Amikam Nachmani Israel, Turkey and Greece Uneasy Relations in the East Mediterranean 1987

ISRAEL, TURKEY AND GREECE

ISRAEL, TURKEY AND GREECE

By the same author GREAT POWER DISCORD IN PALESTINE The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine 1945–1946 (1987) (1987)

ISRAEL, TURKEY AND GREECE Uneasy Relations in the East Mediterranean

AMIKAM NACHMANI The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

FRANK CASS

First published 1987 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS & CO. LTD. Gainsborough House, Gainsborough Road, London, E11 1RS, England

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS & CO. LTD. c/o Biblio Distribution Centre 81 Adams Drive, P.O. Box 327, Totowa, N.J. 07511

Copyright © 1987 Amikam Nachmani British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Nachmani, Amikam Israel, Turkey and Greece: uneasy relations in the East Mediterranean. 1. Mediterranean Region—Foreign relations I. Title 327’.09182’2 DE100 ISBN 0-203-98803-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-7146-3321-6 (Print Edition) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nachmani, Amikam. Israel, Turkey, and Greece. 1. Israel—Foreign relations—Turkey. 2. Turkey—Foreign relations—Israel. 3. Sasson, Eliahu, 1902—. 4. Israel— Foreign relations—Greece. 5. Greece— Foreign relations—Israel. I. Title. DS119.8.T9N33 1987 327.560495 87–5144 ISBN 0 7146 3321 6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Frank Cass and Company Limited.

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Contents

Introduction A Window on the Middle East: Eliyahu Sasson and the Israeli Legation in Turkey, 1949–1952

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Treading the Tightrope: Israeli-Turkish Relations, 1948– 1958

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So Near and Yet So Far: Greco-Israeli Relations

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Index

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Introduction

The triangle described in this book hardly exists in reality. Tripartite relations among Greece, Turkey and Israel, if discernible at all, revolve around the crises which constantly beset the Middle East and the East Mediterranean. Even then, it is not a triangle per se: the three states seldom pursue a common policy. What is perhaps the most usual feature of their interrelations is the “ganging-up” of two of the sides against the third. This has been known to happen, for example, when Greece and Turkey pursue an anti-Israeli policy in the Israeli-Arab conflict or when Jerusalem inclines towards a pro-Turkish line in the Greco-Turkish Cyprus conflict. One could say, in fact, that there are more bilateral relations among the three countries than there is a tripartite East Mediterranean sub-system. In theory, the three states have a lot in common in their pro-Western global and regional political orientations. They also provide the unique phenomenon of each being, either religiously and/or ethnically, a minority within the surrounding Arab world. Nonetheless, these elements have not been sufficient to join the three in any kind of cohesive programme of cooperation. Their differences remain uppermost. This book describes the various bones of contention among the three in all possible spheres—political, economic, religious, etc.—as well as the areas and periods of understanding among them. What emerges quite clearly is the fact that any show of unanimity among Ankara, Athens and Jerusalem was, in the past, likely to rest more on some temporary community of interest than on any inherent belief in the need for unanimity. The long-standing basic conflicts in the area—between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and the Aegean and between Israel and the Arab countries—had a much more pervasive influence. The Greek or Turkish search for support for their respective positions among the Arab countries produced an Arab demand for reciprocity, that is, a scaling

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down of Greco-Israeli or Turkish-Israeli relations. This alone proved sufficient reason for the impossibility of achieving any durable accords among the three countries. In other words, the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Cyprus problem will, unless resolved, prove a permanent impediment not only to tripartite relations but to normal bilateral relations as well. This is the most striking conclusion that one can draw from the material presented herein. No matter what small areas of cooperation developed, they were all ultimately dwarfed—if not entirely destroyed—by the larger issues. This, alas, is the face of reality and, I have been forced to conclude, nothing could be more detrimental to Jerusalem-Ankara-Athens accords than the continued failure to resolve these conflicts. While Greco-Turkish differences were a substantial element in their respective relations with Israel, the violence of the Israeli-Arab conflict was, in fact, the basic motivation of Israel’s search for understanding on the periphery of the Middle East rather than at its Arab core. Very early on, following the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the residual hostility between Israel and the Arab world, Jerusalem made approaches to Athens and Ankara. Yet Israel’s first minister to Ankara, Eliyahu Sasson, remained interested in the possibility of contact between Israel and the Arab countries and during his tenure in Ankara pursued possible openings in this direction. As a result, the Israeli Legation in Ankara became a treasure-trove of documentation on Israel’s early Middle East policies. Towards the end of his stay, however, Sasson became convinced that he was up against a blank wall and turned his major efforts to the periphery. Thus, the first chapter, “Window on the Middle East,” dealing with Israel’s early foreign policy in the area, serves as a good introduction to the two following chapters on Turkish-Israeli and Greco-Israeli relations.* Israel’s respective relations with Turkey and Greece, as described in these two chapters, are strikingly similar in that emotions, sensitivities and distorted perceptions have played a decisive role in the making of mutual policy in the three capitals. The Turks, for example, profoundly believed—and Israel was not particularly anxious to undermine that belief—that the Jewish lobby in the United States could help promote Turkish interests there. (This situation, which served as a meeting ground for Israel and Turkey in encouraging good relations between

* An abridged version of this chapter appeared in Studies in Zionism, vol. 6, no. 2, 1985, pp. 263–85.

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them was—to the detriment of Israeli-Greek relations—entirely absent in the case of the Greeks: they had their own active Greek lobby in Washington.) Similarly, insofar as its own image was concerned, Israel, itself, came to believe that it could offer its military services in supporting the pro-Western political and military alliances which Greece and Turkey joined. Both Ankara and Athens, on the other hand, were absolutely convinced that there was a serious danger of a Communist takeover in Israel! While there might have been some presumptuousness in Israel’s conception of its military might, its anxiety to win the sympathies of its peripheral neighbours and overcome their suspicions of a ‘red menace’ was rooted in its desperate efforts to break out of the regional isolation which manacled it during its first decade of life. Unfortunately, in the long run, the so-called periphery was not only shaken by reverberations of the Israeli-Arab conflict, but was riddled by serious and debilitating problems of its own. Israeli-Arab relations, difficult as they are, are at least unburdened by the Greco-Turkish dilemma. There are, unavoidably, a number of repetitions in the book. It was impossible to elaborate on Greco-Israeli relations without discussing the Cyprus problem, as it was impossible to discuss Turkish-Israeli relations without recourse to it. A similar difficulty arose with regard to Turkish-Israeli relations, since some of the material appears as background to the activity of the Israeli Legation in Ankara. It should be pointed out that the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem provides a wealth of extremely detailed primary sources vis-à-vis Israel’s foreign relations—a state of affairs of great assistance to the researcher. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the archival facilities in the other two countries. The absence of access to such primary documentation in Ankara and Athens on relations between them during the period under discussion helps explain the omission of a chapter dealing exclusively with Greco-Turkish relations, a subject which would have added a further dimension to the book. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and indebtedness to the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and to the Sally Berg Fellowship for the research grants which made this book possible. I am also grateful to my editor, Ms.Chaya Amir, my translator Peretz Kidron, and

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to the staff of the Israel State Archives, particularly Yehoshua Freundlich and Gilead Livneh for their assistance in assembling the material for the book. Amikam Nachmani St. Antony’s College, Oxford The Hebrew University of Jerusalem November 1986

A WINDOW ON THE MIDDLE EAST

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A Window on the Middle East: Eliyahu Sasson and the Israeli Legation in Turkey, 1949–1952

With regard to the security aspects of meetings with Arabs on Cyprus [on which account the meetings were transferred to Ankara]: Cyprus has earned the reputation of being a focus for espionage and for contacts between Jews and Arabs, and it is to be feared that a watch is kept over the movements of every Arab who reaches the island. 1 At 10.10 this morning I received my first dancing lesson. Just that: at the age of 48, 1 am undertaking instruction in dancing. I believed originally…that I could be a good diplomat without learning to dance. But… I understand that there is no other choice. If I do not wish to become a recluse [but instead] make my way into the company of ‘modern’ Turks, and of foreign diplomats… I must learn three things: how to (a) dance (b) play bridge (c) relate anecdotes. These three [attainments] will enable me to win the affections of the wives, and, through them, of the husbands…. Once again: what won’t a man do for the love of his country?2 The above quotations reflect the principal activities of the Israeli legation in Ankara, and of its minister, Eliyahu Sasson. The minister’s salon, renowned in Ankara’s diplomatic circles, served as a prime source of information, as well as promoting the work of the legation; it was conducted out of motives of pure, undiluted patriotism: “Mrs Sasson has no call for concern, [the women] are not young, they are 55– 60, stout, and their main conversation is, in a nutshell, gossip”. 3 Clandestine meetings with Arabs—messengers, collaborators and informants—caused the Turkish capital to replace Cyprus as a principal sphere of operations for Israel’s intelligence community. “Turkey is one of the best sources of information on developments in the Middle East,”

4 ISRAEL, TURKEY AND GREECE

pronounced the Foreign Ministry’s Director-General, Walter Eytan, and he issued instructions for Israel’s contacts and influence in Turkey to be expanded to the maximum.4 Turkey’s importance to Israel in these respects was a result not only of its geographical location and the associated strategic value placed on Turkey in the emerging East/West rivalry, but also of its proximity to the Arab world, which made it easier to develop undercover contacts at all levels. Reflecting Turkey’s importance to Israeli diplomatic and intelligence interests at this time, the Ankara legation archives, for the period from 1949 into the 1950s, offer unique opportunities for comprehending Israel’s Middle Eastern policies during the first years of statehood. This is largely due to the fact that Israel’s minister to Turkey was then Eliyahu Sasson, a colourful and articulate character who was a selfstyled expert on Middle Eastern affairs. His diplomatic style was but one aspect of his unconventional approach to foreign policy (by Israeli standards of the time). His outspoken opinions on a wide variety of subjects, reflecting a pragmatic approach and an understanding of the need frequently to review policy in the light of objectives and achievements, are preserved in great quantity in the records of the legation (for he was also an indefatigable correspondent), together with the letters of sympathizers and protagonists within the Foreign Ministry. Thus, just as Ankara provided Israel with a window on the Middle East in those early days, so today these archives offer historians an equally valuable insight into Israel’s attitudes to the Middle East at that time. Israeli-Turkish relations will not be discussed here. Sasson received unambiguous instructions that fostering bilateral relations was to receive first priority “and your expertise on Arab and Mideastern problems comes second”.5 However, this directive was not observed. Born in Damascus in 1902 and educated at Beirut’s St. Joseph’s College, in 1919 Sasson settled in Palestine, where he served in the Jewish Agency’s Political Department as head of the Arab Section. In May 1948, with the creation of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, he became head of its Middle East Department, thus gaining valuable experience and knowledge of that area. He soon made his mark in Ankara as an articulate expert on matters extending beyond Israeli-Turkish relations to embrace the entire Arab Middle East. For as Sasson not so modestly reflected on himself: “he has that kind of reputation with the Turkish government; Sasson has become a source [of information] for all the consulates and embassies, and he advises the Turks on Middle East affairs”.6 In addition to its cultivation of Israeli-Turkish relations, the

A WINDOW ON THE MIDDLE EAST 5

Ankara legation began to concern itself with Mideastern matters, gathering information about the country’s Arab neighbours. Thirty years later, the man who had been Israel’s military attaché in Turkey at that time affirmed that no place could have surpassed Ankara for the gathering of this vital information. 7 This hitherto unknown aspect may resolve the riddle surrounding the size of the legation’s staff: I met the Brazilian ambassador…he does not seem to have much to do. He was startled to hear [of the size of the legation staff] and asked me jocularly whether I planned to conquer Turkey? In spite of my explanations, he remained unconvinced, contending that his entire embassy has no more than a couple of hours’ work a day. The boredom is killing them.8 Mere concern for fostering Israeli-Turkish relations, however, could not offer a convincing explanation for the presence of four active Israelis in Ankara in view of the two “bored” Brazilians. A. ZEROING-IN ON TURKEY A number of factors appear to have heightened Turkey’s importance for Israel, generating intensive efforts to establish in Ankara an Israeli legation that included one of the four Israeli military attaches (the other three being accredited to London, Paris and Washington). Such was the urgency of establishing the legation that Eliyahu Sasson was removed from his post as chief negotiator with King Abdullah of Jordan to undertake the task. Talks with Abdullah would obviously suffer thereby, but an Israeli presence in Ankara was given priority. 9 Besides the advantages of ties with a non-Arab Moslem state, Turkey’s value to Israel was enhanced by its growing international importance and its key geographical position in the Middle East. During the latter part of 1949, Turkey launched a virtually simultaneous threepronged drive—to join NATO; to forge the Balkan alliance with Greece and Yugoslavia; and to conclude a defence pact with Pakistan. These efforts soon bore fruit; by 1954, Turkey, alone of all the countries of the world, could boast three international defence pacts. This unusual status made Ankara a prime political and military nerve-centre, of which fact Israeli policy-makers were not unaware. The absence of “information about the activities in the region of foreign elements, about military movements and deployment in the vicinity of Turkey, [and the fact that]


Turkey could offer broad scope for overt intelligence work…of which we presently take no advantage [with the result that] information of importance is lost”, induced Israel’s policy-makers to urge the posting of a military attaché to the Ankara legation, for the purpose of gathering information.10 That demand was soon vindicated: the United States’ enormous military investments in Turkey involved the most advanced technology, giving the Israelis a chance to acquire techniques previously unknown to them, such as the underground supply of fuel to military airfields; and within a short time, the technique was being used in Israel.11 Or, to give another example, it was in Ankara of all places that Israel learned the standard vehicle and manpower complement of an Egyptian motorised battalion, after all other sources had failed to come up with the information. Contacts established in Ankara enabled the Israeli army to cooperate with its Greek counterpart in the formation of supply units based upon mules, the latter being in extensive use by the Greeks.12 Reports of these contacts and activities made it imperative to improve communications between the Ankara legation and Tel Aviv. The usual procedure whereby cables were transmitted by way of London led to the loss of precious time, frequently rendering the information valueless. Similarly, information forwarded to the Ankara legation from Turkish border regions was often stale on arrival, due to distances and communication difficulties within the country. With the aim of overcoming these obstacles Israel planned to establish more efficient communication facilities in the Ankara legation (offering the same facilities to the Turks in Tel Aviv) and made efforts to establish consulates in provincial cities close to Turkey’s borders with Iraq and Syria. The Turkish authorities objected to these activities, considering them an infringement on their sovereignty. This drew angry comments in Jerusalem about the Turks “being highly sensitive on matters of national security…their national pride verges on obsession”. (See below for an account of Turkish misgivings about Israel’s informationgathering operations.) However, the stress placed on receipt of up-todate information highlights Ankara’s value to Israel.13 Another important reason for Israel’s activities in Turkey was the latter’s political position in the inter-bloc rivalries of the early 1950s. Turkey served as a linch pin of the pro-Western camp in the Middle East, in contrast with Israel’s official stance of non-alignment. Fostering links with Turkey allowed Israel to strengthen its ties with the West while not formally abandoning its non-alignment. However, at that time Ankara


was bitterly hostile to the Russians, and to anyone or anything not forthrightly anti-Soviet. In the Turkish view, Israel’s neutrality served as camouflage for a deep-rooted communism. The fact that Israel’s prisons housed no communists proved that Israel was inundated with communists whom the government was powerless to detain.14 Similarly, the Turks regarded the right-wing Herut Party’s demonstrations against Israel’s receipt of German reparations as Russian handiwork, since the destabilization of any regime was seen as a Soviet endeavour.15 This touched upon one of the basic dilemmas of Israel’s foreign policy. The West appeared to be the sole likely source of arms for Israel; hence “when we come to demand military aid we must stress our willingness to take part in defence [of the West]. Such a declaration of willingness is no mere ruse; rather, it reflects our true position”. 16 Conversely, Israel was unable to agree to the Turkish demand for a public stance of opposition to the Communist states, because of the existence in Eastern Europe of Jewish communities apparently held hostage by the Soviet bloc.17 Caught between the need for an understanding with the West, and anxiety over the fate of East European Jews, Israel sought a way out through expanding her involvement with Turkey. By stepping up activity in Turkey, Israel hoped to improve her ties with the principal Western nations operating in that country, without being required to adopt an outspoken pro-Western stance. But “to our regret, this assumption of ours was not borne out”, wrote Moshe Sharett, the Israeli Foreign Minister. Demanding that Israel declare its alignment with the West, Ankara also displayed marked displeasure over such unwholesome “Bolshevik” manifestations as the presence in the Knesset of the left-wing Mapam Party. 18 Israel’s activity in Turkey during this period displayed a characteristic duality: theoretical nonalignment as against pro-Western practice—reflecting the dilemma underlying Israeli foreign policy ever since the creation of the state. Before depicting the operations of the Ankara legation, it should be pointed out further that the atmosphere in Moslem Turkey was not initially hostile towards Israel. The Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian problem presented no obstacles to Israel’s activities, since Turkey paid only lip service to the requirements of Moslem solidarity. 19 Furthermore, there were manifestations of disdain for the Arabs and glee over their downfall in the war against Israel. The contrast between Arab weakness and the might of Israel evoked admiration for the latter, since “Above all, they [the Turks] respect force and the more brutally it is expressed, the better they like, appreciate and understand it”. 20


B. A MIDDLE EAST LISTENING POST The Israeli legation in Ankara, and minister Eliyahu Sasson in particular, attracted Arab informants and messengers, who had a variety of reasons for choosing Ankara as the first stage for their contacts with their Israeli counterparts. Trips to Turkey by Syrians, Iraqis, Lebanese and Palestinians aroused no suspicion, since they were ostensibly there to trade in grain and foodstuffs (Lebanese and Syrians) or on journalistic assignments (Iraqis, Palestinians and Syrians). Many of those who established links with the legation had, before the creation of Israel, been in contact with the Jewish Agency’s Arab department, or with SHAI, the Hagana’s intelligence service, and with Eliyahu Sasson personally. (The Hagana was the Jewish underground in British Mandated Palestine.) By renewing these ties, the Palestinians hoped to repossess their property in Israel in exchange for providing information. Syrians and Lebanese were willing to trade information on developments in their own countries for a share of the clandestine commerce still practised between Israel and its neighbours. One informant, on learning that Israel had found various ways of purchasing considerable amounts of Syrian merchandise, expressed a wish to act as one of Israel’s commercial agents in Syria, also offering to provide information. He concluded his message with the request “to assign the town and the hotel…where the meeting is to be held, as well as the day and the hour”. Likewise “[…] will await word from you regarding his next destination—Israel, Cyprus, Egypt or Paris. If you have no further need of his services, he requests to be permitted to return to Israel and occupy himself with his private affairs.” 21 Other contacts offered to provide information or services in return for payment, and Eliyahu Sasson kept money deposited in Switzerland to pay for his dealings with them.22 Sasson was instructed to initiate contact with all of these individuals, and to gauge their usefulness to Israel. He was required to report on the value of their information, their degree of reliability, their fitness to disseminate pro-Israel propaganda, and their fees. The information they supplied was motley, ranging from military, social or economic subjects to reports (in part imaginary) of dissident movements and popular fronts in the process of formation within the Arab states for the purpose of liberating their peoples from every conceivable element or establishment such as “the foreign yoke; democrats; Communists; feudalists; and


Islamic reaction”. In return for Israeli assistance with money and arms, the rebels would reach an understanding with Israel. 23 Being the first “filter” these individuals encountered, Sasson was responsible for assessing their usefulness and deciding whether to maintain contact with them even if they had no information of value. As a rule, he held that “no one is deserving of being neglected by us, even if he is at present unable to do anything to our advantage. We have yet to close our accounts with the Arab world and we do not know how or when we will settle them—whether peacefully or by war…it is desirable to keep him as a friend and save him for an hour of need”.24 On receiving authorisation to keep up contacts, and when finances had been arranged (each informant was expected to submit a receipt for monies paid over)25 Sasson would to arrange for him to meet his controller. On occasion, the informant was brought to Israel, usually by a clandestine crossing of the Israel-Lebanon border.26 However, the Israeli intelligence community was reluctant to meet Palestinian Arab informants in Israel so as not to risk arousing their emotions or, even, in some cases, avoiding demands for payment for previous services or rent for their property.27 The combination of prestige and self-interest involved in these covert operations emerges from the case of a highranking Egyptian who first made contact with Sasson, a subsequent meeting being arranged in Paris. It was decided that the Egyptian’s fare to that destination would not be paid by Israel as a matter of principle. It is precisely because we regard the matter with full earnestness that we insist on this condition…. If they consent to the conditions, success is more assured; if they do not consent to the conditions, the meeting was not worth holding. Were we to respond by holding the meeting unconditionally, it could be misinterpreted by the Egyptians, and that is unwholesome from many aspects.28 Other contacts conducted from Ankara focused on more specific matters, such as Israel’s links with the Lebanese Ketayeb Party and its Falangist militia; the rescue of Iraqi Jews; and recruitment for service to Israel of citizens of non-Arab countries, principally Americans and Britons. Links with Lebanese Maronite leaders and Pierre Jemayel’s Ketayeb Party had begun well before the establishment of the State of Israel. In the early 1950s, the Lebanese renewed contacts, primarily by way of Turkey, where the two men with whom they had formerly dealt now


served as Israel’s representatives: Eliyahu Sasson as minister to Ankara, and Tuvia Arazi as consul in Istanbul. Thirty-five years have elapsed in the meantime, but the following text retains a topical flavour: This evening […] returned overland to Beirut. Before his departure, he spoke of a group of Lebanese Christian leaders desirous of making peace with Israel, and of turning Lebanon into a purely Christian country. It was this group which commissioned him to journey to Arikara and discuss the matter with us. Their plan is to seize power forcibly. For this purpose, they have no need of any outside help, whether financial or military…. However, they do require military aid in the sole event of an invasion by Syria. The principal question he came to pose in Ankara is therefore: in case of need, would Israel be willing to conclude a collective security pact with the new Lebanese government which will arise after the coup?… In fact, the plan is attractive, especially since, for the time being, it binds us to nothing concrete. All that is required of us: to intervene and halt the Syrian invasion, should it materialise…. I am strenuously in favour of all links with the Ketayeb organisation…. But I have one request of you: in your talks with [the Ketayeb], appear not as men prepared to undertake the task, but rather, as men prepared to assist any genuine force within the Lebanese Christian community capable of undertaking the task.29 Turkey’s role as the focal point of American operations in the Middle East, and the consequent presence there of thousands of Americans whose activities extended to Arab countries throughout the region, resulted in a select body of men in whom Israel displayed a lively interest. These men included representatives of large commercial corporations, film companies, oil prospectors, etc.; they proved responsive to the blandishments and the money offered by Israeli representatives.30 Unlike their Palestinian counterparts, they were usually brought to Israel for their briefings. 31 However, the high point of the clandestine activities depicted here was contact with a group of Syrian plotters planning a coup in their country. They hoped for Israeli assistance, pinning high expectations upon the aid of the Damascus-born Sasson. For a variety of reasons, Israel opted to abort the attempted coup, transmitting prior information about it to the Syrian representative on the Israel-Syria mixed armistice commission.32


A further undertaking linked, though indirectly, with the Ankara legation, was the complicated operation to elicit Iranian recognition of Israel. The effort involved lengthy and unsavoury negotiations about the price in dollars of such recognition, and haggling over the size of the bribes demanded by Iran’s heads of state. Supervision of the efforts to achieve Iranian recognition was entrusted to the Mossad (Israeli overseas intelligence) in Iran, but Eliyahu Sasson was made prospective Israeli ambassador to Teheran, in addition to his accreditation in Ankara. To facilitate Sasson’s task, “we notified Meir [King Abdullah of Jordan. ‘Meir’ being an anagram of ‘Emir’, the King’s previous title] of this appointment, and requested him to advise his friend the Shah to approve the nomination. ‘Meir’ rejoiced at the appointment, conveyed his congratulations, and promised to do as requested”.33 How did the Ankara authorities view the activity of the Israeli legation? In contrast with the majority of foreign legations in Ankara, which virtually shut down from late April to late September, fleeing the intense heat of summer for the cooler climate of Istanbul, the Israeli legation continued to function normally, to the astonishment of the Turkish authorities. Ankara’s proximity to Turkey’s borders with Iraq and Syria, in which Israel displayed an intense interest, made it necessary to work throughout the summer months. Predictably, the Turkish authorities viewed this activity with mistrust and reservation. Their suspicions made information gathering more difficult, not an easy task in Turkey under any circumstances: [This is the] land of fear and of the secret police, where every man is considered a spy and everyone is considered an informer. Military zones to which access is forbidden spread far in all directions. All a man needs do is travel half an hour from Istanbul to blunder unwittingly into a military zone, and as he strolls in all innocence, he can be tried as a spy. The matter is doubly grave in inner Anatolia.34 The Turks, growing mistrustful of Israel’s purpose in despatching to Ankara persons with a wide-ranging grounding in Arab affairs, gained additional confirmation of their suspicions from the United States ambassador to Ankara, George Wadsworth. He warned them that, in nominating Eliyahu Sasson as its representative in Ankara, Israel proved that it had “certain pernicious intentions i.e. to intrigue against the Arabs and to trouble further the political atmosphere of the Middle East”. 35 The Turkish reaction, though belated, ultimately


descended upon Israel’s military attaché. As the legation suggested: “It would be preferable if our military attaché, who is rapidly putting on weight from involuntary idleness and suffering therefrom (for his dynamism is undiminished and he finds it difficult to accept the authorities’ reluctance to appreciate this) could serve as military attaché in Belgrade”.36 Sasson’s own prestige and social standing (see below) protected him from personal sanctions. The restrictions were imposed on other members of the legation, but were delayed until after Sasson had completed his term of duty in Ankara. C. FISTS OR DIPLOMACY: ISRAELI-ARAB RELATIONS As has been said above, the Ankara legation archives, together with Sasson’s correspondence with the Foreign Ministry, offer a unique vantage point for comprehending Israel’s Middle Eastern policies during the early 1950s. These policies hinged upon the character of Israel’s relations with the Arabs following the termination of hostilities by the Rhodes armistice agreements of 1949. In addition, these documents portray divergent Israeli positions on specific issues such as the Arab refugees, links with national minorities in the region, the treatment of Israel’s own Arab minority, Jewish communities in the Arab countries, etc. A question posed repeatedly after the end of hostilities related to the advantage of striving for peace with the Arab states, and the likelihood of its success. To those who thought peace could be achieved, the outcome of the 1948 war rendered clear proof of Israel’s ability to attain its regional goals, and buttress its existence, by force of arms. The more clearly the Arab states recognised Israel’s might, the less Israel would be required to undertake diplomatic initiatives entailing concessions. Striving for peace was consequently perceived as unrealistic and unwise, and depicted in perjorative terms such as “our excessive talk of peace” or “illusions” and so on. By contrast, plans of action unencumbered by illusions of a peace agreement were a mark of “maturity and perspicacity”, more likely to gain endorsement by government ministers.37 Efforts on the part of Israel to achieve peace with the Arabs were liable to interpretation as a sign of desperation —“The Arabs are convinced that we need peace as we need air to breathe”—testifying to the gravity of Israel’s predicament. 38 As Sasson wrote:


