The Soviet ambassador to Britain, Ivan Maisky, wrote in his diary about an unexpected meeting in 1941 that led to Soviet recognition of the state of Israel. The Russians had envisioned a binational state but at the last moment opted for Zionism.

The UN General Assembly vote on 29 November 1947 in favour of the partition of Palestine, which led to the creation of the state of Israel, would have never happened without strong Soviet advocacy. Moscow’s shift from blatant antagonism to Zionism as a national liberation movement to effusive support has puzzled historians for decades. The initial, significant encounter of the Zionist leadership with the Russians, which drew Soviet attention to the potential asset of the Zionist movement, took place before Germany’s invasion of Russia — paradoxically at the height of Soviet Russia’s collaboration with Nazi Germany under the aegis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Joseph Stalin, wrongly assuming the end of the war was imminent following the fall of France, was eager to improve his political standing in a peace conference — which he expected to be convened in 1942 — to readdress the European balance of power. The future of the British Empire, which had been entrusted with the mandate over Palestine, assumed a special significance.

Chaim Weizmann, an astute observer of international politics and president of the World Zionist Organisation, seems to have perceived Stalin’s objectives. His immediate concern was the fate of the Jews from Poland, the Baltic states and Bessarabia, which had just been absorbed by the Soviet Union. In February 1941 he opened up a channel of communication with Ivan Maisky, the influential Soviet ambassador in London (1), who recorded this meeting in his diary on 3 February 1941:

Weizmann came to discuss the following matter: at present Palestine has no market for her oranges — would the USSR take them in exchange for furs? It would be easy to sell the furs through Jewish firms in America.

I answered Weizmann by saying that offhand I could not say anything definite, but I promised to make enquiries. However, as a preliminary reply, I said that the Palestinian Jews should not place any great hopes on us: we do not, as a rule, import fruit from abroad. I was proved right. Moscow turned down Weizmann’s proposal, and I sent him a letter to that effect today.

In the course of the conversation about oranges, Weizmann talked about Palestinian affairs in general. Furthermore, he spoke about the present situation and the prospects for world Jewry. Weizmann takes a very pessimistic view. According to his calculations there are about 17 million Jews in the world today. Of these, 10-11 million live in comparatively tolerable conditions: at any rate, they are not threatened with physical extermination. These are the Jews who live in the US, the British Empire and the USSR. [...]

“Soviet Jews will gradually merge with the general current of Russian life, as an inalienable part of it. I may not like this, but I’m ready to accept it: at least Soviet Jews are on firm ground, and their fate does not make me shudder. But I cannot think without horror about the fate of the 6-7 million Jews who live in central or southeastern Europe — in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Balkans and especially Poland. What’s going to happen to them? Where will they go?”

Weizmann sighed deeply and continued: “If Germany wins the war they will all simply perish. However, I don’t believe that the Germans will win. But even if England wins the war, what will happen then?”

Here he began to set out his fears. The English — and especially their colonial administrators — don’t like Jews. This is particularly noticeable in Palestine, which is inhabited by both Jews and Arabs. Here the British “high commissioners” undoubtedly prefer the Arabs to the Jews. [...] These places have a well-defined pattern of rule: a few roads, some courts, a little missionary activity, a little medical care for the population. It’s all so simple, so straightforward, so calm. No serious problems, and no complaints on the part of the governed. The English administrator likes this, and gets used to it. But in Palestine?

Growing more animated, Weizmann continued: “You won’t get very far with a programme like that here. Here there are big and complex problems. It’s true that the Palestinian Arabs are the kind of guinea pigs the administrator is used to, but the Jews reduce him to despair. They are dissatisfied with everything, they ask questions, they demand answers — and sometimes these answers are not easily supplied. The administrator begins to get angry and to see the Jews as a nuisance. But the main thing is that the administrator constantly feels that the Jew is looking at him and thinking to himself: ‘Are you intelligent? But maybe I’m twice as intelligent as you.’ This turns the administrator against the Jews for good, and he begins to praise the Arabs. Things are quite different with them: they don’t want anything and don’t bother anyone.”

And then, taking all these circumstances into account, Weizmann anxiously asks himself: “What has a British victory to offer the Jews?” The question leads him to some uncomfortable conclusions. For the only “plan” which Weizmann can think of to save central European Jewry (and in the first place Polish Jewry) is this: to move a million Arabs now living in Palestine to Iraq, and to settle four or five million Jews from Poland and other countries on the land which the Arabs had been occupying. The British are hardly likely to agree to this. And if they don’t agree, what will happen?

I expressed some surprise about how Weizmann hoped to settle five million Jews on territory occupied by one million Arabs. “Oh, don’t worry,” Weizmann burst out laughing. “The Arab is often called the son of the desert. It would be truer to call him the father of the desert. His laziness and primitivism turn a flourishing garden into a desert. Give me the land occupied by a million Arabs, and I will easily settle five times that number of Jews on it.”

Weizmann shook his head sadly and concluded: “The only thing is, how do we obtain this land?”

There are no further entries in Maisky’s diary describing his flurry of activity to do with Palestine. But the Israeli archives reveal that both Weizmann and David Ben Gurion, the chairman of the Jewish Agency Organisation in Palestine, continued to pursue Maisky. They went out of their way to impress on him that although Zionism was “a matter of life and death” for the movement, they were also “most serious” about their socialist aims, and the proof was the successful construction in Palestine of a “nucleus of a socialist commonwealth”. But behind the ideological lip service, Ben Gurion tried to enlist Maisky’s support for Zionist political aspirations in Palestine, hailing the role of the Soviet Union as “at the least one of the three leading powers which would determine the fate of the new world.”

