, Britain, and Israel during the Suez Crisis precisely because the US had just denounced the Soviet crushing of Hungary and he thought the US would look hypocritical. He later considered that call one of his biggest mistakes from when he was President.
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Ironic because I'd genuinely consider that a pretty good fucking move
 
Jackson Lennock said:
Eisenhower didn't back up France, Britain, and Israel during the Suez Crisis precisely because the US had just denounced the Soviet crushing of Hungary and he thought the US would look hypocritical. He later considered that call one of his biggest mistakes from when he was President.
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Kimkatya said:
Ironic because I'd genuinely consider that a pretty good fucking move
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Jackson Lennock said:
By what standard?
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Eisenhower regretted supporting Nasser in the Suez Crisis because Nasser turned pro-Soviet anyways and it strained relations with the United Kingdom and France.
 
Jackson Lennock said:
Eisenhower didn't back up France, Britain, and Israel during the Suez Crisis precisely because the US had just denounced the Soviet crushing of Hungary and he thought the US would look hypocritical. He later considered that call one of his biggest mistakes from when he was President.
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That was not the only reason Eisenhower supported Nasser in the Suez Crisis. Eisenhower feared Nasser turning pro-Soviet and anti-Western feeling stirring up in the Third World.
 
Ricardolindo said:
Eisenhower regretted supporting Nasser in the Suez Crisis because Nasser turned pro-Soviet anyways and it strained relations with the United Kingdom and France.
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From a big picture raw-American-interests perspective (and with a century of hindsight), maybe it was a bad call.
  • Israel and Egypt just started shooting at each other again a decade later (1967). Without the Second War, Israel might not have ever taken over the West Bank, since the Jordan rejected Israeli neutrality proposals because the King recognized that if he didn't join the Pan-Arab struggle against Israel, his people would overthrow him. The dominoes from this led to the Black September War, then the PLO escape to Lebanon, and a Civil War there as well. Inevitably the War over Water with Syria probably would have boiled over into an Israeli seizure of the Golan, but the conflicts would be smaller.
  • The British responded to Ike pulling the rug out from under them with the 1957 Defence White Paper. The British shifted their foreign policy to managed decline; meaning a lot of the Great Power espionage-intrigue stuff the British got up to ended up being done by the US instead. The Americans just as a historical matter seem clumsier, more destructive, less socially/culturally-cognizant of other parts of the world, and more prone to breaking/wrecking things than the British were. Plus, the US's image definitely took a turn for the worse when the the US started doing the cloak-and-dagger stuff rather than let the British do some of the Americans' dirty work.
  • The Suez Canal ended up blocked for eight years anyway (1967 to 1975)

But ... no Eisenhower smackdown might mean the Israelis get their 1967-ego-trip a decade earlier and get into a Yom Kippur War sort of mess a decade earlier. But on the other hand, would the Egyptians shoot at the Israelis if there are British and French troops sitting across a canal from them?

No Eisenhower smackdown also would further undermine the no-aggressive-war principal of the UN ... but on the other hand has it ever mattered much except when the Great Powers felt like having it mean something?

No 1957 Defence White Paper could mean Britain gets into more shenanigans in Africa and the Middle East, meaning more possibilities for bad consequences. But if British antics are in place of US intervention, rather than on top of it - is that better or is that worse?

Is NATO in a better position with France more thoroughly a part of it due to no diplomatic split with the US over Suez? Will Britain continue the idea of a kind of cooperative Anglo-French second pole in the Western Camp? Will France commit to European integration without the sense that France needs an alternative support structure to the Anglo-Americans if there's no Suez embarrassment?

How big an anti-US backlash would there be in the third world (especially compared to OTL) if the US backed up Britain and France?

Without a Yom Kippur war, is there an OPEC embargo?

Lots and lots and lots of questions and butterflies and ripples.
 
I would call it a pretty good call - the US needed good PR when it came to the third world especially at this time, and if it had allied with the old colonial powers it would have badly shaken it. Furthermore, the British did have the intention of overthrowing Nasser (who was an extremely popular leader especially at this point), and Eden was not exactly in a good state of mind - an Anglo-French invasion of Egypt would have likely failed, and Nasser would have instead become a symbol of colonial resistance. This would have caused considerable issues, and frankly I doubt Britain would have been able to keep Suez at the end of all of it.
 
Indicus said:
I would call it a pretty good call - the US needed good PR when it came to the third world especially at this time, and if it had allied with the old colonial powers it would have badly shaken it. Furthermore, the British did have the intention of overthrowing Nasser (who was an extremely popular leader especially at this point), and Eden was not exactly in a good state of mind - an Anglo-French invasion of Egypt would have likely failed, and Nasser would have instead become a symbol of colonial resistance. This would have caused considerable issues, and frankly I doubt Britain would have been able to keep Suez at the end of all of it.
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The British, French, and Israelis - more or less - viewed Nasser as the second coming of Adolf Hitler; and anything short of his overthrow as a repeat of Munich.