In truth, the situation is otherwise. If we could hold out three years without peace, simultaneously expanding and growing stronger, surely we have the endurance to persist in such a situation for years longer. That is something we should reiterate, to ourselves and to the Arabs, morning and night.39 Consequently, from Israel’s point of view, undertaking negotiations with the Arabs appeared worthless, if not outright perilous. The Arabs, having failed in their campaign against Israel, were now displaying a willingness to put out peace feelers with the aim of regaining what they had lost in battle. Such, for example, is the explanation given for the initiation of negotiations by King Abdullah of Jordan: directly due to the outcome of the fighting, and the setbacks of the Jordanian Arab army…and the desire of Jordan’s ruler to show the Arab kings, Egypt in particular, that he can extract more from the Jews by peaceful means than could be extracted from them forcibly.40 Accordingly, it seemed logical for Israel to abort diplomatic contacts directed towards an agreement with the Arabs. Indeed: “For the past two years, we have maintained no contacts with any Arab personalities who can be taken seriously…links with individuals and groups in the various Arab states have been neglected and severed, by us for the most part”41 At the same time, there was growing advocacy for the end of Israeli propaganda calling for peace negotiations with the Arab states. Israel would safeguard its borders, not by a peace agreement, but by the provision of arms and guarantees by the Western powers; more so since, as Sasson argued, “whenever we speak of the feasibility of an agreement with the Arabs, we give the West a pretext for rejecting our demand for guarantees”.42 The question of the need for peace led to the further question of what channels Israel should use in its relations with the Arab states. Should such relations be conducted through the army, or should they, however tenuous or sporadic they proved, be placed upon a diplomatic footing? Sasson formulated the problem aptly in a letter sent to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett in July 1951. While deploring the failure of the Foreign Ministry bureaucracy to insist on its (the Ministry’s) nomination to supervise contacts with the Arab states, Sasson laid great stress on the


question of whether Israel’s relations with its neighbours should rest upon a balance of force or on negotiation: One of the gravest errors…is subjecting the mixed armistice cornmissions to the control of the army. You will agree with me that the commissions are the principal channel for our contacts with the Arabs, a channel which is, in effect, diplomatic rather than military. During the three years of their existence, these commissions, by their approach to the issues and their mode of elucidating matters, have managed to convince the Arabs that Israel is extremist, wily and heavy-handed, as well as harbouring evil intentions and far-reaching objectives. Every Arab, however moderate and realistic, now regards us with mistrust, if not fear. None of us amongst Israel’s representatives in West or East, would undertake the post of staff officer for the mixed armistice commissions with the confidence he could feel in undertaking various responsible tasks in the country to which he is accredited. By contrast, the military men undertake the post willingly, without hesitation or second thoughts, relying exclusively upon their one and only tool: force. Had we entrusted the Rhodes talks entirely to military men, I am convinced that we would not, to this day, have achieved the signing of the armistice agreements. Is this the way to induce the Arabs ‘to bow their heads to the decree of destiny and come to terms with us?’ We are all of us sensible of the full extent of tension and hatred for Israel, and thirst for revenge, which permeate the Arab Middle East, but no proper attempt is made to consider whether our own behaviour does not on occasion pour oil on the flames. Without doubt, much can be done, in England, the United States and other countries, to buttress our position and thwart Arab plots, but there is also plenty to do at home…to blunt the Arabs’ ‘thirst for revenge’. [Action should be taken] to reorganise the mixed armistice commissions so as to place their principal sphere of operations within the province of the Foreign Ministry, and lay greater stress on the diplomatic aspect. 43 The mixed armistice commissions were not alone in serving as a debating ground about the refashioning of Arab-Israeli relations and converting them from their foundation on force and covert operations to a firm base of overt diplomatic negotiations. The issue became more urgent when an operative of the Mossad was nominated as Israel’s


representative in Teheran, in preference to a Foreign Ministry employee.44 It should be noted that this was not the first attempt to accomplish the switch from the “darkness” of clandestine work which had characterised the British Mandate period, to the “daylight” of a sovereign state, even with regard to prosaic internal matters like keeping records, as befits the Foreign Ministry of a recognised state. Hence, in a letter to Sasson from Yaakov Shimoni, of the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Department: I requested [that you keep] a diary for continuity of records and preservation of material for the future…. The contacts you maintained in the past with various Arab personalities in different countries…to this day, most of their substance, details and results are stored solely in the memory and heart [of someone or other]… We always understood that refraining from keeping written records was a necessity during the Mandate times, but, having become a state, we are entitled to keep precise records…of what we do.45 Similarly, when information reached Israel of a plot being hatched against the Lebanese government, it brought up the question of whether the armistice agreements marked the end of anti-Arab operations. Should Israel henceforth try to win the trust of Arab governments by warning them of plots, and by withholding aid from the separatists amongst their ethnic minorities? Or should the cloak-and-dagger operations continue, “driving a poisoned poniard into the back of Arab unity”, on the assumption that Israeli interests would benefit from instability in the Arab world? 46 (On the issue of support for the region’s ethnic minorities—in this case, the Kurds—in 1948, the Foreign Ministry had already formulated an interesting doctrine which, while shortlived, reflected ideas prevailing at the time: “In principle, we consider ourselves barred from disseminating propaganda, [inciting] revolt, or any other overly potent propaganda, because …we have not yet burned all our bridges with the Arab majority in the East”.)47 The question of whether Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbours should be founded upon force or diplomacy extended back to the battles of the war of 1948, when David Ben-Gurion had dismissed the feasibility of diplomatic initiatives directed towards various Arab entities. He had viewed such initiatives “with incisive scepticism verging on contempt…one gets the impression that he wishes to resolve a majority of the issues by military means, in a manner which will make


any diplomatic negotiations or diplomatic actions valueless”. 48 The triumphant conclusion of hostilities had convinced Israel of the efficacy of forcible means in relation to its neighbours. From then on, even the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Orientalists would dither about the usefulness of attempts towards cooperation with the Arab states. The latter would not be induced to come to terms with Israel’s existence by means of dialogue, certainly not more than by the pursuit of a hardline policy. Even in the economic sphere, for example, the same view was held regarding trade with the Arabs, which would merely alleviate the economic crisis in the Arab states, channelling our money to the Arab states, while simultaneously delaying peace…. In my view, we must not allow the merchant—whether Syrian, Lebanese or Jordanian—to breathe easily. Insofar as we can cause him distress, we are duty-bound to do so, thus inducing him to exert pressure upon his government to conclude peace with us. And insofar as we are capable, by disruptions in international trade and financial markets, of inflicting distress on his government, we are duty-bound to do so, with the aim of convincing it that it cannot ignore us, and that it would profit by making peace with us at the earliest. 49 However, inherent in a policy of force is the short-lived nature of its successes, and Sasson soon queried its benefits: The Prime Minister was of the opinion that, if we overcame our enemies in battle, we would be able to dictate peace terms in Damascus…. From my comprehension of the Arab mentality, even if we occupied Damascus we would not quickly achieve peace with the Arabs; the reason being that the Arab people generally attach great importance to their prestige.50 Misgivings as to the effectiveness of employing force led to the revival of various diplomatic plans, but Ben-Gurion held firm to the view that, in spite of its military setbacks, the Arab world had not changed sufficiently, nor become less of a menace to Israel. In his opinion, it was early days for Israel to abandon the instrument of force in favour of diplomatic initiatives. On the contrary: addressing the Foreign Ministry’s Research Department, Ben-Gurion criticised those who underestimated the threat posed by the military might of the Arab states, even as manifested during the 1948 war. (He even drew an


analogy between the Egyptian army’s resistance in the Faluja pocket and the Jewish heroes of Tel Hai. [Tel Hai’s story bore almost mythical features, centring around the resistance of a few Jewish settlers in the Galilee “panhandle” to the raids of Arab villagers in the early 1920s.] As for the Arabs’ technological prowess and their ability to master modern weaponry, Ben-Gurion pointed to the proficiency of Arab drivers who, he claimed, were less accident-prone than their Jewish counterparts.51) The growing reliance upon force was amply reinforced by the Arab world’s hostility towards Israel. The common view was that “We’ll meet the Arabs only on the field of battle”; accordingly, Israel placed little faith in active diplomatic intelligence designed to change the climate of opinion within the Arab states, in preparation for contacts with them. This attitude irritated an Arabist like Sasson: It is incredible that a country like ours, in a state of cease-fire with all its neighbours, and surrounded on all sides by hostile Arabs awaiting their first opportunity to attack and annihilate it…has no well-thought out plan of action vis-à-vis the Arabs; has no contacts with Arab journalists; has neither the means nor the resources required for propaganda among the Arabs; has no special agency in the country, with operational branches abroad; has no more than one or two tenuous links with Arab leaders! Indeed, it is incredible that a state like ours has none of these things, which are indispensable and elementary, and that, four years after its establishment, it persists in determining its stance towards the Arab world on the basis of what is published in the Arab press, or broadcast by Arab radio stations, or what it learns from the “gentiles”. In such a deplorable situation, little wonder that we fall into errors in comprehending and assessing the situation in the Arab world.52 The desirability of peace, and the question of employing force in promoting Israeli interests, were interrelated issues, linked in their turn to a further, more theoretical dimension: the question as to the kind of Arab world Israel wished to see in its vicinity. Which held out the better prospect: an Arab world which was advanced, prosperous, free and united, or one underdeveloped and afflicted by division? 53 The choice, particularly with regard to the exercise of Israel’s influence towards unity or division, was not unambiguous. A strong Arab world, in which Israel played an integral part and in whose prosperity Israel shared, was


a precondition for Israel’s own welfare.54 Furthermore, the profound divisions within the Arab world, particularly the rift between the Hashemite bloc (Jordan and Iraq) and the Egyptian-Saudi bloc, did not augur well: This division provides a ‘livelihood’ for the Mufti and his men, settling them back on their feet and elevating them into a factor [to be considered] in any discussion on terminating the Arab-Israeli conflict. This division overawes every Arab state wishing…to come to some understanding with us. That, in my view, is the source of the strength of the Arab League. Were relations among the Arab states normal, opposition to a settlement with us would not be so powerful.55 On the other hand, a united and developed Arab world would command greater strength which could be directed against Israel. It was therefore preferable to see the Arabs divided and backward, since in such a situation, we could possibly conduct our affairs with greater ease, we would continue to stand out in the region as the state most worthy of serious consideration, we might also retain the upper hand in any eventual military conflict with these states.56 It was thus far from easy to reach a decision. Moreover, it was not really possible for Israel to encourage cohesiveness in the Arab world, whereas there were many ways of encouraging divisiveness or of hampering development. For example, as Sasson pointed out, the Arab world could be divided if Israel were to make “far-reaching concessions [planned] to achieve, at the earliest date possible, an agreement with one or more Arab states” (Sasson appears to have been referring here to the Syrian proposal for a peace agreement, including the resettlement on its territory of 350,000 Palestinian refugees, in exchange for the ceding by Israel of half of the Sea of Galilee). Another option open to Israel was to cast its vote in international organisations against Arab requests for development loans.57 The problem of where Israel’s best interests lay was finally resolved when a policy directive clearly placed security considerations (and fears of enhancing the armed potential of the Arab states) as a top priority.58 It was not a dramatic development, but the adoption of a policy which meant that military considerations prevailed in any discussion of Foreign Ministry ideas to foster progress and


development in the Arab world, was bound to weaken further the Ministry’s influence within the government (see below). These theoretical discussions led to a more philosophical debate about the time factor and its influence on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The question as to whether time was on the side of Israel or of the Arabs was argued over by the Foreign Ministry staff during the winter and summer of 1951. Opinions were divided. From Ankara, Sasson maintained that the passage of time diminished Israel’s options for flexibility in its dealings with the Arabs: the Arabs were re-arming, which made it less likely that they would be willing to resolve their conflict with Israel by diplomatic means. In contrast to Sasson’s opinion, a Foreign Ministry research paper found that the passage of time was making Israel stronger and enhancing its diplomatic bargaining power.59 If time was indeed on Israel’s side, there could be no point in over-energetic attempts to reach an understanding with the Arab states, since such an understanding called for concessions which might perhaps be avoided in the future. In a more specific context—contacts with King Abdullah and the conclusions to be drawn from them—it was argued vigorously that time was on Israel’s side. A memorandum entitled “The Time Factor in Israel-Jordan Relations” depicted the progressively more flexible positions Jordan adopted in the course of its dealings with Israel. The writer concluded that Israel must not expedite these contacts nor enter into negotiations with any other Arab state. Israel should bide its time; the longer it waited, the more flexible Arab demands would become.60 D. THE FOREIGN MINISTRY AND THE MIDDLE EAST: “BEHOLD HOW WE STAND, MEAGRE AND HOLLOW BEFORE THEE”. A further dimension, likewise featuring both theoretical and practical aspects, concerned Israel’s perceptions of the Arab world, and the Foreign Ministry’s accommodation with those perceptions. Who represented the Arab world? Where were its principal nerve centres? In attempting to comprehend Arab behaviour patterns, should Israel focus on the present rulers? Could one generalize about Arabs, or was it more important to focus on detail and avoid the pitfalls of generalisation? Were Israeli Arabs a faithful reflection of the Arab world at large, or was it erroneous to draw analogies from them to their Arab brethren? These questions and their ilk had been disturbing the Foreign Ministry


ever since its inception. The Ministry had to defend itself against charges that it considers the Arab issue from observing matters in Jaffa, Nazareth and Shaffer Amer…. We do not visit these places and we have almost no contact [with them]. To the best of our ability, we endeavour to transcend the narrow viewpoint and to avoid becoming provincial [in our outlook]. We do so by listening to the radio, reading newspapers, meeting arrivals from outside and principally [by studying material] sent to us from outside. 61 This denial was followed by allegations that the Ministry’s Mid- eastern intelligence analyses tended to be too academic and theoretical. Instead, it should focus on detail: “It is vital to aspire to an examination of matters, neither from a ‘Western’ perspective nor from an ‘Eastern’ perspective; instead, matters must be examined from the perspective of this Eastern world”.62 Likewise the Arabists on its staff wanted the Ministry to entrust Arab affairs to a separate geographical department for the Middle East, similar to its other regional departments. Even though approved in principle, it was an uphill struggle, since a department’s manpower allotment was proportionate to the number of countries it dealt with, and the only country the Middle East Department handled was Turkey. When Israel ultimately capitulated to Ankara’s pressure for the transfer of the Turkish desk from the Middle East Department to its Western European counterpart, it made matters all the worse for the conduct of regional Mideastern policy, and for the Ministry’s Arabists. As Sasson argued from Ankara, as long as our Foreign Ministry has no special department, duly authorised and possessing a clear programme for dealing with Arab affairs; as long as everyone—the army, police, the Political Department and others—has a finger in Arab affairs, and dozens of hands deal therein, without coordination or cooperation; as long as we confine our work exclusively to King Abdullah; as long as we are not thoroughly versed in the lights and shades of the Arab world—any course of action, however earnestly undertaken, and any effort, however great, are doomed to failure, and that is enough to make one lose heart.63 With Arab affairs impinging upon every aspect of Israel’s existence, particularly in the sphere of national security, it was apparently out of

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the question to grant the Foreign Ministry and its diplomatic viewpoint preference over other aspects. Another issue affecting the Ministry’s work in the Arab world also possessed its wider aspects. The Ministry’s propaganda directed at the neighbouring countries reiterated the theme that Israel was not interested in territorial expansion and that the armistice demarcation lines were final. However, articles by the hundred are powerless to rid the minds of the Egyptians or other Arabs of this view [concerning territorial expansion] as long as Knesset member Mr Menahem Begin continues to expound it unreservedly.64 There were similar complaints from Foreign Ministry officials about the freedom with which the left-wing Mapam’s Knesset members publicly criticised the plight of Israel’s Arab minority, as the existence in the Arab countries of Jewish minorities made the latter a possible target for Arab reprisals.65 Similarly, despite the Ministry’s efforts to encourage papers like The Times of London or the New York Times to publish reports on Israel’s economic progress, Arab faith in the economic boycott of Israel could not be shaken as long as Israel’s opposition press persisted in reporting on economic difficulties. 66 However, calls for curbs on freedom of expression and appeals to the press to consent to such restrictions were considered in a wider context: could a relatively open society such as Israel hope to prevail in the confrontation with its Arab neighbours, when the means it employed were apparently undermined by its own democratic institutions “while the adversary [does not] advocate similarly lofty and noble principles” 67 Consideration of this issue never transcended its theoretical aspects, yet it does indicate the sometimes complex nature of Israeli policy-making processes. A central issue which also influenced the status of the Foreign Ministry and its mode of operations was the Palestinian question. There can have been no other sphere where the Foreign Ministry’s bureaucratic ineptitude was shown up so glaringly as in its treatment of the various aspects of this issue, including the refugee problem, and the question of contacts with Palestinian representatives. During the 1950s, Foreign Ministry officials deplored Israel’s faulty handling of the refugee problem, in view of its exploitation by the Arab world. They also complained that the Ministry was left to deal with marginal, abstract aspects of the problem, rather than its roots. On occasion, the Foreign Ministry was called upon to respond to various impractical

22 ISRA ISRAEL EL,, TURK TURKEY EY AND AND GREE GREECE CE

programmes with regard to the refugees—whether the proposal for their resettlement in Sinai or Libya, 68 or the bizarre notion of despatching a delegation of prominent Israelis to the refugee camps, with a parallel visit to Israel by representatives of the refugees. (“What good will it do for us?”, asked Sasson. “Is it that we will realise the refugees’ plight? We know it very well. Is it to cheer them up and to promise their repatriation? It’s obvious that none of us thinks of it. Is it to advise them that they should find permanent refuge in Arab countries? They don’t need such advice from us.”69) As it became progressively more obvious that the refugee problem constituted the principal issue in the Arab-Israeli con flict, Sasson found no difficulty, as early as 1951, in pointing out one of Israel’s gravest omissions: It was not Egypt which discovered the ‘refugee problem’ and converted it into a bargaining counter; rather, we provided her with the problem, allowing her to make free use of it…. We consented to regard the Arab states as representatives of the refugees, but refused—and continue to do so—to discuss a solution of the problem with the refugees themselves. Just as we insisted that ‘we shall not talk about the refugee problem outside the framework of an overall peace settlement’, the Egyptians now insist likewise that ‘the refugee problem is inseparable from any negotiations’.70 In his earliest days in office, Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and his Middle East Department kept an open mind on forging contacts with “Arabs from the Arab portion of the Land of Israel (henceforth in brief ‘Palestine’)” for the formation of an independent government of their own, which would resist the occupation of the Arab portions of the country by the forces of the Arab states. It was foreseen that an independent Palestinian state would rely upon Israeli help for this purpose, making it dependent upon Israel.71 However, Foreign Ministry officials’ proposals for contacts with the Palestinians evoked only negative responses, ranging from terms such as “dissidents from whom a thousand and one matters have to be concealed” (which provoked furious counter-charges of deliberate obstructiveness by “Elders of Zion”),72 to an outright reluctance to hold any meeting with these officials, culminating in the definitive comment by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion:

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I met with DBG [David Ben-Gurion], again telling him of our thinking about attempts to put out feelers, about the advisability or not of establishing a Palestinian government dependent upon Abdullah or completely independent. I also told him of our thinking about Syria and about the fact that most of its army, and a sizeable proportion of the heads of its administration are from the country’s ethnic minorities. To this, he replied tersely: ‘We Land of will not embark on any new adventures. The Arabs of the Land of Israel are left with just one role: flight .’ .’ With that, he rose and terminated the conversation. I merely wished to share with you my gratification over the encouragement we get here. 73 In this matter, the Ministry’s Middle East Department slid into a decline which made it hesitant about recommending any peace initiatives, whether Palestinian, Syrian or otherwise. The Department’s head began “to grow sick of the technique of gatecrashing into places where I am not invited”; he submitted reports solely “to discharge my duty to my conscience, to caution and sound the alarm as long as there is still time”. The outcome: You may take clear note that we exert absolutely no influence… not because of an absence of will or understanding on our part but because of the absence of an attentive ear…our status and our countenance recall what is said in the Yom Kippur prayer: ‘Behold how we stand, meagre and hollow ho llow before Thee’.74 In 1948 this situation led to a series of faits accomplis swiftly created by an Israeli army indifferent to the diplomatic directives of the Foreign Ministry “which are becoming more anachronistic by the day”.75 By the 1950s this attitude had flowered into outright contempt for the Foreign Ministry, with supervision of the mixed armistice commissions being entrusted to the army. This marked official preference for the exercise of force rather than for negotiations. The restriction to merely marginal matters of the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East operations was coupled with a misconceived view which the Ministry expressed with regard to Israel’s Arab minority. At first glance it would appear that the Foreign Ministry was not required to involve itself in questions concerning Israeli inhabitants—even if they were Arabs. Moreover, the Ministry actively avoided any involvement in issues concerning Israeli Arabs so as to avoid accusations that their view of the Middle East was based on too narrow a perspective. From


the outset, the Ministry therefore deliberately restricted itself to attendance at a lone weekly meeting devoted to the problems of the Arab minority—and even this only because, as a senior official in the Ministry said, “I do not believe that the Ministry can do less”. Furthermore, it was decreed that the Foreign Ministry’s representatives would attend these sessions in the status of observers, and there were even demands from the Ministry to make the meetings shorter. 76 Displaying a blend of glee and neardisgust, Foreign Ministry officials rejoiced at not being required to deal with Israel’s Arabs since “the Ministry of Minorities does not require our assistance…it is full to overflowing with intimates and suchlike, and Minister Shitrit appears content with the Levantine atmosphere prevailing in his Ministry”. 77 The Foreign Ministry thus progressively distanced itself from involvement in issues concerning Israel’s Arab population, and thereby missed opportunities to induce them to forge links with their brethren in neighbouring countries, or to recruit them as “our Fifth Column beyond the border, instead of vice versa”. 78 The naive and unwise practice which drew a distinction between the Ministry’s concern with affairs outside Israel’s borders and its absence from domestic problems led to the vacuum being filled by persons lacking any diplomatic grounding (“some local commander”). Sadly, rather late in the day the Ministry realised “that there can be no separation between our domestic policies towards the Arab minority within the country, and our diplomatic policy towards the Arab states in our proximity”.79 That being the case, the hapless role of the Foreign Ministry in dealing with Arab problems in their entirety was probably best highlighted in the following words: On my return from Galilee, my impressions were painful Elias [Eliahu] Sasson [also] demands to know who is it that dictates such a policy…. Do we indeed have to keep control of the Arab population in the manner we [do]?… Obviously, there exists a longstanding hatred and there is incitement from beyond the border but the problem has never been thoroughly analysed nor have plans been made as they are for even the least significant of economic or military projects.80 The debates and arguments within the Foreign Ministry hinged on the question of whether the establishment of the State of Israel would reshape the pattern of its relations with the Arab states, from confrontation to diplomatic dealings. The former seems to have prevailed. In their attitude towards Israel, the Arabs appeared unready


for any dialogue other than an exchange of fire. As had been demonstrated by the recent war, Israel gained more by employing force than by negotiations which would require a withdrawal to the 1947 partition boundaries, forfeiting the Negev and allowing the refugees to return. Israel’s Foreign Ministry was staffed by men unwilling to fight for their ideas, and when their views were rejected they consciously abandoned the field of decision-making. It would be no exaggeration to hold these factors responsible for making a tangible contribution to more than thirty years of Arab-Israeli enmity. E. SASSON’S SALON: “WHAT MORE CAN ONE DO FOR ONE’S COUNTRY?” The Israeli legation in Ankara participated in the debate over the fundamental issues of Arab policy with which the Foreign Ministry wrestled during the early years of its existence. While Eliyahu Sasson was entrusted with the handling of Israeli-Turkish relations, he remained (certainly in his own estimation, but also in that of many of his colleagues) the supreme authority on Arab affairs, even when not directly charged with their supervision. Much of the Ankara legation’s correspondence dealt with matters having little bearing on IsraeliTurkish relations. It is accordingly important to consider the character of Sasson, opinions expressed about him and the nature of the salon over which he presided in Ankara. We will start with the praise, which was not plentiful. True, Sasson’s successor in Ankara was to note regretfully that, unlike in Sasson’s time, the legation was now virtually isolated from contact with Turkey’s public figures and media personalities. 81 A year after that observation, Israel’s Foreign Minister despatched Sasson to iron out differences with Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes (at the request of the latter) even though three years had elapsed since Sasson had left Ankara, and even though “Maurice [Maurice Fisher, Israel’s minister in Turkey] is flawless and upright, but Menderes has no common language with him. He can speak with Elias as though he were his own brother.”82 The passage of time had only enhanced Sasson’s reputation, and during the 1956 Sinai War, Moshe Sharett, now no longer Foreign Minister, noted in his diary: I am eager to fly to Rome. I sense a need to talk now with Elias Sasson—I am convinced that no other source in Israel can provide


me with such a vivid picture of developments in the Arab states after Sinai…as would Sasson, who scrutinises the Arab press and listens day and night to the radio stations of Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad… Elias Sasson’s mind is unequalled in its fine tuning and its capacity for penetrating the innermost political soul of this [Arab] world.83 However, these words of praise came belatedly, trailing far behind the harsh and brutal criticism which belittled his views on Arab issues— sometimes on account of his Levantine origins—and eventually led to his being thrust to the very edge of Ministry circles. For example, when Sasson pointed out the futility of Israel’s Arab policies, criticising the refusal to meet with Arab representatives, the London embassy, having received a copy of the letter, commented: Nastiness, plain nastiness; was anything ever achieved by [Sasson’s] frenetic activity spanning an entire generation?; what is the purpose of all this rumbustiousness?; none of his past activity changed anything; ethereal and plain vindictive, as usual; from a collegial viewpoint, to disseminate such a vilifying document among our entire staff! In brief, characteristic. 84 Earlier still, there was criticism of Sasson’s inconsistency, as expressed in a remark pencilled beside his observations: “Who is worthy of a seat in the Sanhedrin? He who can defend both a point and its opposite in 150 ways”.85 Sasson’s transfer early in 1953, from Ankara to Rome, effectively cut his ties with the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Department. His subsequent attempts to query Arab policies pursued by the Ministry evoked unconcealed hostility, until the Foreign Minister finally directed him to stop meddling in Arab matters. 86 “Strangling in this imbroglio, I pondered for the umpteenth time on the character of this man who is apparently incapable of existing outside of a quarrelsome atmosphere,” Sharett recorded in his diary. 87 Sasson’s progressive dislodgement from control of Middle Eastern policy appears to have begun five years before when, while chief negotiator with Abdullah, he was withdrawn from contacts with the Jordanian King and posted to Ankara. Officially, this move was presented as a token of the importance attached by Israel to its relations with Ankara, but a more accurate explanation appears to have been a desire to remove Sasson from the arena of action because he, more than Israel’s policy-makers, attached such great importance to contacts with