When he was recalled to Moscow in the summer of 1943, Maisky hoped to soften the blow by returning with tangible political achievements concerning post-war collaboration and the definition of European borders. To that end he conducted a series of lightning unauthorised negotiations with Churchill and Eden before leaving Britain. He intended to exploit his presence in the Middle East en route to Moscow to make a bold move aimed at drawing the Zionist yishuv into the Soviet orbit.

A first-hand impression

Maisky’s three days in Palestine in October 1943 gave him a unique opportunity to gain a first-hand impression of the viability of the Zionist movement in Palestine, and of the country’s ability to absorb considerable Jewish immigration. He conducted extensive negotiations with Ben Gurion, Golda Meirson (better known as Meir) and other leaders of the Jewish yishuv in the exemplary kibbutz of Ma’ale HaHamisha near Jerusalem. Despite his lifelong effort to distance himself from his Jewish origins, the visit appears to have “captivated him”. The affinity was enhanced by the sense of familiarity Maisky must have felt in Palestine. Most of his interlocutors spoke fluent Russian, displayed confidence in the efficacy of the Zionist movement as a political force once the British left Palestine, and embraced genuine socialist ideas.

Anxious to play up his own standing in Moscow, Maisky misled Ben Gurion (and subsequent historians) into believing that he was conveying his government’s views. He was now, so he boasted, “number three in foreign affairs” — after Stalin and Molotov — and as the expert on Europe, it was “up to him” to deal with the future of the region. Unknown to the Jewish leaders, Maisky prepared a glowing report for Stalin on the visit, but found the doors to the Kremlin bolted upon his return and was confined to the foreign ministry, his activities limited to research work on reparations and post-war plans.

Though the Palestine issue was not raised officially at Yalta, unofficial talks led to an understanding that the British evacuation of Palestine would be preceded by some sort of international trusteeship. The Soviet perception of international affairs following the Yalta Conference was that allied unity should be preserved after the war. They anticipated that the “Big Three” would be able to work harmoniously as a global police force, operating within the framework of a peacetime Grand Alliance, demarcating Soviet and western spheres of influence.

However, in comments to the New York Times on 17 August 1945, in the wake of the Potsdam summit meeting, Truman admitted that the future of Palestine had been the subject of conversations with Churchill: “There was nothing that the Generalissimo could do about it anyway.” When, in early 1946, the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry for Palestine was set up, the Russians were excluded.

‘A single, independent and democratic Palestine’

To combat the British plot, the Kremlin adopted a four-point plan. Its core was an unequivocal call for the termination of the British Mandate and withdrawal of British troops from Palestine. This part of the policy had been a consistent feature of Soviet policy since 1941. The next two points were a striking novelty. For the first time the Soviet Union made a clear stand on the political future of Palestine and the Jewish question, to which it hoped to harness the support of the United States and perhaps Britain. The initial guideline advocated the creation of “a single, independent and democratic Palestine” where the Jews, who would be a minority, would “enjoy equal national and democratic rights”. The memorandum was adopted verbatim as the Kremlin’s policy, but its days were numbered.

On 12 March 1947 Truman gave a speech in Congress to raise financial aid for the Greek and Turkish governments, ostensibly under Soviet threat. The idea of a global defence against Soviet expansionism was taking shape. “The language of power and force,” Truman argued, “was the only language the Soviet leaders understood and responded to.”

Andrei Gromyko, 35, entered the UN’s preliminary procedural meetings in April, still armed with the March guidelines, which were a deathblow to Jewish aspiration. He suspected (as cabled to Stalin) that the US and Britain were using delaying tactics in order to “reach an amicable agreement between themselves about the fate of Palestine.” Truman’s containment policy was now examined in Moscow against the background of developments in New York.

On 28 April 1947, when the special session of the General Assembly convened, Gromyko received a completely new directive out of the blue. He was suddenly asked to change the line, and emphasise the “unparalleled disaster and suffering” inflicted on the Jewish people during the war. While the urge to terminate the Mandate remained the axis on which Soviet policy rotated, Gromyko was now instructed to “consider various projects for meeting Jewish needs, bearing in mind two possible alternatives: the first was the creation of a dual Arab-Jewish state with equal rights for Jews and Arabs.” The other, questioning the viability of the first, suggested that if Jewish-Arab relations deteriorated, a proposal should be put forward in support of “the partition of Palestine into two independent states — Jewish and Arab.”

A telegram from Molotov explained that the first proposal (of a dual state) was merely motivated by “tactical considerations”. Molotov wished to avoid giving the impression that Russia was now taking the initiative in the creation of a Jewish state — though that option, he stressed, “better conveys our position”. The change of heart is astounding. The implementation of the original agenda would not only have dealt a death-blow to Jewish aspirations, but would have entirely changed the Middle East as we know it.

The crucial vote of 29 November might have taken a completely different turn had the Russians not made their dramatic volte-face in the spring. Moscow’s immediate, and prime, incentive was an immediate end to the Mandate and presence of British troops. Yet there are many signs that the switch was designed to herald a long-term association with the new Jewish state. “Jewish opinion must be consulted on all important questions concerning Palestine,” the Soviet delegation in New York were told. “In particular, this must be done on the matter of Jerusalem.”