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Middle East. 1967By Pogos Akopov, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, 27 may 2004
Ignorance of history, especially the history of long and bloody conflicts, as the Middle East conflict does not only hinder correct comprehension of events that take place. It is also makes it dangerous in that ignorance can help to create stereotypes skilfully promoted by the interested side, which can be misleading, and encourage wrong action. In a situation like this the participants of historic events are directly obliged to provide a truthful account of events and facts they witnessed. I for one would like to tell the following: many people tend to think that the Soviet Union has always been a proponent of exclusively pro-Arab policies for the detriment of Israel, and that activities of Soviet diplomats was biased and one-sided, that no other bat this country acted to turn Middle East conflicts into warfare.
I must say that this is not so. In 1959 I happened to be one of the first Soviet diplomats who visited Gaza Strip. Our encounter with Palestinians was very tense, as we were reproached and accused of the Soviet Union’s having created Israel. «It was Gromyko, who created Israel!», «The Soviet Union voted in favour of establishing Israel, and without its active participation there would be no Israel now!», «Arabs will never forget that!» — those were the assessments voiced by Palestinians. But no one mentioned the fact that right from the start the Soviet Union spoke in favour of creating a Palestinian state, including our idea of setting up a two-pronged Arab-Jewish state, which was not a kind of specific position. The main direction of the Soviet foreign policy was always protection of interests of young states that had won independence in anti-colonial struggle. In this particular case the situation was quite certain — even though Great Britain had its 1992 League of Nations mandate to run Palestine, but its presence in that region was definitely colonialist in character. All through that period we were firm about holding our position, given the setting up of Israel as a Jewish state, equal rights should be vested with the people of Palestine. So one of the fundamental principles of Soviet Union’s Middle East policies was giving the Palestinians the right of self-determination complete with the right to create their independent state. That was neither pro-Arab nor pro-Israeli policy, ours were objective and principled policies pursued with an eye to finding a just solution of the problem. Otherwise a paradoxical situation would have taken place, when one nation gains the right to establish a state of their own, while the other side is deprived of such an opportunity, that is Palestinians would have been discriminated. And that would inevitably lead to a conflict, usually a bloody one with no easy answers. Knowing perfectly well that consequences of ill-prepared asymmetrical action the Soviet diplomacy did its best to prevent emergence of a cause for the follow-up conflict right from the start. But our opinion was not taken heed of…And blood has been shed in the Middle East for over half a century now.
One of the gravest moments of this long and bloody history was 1967. The Soviet Union is often portrayed as the proponent and even an initiator of the 1967 war, which is absolutely untrue. I would like to give you just one telling example no one has so far spoken about. In May of 1967 Israel amassed its troops on Syria’s border and was prepared to invade that country. Syria’s leader Hafez Assad contacted Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, seeking help at the time when Israeli aggression was so close at hand. Egyptian military forces were then stationed on the Sinai Peninsula, which evidently was a containment factor to prevent Israel from attacking Syria. But Nasser decided to take counsel and obtain agreement of his Soviet friends for his prevention strike on Israel, sending Defence Minister Shams Badran to Moscow in late May. The Soviet team of negotiators included our Deputy Foreign Minister and head of the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Department, and was headed by Alexei Kosygin. I was also there as a counsellor. The negotiations were turning around the issue of obtaining Soviet Union’s go-ahead for the preventive strike on Israel in order to not let it invade Syria. Badran laid out his maps and gave a detailed account of the situation. Kosygin immediately said we could not give our consent to that, as the Soviet Union cannot support aggression in any form, and that the military solution of the problem was impossible. The next day Badran again repeated Nasser’s request for our consent, and the answer was a firm «No». In his third day In Moscow Badran tabled Nasser’s answer he had received the night before from Cairo to the effect that if Soviet friends are firm about their stance, there would be no attacks.
Evidently, this position of the Soviet Union became known in Israel, and June 6th its airforce began strafing Egypt’s airfields in Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and Aswan… They were totally ruined and Egyptian airforce was virtually destroyed. The Egyptian army in the Sinai was totally devoid of its airforce shield, which in the surroundings of the vast open Sinai Desert was spelling their imminent death, as Israeli aircraft began its stage-by-stage destruction… Now try to picture what would have happened had Egypt dealt the first strike, given the might of Egypt’s armies amassed on Israel’s border, consequences of that could have been hard to predict. It can be assumed that the Middle East situation could have undergone most serious changes. To give Nasser his due, he never reproached neither the Soviet leadership nor the Soviet Union itself of tying his hands at so critical a time. By the way these facts refute opinions of Arab armies allegedly being unable to wage present-day wars. It is simply that politicians very often affect different situations adversely.
The reason why the Soviet Union’s stance was so rigid is more than evident. We could not agree to Egypt’s delivering a blow on Israel, which would have been an aggression. That was contrary to our entire political line. Unfortunately, no one speaks today about those negotiations, even though this is a graphic illustration of the absurdity of accusing the Soviet Union in bullying Nasser to unleash war.
It is entirely different matter that after destroying the Egyptian armies and establishing its mastery in the air, Israel began to regularly shell the Egyptian territory with its aircraft flying everywhere, always, strafing civil objects including those built with the Soviet Union’s participation. The situation was so grave that at negotiations with a Soviet delegation Nasser said: «All right. Without your assistance I am unable to fight any longer. The situation in the country is very complicated. I will resign then, and my place will be taken by pro-American politicians, and they would be able to settle the problem…» And only then did we join sides in the conflict, lending him a hand in protecting Egypt’s air space and re-establishing its armed forces. As soon as Soviet military contingent was deployed in Egypt and several Israeli aircraft were destroyed, the situation was changed. But one should agree that that interference on the part of the Soviet Union stopped the hostilities rather than inspiring aggression. It is also common knowledge that no matter how insistent Arabs were in their requests for our giving them offensive weapons, we never supplied them to that region. We always provided only weapons and equipment they really needed for defending. Because speaking for the liberation of occupied Arab lands we were always adamant about finding a peaceful solution to the problem. As Andrei Gromyko used to say: «Ten years of negotiations are better than a single day of warfare.» |
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