Arab leaders. (Ben Gurion felt disdain for Abdullah and for contacts with him; when referring to Abdullah he was in the habit of writing “King” in inverted commas.)88 Sasson’s oriental origins were detrimental to his career in the Foreign Ministry. They were also, paradoxically, the subject of a complaint from an Arab statesman: in December 1949, when Hamid Franjiyeh was candidate for President of Lebanon, he complained bitterly that “he had hoped to conduct dealings with Western Jews [who are gifted] with a broad vision, [but instead Israel] sent an Oriental element in the form of Sasson, and [Franjiyeh] was not particularly pleased thereby…he was even disappointed”.89 In a similar context, Sasson’s application to exchange his Ankara assignment for a posting to one of Israel’s delegations in Western Europe was rejected. The furthermost limit of the westward advance then granted him was Rome; his request to serve in Berne was dismissed outright, the Foreign Minister writing on a note of near-disgust: “I rid [Sasson] of the naive notion that he, a Damascan, could hope to succeed in Berne. Just the capital for him! I enlightened him on the significance of not knowing German… I added a hint about his culture not attaining the required standard.”90 Previously, Sharett had adopted a similar tone in referring to Sasson’s ingratiating manner, “like a servant fawning on his master”, as expressed in his relations with the Turkish heads of state; in the same context, Sharett added: “I was depressed all evening. There are times when I enthuse over the high quality of our people; but there are other times when I realise that they are flawed from head to toe, and I see nothing but their handicaps and imperfections.”91 Sasson’s communications with the Foreign Ministry were treated in the same supercilious manner. Most of them remained unanswered, and his consequent indignation was brushed off by the Director-General, Walter Eytan: “Were I to answer all your letters, I would have to give up my present post and dedicate myself completely to conducting a correspondence with you.”92 The Ministry was inundated with a flood of letters from Ankara,93 and, aside from expressions of amazement and complaints about the burden he imposed (“Would that you had sufficient patience to continue thus…and that we had the patience and time to take advantage of it”94), Sasson failed to elicit pertinent replies. Every few months he would receive a polite request to cut down on his outpourings.95 A classical observation, revealing much about the Foreign Minister and about Sasson himself, was made on an occasion when former British Defence Minister, Leslie Hore-Belisha, came to lunch with Sasson. Sasson wrote that Hore-Belisha had “gracefully


deigned” to dine with him, going on to report in detail on the conversation during the meal. Without referring to the substance of the report, Sharett commented only on its preface: “Why, if Hore-Belisha had the good fortune to lunch at the table of Israel’s minister to Ankara, does the report say that he ‘deigned’ to accept the invitation”? 96 Sharett dealt in a similar way with the 60 or more pages of the Ankara legation’s journal. Amongst eight brief comments, three touched upon the technicalities of a tour made by the legation’s secretary and driver, and a fourth was a request to subtitle sections alphabetically rather than numerically.97 It was not long before the Foreign Ministry began to bypass Sasson and to make direct contact with the Turkish authorities. A great deal of information was transmitted directly to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry and various other services, without Sasson’s knowledge. Visits to Turkey by Israeli statesmen and military officers were kept from him; he learned about them either from the Turkish authorities, or, worse, from reports in the local press. When he complained, the Israeli Foreign Ministry dismissed his resentment as unfounded and designed solely “to cast aspersions on the work of the section”; or, alternatively, “the blame should …be placed principally upon unavoidable delays in dispatch of mail to Turkey”.98 Having established the initial links with the Turkish authorities and made Ankara into Israel’s lookout post on the Middle East, Sasson’s services were no longer required. Furthermore, much Israeli activity in Turkey hinged on covert and military matters having nothing to do with Israel’s diplomatic representative there. The gulf between Sasson and the Foreign Ministry was widened further by criticism in Israel over his lavish life style, including the cocktail parties and the diplomatic salon over which he presided. Israel regarded such extravagances as unnecessarily frivolous and the Foreign Ministry made disparaging remarks about them before finally forbidding them outright. For his part, however, Sasson regarded his conduct as dictated by diplomatic necessity and nothing less than patriotic self-sacrifice. It is accordingly useful, therefore, to examine this aspect of the activities of Israel’s legation in Ankara. Sasson’s arrival in Ankara was “to an empty railway station devoid of any friend and where everything was indifferent to the arrival of Israel’s first minister to Ankara…there was much snow, 26 degrees below zero”.99 This was followed by a round of cocktail parties and dinners (“an intensive campaign of invitations”) justified as being vitally necessary for extracting information from the diplomatic community and Turkey’s rulers. Such socialising became the main


focus of work at the legation, and new staff recruited for it were expected to be married “so they can set up home and invite people over for tea, drinks or a meal. Most of our work is done while eating or drinking.”100 These meals, in formal dress and generally held in Ankara’s most expensive hotels and restaurants, were followed by dancing and longdrawn-out card games, usually “the very fashionable card game, canasta”. Sasson and the legation staff would entertain their guests with card tricks and amusing anecdotes; and liqueurs, whisky and other drinks were served in their conventional order. Sasson’s descriptions were lengthy and detailed, and were thus very self-revealing. His concern was to keep the Foreign Ministry up to date with even the smallest details: [The guests] did not wait to be urged, showing no reserve. Everything was in abundance, and it whetted the appetite… The Israeli wine attracted particular attention. Many chose it in preference to whisky and other drinks. Similarly, the guests found Israeli cigarettes—Dubek’s Strand Special—more palatable than Turkish or American cigarettes… The plates were crammed with the finest delicacies: fish, poultry, meat, sardines, salads, etc. Ten varieties of each dish. All masterpieces. Numerous persons told me…that Ankara had never seen such a party… and with my colleagues, I circulated among the guests, taking care of those who could not reach the table. There were three things for which everyone was grateful: the fine hospitality, the pleasant atmosphere, and the good, tasty food. 101 This unstinting hospitality, generally including expensive Havana cigars, film shows and piano recitals, was improved upon by Sasson with events such as the visit to Turkey of Tel Aviv’s Hapoel football team, which gave him an excuse for absenting himself from Ankara to escort the team, performing the ceremonial kick-off at its games and holding receptions for the heads of Turkish sports associations.102 In addition to his diplomatic salon, there appears to have been no social or diplomatic event in which Sasson did not play an active role, later despatching a detailed account to the Foreign Ministry in Israel. The dinners and cocktail parties were described in full, specifying the list of participants, their dress (top hats, formal suits, evening gowns), the shape of the tables (square, round or horseshoe), their number and the seating order; there were details about the wine and whether it was


drunk standing or seated, about the ornamentation of the cutlery, and of course, about the food served, whether fat or lean, the sequence of the courses and whether they included soup, fish, meat or poultry, not to mention the number of last courses and whether they comprised icecream, strawberries or seasonal fruits.103 In similar fashion, Sasson did not omit to attend other events to which diplomats were invited, such as horse races, high-society weddings (about which Sasson proffered details of the price of the bride’s wedding gown), receptions and so on. It certainly did not escape the attention of Foreign Ministry officials that, in addition to the Israeli representative, the guests at these functions invariably included diplomats from such lands as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Iran, India, Syria and Lebanon. For some reason, representatives from Britain, Europe and the United States refrained from attending.104 Similarly, detailed descriptions were provided of the legation’s contacts with other diplomats accredited in Ankara. The remark about the Norwegian minister was: “He is attracted to his own sex (and probably attracts it to himself). Be that as it may, the men of the Israeli legation were not put to the test either way.” The Italian first secretary was depicted thus: “An emptyheaded swashbuckler, a kind of blend of movie star and professional pugilist. I expected him at any moment to strip off his shirt and show me the tattoo marks on his chest. His topics of conversation: women, cars, drink.” By contrast, the Chilean minister embarrassed the entire diplomatic corps of Ankara—including Sasson, of course, who took it as a shocking personal snub—when he was caught smuggling gold.105 There was a veritable vendetta—personal and highly emotional— extending over two whole years, between Sasson and the United States Ambassador to Ankara, George Wadsworth. A trained Arabist who had been the U.S. consul in the British Mandated city of Jerusalem and, subsequently, in Beirut, Wadsworth soon emerged as Sasson’s rival in expertise about the Arab world and its interpretation to Ankara’s diplomatic community. Wadsworth despised Sasson, shunning his diplomatic salon (on one occasion, early on, he had protested vigorously about the absence of champagne and about the Israeli documentary films, which he pronounced idiotic). He refused to meet Sasson or to invite him to functions put on by his embassy. This was a sensitive point with Sasson, who was in the habit of noting every event to which he was not invited, and of specifying the cause of the omission. Some two dozen letters of protest sent (sometimes daily) by Sasson on this subject finally induced the Foreign Ministry to intervene with the State


Department in Washington and with United States ambassadors in various capitals. Moshe Sharett, in a letter of unprecedented severity, ordered a “reprisal campaign” against Wadsworth for the “swinish” behaviour of “an enemy whose influence is malignant”. 106 The American ambassador’s habitual drunkenness and his addiction to whisky were brought to Washington’s notice, and early in 1952 his service in Ankara was terminated. Israel naturally rejected any attempt to link it, or American Jews, with the ambassador’s transfer, arguing: “It is indeed a pity that [Turkish] papers cannot distinguish between International Jewry and Scotch whisky”.107 As has been said before, Sasson considered his socialising in Ankara a vital necessity and a patriotic self-sacrifice unavoidable under the circumstances. In his reports on the cocktail parties and sumptuous meals, with their enormous amounts of food and drink, he would always add a few words testifying to his suffering and invoking divine assistance to sustain him in the face of so much eating and drinking. He would summarise his ordeal with the aphorism: “What more can one do for one’s country”?108 When Sasson finally concluded his term of duty in Ankara, he reaped the fruits of his widespread socialising. “Masses” of people came to bid him farewell at the railway station, in marked contrast to the “indifference” on the platform three years previously. “Indeed, there was an extreme contrast between the end and the beginning.”109 The personal cost of this socialising, however, was equally extreme (see below). Sasson was also adept at defending the lavish functions he put on for Ankara’s diplomatic community. These were a heavy burden upon the legation’s budget, but any reserve in giving “the usual spectacular parties” would prejudice Sasson’s standing with his fellow diplomats. On the one occasion in which Sasson did display reserve in his salon, the response of the diplomatic community was swift: “I came to realise that I was no longer being invited”.110 Sasson’s sacrifices on the altar of patriotism extended to the burden of becoming acquainted with foreign diplomats’ wives, most of whom had, regrettably, entered the sixth decade of their lives. This socialising once led to an exchange of blows, an incident which led Israel’s head of protocol to recall the well-known fact that “slaps across the face as a rule transcend normal diplomatic courtesies”.111 The words of the legation’s secretary seem to offer an appropriate summary of this aspect of diplomatic life in Ankara, and of the lessons to be drawn:


One of the favourite past-times of a diplomat is to court the wife of a colleague… And whether you like it or not, one day you are caught in the gearing…[so] if you are ever posted to Ankara as a diplomat, don’t forget to take your wife with you… Don’t drink too much at cocktail parties. Keep a close watch of your wife, and above all, keep her busy all the time unless you want to get rid of her. It is revealing that the legation staff bothered to report this “inevitable” socialising directly to the Foreign Minister. 112 It did not improve their career prospects, and meant that their reports on more important matters were taken less seriously. Sasson’s requests to Israel for enormous amounts of wines and spirits; his application for a supplementary allocation to pay for two women servants in the legation building (both of whom unfortunately “guzzle twice or three times as much as any other person”); his need of various sets of clothing appropriate for morning and evening wear, and of a special grey top hat to replace his normal black headgear when attending horse races,113 all hallmarks of the life-style conducted by the Ankara legation, made Sasson appear to be uncomfortable, contrasted as they were to the austere economic circumstances in Israel at the time: We spent three hours together—eating, drinking, singing and conversing on various topics. Colleagues…danced until they were exhausted… But when we recalled the ‘austerity’ regime in force in Israel, we were deeply grieved…. The question is, can we assist in any way—by parcels, for example?114 Sasson’s willingness to help out with food parcels does not appear to have impressed the Foreign Ministry, and reactions to his extravagant life-style were not long in arriving. First of all, there was a cut in the financial allotment for cables and mail—which constituted the principal task of the minister to Ankara; the Foreign Ministry may have hoped thereby to reduce the deluge of letters with which Sasson engulfed it. The flow of communications did not dry up. Sasson’s response to the cutback was overwrought, complaining of the “cruelty” of the Ministry’s secretary, and the “stinginess” of its bursar, concluding, as always, with eyes metaphorically upturned and with words from the Psalms: “Whence shall come my salvation”?115 Subsequently, the Ministry stopped disseminating Sasson’s reports from Ankara, on the pretext that they were written in English. It should be noted that


numerous Israeli diplomats preferred to use English in their reports, which the Foreign Ministry nevertheless distributed. 116 The Foreign Ministry began to disparage the style and substance of Sasson’s references to himself, and to Israel’s might. Such talk was perceived as megalomanic and arrogant. Both in writing and in speech, Sasson referred to himself in the third person. As has been said before, he proclaimed that “his expertise and his appearance…evoke respect, his reputation is well-known; Sasson is acknowledged as an expert on the Middle East…this man Sasson has become a source of information for all the consulates and embassies, and he advises the Turks on Middle East affairs.”117 A similar turn of speech elicited a rebuke from Sharett over the exaggerated virtues Sasson attributed to the State of Israel: I consider superfluous your words about the exceptional efforts —‘Israel accomplishes the impossible’, you say—which we make for world peace… after all, how much can [we] do?…. Everyone knows we are a small country, young and weak…. No one awaits our efforts to salvage world peace, since everyone knows that it does not depend upon us. If we do not proclaim that we are going overboard to prevent a new world war, no one will wonder at us nor blame us. But if we do make such proclamations, while lacking any ability to implement our words, we shall appear to others as braggarts!118 The worst finally happened when the Ministry demanded a return of the legation’s allowance for representation and hospitality, and eventually forbade him to hold any more parties. Angry cables were exchanged between Ankara and the Ministry, Sasson declaring bluntly that, with regard to the repayment of the allowance, “I do not accede to your request… I shall use it… please be good enough to note same”.119 Regarding his parties, Sasson wrote: The remark at the end of your letter…shows the extent to which you are not in favour of such parties, even though I have repeatedly explained… that holding parties is a necessity for the benefit of [my] work… I hereby notify you that I am also waiving the Independence Day dinner…the ban you imposed on holding parties…in a city like Ankara strikes me as absurd.120 There were probably officials at the Foreign Ministry who regarded the forfeited dinner as Sasson’s first genuine patriotic sacrifice.


Undoubtedly, however, what were really sacrificed were the ideals emanating from Ankara, which, for instance, preferred diplomacy to fists. To paraphrase a few sources in the Foreign Ministry: it was thought inconceivable to expect such ideas to appear in the reports of a legation which was constantly engaged in bacchanalias with Ankara’s high society. And when the reports were read, people had difficulty in separating the wheat from the chaff. *** On Friday, 20 July 1951, King Abdullah was assassinated in Jerusalem. The following day Sasson sent a cable to Israel announcing that he had failed in his task in Ankara, since he had been unable to accomplish anything in the sphere of Arab diplomacy. He blamed his failure principally upon the quality of the Arab diplomats in Turkey and their behaviour, for “with persons of that sort there is of course nothing to be done”. In conclusion, Sasson requested a transfer to a West European country.121 Sasson’s disappointment with the results of his efforts in the Arab sphere was linked, no doubt, with Abdullah’s assassination. The high point of Arab contacts conducted by Sasson (and, for that matter, by Israel as a whole, right up to President Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem) was the accord with Abdullah. The King’s assassination shattered Sasson’s faith in contacts with Arabs, and also led him to re-evaluate the amount of support he had at home. Sasson was indignant at the failure of Israel Radio’s Arab service to add the words “the mercy of Allah be upon him” when reporting Abdullah’s assassination. “It is no secret that he was a friend of ours, and our regret at his [death] is not entirely artificial. And an insult like that on our part towards an Arab friend… proves that we do not remain faithful to our loyal friends who depart this world.”122 These last cables accurately summarised Sasson’s Arab activities in Ankara. Diplomatically fruitless and with no support at home, they make the account of his service there a near-tragedy. During the pre-state period, Sasson’s speciality lay in establishing links with the most important Arab leaders. The open borders between Palestine and the Arab states enabled him to journey to Arab capitals, where he appeared at his best. These were his finest hours. But the outcome of the 1948 war delivered the death blow to such ties. The state of belligerence prevailing between Israel and the Arab states, and the closure of the borders, barred Sasson from direct contact with Arab leaders. Nevertheless. he persisted in his almost obsessive efforts to forge such links, and this was his purpose in Ankara. But he soon realised that henceforth he would not be meeting leaders of the Arab


world; instead, he would deal only with low-level representatives and collaborators, “the scrapings of the bottom of the barrel”. 123 Such contacts could never rival Sasson’s pre-1948 links with Azzam Pasha (secretary of the Arab League), with King Abdullah of Jordan, or with the heads of state in Damascus. Sasson displayed enormous zeal but the results of his labours were meagre, because the links he forged were with the lowest levels of the Arab political hierarchy. His detailed reports enthusing over a conversation with this or that Arab; the farreaching conclusions he drew from low-level contacts concerning a possible understanding with the Arab states; his operational proposals (many of them without foundation, resting as they did upon meetings with “minnows”)—all these evoked puzzlement. In time, Sasson came to be regarded with commiseration; his letters were ignored and he was treated with contempt. Ultimately, he was forbidden so much as to utter his views on Arab affairs. “It was a tragedy,” noted one veteran Israeli diplomat. ”[Sasson’s] style of the small personal bazaar was blatantly out of line with the new yardsticks created by the Arab-Israeli conflict,” added another.124 This tragedy had its more general aspects. It was part of the downplaying of the school of thought advocating efforts to reach an understanding with the Arabs and the Arab states. Conversely, it reinforced those who held that Israel’s future must rest upon military security, with no concomitant attempts towards diplomatic understanding with its neighbours; and it lent encouragement to the “peripheral policy”—an alliance between Israel, Turkey, Iran and Ethiopia—which was, in essence, a substitute for, and a conscious relinquishment of, relations with the Arabs. In such a climate, Sasson and like-minded individuals could not prevail. Ankara remained Israel’s lookout post for military and covert purposes upon the Middle East, but no longer served as a diplomatic centre for the improvement of Arab-Israeli relations. It was high time for the Ankara legation to concentrate its efforts on Turkish-Israeli rapprochement.


NOTES 1. Foreign Ministry Middle East Department to Eliyahu Sasson, Israel’s minister in Ankara, 23 Jan. 1951, Israel State Archives, hereafter ISA, 53/ 6. 2. Eliyahu Sasson, journal of the Ankara Legation, 13 March, 21 April 1950, ISA 53/6. 3. Eliyahu Sasson, journal of the legation, 12 April 1950, ISA 2568/10; Yitzchak Ben Ya’akov, legation secretary; “My mission in Ankara”. Mr Ben Ya’akov placed at my disposal the manuscript summarising his mission in Ankara, and I am profoundly grateful to him. 4. Walter Eytan to Eliyahu Sasson, 8 May 1950, ISA 2567/15. 5. Eytan to Sasson, 15 Dec. 1949, ISA 93/18. 6. Minutes of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee of the First Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), 1 Aug. 1950, ISA 2392/12/b. 7. Colonel Uriel Shai in conversation with the writer, Tel Aviv, July 1984. 8. Sasson, journal of the legation, 20 January 1950, ISA 2568/10. 9. Ibid. 10. Colonel Harkabi to the Foreign Ministry, 2 Nov. 1950, ISA 53/6; Yohanan Meroz, acting minister in Ankara, to the Foreign Ministry, 5 Jan. 1953, ISA 50/1. 11. For details of technology collected by the office of the military attaché in Ankara, see correspondence between the attaché and Israeli military intelligence, 13 Nov. 1953, ISA 50/1. 12. Colonel Uriel Shai in conversation with the writer, July 1984. 13. Foreign Ministry to Ankara, 27 July 1953, ISA 50/1; Ankara, Meroz to Foreign Ministry, 5 Jan. 1953, ISA 50/1; Foreign Ministry, Economic Department, report on negotiations with Turkey, 31 March 1950, ISA 51/ 1. 14. Fuat Köprülü, Turkish Foreign Minister, to Eliyahu Sasson, 31 Jan. 1951, ISA 2515/11; Meeting between Sasson and the Turkish Foreign Minister, Jan. 1950, ISA 2536/11/a. 15. Sasson to the Foreign Ministry, 9 Jan. 1952, ISA 2515/13. 16. Memorandum by Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, 22 Oct. 1952, ISA 2475/9a. 17. Sharett to Sasson, 6 Sept. 1950, ISA 53/2. Sharett’s comment followed an anti-Communist remark by Sasson to Turkish leaders. 18. Moshe Sharett, Personal Diary, vol. 1, p. 75, 24 Oct. 1953, Tel Aviv, 1978. 19. See reports by American ambassadors in “G.T.I.”—Greece, Turkey, Iran —to James Macdonald, U.S. ambassador to Israel, 4 December 1949, ISA 2403/9/a. 20. Report (undated) to Walter Eytan, ISA 2411/33.


21. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 18 Sept., 16 Nov. 1950. The name appears in the original. Details to references have been deleted from notes 21–28, 30, 31. 22. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 19 Sept. 1950. 23. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 16 Nov. 1950. 24. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 17 Sept. 1950. 25. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 28 Sept. 1950. 26. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 18 Dec. 1950. 27. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 18 Dec. 1950; 1 Jan. 1951. 28. Foreign Ministry to Sasson, 14 Nov. 1950. 29. Journal of the legation, 23 April 1950, ISA 2568/10; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 18 Dec. 1950, ISA 53/6. 30. Tuvia Arzi to Foreign Ministry, 13 March 1950. 31. Ibid. 32. Moshe Sasson to Eliyahu Sasson, Jan. 1950, ISA 2565/13, and also 2567/ 15. 33. Foreign Ministry, Middle East Department, to Ankara, 1 June 1950, ISA 53/8. The Israeli code name for this bartering was “Persian Bazaar”; exerting pressure to extort more money, the Iranians threatened to stop the clandestine exodus of Iraqi Jews through their territory, as well as threatening harm to Iranian Jews. The bribes came to a quarter of a million dollars, paid over to the Iranian prime minister and his intimates. The prime minister, “a man of moderate means”, justified his monetary demands by the wish to guarantee his future before retiring. The bribe was disguised as a commission from a commercial transaction. See Moshe Sasson to Eliyahu Sasson, 1 Jan., 8 Feb. 1950, ISA 2567/15; report of the Mossad representative in Teheran, 30 Dec. 1949, ISA 2565/ 25. For a comprehensive study dealing with Iran’s recognition of Israel, see Uri Bialer, “The Iranian Connection in Israel’s Foreign Policy, 1948– 1951”, The Middle East Journal 39, no. 2, Spring 1985. 34. Memorandum by the Foreign Minister’s bureau, 29 Aug. 1949, ISA 2567/ 9. 35. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 11 Jan. 1951, ISA 2382/1; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 13 Feb. 1951, ISA 2515/11. 36. Maurice Fisher, Israeli Minister in Ankara, to Foreign Ministry, 29 Dec. 1953, ISA 50/24. 37. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 24 Jan. 1951, ISA 2570/7 (author’s emphasis); Sasson to Shmuel Dibon, Foreign Ministry Middle East Department, 24 Jan. 1951, ISA 53/6. 38. Shmuel Dibon to Moshe Sharett, 15 July 1951, ISA 2569/9; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 24 Jan. 1951, ISA 2570/7. 39. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 24 Jan. 1951, ISA 2570/7. 40. Foreign Ministry, unsigned, undated memorandum (summer 1950?) entitled “Negotiations and their lesson”, ISA 2570/7.


41. Memorandum to Foreign Minister, 15 July 1951, ISA 2569/9 (author’s emphasis); the Ministry Middle East Department to Ankara, 18 Jan. 1951, ISA 2570/7. 42. Sasson, Israeli minister in Rome, at a meeting of Israeli representatives in European countries, 16 March 1955, ISA 2564/24/b. 43. Sasson to Sharett, 18 July 1951, ISA 338/19. 44. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 3 Oct. 1950, ISA 53/9; Sasson to Uriel Heyd, Foreign Ministry Middle East Department, 19 Aug. 1950, ISA 2568/1. 45. Yaakov Shimoni to Sasson, 16 Sept. 1948, ISA 2570/11. 46. Sasson to Eytan, 24 March 1949, ISA 2565/4; Shimoni to Sasson, 16 Sept. 1948, ISA 2570/11. 47. Shimoni to Sasson, 6 Oct. 1948, ISA 2570/11. 48. Shimoni to Sasson, 2 Nov. 1948, ISA 2570/11. 49. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 30 Sept. 1949, ISA 2441/2/a. 50. Sasson to Sharett, 29 April 1951, ISA 2570/7. 51. Meeting of Research Department, 3–4 April 1950, ISA 52/2. 52. Eliyahu Sasson to Moshe Sasson, 4 May 1952, ISA 2566/14. 53. Eliyahu Sasson to Moshe Sasson, 24 Jan. 1951, ISA 2570/7. 54. Sasson, 30 December 1948, in Yehoshua Freundlich, ed., Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel, vol. 2, Oct. 1948-April 1949, Jerusalem, 1984, p.321. 55. Eliyahu Sasson to Moshe Sasson, 24 Jan. 1951, ISA 2570/7. 56. Foreign Ministry, Middle East Department, “Guidelines for Israeli policy in the Arab Middle East”, July 1950, ISA 2570/7. 57. Eliyahu Sasson to Moshe Sasson, 24 Jan. 1951, ISA 2570/7; Tom Segev, 1949, The First Israelis, Jerusalem 1984 (Hebrew), p. 31. 58. Foreign Ministry, “Guidelines for Israeli policy…”, ISA 2570/7. 59. Eliyahu Sasson to Moshe Sasson, 22 February 1951, ISA 2568/7; Sasson to Dibon, 25 May 1951, ISA 2565/17; Dibon to Sharett, 15 July 1951, ISA, 2569/9. 60. Unsigned, undated memorandum (summer 1950?) ISA 2570/7. 61. Shimoni to Sasson, 22 Sept. 1948, ISA 2570/11. 62. Boris Guriel, head of Foreign Ministry Research Department, 3–4 April 1950, 52/2. 63. Sasson to Uriel Heyd, 19 Aug. 1949, ISA 2568/1; Eliyahu Sasson to Moshe Sasson, 24 Jan. 1951, ISA 2570/7. The Turkish authorities insisted most vigorously that their affairs be removed from the Middle East Department. “We are not Arabs”, they argued. Shimoni in conversation with the writer, June 1984. 64. Sasson to Foreign Ministry Middle East Department, 18 June 1950, ISA 53/9. 65. Sasson, journal of the legation, 14 March 1950, ISA 2568/10.


66. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, Middle East Department, 18 June 1950, ISA 53/9. 67. Sasson, journal of the legation, 14 March 1950, ISA 2568/10. 68. Foreign Ministry, Middle East Department to Sasson, 3 April 1952, ISA 2566/14; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, United States Department, 24 April 1952, ibid. 69. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 5 May 1952, ISA 2566/14. 70. Eliyahu Sasson to Moshe Sasson, 24 Jan. 1951, ISA 2570/7. 71. Shimoni to Sasson, 22 Sept., 2 Nov. 1948, ISA 2570/11. 72. Shimoni to Sasson, 22 Sept., 24 Oct. 1948, ibid. 73. SHAI agent Ezra Danin to Sasson, 24 Oct. 1948, ibid (author’s emphasis). 74. Shimoni to Sasson, 22 Sept. 1948, ibid. 75. Shimoni to Sasson, 2 Nov. 1948, ibid. 76. Shimoni to Sasson, 22 Sept. 1948, ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Yaccob Tzur, Israel’s Ambassador in France, to Foreign Ministry, 15 Dec. 1953, ISA 50/6. 79. Ibid. 80. Ibid. 81. Eliashiv Ben-Horin to Foreign Ministry, 4 Oct. 1954, ISA 2515/14. 82. Sharett, Personal Diary, 22 June 1955, p. 1483. 83. Ibid., 19 and 20 Nov. 1956, pp. 1861, 1864. In 1953 Sasson became Israel’s minister in Italy. 84. Eliyahu Elath’s (?) comments, on Sasson to Gideon Rafael (Foreign Minister’s adviser in Middle East affairs), 15 March, 7 May 1954, ISA 41/2. 85. Foreign Ministry to Sasson, 1 May 1950, ISA 2567/15. 86. Sasson to Elath, 3 June 1954, ISA 41/2. 87. Sharett, Personal Diary, 6 June 1954, p. 533. 88. Segev, 1949, pp. 28–9. 89. Report to Foreign Ministry, 15 Dec. 1949, ISA 184/7. 90. Sharett, Personal Diary, 29 Oct. 1955, p. 1260. In 1961 Sasson became the ambassador in Berne. For the Foreign Ministry’s stand concerning the manning of the Middle East Department with Jews of Oriental origins, see a letter to Sasson, 24 Oct. 1948: “I have got no objection to officials of Oriental origins, but we should not look specifically for them. If we can find among them people who are more or less objective, and if their origin will not turn them into nervous and emotional people who will scare their colleagues as a means of persuasion, then they are most welcome”. IS A 2570/11. 91. Sharett, Personal Diary, 2 May 1955, p. 713. 92. Eytan to Sasson, 23 Jan. 1951, ISA 2566/18; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 10 Feb. 1951, ISA 338/20.


93. Sasson maintained that he was obliged to resort to written communication with the Foreign Ministry on almost every matter— whether for reports or consultations, or receipt of instructions—because few Ministry officials came to Ankara bearing verbal directives. This was how he justified his voluminous correspondence with the Ministry. Sasson to Sharett, 22 Jan. 1951, ISA 74/1. 94. Foreign Ministry to Sasson, 1 June 1950, ISA 2567/15. 95. Journal of the legation, 18 April 1950, ISA 2568/10; Sharett to Sasson, 26 Aug. 1948, in Yehoshua Freundlich, ed., Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel, vol. 1, Jerusalem, 1981, p. 557; Dibon to Sasson, 27 Dec. 1950, 4 Jan. 1951, ISA 53/6. 96. Sharett to Sasson, 30 April 1951, ISA 2382/1. 97. Comments by Sharett, 6 May 1950, ISA 53/9. 98. The Ministry’s Middle East Department and its Turkish Section, 16 May and 12 Oct. 1950, ISA 53/9 and 2568/6 respectively. Sasson was surprised to see General Moshe Dayan in Turkey. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 17 Nov. 1950, ISA 53/6. 99. Minutes of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee of the First Knesset, 1 Aug. 1950, ISA 2392/12/b; Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 30 Dec. 1952, ISA 2525/14. 100. Sasson to Eytan, 30 Aug. 1950, ISA 2568/6; Sasson to Dibon, 11 Jan. 1951, ISA 2382/1. 101. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 22 April 1950, ISA 2567/15. 102. Sasson to Dibon, 29 May 1950, ISA 53/9. 103. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, May-June 1950, Jan. 1951, March 1952, ISA 53/2, 53/9, 2568/7, 2515/13. 104. Sasson to Dibon, 26 June 1950, ISA 53/9; journal of the legation, 16 April 1950, ISA 2568/10. 105. Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 6 June, 12 Dec. 1952, ISA 2515/14; Sasson to Dibon, 14 Jan. 1951, ISA 2568/7. 106. Sharett to Sasson, 1 July 1951, ISA 338/19; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, Oct. 1950, Jan., Feb., April, June, July, Dec. 1951, ISA 2515/11–13, 2382/1, 2565/7, 2515/12, 338/19, 2527/1/a. 107. Ben Ya’acov, “Mission in Ankara”. 108. Journal of the legation, 27 Jan., 2 April, 10 May 1950, ISA 2568/10; Sasson to Eytan, 19 May, 28 May 1950, ISA 53/2; Sasson to Dibon, 27 June 1950, ISA 53/9; Sasson to Dibon, 14 Jan. 1951, ISA 2568/7. 109. Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 30 Dec. 1952, ISA 2515/14. 110. Sasson to Dibon, 13 Feb. 1951, ISA 2515/11. 111. Head of protocol to Ankara, 24 April 1950, ISA 2567/15. 112. “Mission in Ankara”. The memo was submitted to the Foreign Minister and dedicated to him. 113. For requests for wine, details of dress and the servants in the legation building see Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 4 Jan. 1950, ISA 2567/15;


114. 115. 116.

117.

118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124.

minutes of meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, 1 Aug. 1950, ISA 2392/12/b; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 4 Oct. 1950, 6 Feb. 1951, ISA 2568/6–7. Journal of the legation, 12 May 1950, ISA 2568/10. Ibid., 8 Jan., 8 April 1950; minutes of the meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, 1 Aug. 1950, ISA 2392/12/b. Eytan to Sasson, 29 Nov. 1950, ISA 2513/18. Sasson defended his use of English by claiming the lack of a Hebrew typist. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 9 Jan. 1952, ISA 2515/13. See also Segev, 1949, p. 22. Sasson in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, 1 Aug. 1950, ISA 2392/12/b; Sasson to Sharett, 22 Jan. 1951, ISA 74/1. See also note 6. Sharett to Sasson, 6 Sept. 1950, ISA 53/2. Sasson to Foreign Ministry Bursary, 21 Feb. 1951, ISA 2568/7. Sasson to Eytan, 3 April 1952, ISA 2515/13. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 21 July 1951, ISA 338/19. Ibid. Yaacov Shimoni in a conversation with the author, June 1984. Yaacov Shimoni and Gideon Rafael in conversations with the author, June-July 1984.

42

TREADING THE TIGHTROPE

44

Treading the Tightrope: Israeli-Turkish Relations, 1948–1958

Our relations with Turkey have been extremely good of late …[but] these good relations could deteriorate overnight, and we should learn from the bitter experience of others. The Turks have yet to achieve a standard by which, in the event of disagreement with another state, they can weigh up the positions of both sides. For them, there exists one sole principle: in any conflict with a foreigner, whether a private individual, a company or a state, the Turk is always right. This evaluation was made by Maurice Fisher, Israel’s ambassador to Turkey in 1953, during one of the most fruitful periods in IsraeliTurkish relations.1 Israeli construction companies were laying out Turkey’s airfields, the two countries’ armed forces were working together, bilateral commerce was improving, and talks had commenced on elevating diplomatic representation from legation to embassy rank. Less than a decade and a half later, following the Six-Day War, relations plummeted to an all-time low—‘deteriorating overnight’—and have, for all intents and purposes, remained that way ever since. Fisher certainly understood the fragility of the situation. One might question, however, whether alleged Turkish self-righteousness was really the source of all the difficulties. It appears to us, rather, that certain ambiguities inherent in Turkish society and deriving from Turkey’s historical and geopolitical position would have been just as relevant to the discussion. To begin with, the glorious Ottoman Empire which held dominion over much of the Middle East for 400 years was past history. Furthermore, there had been a slackening in the tremendous impetus to secular modernization given to the country by Mustafa Kemal a half century earlier. These two facts alone would have been sufficient to explain the complexities of Turkey’s national


consciousness and the difficulties it encountered in its relations with Israel. Turkey in the second half of the twentieth century was still an agricultural country, non-Arab ethnically yet traditionally Moslem, unabashedly pro-Western and just as vigorously anti-Soviet. It had voted against the establishment of Israel at the United Nations in 1947, ostensibly in deference to its Moslem loyalties, but had extended recognition to the country in 1949, in deference to its Western loyalties. Now the tiny, freshly minted State of Israel was already outstripping Turkey economically and militarily, which, from the point of view of national pride, was not pleasant. Yet, the two countries had certain things in common which served to bring them together: both were Middle Eastern and both aspired to Europe and the West rather than to their more ‘natural’ neighbours, the Arab countries. But while Turkey was forever vacillating in its attitudes to the Arab countries and was never entirely free of suspicion of Israel’s ‘people’s republic’, Israel was consistently interested in cultivating its northerly friend. It is against this background, then, that we can begin to examine the ups and downs in Israeli-Turkish relations during the decade under discussion. These relations, despite mutual misgivings, suspicions and regular backtracking, sustained a vigorous bilateral trade, and culminated—in 1958—in the signing of a strategic pact between the two countries. This paper will discuss the background and conditions of IsraeliTurkish relations, during the decade following the establishment of the State of Israel, centring on the global ramifications and the interests of both countries in fostering relations; the attitudes of each of the two countries to the other; the nature of trade between them; the Cyprus issue; and finally, the strategic pact, the background of which was the IsraelTurkey-Arab triangle. THE BACKGROUND: TURKEY’S ANTICOMMUNISM AND ISRAEL’S APPARENT NEUTRALITY At the United Nations in November 1947, as already noted, Turkey voted against the partition resolution which divided Palestine into two states, a Jewish state and an Arab state. Whether Moslem and regional loyalties were apparent or real, Turkey’s intransigent anti-Communism was an even greater motivation. Turkey was vitally interested in maintaining the British presence in the Middle East and it feared that

TREADING THE TIGHTROPE 47

the Jewish state might constitute a Soviet bridgehead. (Britain had passed on information and directives to this effect to Greece and apparently induced the Turks to adopt similar views.) 2 Yet, Western support for the new Jewish state shook their resoluteness and in the 1948 war between Israel and the Arab states, Turkey remained neutral. Subsequently, in March 1949, after the Western powers recognized Israel, Turkey followed suit and the two countries exchanged ministers in December of that year. The development of ties between the two countries, from the very outset, was characterized by sensitivities and an attempt by Israel to reach a delicate equilibrium. For example, in September 1948, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Department foresaw a broad basis for cooperation between Israel and Turkey by laying the stress on their neutrality. Since both countries were outsiders in the East-West confrontation, Jerusalem hoped that the two countries would reach understanding on non-alignment.3 It did not take long for them to realize how mistaken this appraisal was. As a matter of fact, the first gigantic obstacle to be surmounted in this respect was the alleged ‘leftwing’ character of Israel and its ostensible neutrality in the East-West conflict. To put it more boldly, Turkey feared that Israel might be harbouring a Communist menace. Part of this fear of Israel’s leftist leanings could be attributed to the upsurge, at that time, of hard-line Moslems in Turkey, although it should be stated right at the outset that Turkey’s relations with Israel during the 1950s were little affected by domestic Islamic reaction. Kemalism, in seeking modernization of Turkey, had placed severe restrictions on Islam, and now, thirty years later, they were being removed, following the rise to power of Turkey’s Democratic Party after the May 1950 elections. The Arabic call to prayer was legalized, for the first time there were Koran readings over the radio, the financial allotment to the Religious Affairs Ministry was trebled, the authorities turned a blind eye to the reappearance of traditional religious garb and the use of the Arabic alphabet. The reactionary Islamic weekly Sebilurresad conducted a bitter campaign during the winter of 1950–51 against three dangers: ‘the black menace’ (Christianity); ‘the yellow menace’ (Judaism and Freemasonry); and ‘the red menace’ (Communism and atheism). In this respect, it should be pointed out that historically the Jews never suffered persecution in Turkey, and no Jewish blood had ever been spilled there by Turks. Of the three non-Moslem minorities resident in Turkey—the Jews, the Greeks and the Armenians—the Turks harboured


no traditional enmity towards the Jews and Turkey had provided a haven for Jews fleeing from Nazi Europe. On the other hand, Zionism was banned in Turkey. This disapproval went back to the Ottoman period when Turkish authorities feared that Zionist nationalism might offer a model for emulation by the empire’s other national minorities. 4 Turkish Jews who freely emigrated to Israel did not leave as a result of persecution or deprivation, although they left in their masses. 5 The Istanbul offices of the Jewish Agency had long been engaged in organizing emigration to Palestine—whether of the local Jewish community or of people in transit. But that was no substitute for an official Israeli mission. Initially, Israel neglected to devote diplomatic attention to Turkey, although the Foreign Ministry had a Turkish section and thought the idea of presenting Israel’s case in a non-Arab Moslem country to be important. As a result, a weekly bulletin in Turkish was issued and Israel Radio broadcast in that language.6 Still, Turkish affairs were entrusted to the Ministry’s Middle East department. With the passage of years and the establishment of cordial diplomatic relations between the two countries, Ankara insisted on being classified together with Western Europe and the Turkish desk was, indeed, moved. Only following the 1967 war did Turkish affairs revert to the Middle East department. But to return to the mid-1950s and the growth of hard-line Islam, the xenophobic outpouring of the reactionary press was blocked off when, after having attacked Ataturk as the scourge of Turkish Islam and linking his name with Turkey’s ties with Israel, the weekly Sebilurresad was banned and its editor arrested.7 This episode helps to explain the feeble effect of Islamic influence on Israeli-Turkish relations: as long as Islamic reactionaries concerned themselves with Israel and the Jews, while neglecting their true adversaries—Turkey’s secular political establishment—the damage they inflicted, while limited, was painful. But the moment they attacked the establishment, the latter struck back with full force, to the benefit of the ties between Ankara and Jerusalem. Islam was harnessed with greater advantage to the anti-Communist bandwagon. While some Westerners may have believed that no country in the world could equal Turkey in its restrictions on religious freedom, they also believed that in the Turkish context ‘there is no weapon more reliable or effective in the campaign against Communism than the [Islamic] religion’.8 This notion, so alien to the anti-Islamic aspects of Kemalism, received the blessing of the British and U.S. ambassadors to Ankara: in addition to fostering a jehad (holy war) against Turkish Communism they saw in it a model for emulation by the fifty million


Moslems living in the Soviet Union.9 In this context, Israel’s concern over Turkey’s Islamic revival was perceived as prejudicial to Turkey’s campaign against Communist subversion, and provided further ‘proof of Israel’s leftist bias. The Turks held unswervingly to the premise that neutralism was untenable. The world was divided into Communists and nonCommunists, and there could be no middle path. According to the Turks, the Russians interpreted neutralism as adherence to Soviet principles; whoever refused to see that was blind and deserving of ‘severe punishment’ and not of Turkish friendship.10 Israel soon learned of Turkey’s extreme enmity towards Communism and Moscow, as can be seen by a paper issued by the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s research department early in 1950: With regard to Communist activity in Turkey, no information is available. The mere mention of Communist activity [arouses] fear and horror [as] the vilest form of treason and espionage. Terror of the secret police is enormous.11 Eastern bloc diplomats in Turkey were subjected to surveillance and restrictions which made any contact with them—whether by Israelis or others—well nigh impossible. Rumours were circulated about the subversive pursuits of the Russian diplomats. It was put out that because they were eager to conserve time for study of the Turkish language and for research about the country, they stayed aloof from the social round of Ankara’s diplomatic community: bridge parties, hunting expeditions, cocktail parties or dances. In order to exclude the Russians, the practice was to invite them at the last moment and blame the delay on Turkey’s sluggish postal service. All of these factors combined to forestall any meeting, however fortuitious, between the Israeli representatives and their Communist opposite numbers.12 Still, Israel’ s major difficulty in proving its ‘Western reliability’ to Turkey was the fact that it was anxious to preserve its links with the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe and with the governments of those countries, and this fact precluded any public departure from its professed policy of neutrality. Even when Israel effectively aligned itself with the West, it refrained from proclaiming the fact. Fears of prejudicing the emigration of East European Jews were reinforced by reluctance to exacerbate domestic differences between supporters of the West and of Moscow.13


These explanations, however, were unacceptable in Ankara, where a blend of fact and fantasy led the Turks to question Israel’s neutrality, preferring the more down-to-earth view of pro-Communist leanings. They proffered an abundance of evidence. The absence of Communists from Israel’s gaols proved that the country was teeming with Bolsheviks whom the govenment was powerless to detain. Israel’s failure to adopt a policy of outright hostility towards Moscow proved that the Communists had gained the upper hand. Even the protests of the right-wing Herut party against the Israeli-German reparations agreement were believed to be the work of Communists, active in Israel as elsewhere to disrupt the social order. The balance of power in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, certainly gave grounds for concern among the Turks who, while tolerating Israel’s labour party, Mapai, were highly suspicious of the more left-leaning Mapam movement.14 Convincing the Turks that Israel was not ‘red’ almost assumed the status of a top national priority. The campaign was launched with precise explanations despatched to Ankara concerning Israel’s parliamentary system and its electoral laws, backed up by statistics illustrating the weakness of the Communist left. Ankara was briefed on the predicament of Soviet Jews: the harassment inflicted upon the latter could scarcely be interpreted as a ‘reward’ for flourishing Israeli Communism. Israel also took pains to acquaint the Turks with the fact that it had received an American loan, which would hardly have been granted to a Communist country. The very request for U.S. aid, it was added, was firm proof of Jerusalem’s abandonment of its self-proclaimed neutrality. Israel backed up words with deeds: Israeli representatives in Ankara, in a demonstrative effort ‘to avoid germbearers’, evaded encounters with their Soviet counterparts, thereby bowing to the restrictions imposed by Turkish ‘Kominformphobia’. Israeli visitors to Turkey were given clear instructions to withhold any political sentiment of a ‘pinkish’ hue. Even links with Turkey’s antiCommunist trade unions were risky. Terms underwent modifi cation, as when Mapai was defined as a labour, rather than a socialist, party. Even so, things were not always smooth. A typical illustration of this exaggerated Turkish sensitivity was provoked by an act as innocent and unexceptionable as the attendance of Israeli representatives at a labour convention in Istanbul, even though Israel took the precaution of first inquiring in Washington as to whether the Turkish unions were ‘kosher’. But American recommendations were one thing, and Turkish susceptibilities something else altogether. As Fisher reported:


The Turks adopt [unquestioningly] everything the Americans [say]. But we must not forget that there is scarcely a Turk in existence capable of distinguishing between Socialism and Communism. We must not forget that the fact that a Majlis deputy dared to mention the right of workers to strike engendered enormous indignation throughout Turkey. The press demanded to know whether that deputy had been elected to prepare the ground for Turkey’s enslavement to the Soviet Union. 15 Israel ultimately found a verbal formula acceptable to the Turks: without uttering an unambiguous condemnation of Communism or a clear declaration of support for the West, Israel proclaimed itself in favour of the freedom and independence of the democratic regimes, and against any attack, whether ‘external or internar. In other words, Israel condemned domestic Communist subversion and proclaimed its support for the Western democracies.16 Turkey ultimately accepted Israel’s explanations, although the process was lengthy: as late as 1956, Ankara still expressed concern over the political balance in the Knesset. Moreover, Turkey did not renounce British-sponsored joint planning—admittedly theoretical and with no specific details—whereby, in the event of a neutralist Israel failing to make common cause with the West during an emergency, the country would be seized and placed under joint administration with the eastern portions of Palestine (i.e., the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan).17 But the tacit pro-Western bias of the policies pursued by Israel in practice finally reassured the Turks. With the aim of safeguarding these achievements, and of respecting Turkish touchiness about the activities of foreigners in their country— even those specifically invited, in preference to others and (in the case of Israel) in defiance of Arab pressures—Israel laid down guidelines and caveats for the conduct of its relations with Turkey. In a nutshell, the guiding principle—however banal and predictable—affirmed that procedures considered appropriate with other countries were not to be applied automatically in relations with Ankara. The merest slight to Turkish diplomats, or an unintentional want of sensitivity to their country’s self-image, was liable to produce an immediate deterioration in relations. Hence the conclusion that Israel’s ties with Turkey must be cultivated ‘with greater strictness than relations with any other state’ 18.


ANKARA’S INTEREST IN RELATIONS WITH ISRAEL Why, if Israel’s neutrality was long viewed with suspicion, was Turkey still interested in cultivating ties with Israel? The reasons cited in the existing literature include Turkey’s pursuit of the ‘fashion’ prevalent in the West, i.e., since the United States and the countries of Western Europe had recognised Israel, Ankara merely followed suit. 19 This is backed up by the somewhat abstract notion that, being non-Arab enclaves in a predominantly Arab Middle East, Turkey and Israel sought co-operation and mutual support against their unfriendly environment. What must be added to this, however, is the fact that Ankara perceived clear benefits in acquiring Israel’s friendship. One reason was that Turkey very closely followed all the changes—or what appeared to them to be changes—in the global situation. Thus, with the emergence of the United States as the power in the Middle East in place of Britain, it moved its sights from London to Washington, and this indirectly enhanced the value of Israel: the Turks were convinced that Israel could act as an advocate for Turkey’s interests in Washington. In Washington, Ankara was obliged to ‘argue about every centimetre’: Where would the West stake its line of defence? Would violation of Turkey’s border with the Soviet Union require the West to act (as Turkey demanded) or would the defence line rest on Anatolia, entailing the sacrifice of Turkish population centres of the importance of Istanbul (as proposed by American and British strategists)?20 There was similar disagreement over Turkey’s adherence to NATO. Would that organisation extend its territorial guarantees to embrace Turkey, or would it restrict them to the English-speaking countries? Turkey ultimately purchased its membership in NATO (summer of 1951) as well as Western protection for the whole of its sovereign territory, by despatching its troops to fight in the Korean war, where they suffered 5,200 fatalities, proportionately higher than any other UN contingent in Korea.21 But it was precisely following the Korean War that Turkish global assessments changed again, and these changes, surprisingly, had unforeseen effects on its relations with the United States and with Israel. The harsh recollections brought home by Turkish soldiers about what they perceived as American setbacks, led for a time to a depreciation of US power, and of the value of American aid to Turkey. American troops in Korea were depicted as leaping into their vehicles


as soon as the first shot was fired, taking off from the battlefield and abandoning the Turks to their fate. 22 These descriptions led to the inevitable conclusion that no reliance could be placed on American aid or guarantees. Turkey should therefore slacken its ties with the United States, adopting a more balanced policy and fostering cooperation with similarly orientated states in the region, like Israel for example. Any Great Power assistance required should be sought from Britain, which valued the Middle East and would hasten to its defence with greater alacrity and readiness than a remote America which, in spite of its bases in Japan, had proved so helpless in protecting nearby Korea.23 To this was added the threat of the Soviet ambassador in Ankara. After their (the Soviets) ‘remote control’ handling of Korea, where they had gained the upper hand over the United States, the Russians would certainly be capable of doing likewise to a country lying on their own borders. When the time came, US aid would be of no use to Turkey, the Russian representative boasted/threatened: In a single day [during the Second World War], Russia captured or destroyed twice as many tanks as the Turks possess. American aid is forthcoming so that America can fight right down to the last Turk.24 All this, of course, was purely speculative: Turkish contempt for the American GI notwithstanding, dollars, arms and military guarantees could be provided solely by the United States, not by Britain and certainly not by Israel. However, the Korean War had a more direct impact on Turkey’s relations with the Arab states and Israel. Turkey responded to Arab neutrality in the war by measures such as restrictions imposed on Egyptian air crews in transit through Turkey; in contrast, Israel’s declaration of support for the Security Council’s policy on Korea expedited signature of the first commercial treaty between Turkey and Israel.25 But even before and more decidedly after Korea, Turkish reports depicted Israel as wielding clout with the American press, which in turn had influence over the White House. Israel was advised to take the advice of American intelligence officers familiar with Turkey, aware of the Turks’ deference for everything American: [The Israelis should] seek the proximity of the Americans in Turkey… Ties with the Americans…will exert considerable influence upon the Turks. It would be a good thing if the Turks


think that [Israel] has influence with the Americans…(Wartime Nazi propaganda about ‘the Jews ruling the United States’ has left its mark on numerous Turks who believe in it. This factor too should be put to advantage…)26 This was accepted in Ankara as a natural and well-known fact: Turkey’s foreign minister, professing to ‘know’ of Israel’s influence on the US media, accordingly requested its employment to facilitate his country’s admittance to NATO.27 The Turks were equally ‘convinced’ that their prospect of receiving US financial aid would improve greatly if their request were backed by US Jewry, whose hearts they hoped to soften by way of closer relations with Jerusalem.28 Israel, of course, had its own reasons for wanting relations with Turkey (see below) and so it set about dropping broad hints as to the power of US Jewry, which bore not the least resemblance to the timidity of Turkey’s own Jewish community. As Turkey’s president and prime minister prepared their visits to the United States (respectively in March and May 1954), it was decided to arrange for them to meet US Jewish representatives, with the aim of making ‘the president think he is facing a genuine representative of that omnipotent power, and not [just another] Jew, the fate of whose Turkish brethren [the president] holds in his palm. Furthermore, the meeting was to serve as ‘a gentle [reminder] of the influence wielded by US Jewry on American foreign policy, and of the respected position American Jews occupy in the economy of the United States’.29 Finally, perceiving no difference between the views of the American Jewish community and of US public opinion at large, Jerusalem added: American public opinion naturally expects the Middle East’s two sole genuine democracies, Turkey and Israel, to march in step… helping one another and cooperating in the spheres of economy, industry, culture and security. American public opinion will fail to comprehend [why] the two sole isles of democracy in the Middle East should stand alone facing one another… American public opinion which takes a favourable view of the rapprochement between Turkey and Israel, was gratified by the news of the appointment of a Turkish military attaché…in Israel. It is consequently natural to foresee closer links between the two armies… American Jewish public opinion would therefore welcome the elevation of Turkish representation in Israel from legation to embassy rank… The three Western powers are


represented in Israel by ambassadors, and it is [therefore] unfitting for Turkey, which occupies a predominant position in the Middle East, to be represented in Israel by a delegation of a rank lower than those of its allies… US Jewry finds difficulty in comprehending the Turkish position with regard to the Jerusalem issue… The Western states’ refusal to recognise Israel’s status in Jerusalem stems…from the pressure of the Vatican and the Catholic communities… Does Moslem Turkey wish to be a tool of the Vatican!? United States Jews ask themselves in puzzlement!… American Jewry is convinced that Turkey will continue along the course it has pursued hitherto… 30 The above was backed up by instructions to refrain from any specific comparison between Turkey’s own Jewish community and its American counterpart. ‘The president himself should be allowed to make the comparison inwardly and draw the [necessary] conclusions’, was the directive. Further, ‘it is superfluous to recall that the president [of Turkey] should not receive the impression that the conversation was instigated by our people’.31 Turkey was suitably impressed by the power of US Jewry, and doubly so by what it perceived as Israel’s ability to exercise that power at will. Turkey submitted its requests to Israel, in the hope that the latter country would succeed where its own prime minister, Adnan Menderes, had failed, in convincing Washington. Mr.[Fuad] Köprülü [Turkish foreign minister] recalled that, on occasion—hen Turkey was a candidate for membership of NATO, Turkey benefited from the assistance of his friend Eliyahu Sasson, [who activated] a worldwide press campaign. [Köprülü] consequently had no doubt that this time too we would endeavour to help.32 The help referred to was over a $150,000,000 loan Turkey found difficulty in raising unassisted, having acquired notoriety as a bad debtor: its repayment record ranged from 30 per cent in the worst cases to 60 per cent in the best. Israel was asked to consider means of restoring Turkey’s good name in international financial markets. 33 But more important was the Turkish request that Israel find ways of overcoming ‘natural processes’ in US-Turkish relations:


The prolonged honeymoon, replete with stirring experiences and sensibilities, between the two states [Turkey and the US] is gradually becoming a routine matter. No longer does the United States completely shut its eyes to Turkey’s social, economic, political and moral weaknesses, and the first criticisms have already found their way into press editorials… The annals of the United States are rich…in powerful ‘epochal loves’. That does not mean that, after the initial period, the flame of love dies down completely, but the relationship does move onto more or less regular tracks… With respect to Turkey, the conclusion emerges… that there was and is a link between McCarthyism and the United States’ long courtship of Turkey. In this context, McCarthyism denotes not only placing anti-Communist security before all [other] concerns…but also overlooking the economic, social and moral weaknesses of any part of the world as long as it is available for exploitation in the anti-Communist campaign. Clearly, from this standpoint there is no country more reliable than Turkey. But…with the waning of McCarthy’s star, the consideration of [anti-] Communist security will not long remain in a vacuum on the one hand, nor in the sphere of reaction and depravity on the other.34 Turkey also wanted Israeli assistance in eliciting a less critical attitude on the part of the world press with regard to Cyprus and Ankara’s relations with Greece (see below), issues on which Turkey suffered media antagonism ‘to a catastrophic degree’. 35 Israel decided to try and help the Turks, the only constraint being that lobbying should bear ‘the clear character of Jewish assistance’, while playing down the role of Israel’s Washington embassy.36 Should the lobbying bear fruit, the Turks would be aware who was behind it. In the event of failure, Jerusalem hoped that Turkish resentment against Israel would be somewhat softened. ‘As an “Ankarian” in the not too distant past’, wrote Yohanan Meroz from Washington, [I believe] that a recognised and serious effort on our part, even though without material success, is likely to achieve its reward in the totality of Turkish-Israeli relations: self-evidently, [the Turks] will not rest content with a mere pretence, but if they are convinced of the genuineness of our efforts, the latter will evoke respect.37


Israel took action on Turkey’s behalf, but with limited success. While the US State department continued to regard Turkey as its main redoubt in the Middle East, Ankara came under growing criticism from the American press as it became evident ‘that a Democratic Party in Turkey, and democracy, are not necessarily one and the same thing’.38 Israel had been over-eager in convincing the Turks of its omnipotence in America, just as the Turks were misled in their conviction that ‘the Jews rule the United States’. ISRAEL’S INTEREST IN RELATIONS WITH TURKEY From Israel’s viewpoint, the matter appeared self-evident. Official ties with a Moslem country bordering on the Arab states took on the aspect of an achievement of the first order, as did the accreditation in Ankara of an Israeli military attaché—one of only four, the others serving at Israel’s embassies in London, Paris and Washington.39 The establishment of an Israeli legation in Ankara appeared urgent enough to require Eliyahu Sasson to relinquish his post as chief Israeli negotiator with King Abdullah of Jordan and undertake the new assignment. Contacts with Jordan would evidently suffer thereby, but Israeli-Turkish relations were given priority. In addition to the benefits of relations with a Moslem state, and of commercial and other ties with Turkey, that country’s value was enhanced in Israeli eyes by its international links and its geographical position in the Middle East. Commencing in 1949, Turkey launched an orchestrated three-pronged drive to join NATO, to conclude a Balkan pact with Greece and Yugoslavia, and to forge an alliance with Pakistan. By 1954, Turkey was the only country which belonged to three separate defence treaties. Later that year, Turkey launched negotiations with Iraq for yet another mutual defence agreement, which was finally signed in 1955. This unique status made Turkey into a political and military centre of the first order, a fact which did not escape the attention of Israel’s policy-makers. Israel’s Ankara legation engaged in a good deal of information-gathering. One of its principal tasks was to study the advanced military technology the Americans were currently applying to Turkey. The technique of installing underground fuel supply at air bases was acquired in Turkey.40 Of all places, it was in Ankara that Israel gained details of the manpower- and vehicle-complement of an Egyptian motorised battalion. 41


Turkey’s proximity to Syria and Iraq led Israeli representatives to prepare plans to establish consulates in nearby provincial towns. Ankara served as a meeting place with Arab messengers and purveyors of information, and the city replaced Cyprus as Israel’s chief listening post for monitoring the Arab states: With regard to the security aspects of meetings with Arabs in Cyprus [on which account the meetings were transferred to Ankara] Cyprus has earned the reputation of being a focus for espionage and for contacts between Jews and Arabs, and it is to be feared that a watch is kept over the movements of every Arab who reaches the island.42 These contacts called for speedy communications between the Ankara Legation and Tel Aviv. The normal procedure, whereby cables went by way of London, entailed the loss of precious time, which sometimes made the information transmitted worthless. Likewise, the Ankara Legation was convinced that information collated from Turkey’s border regions lost its value due to communications difficulties. With the aim of overcoming these obstacles, Israel planned to establish more efficient communication facilities in the Ankara Legation, offering the same facility to the Turks in Tel Aviv. But Ankara, objecting to Israel’s utilization of Turkish soil for these purposes, withheld permission. Turkish reservations were fortified by the US ambassador, George Wadsworth, who charged the Israeli Legation with ‘certain pernicious intentions, i.e., to make intrigues against the Arabs and to trouble further the political atmosphere of the Middle East’. 43 Turkey’s response, when it came, was directed against Israel’ s military attaché. Israel was advised that he ought to receive additional accreditation to Belgrade, because in Ankara he is progressively gaining weight due to the involuntary idleness with which he is afflicted, for his dynamism is undiminished and finds difficulty in coming to terms with the authorities’ reluctance to take it into consideration.44 RELATIONS GET UNDERWAY Relations between Israel and Turkey developed progressively in a variety of ways, some of them substantial, others not. Turkish and Israeli soccer teams (‘Fenerbahce’ and ‘Hapoel’) exchanged visits. In the


presence of Israel’s president, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem celebrated 500 years of Turkish rule in Constantinople. In sharp contrast to the gesture of the Israeli president, his Turkish colleague absented himself from the parallel celebrations in Istanbul, out of anxiety to avoid offending the sensibilities of the Greeks, who had declared it a day of national mourning. A forest was planted on Mount Carmel to commemorate Kemal Ataturk, and trees were donated to be planted at his tomb in Turkey.45 The growing intimacy of bilateral relations can be deduced from Israel’s care to update the Turks on its political démarches vis-à-vis the Western powers. Assuming that the information would reach Turkey anyway, whether from Britain or the United States, Jerusalem saw no grounds to refrain from supplying it directly, without intermediaries. As a result, ‘the Turkish Government has been extremely appreciative of our informative attitude’. The detailed character of this information can be learned from the fact that the Ankara Legation requested permission to notify the Turks of the delivery of jet planes to the Israeli air force.46 The topics discussed between the two states were variegated. As the sole Islamic state represented in Israel, Turkey became the protector of Islam and of Moslem property in Israel. Charges that a mosque had been converted into a synagogue spurred the Turkish minister to intense activity. When an Israeli trainee pilot defected with his plane to Turkey, there were numerous exchanges at the judicial and military levels. Jews heading for Israel from Iran and Bulgaria passed through Turkey, as did emigrants from Syria and Iraq. Ankara even intervened with the Baghdad authorities on behalf of Jews imprisoned there. At the United Nations, Israel and Turkey concluded voting pacts. And Israel was among the states which actively lobbied South American representatives to support Turkey’s election to the Security Council. In contrast, the Israeli army’s induction of Turkish immigrants almost plunged bilateral relations into crisis, the Turks threatening to stamp their citizens’ passports with the caveat: ‘Invalid for travel to Israel’. 47 This ramified interaction reflected, for the most part, the interest each country displayed in maintaining relations with the other, and their shared eagerness to expand these ties. Yet the cultural and scientific exchanges between the two countries were beset by the now-familiar complexities and sensitivities, as illustrated by the following communication from an Israeli diplomat in Ankara to the Foreign Ministry:


The extreme touchiness of the general public in this country, and the pronounced inferiority complex so deeprooted in its intellectual circles, do not qualify Turkey [to serve] as a convenient vessel for imbibing the spiritual and cultural treasures of another country. An instructive, if primitive, illustration is the response of local spectators when a foreign sports team is gaining the upper hand. A setback on the sportsfield is perceived as a national calamity of enormous dimensions. Even the considerable admiration for the might (in the full sense of the term) of the state of Israel…is likewise compounded with no small measure of fierce jealousy. The prevalent sense of inferiority will prevent the Turks from benefitting in any manner from Israel’s spiritual bounty, if they are not permitted simultaneously to share with us their own cultural treasures. The choosiness and snobbishness [which characterise] the general public in Israel are likely to stifle at birth any serious and regular exchange transactions. The intellectual ties of the Jewish community in Israel, to the extent that they are natural and not the outcome of systematic selfimposed coercion, run to the free Anglo-Saxon cultures, and, to a lesser extent, to Soviet culture. It would be difficult to see it accept, beyond the undesirable framework of one-time exotic enthusiasm, any of the spiritual and cultural treasures of a country of which its knowledge is as scanty as though [that country] lay at some remote corner of the earth. It must be admitted that, in at least one of the mainstays of such a cultural exchange, there exists a grave difficulty: the language problem. 48 In addition to these dilemmas, there were further complications: a number of Israeli leaders (the president, Yitzhak Ben Zvi, the prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and foreign minister, Moshe Sharett) had received their educations in Turkey, though this was in Ottoman times. There was a delighted response in Turkey whenever Israeli leaders displayed their mastery of the Turkish language, or their familiarity with Turkish traditions.49 But there were no parallel sentiments in Israel, where the term Ottoman was held to be synonymous with decadence and corruption, a perception hardly conducive to the expansion of cultural relations. Efforts on the part of the Israeli legation in Ankara to induce Israelis to go to Turkey to study academic disciplines such as history, linguistics, sociology and ethnology, or more practical subjects such as fishing techniques, transport in mountainous regions, the impact of geology on farming—failed to arouse much enthusiasm outside the


Orientalist departments of Israeli universities. 50 An invitation to Israeli officers from Turkey’s defence minister to attend his country’s military academy—whose students even included French officers—was not taken up.51 All these offers were declined in Israel, the argument running: If the people of the Second Aliyah [Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe who came to Palestine during the first two decades of the present century] were interested in studying at Turkish universities, our generation has no such interest. Aside from a few Orientalists, there will probably be few young persons particularly desirous of receiving their scientific training in the Turkish language, and the reverse also holds true: what Turk would wish to study at the Hebrew University?52 One outcome of Turkish touchiness was that relations between the two countries were kept in a low profile. This was also due to Turkey’s ties with the Arab states (discussed below), but not least from the emotional undertones attending Turkey’s relations with a state much smaller and younger which nevertheless turned out to have much to offer. Moreover, the state was Jewish—and the Turks had a very unambiguous perception of their own Jewish community: it was timid, passive and compliant. An aviation agreement between the two countries was concluded in near-secrecy, the subdued atmosphere being reflected in the quip of Israel’s minister in Ankara: ‘The funeral is over, now for the condolences’.53 Similarly, the Turks preferred not to see too many Israelis visit their country on official missions. With regard to an extradition agreement, ‘they fail to understand our desire to send a delegation, since such a matter can be concluded by the exchange of drafts and letters’.54 Referring to a later period, one researcher compares the discreet nature of Turkey’s attitude to Israel with the attitude of a man towards his mistress: in public, at least, he denies her very existence out of deference for his legal wife, and for her large and respectable Arab family who have provided a handsome dowry.55 This explains, for example, Turkey’s requests to the Israeli press to be prudent in its reporting on Turkey and their ties with Israel. Witness the fallout from a visit to Israel’s Chief Rabbi Herzog by Turkey’s minister to Israel, Sefkati Istinyeli:


When he came to the [Chief] Rabbi, accompanied by the head of protocol, Dr. Simon, [it was reported in the press that] the reverend rabbi, addressing Dr. Simon, asked him how long he had represented his country in Israel; then he turned to the Turkish minister and asked him if he was head of protocol at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. The minister expressed his indignation over the fact that the newspaper had permitted itself certain insinuations with regard to his ‘nose’. ‘What of it if I have a Jewish nose? What is the point of publicising [the fact] in the press, accompanied by my photograph in profile? It is a total want of courtesy towards a foreign diplomat, and in bad taste, and so on and so forth’, the minister stated furiously. Needless to say, I agreed with his statement that the offence on the part of the paper was beneath contempt, and I endeavoured to soothe him…. The minister stressed that he would bring the newspaper extract, together with the photograph, to the attention of the foreign minister, and would request that steps be taken against the paper.56 If references to the minister’s ‘Jewish nose’ were uncouth, less vulgar articles published in the Israeli press evoked concern among those entrusted with relations with Turkey. Unfavourable reports about the Turkish economy were depicted as ‘a stab in the back’; Jerusalem Post articles about Turkey’s foreign trade, with references to unsettling symptoms, such as the growth of Turkey’s short-term debts, impending inflation, and the inevitable decline to be expected in Israel’s capacity for purchasing Turkish agricultural produce (while the Israeli Legation was telling the Turks the precise opposite) drew abrasive comments from Israeli diplomats: even if the facts are correct, do we have to write about them, thereby giving the Turks unfriendly signals?… What could have induced an Israeli reporter to write [such a thing]… As far as I know, the Jerusalem Post is not an opposition newspaper. Can’t the paper be persuaded to make its editorials more in keeping with the interests of our foreign delegations?57 The Israeli press was called upon to play its part, not by disseminating misinformation, but by ‘balancing’ the facts. To balance references to the anti-Zionist policies of the Ottoman authorities, journalists could


mention that Sultan Beyazid was the only ruler of his time to welcome the Jews expelled from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century. And so on and so forth.58 This topic can be summarised in the moral drawn by the Ankara Legation, a further illustration of Fisher’s observation (see above) that what was valid in other capitals did not necessarily apply in Ankara: We should bear in mind Turkey’s particular touchiness with regard to matters of national pride. The numerous points of contact existing nowadays between…the two countries are liable to turn into conflagration points if constant care is not taken. An unconsidered word in an Israeli paper, a disparaging remark by an Israeli sailor in a Turkish port, indecorous behaviour on the part of a tourist or trader—any of these are liable to set us back. Turkey is unlike other countries in its national sensitivity, and certain incidents which would be trivial in another country are capable of being blown all out of proportion in this country. 59 ISRAELI-TURKISH TRADE RELATIONS The reference to possible ‘indecorous behaviour’ on the part of traders brings us to the principal dimension of Israeli-Turkish relations: commercial ties between the two countries. The reminder to ‘behave decorously’ was no chance remark: it was reiterated as trade links between the two countries grew increasingly close, creating redoubled anxiety over their precipitate (‘overnight’) disruption through some slight to Turkish pride. Any proposed Israeli sale to Turkey was preceded by discussions—semantic no less than practical—on how to sell them the goods without needling their national sensitivities. Israel’s attempts to export military and industrial products and knowhow to Turkey—indirect testimony to that country’s inferiority in these spheres—encountered difficulties because of ‘the overweening national pride which does not tolerate “slights”. A direct offer to sell any Israeli product similar or identical to a Turkish product, would encounter outright rejection.’60 These obstacles blocked the development of bilateral trade on a basis of ‘complementary economies’, whereby Israel would sell the know-how and industrial products in which it possessed relative superiority in return for the agricultural produce and raw materials in which Turkey enjoyed a similar edge. During the period of the British Mandate over Palestine, the bilateral trade balance had inclined sharply in Turkey’s favour. In the period of


1946–1949, Palestine was Turkey’s third largest export market (except in 1947 when it was in fourth place): Palestine imported Turkish goods equalling the equivalent of over $18,000,000.61 Bilateral trade achieved a degree of equilibrium in the early 1950s: at that time, Turkey sought a substitute for the hitherto principal source of its imports—Germany—in view of the decline of its own exports to that country, a drop of 50 per cent in 1954.62 (The Germans, benefiting from the liberalisation of trade in the dollar area, now found cheaper sources for the raw materials and farm produce they had earlier been purchasing from Turkey.) In reponse, Turkey switched its own traditional purchases (mainly of industrial products) to three alternative sources: Spain, Yugoslavia and Israel. In December 1954, for the first time, the trade balance tilted in Israel’s favour to the displeasure of the Turks, who made it known that ‘the present state of affairs should be seen as nothing more than a brief transitional period’.63 But the balance tilted even further as Israel stepped up the export of industrial products to Turkey, while cutting down its own imports of Turkish farm produce, having itself become an agricultural exporter. (By 1984, for instance, Turkish goods exported to Israel totalled $10,000,000, while imports from Israel came to $29,000 $00.)64 Changes in both economies gradually resulted in the two countries becoming less complementary of one another, economically speaking. In the early 1950s, however, matters looked different. Imports from Turkey covered Israel’s entire consumption of cotton, and one half of its requirements in wheat (150,000 tons), in addition to a variety of other produce such as dried fruit, fish, cattle and associated byproducts (cattle bones), oils, various grains, etc. Israeli exports to Turkey were equally variegated, including pharmaceuticals, electrical appliances, cooking and heating stoves, refrigerators, cooking utensils, tyres, fertilisers, cement and building material. Israel refined Turkish oil and exported its products, and the Solel Boneh Construction Company constructed apartment buildings and laid out airfields in Turkey. In 1954, Israeli exports came to $12,000,000; from that date on, they increased steadily though sluggishly. Israel was also instrumental in supplying Turkey with commodities available only from some third party, principally Eastern bloc countries with whom Turkey conducted little trade. Deliveries included metal products and steel, tractors, bulldozers, trucks, etc.65 But even at a time when bilateral trade was depicted as being ‘in a splendid state’, reflecting ‘a natural partnership’ between the economies of the two countries, there were reiterated warnings of a collapse which


could come about overnight. Any Israeli achievement in Turkey was of a limited nature: The facts…are correct, and the only thing that disturbs me is the optimistic tone… But these are things which may be overlooked in a young diplomat full of dynamism and enthusiasm… The splendid state of Turkish-Israeli relations is liable to deteriorate for a variety of reasons, [of which] the principal one, in my opinion, is not the danger of expanded Arab influence. I shall list the dangers in their order of importance, as follows: 1. The danger of an unsuccessful outcome of Solel Boneh’s projects in Turkey, should such a thing happen, heaven forbid. 2. Continuation of three-way deals in which Israel makes too great a profit, including the continued re-exportation from Israel of Turkish commodities without Turkish authorisation. 66 Similar fears of commercial mishap or of an affront to Turkish pride attended attempts to coax the Turks into buying Israeli industrial products, military hardware in particular. It was Israel’s aim, as noted before, to convince the Turks that the economies of the two countries were complementary, Turkey being an agricultural nation, Israel an industrial one. This division-of-labour philosophy was reinforced by reports on Turkey’s metallurgical industry, which depicted gloomy workshops, overcrowded and filthy, with a handful of dispirited workers shuffling around ancient lathes. There were similar descriptions of the primitive and ramshackle furnaces constituting Turkey’s ‘foundry factories’ (inverted commas in the original).’ Astonishment strikes one at the sight of this reality… the worthlessness of the aforementioned Turkish “industry”.’67 The Turkish Government came in for similar ‘compliments’ with regard to its administrative efficiency and supervisory ability.68 The main difficulty in inducing the Turks to purchase Israeli industrial products, whether military or civilian, was their ‘overweening national pride which does not tolerate “slights”. A direct offer to sell any Israeli product similar or identical to a Turkish product would encounter outright rejection [in spite of the fact that] a high percentage of their produce is faulty.’ 69 In the Turkish army, over 50 per cent of motor vehicles were garaged awaiting repair, and signals equipment had to be cannibalised owing to a shortage of technicians. Nevertheless, it was foreseen in Israel that the Turks would refuse technical assistance, on grounds of prestige. 70


Although we do not have details about the scope of military commerce between the two countries, Israeli goods and services offered to Turkey ranged from aerial photography and provision of topographical maps for military purposes, to delivery of uniforms, ammunition, explosives, optical instruments, automotive spare parts, etc., and some trade was conducted.71 STRATEGIC COOPERATION: THE ISRAELITURKISH-ARAB TRIANGLE Linked with Israel’s desire to sell its industrial and military products and know-how to Turkey was the idea of impressing the West with the picture of Israeli-Turkish strategic cooperation. The Turkish soldier was tough and blessed with great powers of endurance. He lacked, however, the technical ability to master sophisticated weapons systems: between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of army recruits were illiterates. This state of affairs led to friction between the Turks and the Americans who supplied most of their arms. The Turks complained that the weapons delivered were faulty as a result of which there were frequent plane crashes and other ground accidents. The suppliers naturally laid the blame upon the technical ineptness of the Turkish soldiers. The Israelis concluded from all this that it was worth their while to toy with what was referred to at the time as ‘the theory of the mutually complementary armies’, similar to the idea of ‘complementary economies’. Israel’s army would concentrate on modern technology and exporting it to Turkey, while that country’s army would rest upon the sturdy manpower of its infantry divisions. Fortunately for Israeli-Turkish relations, the idea never got off the ground. 72 But in attempting to achieve strategic cooperation, not only did Israel have to contend with Turkish national sensitivity: it had to compete with the Arabs, and this situation exacerbated the already complicated IsraelTurkish-Arab triangle. While Europe sought a military (and, at times, political) rapprochement with Turkey, the Turks nevertheless experienced repeated disappointments: as a non-Christian nation, it found itself in the insecure position of frequently being held at arm’s length by the West. Whenever this happened, the two contending sides of the aforementioned triangle renewed their rivalry for Turkey’s favours. The Arabs laid stress on Turkey’s Islamic character, and their shared history under Ottoman rule, while Israel emphasised that it and Turkey were non-Arab nations living in an Arab Middle East. 73 These were the


ideological undercurrents behind Arab-Israeli competition for Turkey’s sympathies. It must be stressed, however, that, Western coolness notwithstanding, Turkey never abandoned its aspirations to adhere to the West and to Europe, in favour of a quest for integration into the Middle East. In this chapter, however, we will not consider Turkey’s relations with Europe, nor with the Middle East. We will rather highlight mutual efforts by Arabs and Israelis each to undermine the other’s relations with Turkey, while attempting to draw Ankara to their own side. Two conflicting trends underlay Turkey’s relations with Israel and the Arabs. As will be shown later, historical factors fostered TurkishArab antagonisms, which ought to have operated in Jerusalem’s favour. However, from the 1950s onwards, pragmatic considerations led to a healing of the Turkish-Arab rift, a rapprochement effected largely at the expense of Turkey’s ties with Israel. History should have been stronger than pragmatism, particularly as memories were still fresh on both sides. The Arabs had lived under Ottoman rule for hundreds of years, and relations between rulers and subjects, not always tranquil, had left a strong residue of contempt and hatred between them. The Turks—even many years later—could not forgive the Hussein rebellion of 1916, the British-backed Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. They continued to depict it as a stab in the back. Similarly, Ataturk, in his reforms, particularly those which made Turkey a secular, effectively anti-Islamic state, perceived Islam and the Arab heritage as the source of its decadence and an obstacle to modernisation and Westernisation. 74 These historical and philosophical factors were reinforced by territorial conflicts. Turkey claimed the province of Mosul from Iraq, while Syria claimed from Turkey the district of Alexandretta (Hatay) (which had been annexed by Turkey in 1938 and had made Syria the most anti-Turkish of the Arab states). 75 Furthermore, there was friction with Egypt arising from Turkey’s support for continued British occupation of the Suez Canal zone, in defiance of Cairo’s nationalist aspirations. For its part, Turkey fumed over the ostensibly neutralist position the Arab states adopted in the West-East conflict, and their refusal to support Britain and the United States. On top of that, the Turks showed contempt for the might of the Arabs, in view of the defeats they suffered in their confrontations with Israel. This contempt was doubly offensive because the Turks openly admired strength: ‘the more brutally it is expressed, the better they like, appreciate and understand it’. 76 Indeed, ‘The Turks never minded backing a loser providing he was brave and honest. But when 40


millions are beaten by less than one million, one cannot pity the loser— one must despise him.’77 These unflattering sentiments were backed by disdain for the Arabs’ internal instability and general disunity (‘the only time the Arabs were united was during the period of Ottoman rule’, wrote the daily Ulus on 15 June 1951). The assassination of King Abdullah of Jordan, the deposition of Farouk, the coups in Syria caused the Turkish foreign minister, Professor Köprülü, to complain: ‘You speak with an Arab statesman one day, and the next, he is no longer in power.’ 78 Accordingly, it would have been only natural for Turkish sympathies to incline towards Israel, especially since Israel, at times, gave these ‘natural’ sympathies ‘a helping hand’. When, for example, the Egyptian paper Ruz-al-Yusuf published a cartoon depicting Turkey as a dog chained to its Western masters, a discussion immediately followed in Israeli circles as to whether it should be brought to the Turks’ notice directly, or allowed to unfold ‘of its own accord’ by mentioning the cartoon ‘merely in passing’. 79 The restrictions imposed upon Turkish property in various Arab states contrasted sharply with Israel’s far more flexible and liberal attitude, and gave Israel a powerful propaganda card to use with the Turkish authorities.80 Israel’s helping hand was all the more effective in view of an apparent Turkish failure to make any fine distinctions between the various Arab states. Consequently, if Israel were to contribute towards disrupting Turkey’s relations with Syria, this would lead to a deterioration of Turkish ties with all the Arab states. That, at least, was how matters were perceived in Jerusalem.81 In similar fashion, and no less effectively, the Arab states decided to help pragmatic considerations ‘overcome’ history. The subject of their attacks was Israel’s Communism, with Arab League secretary Azzam Pasha outdoing himself during a visit to Ankara where he exhibited documents ‘proving’ Israel to be the centre of Communist propaganda in the Middle East. If, as reported, the documents ‘dumbfounded’ Western diplomats in Ankara, those documents must have made an even more stunning impact on the Turks.82 This line was followed up by Arab press attacks conveyed to Turkey, in which Israelis and Jews were accused of ripping the Turkish flag to pieces in Aleppo (Syria), and of planning attacks against Turks holding Egyptian nationality. 83 In their efforts to wreck Israeli-Turkish relations, the Arab representatives in Ankara received powerful assistance from the US ambassador, George Wadsworth. A bitter feud, personal and emotional, raged for two years between Wadsworth and Israel’s first minister to Ankara, Eliyahu


