This book, spanning the years 1954–1956, is the first in a four-part collection of documents from the archives of the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israel State Archives portraying relations between the Soviet Union and the State of Israel. Most of the documents are communications composed by successive Soviet ambassadors in Israel and Israeli ambassadors in Moscow and their respective staffs. They illustrate the way Soviet ideology placed Israel irreparably in the enemy, western camp in the Cold War. Moscow’s attempt to manipulate Israel into a seemingly neutral position in the international arena was therefore a ploy, the failure of which was a foregone conclusion. Israel’s efforts to normalise relations between the two states were by turns genuine and unserious and similarly doomed to fail, both because of ongoing Soviet arms supplies to Egypt and Syria – which Israel perceived as a major threat to its security – and because the Israeli government and public felt a commitment to the well-being of the Soviet Jewish minority that they saw as deprived of basic rights. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of Soviet foreign policy, Israel’s formative years, the Arab–Israeli conflict and Soviet Jewry, and it will be a must for university libraries.