The "Socialist" laws of 1952 amounted to the expropriation of businesses from "foreigner" ... meaning Greeks (350,000 to 400,000 people), Syro-Lebanese (over 100,000 at the turn of the 20th century), Jews (over 75,000), Italians (over 60,000), Armenians (over 40,000), Maltese (over 20,000), and various Europeans who lived in Egypt - particularly around the Canal Zone. This in combination is somewhere between 5% and 7% of the Egyptian population. Nasser's Pan-Arabism also excluded the Copts from being a core aspect of Egyptian identity, and they were also disproportionately affected by Nasser's anti-commercial policies, and they were another 10% to 20% of the population. So somewhere between 15 and 27% of Egypt was considered, to some degree or another, non-Egyptian under the Nasserist definition.

And Nasser was a young, charming, charismatic man who emerged from a military background; blended ideas of Pan-Arabist ethnic/racial primacy and unity, Nationalism, Socialism, and militarism together; was intent upon overthrowing the constraints upon his people who were burdened and divided by the British and French. The Munich flashbacks seem pretty understandable.

The British and French overthrowing Nasser and replacing him with Naguib also doesn't seem very different from what they did during the 1880s either.

None of this should be understood as me saying that it would have worked out had the US not told them to cut it out. I'm just trying to paint the picture of why the British and French thought it would work out well. They clearly failed to understand the amount of popular support Nasser in particular had (whereas the Ali dynasty in the 1880s was much less popular). If they'd succeeded in overthrowing Nasser, my guess is it'd have resulted in a Civil War and a split between a 'North Egypt' backed by Britain and France and a South Egypt run by Nasserists. But Naguib wanted to legalize opposition political parties (and perhaps even the Muslim Brotherhood) and Naguib doesn't seem like the sort of guy who'd be interested in being the plaything of the British and French. The only way for such an anti-Nasserite regime to have legitimacy would be (ironically?) to have the Americans force the British and French out of Egypt and restore full sovereignty over the Canal zone - such that it could paint itself as both Independent and Anti-Nasserist.
 
Jackson Lennock said:
The British, French, and Israelis - more or less - viewed Nasser as the second coming of Adolf Hitler; and anything short of his overthrow as a repeat of Munich.

The "Socialist" laws of 1952 amounted to the expropriation of businesses from "foreigner" ... meaning Greeks (350,000 to 400,000 people), Syro-Lebanese (over 100,000 at the turn of the 20th century), Jews (over 75,000), Italians (over 60,000), Armenians (over 40,000), Maltese (over 20,000), and various Europeans who lived in Egypt - particularly around the Canal Zone. This in combination is somewhere between 5% and 7% of the Egyptian population. Nasser's Pan-Arabism also excluded the Copts from being a core aspect of Egyptian identity, and they were also disproportionately affected by Nasser's anti-commercial policies, and they were another 10% to 20% of the population. So somewhere between 15 and 27% of Egypt was considered, to some degree or another, non-Egyptian under the Nasserist definition.

And Nasser was a young, charming, charismatic man who emerged from a military background; blended ideas of Pan-Arabist ethnic/racial primacy and unity, Nationalism, Socialism, and militarism together; was intent upon overthrowing the constraints upon his people who were burdened and divided by the British and French. The Munich flashbacks seem pretty understandable.

The British and French overthrowing Nasser and replacing him with Naguib also doesn't seem very different from what they did during the 1880s either.

None of this should be understood as me saying that it would have worked out had the US not told them to cut it out. I'm just trying to paint the picture of why the British and French thought it would work out well. They clearly failed to understand the amount of popular support Nasser in particular had (whereas the Ali dynasty in the 1880s was much less popular). If they'd succeeded in overthrowing Nasser, my guess is it'd have resulted in a Civil War and a split between a 'North Egypt' backed by Britain and France and a South Egypt run by Nasserists. But Naguib wanted to legalize opposition political parties (and perhaps even the Muslim Brotherhood) and Naguib doesn't seem like the sort of guy who'd be interested in being the plaything of the British and French. The only way for such an anti-Nasserite regime to have legitimacy would be (ironically?) to have the Americans force the British and French out of Egypt and restore full sovereignty over the Canal zone - such that it could paint itself as both Independent and Anti-Nasserist.
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Ah, the halcyon days of the fifteen-odd years post-WW2 when it was universally decided to just cut the country in half to “solve” international political conflicts.

I do find the idea of a south and north Egypt a little odd, however. I thought that Egypt’s population was lopsidedly in the Nile delta now, let alone in the 1950’s
 
Kimkatya said:
Ah, the halcyon days of the fifteen-odd years post-WW2 when it was universally decided to just cut the country in half to “solve” international political conflicts.

I do find the idea of a south and north Egypt a little odd, however. I thought that Egypt’s population was lopsidedly in the Nile delta now, let alone in the 1950’s
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I suppose it's also possible that Egypt - with Nasser overthrown - could have an immediate call for elections where a combination of liberal, pro-Naguib, ethnic/religious minority, Coptic, and Islamist parties could cobble together a majority.

The problem is that in a Democracy, the vote is only as morally valid as the legitimacy it has with the people. If the Nasserists don't think that large chunks of people who voted are 'real Egyptians,' then they will contend that the vote is a sham, the Parliament is illegitimate and a foreign thing, and many Egyptians will resist violently. Who 'counts' as being part of the demos (people) in a democracy affects the legitimacy of democratically elected leaders, and there'd likely be some very concerning social cleavages.

Naguib might end up as a kind of Diem-like figure. Yeah, he has nationalist credentials, but if his position of authority is too intimately connected to outside powers, his regime will be seen as illegitimate.
 
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