Sasson. A trained Arabist, Wadsworth soon emerged as Sasson’s rival vis- à-vis Ankara’s diplomatic community and the Turkish Foreign Ministry as the Arab Middle East expert. Their rivalry did not remain purely personal. Wadsworth made no secret of his animosity towards Israel’s Ankara Legation and its ‘pernicious intentions’ of stirring up differences between Turks and Arabs. Sasson’s vociferous protests ultimately induced the Israeli Foreign Ministry to make vigorous representations to the State Department in Washington. Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett ordered a ‘reprisal campaign’ against Wadsworth in revenge for the ‘swinish behaviour’ of an ‘enemy whose influence is malignant’. 84 The American ambassador’s fondness for Scotch whisky was brought to the notice of Washington, and Wadsworth’s service in Ankara was terminated in the winter of 1952. Israel naturally refuted attempts to link either itself or American Jews with the ambassador’s transfer.85 Israel could therefore point to certain victories in its contest with the Arabs and their supporters for the sympathy of the Turks. However, pragmatism outdid even Scotch whisky in its impact on Islamic Turkey. When instructions emanated from the United States to coax the Arab states towards the West and induce them to adhere to regional defence pacts, the assignment fell to the Turks, admittedly ‘with little enthusiasm on the Turkish side since the Turks had no illusions about their southern neighbours’. Nonetheless, Turkey set about fulfilling American wishes, paying the bill in Israeli coin. For example, when Turkey signed the Baghdad Pact, a declaration was appended that those of its articles relating to military assistance at times of crisis were valid for, and specifically linked to, the Palestine problem. And in wooing other Arab states to join them in pro-Western defence treaties, the Turks stressed the limitations they had imposed on their relations with Israel, and their refusal to issue a declaration of support for Israel’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.86 On the other hand, it should be recalled that when Turkey felt threatened in 1958 because the pro-Western Arab regimes either collapsed (Iraq) or came under heavy pressure from Syrian, Nasserist and pro-Soviet elements (Jordan and Lebanon), Turkey hastened to join Israel in a ‘peripheral’ strategic and intelligence alliance —also designed to embrace Iran and Ethiopia, discussed below. In other words, a basic harmony was restored between the two stable democratic and secular pro-Western and non-Arab regimes which had regional enemies or adversaries in common. This intermittent state of affairs prevailed up to June 1967, when Turkey, abandoning its professed


neutrality in the Arab-Israeli conflict, expressed its solidarity with the Arab states in their conflict with Israel (see below). 87 CYPRUS: ANOTHER DIMENSION OF ISRAELITURKISH RELATIONS What was Israel’s position in certain other contexts in which the two countries were involved, such as the Cyprus issue and Turkish-Greek relations in general, or, for example, Turkey’s overtures in the Balkans? Israel’s show of neutrality in the conflicts between Turkey and Greece is hardly discernible in domestic Israeli deliberations, or in its contacts with Turkey, where the pro-Turkish position was predominant. To frame it in Jerusalem’s more formal terms: ‘The principal factor in determining our position vis-à-vis the Cyprus issue is the Turkish factor.’88 It should be noted immediately that no pro-Greek bias was evident in Israel’s dealings with Athens. There, neutrality was neutrality.89 Jerusalem had formulated its doctrine on the Cyprus issue as far back as 1952. A paper dealing with the Greek demand for ‘Enosis’ (unification with the island), set out arguments for and against Israeli support for that demand. The arguments against were discussed in the following categories and order: Israeli-British relations, Israeli-Turkish relations, and ‘our chilly relations with Greece’. 90 Two arguments were presented in favour of Israeli support for Enosis, the stress being laid on the more abstract of the two: ‘Our traditional acknowledgement of the right of self-determination, “our moral debt” [inverted commas in the original] to many of the island’s inhabitants who aided immigration [of Jews to Palestine] during the days of the [British] Mandate’.91 When two sets of bilateral relations were placed in the balance against a relationship depicted as ‘chilly’, along with tradition and a ‘moral debt’ in inverted commas, the choice was not hard. The terms of the diplomatic understatement mobilised to recommend support for the Turkish demand to perpetuate the status quo on the island were as follows: ‘The consideration of our relations with Greece should not burden us excessively’.92 With the aim of making the burden even less ‘excessive’, Israel and its diplomatic representatives in Ankara, Athens and Nicosia set out to prove that Enosis was without authentic roots, and that the demand was ‘artificial…the undesired by-product of Greek [domestic] politics’, and was not shared by all Greeks. Over a period of five years, Enosis was disparaged as the work of Greek Communists, on the one hand, and of the Greek Orthodox Church, on the other: the two


combined to leave the Greek Government with no choice but to undertake the cause, though with evident reluctance and ‘a well-nigh frantic’ quest for some honourable resolution of a problem it found ‘as painful as a glowing ember’.93 And, the argument continued, even if there was anything genuine behind the demand for Enosis, its sole origin lay in Cyprus, the only Greek ethnic community where Communism was rampant.94 Why, then, should Jerusalem provide Ankara with additional proof of Israel’s leftist leanings by supporting Enosis? The Cyprus issue also highlighted the ‘Turkish heritage’ of certain Israeli Foreign Ministry officials and diplomats. Undeterred by the fact that they now held remote postings where they had no further contact with the matter, they flung their weight into the scales on Ankara’s side. ‘As a “Turk” in the not too distant past’, Yohanan Meroz wrote in 1954 from Washington (where he had been posted after his service in Ankara), he felt himself obliged to warn against anything so modest as opting for neutrality on the Cyprus issue. ‘The Turks will in no way comprehend an attitude of reserve.’ They were friendly towards Israel and their word was binding. The Greeks, by contrast, were ‘plain liars’: not only had their promises of improved relations been shown up as false, they had, in the course of time, even given up making promises!95 It should be pointed out that of the Israeli Foreign Ministry officials engaged in Greek affairs, one was Turkish-born, the majority had studied Middle Eastern history with the accent on the Ottoman Empire, and some had been seconded to the Greek desk from the Ministry’s Middle East department. Nevertheless, in conversations with the author, Ministry officials denied any hint of disagreement between ‘Hellenists’ and ‘Turks’, or any insinuation that prior prejudices affected the manner in which Turkish or Greek affairs were handled. Israel’s ‘Turks’ also brushed away the mild protests emanating from their country’s Athens legation. With regard to Turkish-Greek relations, they declared firmly that the antagonism between the two countries was natural. The Turks were unaware of the Greeks’ sense of superiority as depicted by the Athens legation, or of any danger of Hellenisation. On the contrary, ‘present day Turkey is superior several times over to present day Greece’. Furthermore, Greek displays of friendliness, no less than the currently cordial relations between Athens and Ankara, were without foundation. ‘A tradition hundreds of years old is not easily forgotten, particularly when, objectively speaking, the feelers [put out for a] rapprochement bring more pronounced benefits to the Greeks than to the Turks’,96 The conclusion drawn by Israel’s representative in Ankara was that if the Greeks really sought Turkish friendship, they


would have to condescend to make greater efforts than before. Furthermore, the Greeks would have to cease their daydreaming: their influence on the Turks was negligible, and the Golden Age of Byzantium was gone forever!97 A former member of the Israeli legation in Athens at the time lamented, in a conversation with the author, that his Ankarian colleagues had reached a stage where they considered Ankara and Jeruslaem to be one undivided whole: ‘They convinced the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem that Ankara, not Athens, was the New Jerusalem.’ THE BALKAN PACT: YET ANOTHER DIMENSION A further dimension of the relations between Turkey and Israel concerns the two countries’ attitudes towards the Balkan Pact. The Balkan Treaty, concluded in February 1953, and the Balkan Pact of August 1954, provided for mutual entente and consultation between Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia. Unlike military defence pacts, the Balkan alliance did not include an undertaking to provide military aid in the event of attack. The tripartite understanding rested upon a fear shared by all three countries of Moscow and of their own respective Communist neighbours. It was to be foreseen that when Moscow healed its rifts with Belgrade and Athens, and when the Cyprus conflict grew in intensity, the understanding between the three Balkan countries would lose all of its substance. And, indeed, that was the ultimate outcome. But Israel, isolated in the Middle East and consequently eager to adhere to any group of states which could provide it with political support, perceived the Balkan Pact as an ideal objective towards which to strive —even without the hope of military assistance. As the Foreign Ministry put it: The Balkan states are close to us from a geopolitical viewpoint. They are an association of small states who are unlikely to underrate another small state which is well-organized and possesses an army of high quality…it is [also] an association of non-Arab states. All of these grounds make it incumbent upon us… to approach this group of states. 98 Israel’s military attaché in Ankara went even further by repeatedly stressing Israel’s military value to the Balkan Pact—equally because of


its geopolitical position, the composition of its army and the nature of its military industry.”99 Israel’s hopes vis-à-vis Turkey soared in consequence of that country’s adherence to the Balkan Pact. With Turkish attention directed towards the Balkans, Jerusalem hoped that Ankara would lose interest in the Middle East, making it less vulnerable to Arab influence. ‘Hitherto, we were forced into a corner, and were scarcely tolerated… The emergence of the Balkan Pact has strengthened our position’ (emphasis in the original).100 Israel hoped that Turkey’s advances towards the Balkans, i.e., towards Europe, would lead Ankara to neglect the East. (At this time, Israel gave clamorous publicity to the selection of Turkey’s beauty queen as ‘Miss Europe’, dismissing the charges of her French rival that’ [the Turkish woman ‘s] thighs are not classically formed’. All this appeared under the headline: ‘Turkey: part of Asia or Europe?’.)101 But in spite of widespread admiration for Israeli power, the extent of that power belonged to the realm of self-perception rather than universal perception. Gen. Yehoshapat Harkabi, then a colonel in charge of Israel’s military intelligence, made this point when referring to the rejection of Israeli advances to join the Balkan Pact and of a request that an Israeli destroyer be permitted to visit a Turkish port: The world is gradually slipping into the habit of treating us as a small state of limited importance. It is not easy for us to come to terms with that feeling; but, were we to wish the situation to be otherwise, we would have to demonstrate our importance, and in this we are not always successful.102 The Balkan Pact countries themselves were not particularly impressed with Israel’s military might which, even if taken into account, could not be of service to them without exposing Israel’s own borders at the same time. In addition, Turkey could gaze to the north and west to its heart’s content, but it soon found itself banished back to the East, where it served the United States— ‘though with no great enthusiasm’—in coaxing the Arabs towards the West. 103 Israel’s delight at the ‘Balkanisation’ of Turkey was, therefore, premature. TURKEY’S ‘OPENING TO THE EAST’ Far more upsetting were Turkey’s links with its eastern neighbours, or, to be precise, its pacts with Pakistan and Iraq. ‘I battled with Mr. Nuri


Birgi for an hour’, reported Israel’s minister to Ankara, describing the way in which he expounded Israel’s arguments against Turkey’s Ostpolitik to the director of that country’s Foreign Ministry. 104 Ankara, on the other hand, was fed up with ‘the cowardice and loudmouthedness which characterise the Jewish people’, according to Mr.Istinyeli, Turkey’s minister to Tel Aviv, responding to Israel’s objections to Ankara’s rapprochement with Iraq.105 For Israel, it was absolutely clear that while both were Western-backed alliances, Israel would be strengthened by Turkey’s adherence to the Balkan pact, and weakened (emphasis in the original) through Turkey’s approach to the East. 106 Israel attributed Ankara’s links with Pakistan to Turkey’s total dependence upon the United States and its consequent capitulation to American pressure for such an alliance. The Turks had no apparent interest in antagonising India, and they consciously sought to remain aloof from the Moslem world. These desires should have provided good arguments against a defence pact with Pakistan. But Washington thought otherwise: the proximity of Pakistan’s airfields to Soviet military industries in Siberia made Pakistan’s security vital to the West, and only a pro-Western defence pact with Turkey would render it possible to arm Pakistan and defend its strategic areas against the Soviet Union.107 Therefore, with the aim of facilitating a continued flow ofAmerican arms and development aid, Turkey consented to enter into negotiations with Pakistan. But Ankara continued to harbour grave doubts as to the wisdom of such a move. This was the case with regard to Pakistan, which had no common frontiers with Turkey. In the case of Iraq, which did, rapprochement appears to have been instigated by Ankara. There were a number of reasons which produced a Turkish effort ‘to win over that country [Iraq] at any price and in good time’: 108 Iraq had a relatively powerful Communist movement; there was a serious lack of internal stability due to communal differences (between Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds); there was unrest among Turkey’s own Kurdish minority, which maintained ties with its brethren in Iraq; and, finally, Iraq was strategically located in the triangle completed by Turkey and Iran. Israel, however, took a jaundiced view of Turkey’s opening to the East. It may not have been the ‘cowardice and loudmouthedness’ noted by Mr.Istinyeli, but there was distinct concern. Israel’s concern was for Turkey itself. Just as US arms supplied to Chiang Kai-Shek ultimately found their way to Mao Tse Tung, weapons delivered to Iraq were liable to fall into the hands of the Kurdish insurgents in Turkey. Iraqi weakness would make the alliance worthless to Turkey, because ‘the strength of a chain [is] determined by its


weakest link’, and even the Turkish soldier with one tank or plane was worth ten tanks or planes manned by an Iraqi soldier. Therefore, argued Israel, would it not be cheaper and safer, in times of emergency, to occupy Iraq, rather than arm them and expect them to defend themselves against a Communist enemy—with the strong probability that the weapons would find their way into anti-Western hands?109 Furthermore, neither Iraq nor Pakistan was vigorously anti-Communist, and Turkey was unlikely, therefore, to gain a great deal from these two countries in that respect. On the contrary, Pakistan would enjoy taking the arms it received through its alliance with Turkey, and directing them against India. Iraq would do likewise against Israel, furthermore taking advantage of the military information Turkey possessed about Israel. In this manner, Turkey might find itself embroiled in a confrontation with India, or in an ‘Arab adventure’ aimed at altering Israel’s borders. 110 Finally, Israel expressed grave anxieties that Turkey’s secular and proEuropean character would be adversely affected by Ankara’s links with Iraq and Pakistan. Turkey’s response was unambiguous, particularly with regard to its alliance with Iraq: anyone in favour of the rapprochement was an ally while anyone opposed was an enemy. And wise observers noted the wave of ‘Indophobia’ which swept Turkey during the winter of 1954, following the conclusion of Ankara’s pact with Pakistan: overnight Nehru became a whipping boy vilified by cartoonists in the press.111 Israel did not get off lightly either: the association between ‘Communists and Zionists’ as the sole opponents of Turkey’s Ostpolitik did little to improve Israeli-Turkish relations. 112 Israel sensed that Turkey was on the threshold of transition ‘from a phase of reserve towards Israel, to a phase of tangible anti-Israeli manifestations’. As Israel’s leaders contemplated their eastern front, they wondered if it might not be necessary to consider the possibility of the Turkish army aiding Iraq in the event of war against Israel.113 1958: THE ISRAELI-TURKISH PERIPHERAL PACT In the event, however, matters did not come to such a pass. On the contrary, the summer of 1958 found Israel and Turkey entering into an alliance, with an agreement for cooperation in the diplomatic, military and intelligence spheres, as well as in commerce and scientific exchanges. This was to become known as the ‘peripheral pact’ which, in its various metamorphoses, embraced Iran, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Israel,


even extending to certain Christian parts of Sudan. This alliance, or, to be precise, its Israeli-Turkish aspects, may be considered here as the epilogue to our examination of the first ten years of bilateral relations. This topic can receive only a brief review here. There is a scarcity of sources available (Israel has classified the relevant documents as military information, inaccessible for 50 years—as compared to 30 years for diplomatic documents).114 Nevertheless, it will serve as an illustration of the unpredictable nature of Turkish-Israeli relations. It should be kept in mind, in this context, that prophets of doom were predicting Turkish military aid to Iraq against Israel only two years prior to the understanding reached by Prime Ministers Ben-Gurion and Menderes on 29–30 August 1958. The circumstances surrounding this bilateral understanding are wellknown: Soviet and Nasserist subversion in four Middle Eastern countries (Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq) combined with Israel’s almost obsessive efforts to break out of its diplomatic isolation. This isolation had been recently exacerbated by Israel’s confrontation with the United States over the Suez war. These factors helped both Israel and Turkey to overcome their respective inhibitions and mutual misgivings. The Kassemite revolution in Baghdad, which proclaimed Iraq a ‘people’s republic’ (thereby effectively demolishing the Baghdad Pact), and manoeuvres conducted by 24 Soviet divisions near the Turkish border, helped to rid Ankara and Jerusalem of their residual hesitations. Turkey, ‘the weak link’ in Ben-Gurion’s peripheral strategy, and its leaders, whom he considered ‘two-faced’, 115 proved eager to bring contacts with Israel to a successful conclusion, the ‘cement’ being provided by the two countries’ shared hostility towards Nasser and the Soviets. Two utterances by Ben-Gurion appear to summarise his overall view of Turkish-Israeli relations, as contacts proceeded towards a conclusion of the pact. ‘[The Turks] have always treated us as one treats a mistress, and not as a partner in an openly avowed marriage’, he complained. Simultaneously, he expressed his envious admiration for Turkey’s physical attributes and its enormous rate of natural increase: 850,000 births annually (‘How meagre and impotent we are in this sphere, which overrides all else!’). This was also an implicit reference to one of the underlying ideas persistently and fruitlessly entertained by Israel for its relations with Turkey: the fusion of Turkish massiveness with Israeli know-how and direction. In the August 1958 agreement, the Turks appeared to have adopted the notion of ‘complementary nations’. Apparently it was to be effected in a number of ways: the provision of


Israeli know-how in laying an oil pipeline from Iran to Turkey; scientific cooperation in highly sensitive spheres (principally through meetings in Geneva); Israeli expertise in development of Turkish industry and agriculture; and export of Israeli military equipment to Turkey’s armed forces. In return, it was agreed that Israel would enjoy the support of the Turkish ‘giant’ and of its army, numbering hundreds of thousands of troops. To further illustrate the complete turnabout represented by the 1958 treaty, Turkey undertook an assignment which, prior to the Suez crisis of 1956, had traditionally fallen to Israel: the Turks would act on Israel’s behalf in Washington, in particular by asking the Pentagon to supply Israel with arms. On top of this, there were to be frequent consultations, coordination between Turkish and Israeli diplomats accredited in various capitals, and cooperation and mutual assistance at the United Nations (with the stress on the Cyprus issue), as well as agreement on joint military action in the event that Aden, which lay on the route of the oil tankers, fell into Nasser’s hands. The ‘peripheral pact’ in its Israeli-Turkish ramifications deserves to be studied in depth and not mentioned merely in passing as an epilogue to this study. The Israeli-Iranian side of the alliance has been given greater exposure following the overthrow of the Shah.116 By contrast, little has been written about the Jerusalem-Ankara axis, owing to continued efforts on both sides to keep its details secret. Ben-Gurion’s biographer, for example, describes the subterfuges employed to camouflage Ben-Gurion’s flight to Turkey for his meeting with Menderes. It must have been one of the few occasions when senior officials of the Turkish Foreign Ministry acted as waiters: this was done to safeguard the confidential nature of a luncheon meeting between the two prime ministers.117 IN CONCLUSION In conclusion, attention should be drawn to one particular aspect of Israeli-Turkish relations which is likely to recur in Israel’s relations with other states. Ankara encountered difficulties in fostering its relations with Israel particularly with regard to publicising its industrial, scientific and military links. In these spheres, Israel could offer modern know-how, while Turkey’s wares consisted of agricultural produce and unprocessed raw materials. Prestige, pride, and age-old images, not the least of them that of Turkey’s own Jewish community, all combined to prevent a Moslem state with a history of imperial domination from accepting ‘demotion’ to the status of recipient from a new, tiny, non-


Moslem country. Jewish soldiers, farmers and industrial workers were unfamiliar images to the Turk: he was acquainted largely with the Jewish trader. It would have been humiliating to admit that the achievements of Israeli agriculture, science and military might were far in advance of those of their Turkish counterparts. (An Israeli who once served in Turkey told the author that local officials, when speaking among themselves, were in the habit of referring to their Israeli colleagues as ‘Denmes’, the name given to Jews in the eighteenthcentury Ottoman Empire who followed the ‘Messiah’ Shabtai Zvi and later converted to Islam.) The Turks did not find the relationship an easy one, particularly in view of external Arab pressures, and domestic objections. The ground shared by the two countries—their Western viewpoint, their common Arab adversaries, their predicament as islands of non-Arab culture in an Arab sea—frequently lacked the constant regional element which might have prodded the two countries towards genuine cooperation. The decisive factor in the two countries’ relations revolved around developments in the Middle East. Yet, just as there were times when the fluctuation of events generated unanimity, there were other times when they aroused anger and alienation. The fortuitous nature of such developments consequently played a major role in ties between the two countries. How many times could Israel wait for ‘a heaven-sent gift for our relations with Ankara’, as the Kassemite coup in Iraq was characterised? On the other hand, since 1967, perhaps even earlier, Middle Eastern politics have been overshadowed by manifestations which a Turkish official described to the author as ‘dormant’ stumbling blocks to Israeli-Turkish relations: despite appearances to the contrary, Turkey has a profound interest in the welfare of the Arab and Moslem world. It won’t do you any good. Your 1967 victory was too brilliant, it is too prolonged, it affects too many Holy Places sacred to Islam. That victory represents the superiority of the European state, and European thinking, over the local Near Eastern element to which we belong, even if we proclaim otherwise. That must have a detrimental effect on our relations. And, indeed, despite the fact that Israel still maintains diplomatic relations with Turkey, recent years have witnessed a striking change in Turkish voting patterns at the United Nations on issues in which Israel is interested. Since 1980, following the enactment in Israel of the ‘Jerusalem Law’—which resulted in a sharp reaction by the Turks and a


scaling down of their representation in Israel—the Turks have consistently supported anti-Israel resolutions submitted by the Arabs. This is in contrast not only to the positions adopted by the United States and other NATO countries, but also in contrast to the positions adopted by Greece or, for example, Egypt, an Arab state no less Islamic than Turkey.118 This turnabout may confirm the premise that shared fears (of the Soviet Union, of Syria because of the annexation of the Hatay region and the Golan Heights, or of Palestinian and Armenian terrorism) do not provide a sufficient basis for long-term cooperation. Such cooperation can only be envisaged when both the Cyprus issue and the Middle East conflict are resolved or defused. Then Israel will not be called upon to pay the price of Arab support for either Turkey or Greece in their conflicts with each other. It seems that these manifestations constitute the latent if not the constant element which dwarfs the rest of Ankara-Jerusalem relations. Other regional developments may generate a rapprochement, as happened in the period between 1948 and 1958. But, then again, they just might not. NOTES 1. Maurice Fisher, Israeli minister to Ankara, to the Foreign Ministry, 16 Aug. 1953, Israel State Archives (ISA) 2536/12/B. 2. For Israel’s relations with Greece, see following chapter. 3. Ya’akov Shimoni to Sasson, 23 Sept. 1948, ISA 2570/11. 4. See also Kemal Karpat, Turkey’s Foreign Policy in Transition, 1950– 1974, Leiden, 1975, pp. 113–14. 5. Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 13 May 1953, ISA 2397/24. 6. Foreign Ministry, Middle East Department, plan of operations for a Turkish section, 14 Sept. 1948, ISA 2567/9. 7. See the reports appearing in this weekly during the winter of 1950–51. See also Ankara, Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 3 Jan. 1951, ISA 2515/11. Some 30 years later, the Islamic National Salvation Party of Necmettin Erbakan distributed banknotes bearing the portraits of Turkish politicians with Moshe Dayanstyle eye-patches. See George Gruen, Turkey after the Military Coup, American Jewish Committee, New York, 1981, p. 4. 8. Account of the campaign for religious freedom in Turkey. Ankara, Uriel Heyd to Foreign Ministry, 11 July 1950, ISA 2568/6. 9. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 24 Feb. 1951, ISA 2515/11. 10. Turkish Foreign Minister, Fuad Köprülü, to Eliyahu Sasson, Israel’s first minister to Ankara, Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 31 Jan. 1951, ISA 2515/


11. 12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

11; Sasson to Moshe Sharett, Israel’s foreign minister, 23 Aug. 1950, ISA 2568/6. 16 Feb. 1950, ISA 2567/9. Yitzhak Ben Ya’akov, ‘My Mission in Ankara’ (the private diary of Mr. Ben Ya’akov, who was a secretary at the Israel Legation in Ankara), May 1952; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 22 Dec. 1950, ISA 2515/11. Foreign Ministry, Michael Comay, memorandum on Israeli policy and Middle East defence, 7 May 1952, ISA 2449/1. Sasson’s meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister, 13 Jan. 1950, ISA 2536/11/A; Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 29 Oct. 1950, ISA 2568/6; Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 11 Jan. 1951, ISA 2382/1; Ankara to Foreign Minstry, 9 Jan. 1952, ISA 2515/13; correspondence between Ankara and the Foreign Ministry, May-June 1956, ISA 2515/14. See note 1 above, and Ben Ya’acov diary. For proof supplied to the Turks of Israel’s non-Communist character, see Foreign Ministry Research Department, ‘Foreign Policy and Turkey’s Defense System’, June 1949, ISA 2536/16; statement of Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, 19 Feb. 1951, ISA 2457/5; Foreign Ministry (Michael Comay) July 1952, ISA 2449/1/A; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, June 1951, ISA 2515/12; Ben Ya’akov’s diary, May 1952; Ankara (Yohanan Meroz) to Foreign Ministry, 17 July 1952, ISA 2536/12/A; Meroz to Foreign Ministry, 5 Jan. 1953, ISA 2536/12/B; Israeli Embassy in Washington to Foreign Minstry, 23 Feb. 1951, ISA 2566/18. Memorandum to Eliyahu Eilat, London, 25 July 1950, ISA 2403/9/A. See note 1 above. See, for example, George Gruen, ‘Turkey’s Relations with Israel and its Neighbors’, Middle East Review, Spring 1985, p. 35. Ankara, Sasson, to Foreign Ministry, 8 Feb. 1951, ISA 2515/11. Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 6 July 1953, ISA 2535/19/A. Israel Consulate in Istanbul, 17 Jan. 1951, ISA 2568/12. Israel Consulate in Istanbul to Foreign Ministry, 26 July 1950, ISA 2536/ 12/A. Foreign Ministry, Research Department, ‘Foreign Policy and Turkey’s Defence System’, June 1949, ISA 2536/16; Tuvia Arazi, Israel Consulate in Istanbul, to Foreign Ministry, 26 July 1950, ISA 2536/12/A; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 22 Dec. 1950, ISA 2515/11. Ankara, Uriel Heyd to Foreign Ministry, report for June-July 1950, ISA 93/18. Israel Consulate in Istanbul, Tuvia Arazi, 11 March 1950, ISA 2568/12. Sasson to Moshe Sharett, 4 Sept. 1950, ISA 2382/1. My emphasis. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 11 Jan. 1951, ISA 2382/1. Foreign Ministry, ‘In preparation for the visit of the Turkish president’, Jan. 1954, ISA 413/8; Foreign Ministry to Israel Embassy in Washington, 20 Jan. 1954, ibid.


30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40.

41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

46. 47.

Ibid. Ibid. Maurice Fisher to Foreign Ministry, 16 Sept. 1954, ISA 2412/1/A. Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 4 Oct. 1954, ISA 2536/13; Emil Najar, head of West European Department, to Sharett, 16 Dec. 1954, ISA 2536/18/A. Israel Embassy in Washington to Foreign Ministry, 15 Dec. 1954, ISA 413/8. Memorandum to Foreign Minister concerning conversation with the Turkish minister in Israel, 24 Oct. 1954, ISA 2411/34/B. Foreign Ministry to Washington, 29 Sept. 1955, ISA 413/8. Washington, Yohanan Meroz to Foreign Ministry, 7 Sept. 1954, ISA 2412/ 1/A. Meroz had formerly served in Ankara. Ankara to Israel Embassy in Washington, 20 Jan. 1955, ISA 413/8. Israel’s interest in fostering relations with Turkey is discussed in the author’s paper ‘Middle East Listening Post: Eliyahu Sasson and the Israeli Legation in Turkey, 1949–1952’, Studies in Zionism, Vol. 6, No. 2 Autumn 1985. See correspondence of Israeli military attaché with military intelligence, 13 Nov. 1953, ISA 50/1; Colonel Harkabi, deputy head of military intelligence, to Foreign Ministry, 2 Nov. 1950, ISA 53/6; Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 5 Jan. 1953, ISA 50/1. Interview with Uriel Shai, Israeli military attaché in Ankara, July 1984. Foreign Ministry, Middle East Department, to Ankara, 23 Jan. 1951, ISA 53/6. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 11 Jan. 1951, ISA 2382/1; Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 13 Feb. 1951, ISA 2515/11. For the establishment of consulates in provincial towns and communication facilities, see Foreign Ministry to Ankara, 27 July 1953, ISA 50/1; Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 5 Jan. 1953, ibid; Foreign Ministry, Economic Department, report on negotiations with Turkey, 31 March 1950, ISA 51/1. Ankara, Maurice Fisher, to Foreign Ministry, 29 Dec. 1953, ISA 50/24. For the events mentioned here, see: Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 12 Feb. 1950, ISA 2567/15; Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 1 Dec. 1952, ISA 2522/ 3/A; memorandum from Emil Najar, 1 July 1953, ISA 2411/34/B; Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 14 Jan. 1954, ISA 2412/1/A. Ankara, Meroz, 12 Jan. 1953, ISA 2582/2. With regard to the issues discussed between the two countries, see: pilot’s defection to Turkey, July-October 1949, ISA 2568/5; conversation with the Turkish minister in Israel, 24 Feb. 1954, ISA 2411/34/B (complaints about the conversion of a mosque into a synagogue); cooperation at the UN, Walter Eytan, director of the Foreign Ministry, to Sasson, 19 Sept. 1950, ISA 2515/ 11, and Meroz to Foreign Ministry, 12 Feb. 1953, ISA 2382/2/A; Jewish immigration, Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 22 May 1953, ibid, and memorandum from the Israel Embassy


48. 49.

50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66.

in London, 27 April 1954, ISA 2536/12/B; induction of Turkish immigrants into the Israeli Army, Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 2 June 1954, ISA 2411/34/B, and Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 23 Sept. 1954, ISA 2536/21/B. Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 17 July 1952, ISA 2536/12/A. About the deep conviction prevailing during the First World War concerning the advisibility of linking the Zionist movement in Palestine with the Ottoman Empire, see Shabtai Teveth, Kin’at David, the Life of David Ben-Gurion (Hebrew), Jerusalem, 1976, passim. Ankara, Meroz to Foreign Ministry, 17 July 1952, ISA 2536/12/A. Foreign Ministry, Middle East Department, report by Nissim Ya’ish, 25 Dec. 1953, ISA 2536/18/A. Foreign Ministry, Dr.Haim Yahil, to Ankara, 11 Aug. 1952, ibid. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 7 Feb. 1951, ISA 2515/11. Ankara to Foreign Ministry, report on conversation with Nuri Birgi, director of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, 11 Nov. 1954, ISA 413/8. Gruen, Turkey’s Relations with Israel’, p. 35. Israel Consulate in Istanbul to Foreign Ministry, 26 July 1954, ISA 2536/ 18/A. Israel Consulate in Istanbul to Foreign Ministry, 7 March 1954, ISA 2547/4; Israeli minister to Turkey to head of West European Department, 30 Dec. 1954, ISA 2412/1/A. See also, Jerusalem Post, 28 Dec. 1954. Israel Consulate in Istanbul to Foreign Ministry, 8 May 1952, ISA 2536/ 1. Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 30 June 1954, ISA 2412/1/A. My emphasis. Office of the Israeli military attaché in Turkey to head of military intelligence, 29 June 1954, ISA 2536/12/B. Foreign Ministry, report on the work of the section for Turkish affairs, 2 Jan. 1949, ISA 2568/5. Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 3 March 1954, ISA 2412/1/A. Turkish minister to Israel, Istinyeli, to Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, 16 Dec. 1954, ISA 2411/34/B. Gruen, Turkey’s Relations with Israel’, p. 41. For details on trade between the two countries, see: Foreign Ministry to Ankara, Jan 1950, ISA 2567/15; Foreign Ministry, Economic Department, 3 Nov. 1954, ISA 2547/5/A; New York Times, 27 Dec. 1954; Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 28 Dec. 1954, ISA 2547/5/A; Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 29 Dec. 1954, ibid. See also Gruen, Turkey’s Relations with Israel’, p. 41. Ankara, Maurice Fisher, to Foreign Ministry, 19 Jan. 1954, ISA 2412/1/ A. The ‘young diplomat’ was Yohanan Meroz. See also Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 14 Jan. 1954, ISA 2531/32/B. Author’s emphasis.


67. Foreign Ministry, minister’s office, ‘Guidelines for Israeli delegations’, 29 Aug. 1949, ISA 2567/9. 68. Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 23 Dec. 1954, ISA 2601/12. 69. Ankara, military attaché, to head of military intelligence: conversation with the Turkish minister of development, 29 June 1954, ISA 2536/12/B. 70. Ankara, military attaché, to Foreign Ministry, 18 April 1952, ISA 2547/ 3. 71. Ankara, military attaché, to Foreign Ministry, 10 March 1952, ibid. 72. For infantry and technology in Israel and Turkey, see Foreign Ministry, ‘Guidelines for Israeli delegations’, 29 Aug. 1949, ISA 2567/9; Foreign Ministry, Research Department, American aid to Turkey, 16 Feb. 1950, ibid; Foreign Ministry, Middle East defence, 1952, ISA 2449/1/A; B.H.Liddell Hart, ‘The Defense of the Middle East’, Harper’s Magazine, April 1953, p. 69; Foreign Ministry, ‘News from the countries of the Middle East’, undated, ISA 2567/9. 73. See also Ankara, Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 18 June 1951, ISA 2515/ 12; Ankara, Yohanan Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 10 Sept. 1952, ISA 41/ 1/A. 74. See also Karpat, Turkey’s Foreign Policy in Transition, pp. 108–11. 75. Every few years (most recently in April 1984) a crisis erupts in TurkishSyrian relations following publication of Syrian maps depicting Turkish regions such as Hatay, and even Adana and Mersin, as Syrian territory. See Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 13 April 1953, ISA 2410/7; Gruen, Turkey’s Relations with Israel’, p. 43. 76. Undated report to director of Foreign Ministry, Walter Eytan, ISA 2411/ 33. 77. Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry (citing a Turkish politician), 1 May 1951, 2532/7/A. 78. Ankara, Maurice Fisher to Foreign Ministry, 16 Sept. 1954, ISA 2412/1/ A. 79. Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 28 Nov. 1951, ISA 2527/1/A. 80. Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 15 June 1953, ISA 2536/11/A. 81. Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 12 July 1953, ISA 2536/12/B. 82. Ankara, Sasson to Foreign Ministry, 12 June 1951, ISA 2515/12. 83. Israel Consulate in Istanbul, Tuvia Arazi to Foreign Minister, 27 April 1952, ISA 2412/1/A. 84. Sharett to Sasson, 1 July 1951, ISA 338/19. For Sasson’s complaints about Wadsworth during the period October 1950-December 1951, see ISA 338/19, 2382/1, 2515/11–13, 2527/1/A, 2565/7. 85. Ben Ya’akov diary. 86. For Turkey’s links with the Arab states see: Ankara to Israel Embassy in London, 15 Dec. 1954, ISA 2532/7/A; London, Eliyahu Elath to Foreign Ministry, 30 Dec.1954, ISA 2411/30/11; Foreign Ministry, Research Department, 1 April 1955, ISA 2536/16.


87. Prior to the eruption of the crisis, in June 1967, Turkey had refused to recognise the Arab character of the Gulf of Akaba, as urged by Egypt. This stemmed from Turkey’s position on freedom of navigation in international waterways. See Karpat, Turkey’s Foreign Policy in Transition, p. 130. 88. Memorandum to Foreign Minister, 24 Oct. 1954, ISA 2411/34/B. 89. See following chapter. 90. Foreign Ministry, UN Department, 4 Nov. 1952, ISA 2424/6/A. 91. Ibid. 92. Ankara, Elyashiv ben Horin to Foreign Ministry, 17 Aug. 1954, ISA 2548/ 4/B. 93. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 23 Oct. 1956, ISA 2548/6. For more on the ‘inauthenticity’ of Enosis, see Israel Consulate in Nicosia, to Foreign Ministry, 18 Aug. 1952, ISA 2601/12; Athens to Foreign Ministry, 17 June 1954, ISA 2536/24. 94. Foreign Ministry, Research Department, 26 Nov. 1951, ISA 460/14; bulletin to Israeli delegations, 23 April 1951, ISA 460/16. 95. Washington to Foreign Ministry, 10 Sept. 1954, ISA 2548/4/B. 96. Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 27 Aug. 1952, ISA 458/15. 97. Ibid. 98. Foreign Ministry, Information Department, to Rome, 29 Nov. 1954, ISA 2536/19/A. My emphasis. 99. Report of the military attaché, Col. Gaon, 4 Dec. 1953, ISA 2445/9. 100. Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 28 Dec. 1953, ISA 413/8. Emphasis in original. 101. Report from Israel Embassy in London, 18 Sept. 1952, ISA 41/1/A. 102. To the Israeli minister in Rome, 31 Jan. 1954, ISA 2551/7/A. 103. Memorandum to the Foreign Minister, 7 Jan. 1955, ISA 2510/7. 104. Maurice Fisher to Foreign Minister, 19 Feb. 1954, ISA 2551/8/B. 105. Foreign Ministry, Research Department, 17 Jan. 1955, ISA 2536/16. 106. Ankara, Meroz, to Foreign Ministry, 31 Jan. 1954, ISA 2536/12/B. 107. Rome to Foreign Ministry, 26 Feb. 1954, ISA 2551/8/B. 108. Rome to Foreign Ministry, 30 Oct. 1954, ISA 2411/35/A. 109. Ankara, Maurice Fisher to Foreign Ministry, 19 Feb. 1954, ISA 2551/8/B. The report is on his conversation with officials of the Turkish Foreign Ministry. 110. Foreign Ministry to Ankara, 7 March 1954, ISA 2551/8/B; Foreign Ministry, Research Department, 27 Feb. 1955, ISA 2536/16; report of the General Staff of the Israel Defence Forces, intelligence section, 6 March 1955, ISA 2536/16. 111. See report from Ankara, 7 March 1954, ISA 2412/1/A. 112. Ankara to Foreign Ministry, 1 March 1954, ISA 2551/8/B. 113. Foreign Ministry, Research Department, 17 Jan. 1955, ISA 2536/16.


114. To the best of our knowledge, the sole source for this alliance is Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion (Hebrew), Vol. 3, Tel Aviv, 1977, Chap. 9. 115. Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, pp. 1324–5. 116. See Shmuel Segev, Hameshulash Hairani (The Iranian Triangle) (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, 1981. 117. Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, p. 1316. 118. See Gruen, ‘Turkey’s Relations with Israel’, p. 40.

86

SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR

88

So Near and Yet So Far: Greco-Israeli Relations

What really counts is the fact that… Greeks and Jews developed through the ages certain basic similarities and displayed concepts of thought and action and modes of national development that run parallel through their respective histories… Yet with all that said, I think it would be historically inaccurate, intellectually dishonest, and, from the point of view of our present and future goals, utterly counterproductive if we should merely insist on emphasizing our similarities… One must not, even for the sake of fostering goodwill and co-operation, gloss over the explosive forces of conflict which repeatedly sent Jews and Greeks on a collision course… History is replete with successive clashes between the national and religious aspirations of Jewry and of the [Greeks], and these clashes were all-too-serious and all-too-frequent to be explained away as mere episodes. This is how Professor Zvi Ankori’s superb study characterises relations between Jews and Greeks throughout the ages: affinity and similarity alternating with antagonism and conflict. 1 Ankori’s work focuses primarily on the relationship between Judaism and the Greek Orthodox Church; but by highlighting the pronouncedly nationalist characteristics of both religions, it thereby transcends the purely religious dimension, effectively shifting its emphasis to the political affinities and antagonisms between the Greek and Jewish peoples. Competition between them was not largely economic: the stereotypes of Jew as Shylock and moneylender have no parallel in Greek culture, folklore and literature. The rivalry was religious and, above all, national, stemming from clear-cut political interests. 2


Originating in the distant past and persisting throughout the Ottoman period, this long-standing conflict between Judaism and Byzantium provides an appropriate back-cloth for the frosty diplomatic links prevailing between Israel and Greece. Whether considering the historical past or present, any study of relations between Athens and Jerusalem cannot overlook the fundamental affinity and kinship between the two countries: similar democratic aspirations, geographical proximity, a pro-Western orientation in culture and politics, a pronouncedly secular society. In spite of this, however, they seem to view one another with an aloofness verging on enmity. Relations between the two countries display a striking consistency: a basic pattern established in 1949 has undergone not the slightest alteration, whether for better or worse. There is hardly h ardly a parallel for a structure so fixed and immutable as that of the Athens-Jerusalem relationship. The same low level of interaction established in 1949 prevails in 1986; it is as though time has stood still, in spite of nearly 40 years of overt ties. The stagnation is particularly striking between two East Mediterranean states with no substantive grounds for discord, such s uch as border conflicts. This chapter will consider the early years of Greco-Israeli relations, and the ways in which they have evolved over the years. Relations between Israel and Greece were initially characterised by lively interest, in contrast with the indifference and monotony which overtook them subsequently. While yet locked in a bloody war with the Arab states, David Ben-Gurion mapped out Israel’s future security requirements: on the one hand, a military deterrent and on the other, close links with the peoples of the Near East; an alliance with Greece, he believed, was an integral component of Israel’s security. 3 In view of Israel’s own isolation in the Arab Middle East, in time Greece came to be regarded as an essential element in Israel’s defence, it being thought vital to safeguard links with the port of Piraeus and the Athens airport. 4 Furthermore, Athens did not initially display any hostility towards Israel. According to Israeli diplomats, Greece’s attitude towards the Middle East was marked by total ignorance and absence of interest, other than concern for the interest of the Greek Orthodox Church in Palestine, and for the Greek minority in Egypt.5 As we shall point out, these twin issues were to set the tone in relations between Athens and Jerusalem—not always in a direction foreseen by Israel. This apparently clean slate held out hopes of tilting the balance in Israel’s direction. With a fresh effort, it was hoped that the friendship of the Greeks could perhaps be won.

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However, numerous signs indicated that the slate was far from clean, foreshadowing growing difficulties in relations between the two countries. In the UN debate on the Palestine problem in November 1947, Greece voted against the partition plan which provided for the establishment of a Jewish state side by side with an Arab state. Feelers put out in May 1948 by the Jewish Agency’s Athens section, proposing cooperation, evoked a polite rejection, though Greek Prime Minister Tsaldaris undertook to receive any Palestinian Jews who might be forced to flee from the, then, inevitable war against the new-born Jewish state by its Arab neighbours.6 With the outbreak of fighting, Greece banned the transit of persons or materiel from its territory to Israel. “More than any other country, [Greece] disrupted traffic to Israel, preventing young people from passing through Greece on their way to Israel; Israeli citizens were not even permitted to leave their planes at Athens airport.”7 When the war ended, Greece surpassed even Egypt in its hostility towards Israel in the UN and its various agencies. Where Egypt abstained, Greece voted against Israel’s admission to various international bodies, even those of a technical character and with no political significance, such as the International Postal Union or the World Agriculture Organisation. Arms shipments destined for Israel were impounded while in transit through Greek ports. Two planes which Israel had purchased in Eastern Europe were even confiscated on landing in Greece for refuelling; they were put into service with the Royal Hellenic Airforce in its operations against the Communist insurgents.8 Attempts to reach an understanding with Greece on recognition were either rejected outright or ignored. In 1950 a senior Israeli official sarcastically commented: “Even a negative answer [from Greece] is an asset.”9 Greek press reports on border incidents between Israel and its neighbours, drawing largely on Arab sources, depicted them as clashes between a heavily armed Israeli army and Arab shepherds, due to Israel’s eagerness to acquire meat for its population. “Is there a shortage of meat in Israel?”, inquired the Israeli consulate in Athens.10 THE RELEASE OF GREEK COMMUNIST JEWISH PRISONERS One of the first issues to be considered by Greece and the new State of Israel was the release of Jews held in Greek prisons. These were former members of the left-wing underground which fought the Germans during the Second World War and later took part in the Communist


uprising against the nationalist government in Athens. The left-wing movement was suppressed after a bloody civil war; those of the insurgents fortunate enough to escape execution were sentenced to long prison terms. In 1949, Israeli representatives in Athens and in friendly capitals initiated efforts to procure the release of the Jewish prisoners. The Greeks insisted that the prisoners should express remorse for their past deeds, should forfeit their Greek citizenship and should consent to deportation to Israel, with the Israeli government undertaking to prevent their subsequent departure lest they rejoin the remnants of the rebels, who were currently regrouping on the territories of Greece’s Communist neighbours. In 1953, after prolonged negotiations, the two governments concluded their first agreement, a signal, Israel hoped, for future cooperation. Release of the prisoners was a complex undertaking: they numbered only about 30, but most were fervent Communists who preferred imprisonment in Greece to loss of their citizenship and deportation to Israel. Some of them hurled bitter reproaches at the Israeli representatives handling their release, blaming Zionism, Israel and world Jewry for the international anti-Communist campaign then in progress. The Greek authorities were astounded at Israel’s willingness to receive such “unwholesome elements”. 11 GRECO-ISRAELI PROPERTY QUESTIONS A further issue which left its mark on relations was the complicated problem of Greek property in Israel and that of unclaimed Jewish property in Greece, principally in Athens and Salonika. Mutual charges of ingratitude expressed freely during the negotiations—repaying “with gall for manna” for example—did not improve relations. 12 Greece complained of Israel’s seizure of the property of Greeks who had left Israel at the outbreak of fighting in May 1948, that it had been confiscated as though its owners were enemy citizens. Israel took steps to gain possession of unclaimed Jewish property in Greece, hoping to use it in rehabilitating Greek survivors of the Holocaust who had emigrated to Israel. When the Jewish community in Greece demanded its share of these assets, a ssets, the Greek government benefited from the interJewish dissension and the display of “dirty linen for all to see”.13 In the meantime, the property progressively lost its value. The officials and lawyers who administered the estates lined their pockets, whilst Greeks who squatted in the buildings provoked vicious conflicts. When Israel finally unfroze the assets of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, the remnants of the Jewish property—further reduced following protests

SO NEAR NEAR AND AND YET YET SO FAR FAR 93

by Arab ambassadors to Athens—were transferred to Israel by a roundabout deal whereby Israel acquired some 9,000 tons of surplus Greek tobacco and marketed it to the Iron Curtain countries (Eastern Europe barred Greek merchandise at that time).14 These property disputes did not improve relations; however, the transaction whereby Israel sold Greek products to a third party opened up a new channel for Greco-Israeli commerce, in which similar triangular deals were to feature prominently, as will be seen later. THE AEGEAN EARTHQUAKE, 1953 In the summer of 1953 relations were further confused by the powerful earthquake which rocked the Greek islands. As we shall see, the political consequences of this tragedy emphasise the inherently unstable nature of relations between Greece and Israel. Greece had never experienced an earthquake of such magnitude; fatalities and injured on the islands exceeded 5,000. The calamity revealed the incompetence of the Greek authorities. This, in turn, drew the attention of the Greek public to the instant and efficient aid provided by other countries. The immediate rescue operations gained valuable assistance from the fleets of three countries: Britain, the United States and Israel. The Israeli flotilla, on a training cruise in the Aegean sea, hastened to the epicentre, operating on the ravaged island of Kephalonia. The press, in Greece and elsewhere, commented enthusiastically on Israel’s aid. The enthusiasm reached new heights when, on completion of its humanitarian mission, the Israeli flotilla reached Athens and met with spontaneous displays of pro-Israeli feeling. Greeks refused to accept payment from the Israeli sailors, who were treated to tours of the Acropolis and given free rides on public transport. In contrast with popular sentiments, official attitudes were chilly throughout. Israel’s initial offer to place its four naval vessels at the disposal of the rescue operation had been politely but firmly turned down by the Greek Foreign Ministry. But the Greek rejection was late in being transmitted; the Israeli flotilla had already commenced rescue work. Greece’s eagerness to play down the Israeli contribution was further demonstrated at the conclusion of the rescue operation. When the flotilla entered the port of Piraeus to refuel, not a single Greek official came to greet it or make contact with its commander. Contacts with the Greek navy were severely limited—a low-ranking Greek liaison officer, seconded to the Israeli commander, confined his duties to a bare


minimum. Civilians who sought contacts with the Israeli vessels (including the Archbishop of Piraeus and the city’s mayor) were urged by their Foreign Ministry to desist. The official Greek attitude became even more blatant with the arrival at Piraeus of the American fleet, whose officers and crews were promptly acclaimed as official guests of the city.15 What induced the Greek authorities to adopt such a frosty stance? The Israeli delegation in Athens attributed it, first and foremost, to Greece’s varied and significant links with the Arab world, Egypt in particular. In addition, however, there were domestic factors which outweighed the empathy displayed by Greek public opinion, leaving official Greek antagonism towards Israel unremitting. The Greek armed forces were angered when the commander of the navy was forced to submit his resignation as the Greek press, while showing understanding for the paucity of the resources available to the navy in comparison with its British and American counterparts, compared it unfavourably with the young Israeli fleet which hastened to the scene of the calamity without awaiting authorisation from its superiors.16 Equally Greece’s Foreign Ministry was seemingly humiliated after the Israeli flotilla extended assistance in defiance of its wishes and without “official invitation”. “It can hardly be assumed that we will reap any early political benefits,” predicted the Israeli delegation in Athens. 17 Jerusalem reached similar conclusions: the cool Greek response supported the view that Israel should cease efforts towards a rapprochement with Greece. There was renewed talk of “gall for manna”, though this time it was Jerusalem which used the term. Israel’s high hopes of improved relations with Greece as a result of its help to the earthquake victims were disappointed. After this sudden—if brief—popularity with Greek public opinion, Jerusalem came to the conclusion that there was no point in any further effort towards winning Greek official friendship. There were growing calls for the Israeli Delegation in Athens to be closed down; alternatively, there were recommendations to cold-shoulder Greece and leave relations with that country at the lowest level, possibly allowing them to wither away completely. THIRD PARTY INTERVENTIONS Attempts were made to thaw out the chill between Athens and Jerusalem by means of third parties—American Jews, the Administration in Washington, the Turkish government and Yugoslavia. As we shall see,

SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR 95

when these attempts failed, relations between the two countries plunged into a prolonged period of indifference. The first effort to involve a further party had been made immediately after the proclamation of the State of Israel in May 1948. In a bid to facilitate the transport of arms purchased in Czechoslovakia (Messerschmit fighters in particular) to Israel by way of Greece, Moshe Sharett, then Foreign Minister in the provisional Israeli government, appealed to the State Department to request permission for the planes to land for refuelling on Greek territory. The State Department declined to help. Furthermore, the Greek government rejected the Israeli request and, as mentioned earlier, impounded two planes.18 The essential lesson drawn from this particular episode was the inadvisability of bringing in the State Department directly since the Athens-Washington relationship appeared immune to direct Israeli manipulation. Instead, in 1952, it was suggested that a fourth party— American Jews—should first lobby the Administration, which would then in turn put pressure on Athens. 19 Multilateral relations involving the United States, American Jews, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the Greek government and the pro-Greek lobby in the United States—among the most complex Israel had so far encountered—were further confused by an additional party—Turkey. Whilst Turkey’s relations with Israel and Greece will not be considered in depth here it should be pointed out that, in the absence of a Turkish lobby in the United States, and faced with the existence of a powerful Greek lobby, the Turks fell back on the Jewish lobby to promote their varied interests in Washington. Obviously, this link with Turkey did not further Israel’s relations with Greece, particularly when the Jewish lobby rendered its services to Turkey over Cyprus—causing the two lobbies to confront each other in open rivalry. The Jewish and Greek lobbies entered into a covert rivalry in which each endeavoured to gain more American support for its client country. In 1952, in a commendable display of sportsmanship, the two sides finally reached an understanding. Whilst the Greeks conceded defeat, expressing admiration for Israel’s “ability and importance”, Israel for its part arranged a loan for the Greek airline and extensions of its landing rights in the United States.20 At this point, there was an unusually frank exchange between the two Washington embassies, with each side describing the use it made of its own lobby, discussing the involvement of the Greek and Jewish communities in the affairs of their respective homelands, and the volume of economic aid each country received from its American diaspora. The two sides agreed to resume the exchange of


information, with the aim of improving their handling of their respective lobbies.21 The Israelis decided to rest content with deploying the Jewish lobby, without further exacerbating relations with Greece by involving other third parties such as Yugoslavia, then in alliance with both Greece and Turkey (the Balkan Pact—1954) and on friendly terms with Israel. It was assumed that the Greeks would be offended if Israel demonstrated a greater reliance on its ties with Belgrade. It goes without saying that Britain was to be kept out of the picture: Greek hostility towards Britain over Cyprus was running too high for Israel to risk a direct confrontation with Greek public opinion by such a course.22 The temporary appearance of fair play in relations between the respective lobbies could not disguise the set-back Israel suffered when intensive lobbying in Washington failed to induce Greece to extend full recognition. Greek-US relations were solid enough in the early 1950s to withstand even the Jewish lobby. Greek firm-mindedness is equally noteworthy: in spite of absolute dependence upon Washington, Athens withstood American pressure over Israel, as indeed it had done ever since 1947 when it refused to vote for partition.23 Israel’s disappointment provided justification for a deliberate policy of scaling down relations until they verged on outspoken antagonism. PATTERNS OF DETERIORATION This conscious deterioration had been signposted by relatively minor snubs extending as far back as 1950. Then Israel had decided that all communication with the Greeks would henceforth be by notes verbales rather than by letter. In a Foreign Ministry memorandum it was emphasised: “We are not such close friends” as to write letters. Furthermore, the term of address—the Greek diplomatic legation—was given the prefix “so-called”, before being replaced by “consulate”, to demonstrate that Israel was dealing with an entity inferior in status to a diplomatic mission.24 It was further decided not to invite the Greek representative in Jerusalem (Moschopolus) to Independence Day festivities, as he had not regulated his status by submitting the customary letter from his own Foreign Minister to Sharett. Instead, the Greek representative rested content with a vaguely-worded cable from Athens to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Such cables are looked upon as conferring fewer of the trappings of recognition than a letter addressed by one government to another. In March 1951 the Israeli Head of Protocol complained: “This is the second time that the Greeks have tried to ‘bamboozle’ us with cables of this nature…to get invitations to the


reception and the dinner.” Accordingly, recognition of Moschopolus as a diplomat was withheld, so as to allow him to sense “where matters stand”.25 These minor snubs soon escalated into deliberate face slaps. In what appears to have been a deliberate macabre act of provocation, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem held a well-attended function to mark the 500th anniversary of Turkish Constantinople, in the presence of Israel’s President. Neither the President nor Prime Minister of Turkey attended that day’s festivities in Constantinople, to avoid offending the sensitivities of the Greeks who had decided to mark the occasion with a day of national mourning.26 The Greeks themselves were not slow to exact vengeance when they placed the Israeli delegation last on the list of diplomatic representatives accredited in Athens. Israel’s Athens delegation cabled a sarcastic request “to honour” Mr Moschopolus by awarding him a similar spot on the parallel listing issued in Israel. 27 Again, in reprisal for the Greeks’ failure to welcome the Israeli envoy on his arrival in Athens, no one came to receive the new Greek representative in Israel. “Let Mr. Vllachos [the Greek representative] feel [it on his own skin]!… Let him get it into his head that relations require improvement.” The archives of Israel’s Foreign Ministry contain no reply to the query of its Athens representative, Avraham Darom, who questioned the Israeli reprisal: “Bad behaviour should not be accepted as a mutual attitude… I fail to grasp how a decision to send no one to welcome him can influence our relations with Greece [for the better].” 28 It was inevitable that these mutual pinpricks led Israel and Greece to consider for a time closing down their diplomatic missions in Athens and Jerusalem. In the entire chronicles of Israeli foreign policy, this must have been one of the few occasions when Israel gave active consideration to the notion of closing down one of its diplomatic delegations. “We will of course not lightly close down our delegation in Athens,” Jerusalem hastened to reassure its anxious representative in that city.29 It would be an understatement to describe relations between the two countries as unfriendly. From 1952 onwards, Israel had categorically defined Greece as an enemy: “and the first consideration [in relations with Greece] is to refrain from helping an enemy of Israel”.30 The United Nations and other international bodies provided a more overt arena in which the two countries could work off their unfriendliness. Both Israel and Greece featured frequently on the agenda of the General Assembly and of the Security Council; the two countries took advantage of these forums to vent their mutual hostility. From the November 1947 partition resolution onwards, Greece consistently voted against Israel


and for the Arab states, whatever the issue up for debate: refugees, Jerusalem, the conciliation commission, the Holy Places, armistice infringements, Israel’s membership of international organisations, restrictions on freedom of navigation in the Gulfs of Suez and Akaba, etc. Israel repaid Greece in the same coin, with considerations transcending the narrow bounds of bilateral relations. A policy document drawn up by the Israeli Foreign Ministry as far back as 1949 pointed to the Greek problem as a basic and dangerous factor in the East-West conflict. The conclusion drawn was that it was incumbent upon Israel to adopt a position of strict neutrality, certainly not a proAmerican or pro-Greek line: “Israel should support any move towards dismantling UNSCOB [the UN’s Special Committee on the Balkans] because it is unacceptable to the Eastern bloc ”31 (It should be noted that UNSCOB, the product of an American-Greek initiative taken against Soviet opposition, had in effect become one of Washington’s principal means of dealing with the Greek civil war.) Likewise— through abstention—Israel adopted a similar attitude towards a resolution condemning Bulgaria, Albania and Rumania for their support of the Communist insurgents in Greece. Again, Israel was in favour of a UN call urging the Greek government to reconsider the death sentences on Communist prisoners. Matters came to a head in 1952 over Greek membership of the Security Council: We are neither masochists nor altruists, as you put it. Our reaction to this matter was wholesome and natural: the primary consideration is not to help an enemy of Israel to be seated in the Council which regularly debates the dispute between us and the party which [Greece] supports against us. This was the first consideration in all our deliberations. In addition, there was the consideration of the Soviet bloc’s right to an additional seat in the Council. But even without that consideration, we would have acted against our enemy. We ultimately waived that consideration only under heavy American pressure, and when we were informed that unless Greece were elected, the Security Council would be hamstrung, and our responsibility as UN members must even override the consideration of Greece’s enmity. This was the principle we adopted.32 The consequent Greek deduction that Israel was “part of the Slavs” (sic! —neither “of the Communist world” nor “of the Eastern bloc”, but “of the Slavs”!)33 reflects the broadening implications of the previously


seemingly limited relations between Greece and Israel. Relatively minor Greco-Israeli diplomatic discourtesies developed international significances in the context of East-West relations at the United Nations. Feelings were further inflamed by statements in the Greek press: There is no other country which has been so gracious and favourable towards Jewry, as Greece. But Jewry continues to harbour unfathomable feelings of hatred towards the Greeks… We are incapable of forgetting that the most vicious and ruthless enemy of the Greeks…was the Jew, that situation has not changed to this day, and here is the proof:…[Israeli] opposition to Greece’s election as a temporary member of the UN Security Council, in spite of [Israel’s] tense relations with the Arab states, which ought to have induced adoption of precisely the opposite position.34 The reaction in Jerusalem was an understated “no great desire” to work for improved relations with Athens;35 no consideration should be given at this time to a special journey to Greece [by a Turkish mediator between Israel and Greece] because the situation is not such as to require any personage to go there on our behalf to plead for a more favourable policy…under no circumstances should we go begging to them…we should not let them think that our international standing depends thereupon, [nor] present ourselves as beggars and regular pests.36 Above all, the Greeks must be told, without hesitation and “right to their faces” why Israel is hostile: let nobody believe “that we supposedly do not help friends or combat enemies; and that it is only the objective aspect which determines how we vote. That is incorrect.”37 These arguments, originating from the Foreign Ministry’s West European section, were worded in response to requests from Israeli representatives in Europe for permission to meet with the Greeks. The reply was negative, and to any Israeli diplomat who insisted—as did the Brussels delegation—permission was granted subject to crippling restrictions. There was to be no correspondence with the Greeks, nothing beyond verbal exchanges: after all, “we are not such great friends”; talks on improved relations were to be indirect: “start with other subjects and then in passing, as it were, launch into this


matter…”; furthermore, “don’t do it in a formal manner which leaves room to assume that this is offical diplomatic intercession of the first order.”38 There is, however, evidence of opposition within Israeli circles to this both open and oblique hostility towards Greece. Archives of the Israeli Foreign Ministry contain no reply to the query of its Athens delegation which held that “a ‘broggez’ [in Hebrew, a hostile] attitude will certainly not improve our relations. If, today, we do not have many reasons to consider Greece a friendly country, we certainly cannot afford to have her as an unfriendly one.”39 DECISION-MAKING IN ISRAEL Jerusalem acted on the assumption that Israel was not to blame for the deterioration in relations, and that if the Greeks wanted them improved, it was up to them to make the approach. Israel would not approach them, or come begging; at most, it would do something indirect, “in passing as it were”. But some critical voices stopped short of apportioning all the blame to the Greeks. We have already mentioned the Athens delegation’s protests against a policy of ‘broggez’ and reprisals. Earlier complaints that Jerusalem effectively neglected Greece were modified when the writer hastened to add that “no one is to blame”, but he did nevertheless specify certain acts of omission: Visits of Israeli [officials] to Athens are always hasty and never thorough; our representative there is an excellent man but insufficiently vigorous or Israeli to present us in the correct light; we have not done enough to apply the influence of other powers upon Greece…[we should] decide immediately on dispatch of a diplomatic representative…who would establish direct contact with those in charge of foreign affairs in Athens. There is no intention that this should be seen or interpreted as grovelling on our part, but as full and dignified explanation which should point to common interests.40 Right from the very outset, Greco-Israeli relations were a very touchy issue, with overtones of emotion and prestige playing a salient role. This background should explain the cautious, halfapologetic tone of the above critique, as well as its reassurances that no one was to blame, or that a standard diplomatic step like sending a professional diplomat to serve in a seemingly friendly capital did not constitute grovelling. Emotion also pervaded the debate between the Israeli Foreign


Ministry’s “Hellenists” and “Turks”, particularly with regard to the Cyprus issue, when primordial resentments underlay some of the arguments put forward by certain officials entrusted with Greek affairs. Of these, one was of Turkish birth; most had studied the history of the Middle East with the stress on the annals of Ottoman Turkey; some had been seconded to the Greek desk from the Mideastern section. 41 The reference to the qualifications of Israel’s representative in Athens points to a further and unusually emotional element in bilateral relations. Asher Moissis, a survivor of the Holocaust, was a Greek citizen; accordingly, his nomination as Israel’s diplomatic representative in Athens was an unorthodox step in diplomatic practice (though not unusual in consular representation). Being Greek, Moissis was occasionally accused of insufficient vigour in his contacts with the authorities; alternatively, it was said of him that, in spite of being a Greek citizen, his status as representative of Israeli interest imbued him with an inexplicable sense of self-confidence, making him act with needless forcefulness and without the finesse of a diplomat. 42 Charged with being “insufficiently Israeli”, Moissis gave high classical expression to his Greek Jewish identity when, with the spread of antiSemitism in Russia, and with the build-up of cold war tensions threatening to turn anti-Communist Greece into a battlefield, he flung himself into feverish preparations for the evacuation of locally resident Jews and Israelis, to forestall the danger of a second Holocaust. A precise schedule of the evacuation plan in its various phases was transmitted to Jerusalem; in response to the astonishment of the Foreign Ministry, Moissis explained that, while serving as president of Salonika’s Zionist Federation in 1939, he had sensed the impending catastrophe and considered acting to rescue the Jewish community of Salonika and of Greece as a whole; however, he lacked the courage to proclaim his intentions for fear of being branded weakkneed and unduly alarmist. Now, after the massacre of Greek Jewry, Moissis no longer dreaded the stigma of cowardice. 43 To those in Jerusalem out to “get” Moissis, here he was, showing himself up as a “typical Diaspora Jew” [“galutnik”], as the writer was told. Moissis fitted into the overall pattern of Greco-Israeli relations. The combination of his Greek citizenship and his status as Israel’s diplomatic representative making him a rara avis, Jerusalem considered Moissis’ appointment appropriate to the Israeli-dictated down-grading of relations with Greece. “The Greeks deserve nothing better,” someone remarked during Foreign Ministry deliberations on the dispatch of a professional diplomat to Athens. 44 It was only three years later, with the


instalment of such a diplomat—who took great care “to avoid carefully any association with [Moissis] in order not to jeopardise my position”— that it became evident how much harm Israel had suffered. 45 THE CYPRUS QUESTION As far back as 1952, an instructive paper on Enosis (union between Cyprus and Greece) had been drawn up in Jerusalem, detailing the arguments for and against Israeli support for Greece’s demand for unification with Cyprus. The points considered were: Israel’s relations with Britain; Israel’s relations with Turkey; the “chilly relations” with Greece. In other words, three separate sets of relations involving substantive interests were at issue. Two arguments were put forward in favour of Enosis, both stressing the abstract rather than the practical: Israel’s traditional upholding of the right of self-determination and “our moral debt” (inverted commas in the original) to many of the island’s inhabitants who had helped illegal immigrants to Palestine during British Mandate times.46 As we shall see, when the advantages of Israel’s relationships with Britain and Turkey were contrasted against Jerusalem’s “chilly” links with Athens, tradition and “moral debt” as arguments were ignored and the eventual choice against Enosis must have been easy. Serving as a microcosm, the Cyprus issue features examples of relations between Israel and Greece at their worst. Mutual attempts to barter favours—involving Israeli support of the Greek position in exchange for Athens recognising Israel—were totally unsuccessful. As we shall see later, promises were callously broken. In Jerusalem, arguments between “Hellenists” and “Turks” evoked the affirmation that there was nothing to be lost from adopting an anti-Greek position (“matters couldn’t get any worse”).47 Attempts to strike a deal—support in return for recognition—proved to be unrealistic: Greece could not afford to alienate the Arab bloc or risk forfeiting valuable Arab votes in UN debates on Cyprus. Admittedly, feelers were put out, both in Athens and Israel, with promises that Greece would recognise Israel after the conclusion of the Cyprus debate; however, “we have had quite a number of such promises and more than one Assembly has passed without the Greeks fulfilling their reiterated promises”. 48 Thus, perhaps Israel’s sole asset (“however small”) in its relations with Greece—its UN vote—generated no substantive change in bilateral relations, particularly as there was internal Israeli opposition to the idea of bartering UN support for


recognition (the suggestion was characterised as “horse trading”, “brutal”, and “unwise”).49 The Cyprus issue also aroused the “Turkish loyalties” of certain Israeli Foreign Ministry officials, who stepped forward to swing Israel’s support to Turkey even when they no longer had any direct dealings with the matter: “As a ‘Turk’ in the not too distant past”, Yohanan Meroz, whose service in Washington was preceded by a term in Ankara, warned against withholding Israeli support from Turkey, or even abstaining when the issue came to the vote. “The Turks will in no way comprehend an attitude of reserve.” As for the Greeks, it was argued curiously that a hostile attitude on the part of Israel would be helpful by impressing them with Israel’s arithmetical importance in a debate where every vote counted and by “eradicating the [Greek] impression…that ‘whatever happens, Israel will not hurt us’”. These views were backed up by the affirmation that the Turks were friendly towards Israel, in contrast with the hostility of the Greeks, who were “plain liars”. Not only had their promises of improved relations been shown up as false; with the passage of time, they had even given up making promises!50 The Israeli legation in Ankara summed up the debate with the understatement: “Our relations with Greece should not burden us overmuch.”51 The Israeli position was determined accordingly; in an official communication, the Turks were notified that their interests were the principal factor in shaping Israeli policy on Cyprus.52 Turkish gratification found expression in a request for Israeli assistance in propagating to the world—i.e. the sympathetic US press— Turkey’s interest in Cyprus, currently suffering so “catastrophically” that American Jews alone could help. (In addition to a friendly press, Israel also promised to aid Turkey in procuring loans from private US bankers.)53 Israel’s perspective on the Cyprus issue, influenced by its own “Turks”, was further shaped by something verging on an organised campaign spanning five years, aimed at showing up the Greek demand for Enosis as artificial, with no genuine roots, not shared by all Greeks and constituting an undesirable by-product of domestic Greek politics. Reports from Israeli diplomats in Nicosia, Athens and Ankara utterly dismissed the authenticity of Enosis, thereby facilitating the decision to support the Turkish side. The campaign for unification with the island was depicted as the work of two conflicting elements—the Communists and the Church—which left the Athens government with no choice but to undertake the cause, albeit with little enthusiasm and with an “almost insane” quest for any honourable solution which would permit it to lay


aside an issue “which is as painful as a glowing ember”.54 Greek governments, having been railroaded into adopting the cause, were insufficiently strong to tell their people they were abandoning the matter. Only when times improved—that is to say, when Greece came under military dictatorship—only then would a Greek government be free to relinquish the Cyprus issue—so argued Israel’s representative in Athens.55 But Jerusalem also heard Israeli opposing views vouching for the authenticity of the demand for Enosis, recalling Israel’s traditional support for the principle of self-determination, pointing out the folly of antagonising Greece over the Cyprus issue and questioning the contention that the Greek government had adopted its firm position on Cyprus as a way of defusing grave internal problems.56 But it was a lost cause; as has been pointed out, the debate pitched morals and tradition against interests, and the outcome was a foregone conclusion. MUTUAL ACCUSATIONS: COMMUNISM AND FASCISM A repeated motif which hindered any improvement in relations was the mutual slurring concerning Israel’s Communism and Greece’s Fascism. Israeli envoys to Greece looked upon the Greeks as chauvinists and monarchists operating with the assistance of the Americans, “the true masters of Greece”.57 Accusations like corruption and Fascism were not put in so many words, but they hovered in the background. The envoys were convinced that, with regard to the Palestine issue, the Greek government followed counsel and instructions, not from Washington but from London, the latter regarding Israel as a springboard for Soviet expansionism.58 On the other hand, an eyewitness heard Greek Foreign Minister Pipinelis express the view that Israel inclined towards Moscow, not from Communist sympathies, but because of the undecided policies adopted towards it by Washington.59 Once rooted, such perceptions are hard to shake off. In the fiercely antiCommunist atmosphere prevailing in Greece in the closing phases of the Communist uprising, the Greeks even detected Communist undertones in matters of standard diplomatic practice such as the close mail and courier links Israel’s consulate in Athens maintained with its counterpart in Nicosia, the latter city being a hotbed of Communist agitation.60 Executions of Greek Communists in 1952 sparked off violent demonstrations outside Greek legations the world over; some of these were interpreted in Athens as reflecting the protests of Israeli


Communism. Attacks on Greek representatives in Israel—they were harassed in Jerusalem and physically assaulted during an Easter visit to Nazareth—further added to Israel’s “red” image in Athens. 61 This was also backed up by the view, then prevalent in other Western capitals, that in spite of Israel’s efforts to depict itself as a strategic asset to the West, pro-Western alliances in the region could expect no help from a country whose powerful left wing—notably members of the kibbutz movement—would oppose any anti-Soviet (or anti-Arab) initiative instigated by Israel.62 Western doubts about domestic political constraints on Israel’s willingness to make common cause gained additional credence in Greek eyes with the refusal of Israel’s General Staff to go beyond the necessary minimum in cooperating with Greece’s armed forces and intelligence services. Israeli naval vessels were sent for repair at the Piraeus dockyards, where price and quality were judged satisfactory. But beyond that, Israel did not even deign to reply to the offer of an exchange of information with Greek intelligence. The Israeli Commander-in-Chief of the Army rejected any cooperation with the Greek army, objecting in particular to visits to Israel by Greek senior officers, whom he regarded—as the writer has been informed—as “typical fascist colonels”. This refusal stood out in sharp contrast to the Israeli army’s eagerness to cooperate with its Turkish and Yugoslav counterparts.63 It may be that the attitude of the Israeli officers can be explained by their left wing origins as graduates of the Hagana and Palmach undergrounds (that fought the British mandate in Palestine), and by analogy, by Israel’s refusal to normalise relations with another country (Franco’s Spain) for similar reasons. Israel was not Communist, any more than Greece was Fascist, but in the Athens-Jerusalem relationship, facts often gave way before images and emotion. THE GREEK MINORITY IN EGYPT How did the relationship here depicted affect the overall Middle Eastern policies of Greece? From Athens’ viewpoint, the whole matter could be summed up in a single equation: any support for Israel would equal 200, 000 Greek refugees expelled from the Arab countries, Egypt particularly. Some 140,000 Greeks lived in Egypt in the early 1950s. They were the most flourishing of the foreign communities in that country, benefiting from numerous advantages by virtue of the “capitulations”, a


leftover from Ottoman times which survived till 1949. Enjoying virtual extraterritorial status in legal matters, and privileged in the spheres of commerce, education and religion, the Greeks constituted a state within a state. By their occupations—money-changing, mediation, trade and similar callings—they served as intermediaries between the other foreigners and the Egyptian population at large. From 1951 onwards, the Egyptian government began whittling away at Greek privileges, simultaneously engaging the Athens government and representatives of the Greek community in talks aimed at regulating its status, with the declared purpose of confining Greek economic activity and stepping up Egyptian official involvement in the minority’s affairs. Among other demands, the Egyptian government insisted on its right to deport any Greek whose occupation or activities were incompatible with state security. Talks dragged on for a number of years without ever reaching a formal agreement. Negotiations were on the verge of breakdown on countless occasions as the Egyptians repeatedly threatened a total severance of negotiations unless the Greek government showed a willingness for concessions over its regional policy and the status of the Greeks in Egypt. Egypt’s demands included Greek recognition of Farouk as King of Egypt and Sudan, and a Greek undertaking to withhold de jure recognition of Israel. Concern for the Greek minority in Egypt was Greece’s official pretext for preserving a low profile in relations with Israel. The Greeks in Egypt exerted pressure on the Athens government to forestall any departure from its pro-Arab policy. In 1947, the Greeks of Alexandria sent a delegation to Athens with a graphic forecast of the pogroms they would endure should Greece vote for the partition of Palestine. The Greeks in Egypt constituted an insurmountable obstacle in GrecoIsraeli relations. In addition to influencing Greece to withhold recognition, they also induced the Greek press to exclude pro-Israeli material. Most Greek papers had a wide readership in Egypt, whose censors however forbade the importing of newspapers carrying favourable reports about Israel. 64 With every change of government in Athens, Israel scrutinised the list of new ministers and their links with the Greek community in Egypt, as a way of ascertaining prospects for improvement in Greco-Israeli relations. 65 Israel came to the conclusion that such an improvement was feasible in one of two eventualities: Greco-Egyptian agreement on the status of the Greek minority, or, alternatively, deterioration in its status (i.e. if Nasser played into Israel’s hand by moves against his Greek citizens, the Athens government


would presumably realise that its anti-Israeli policies provided no guarantee for the safety of the Greeks in Egypt). In time, Nasser fulfilled Israeli expectations: after the Suez campaign, he enacted tough laws directed against foreigners (nationalisation of banks and insurance companies, abolition of separate schools, land confiscation, foreign currency restrictions, seizure of property without compensation) with a particularly crippling impact on the Greeks. By the mid-1960s, the number of Greeks in Egypt had dwindled to about 30,000, the rest having been forced to emigrate. “The second catastrophe” or “the second Smyrna” were the terms the Greek press employed to depict this campaign, comparing it to the anti-Greek persecutions in Asia Minor during the 1920s. But no improvement in Greco-Israeli relations ensued. GREECE’S REGIONAL POLICIES Just as Israel scrutinised the Greek ministers’ family and business ties with their Egyptian “diaspora” as a guide to their possible pro-Egyptian bias, it also kept a close watch on Greece’s regional policies for omens of improvement in bilateral relations. 66 Greece’s adherence to the Balkan Pact in 1954 aroused hopes for a more favourable view of Israel in Athens. A renewed involvement in Balkan security problems—an advance over Greece’s hitherto exclusive concern with its own affairs— foreshadowed interest in the security of the Middle East, where Israel’s military role was so prominent. An enthusiastic Israeli diplomat declared that it was sufficient to induce the Greeks to regularise their relations with Israel: The importance of this factor [regional security] is decisive…for the first time…a matter of common vital interest for the future, which could overshadow traditional Greek interest in Egypt. It was the absence of such a [common] interest which foiled our past efforts to induce the Greeks to recognise Israel. True, the Greeks have yet to formulate a clear view of this interest just as they have yet to achieve an awareness that it is preferable to their interest in Egypt—but there can be no doubt that the Greeks are adopting such a course, and the more they step up their interest and activity …in the Balkan Pact and NATO, the more they will be influenced by the Western countries’ attitude towards us. 67


This enthusiasm was premature. Greek interest in the Balkan Pact and regional security soon waned, with the decline in tension between Greece and its Cominform neighbours and between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. On the other hand, from 1954 onwards, UN debates on the Cyprus issue placed the Greeks in urgent need of Arab votes, for which they paid at Israel’s expense, as indicated by a meeting between a Greek envoy and the director of an Arab (Syrian?) foreign ministry: The Greek declared that the Arab states were bound to support Greece, one of the few states which had always sided with the Arabs on the Palestine issue and had not yet granted Israel de jure recognition. He stressed that his government would support the Arab position on North Africa and Indonesia, adding that if the Arab states decided not to support the Greek position, his government would be liable to draw the [appropriate] conclusions. He reiterated that an adverse Arab position would make an unfavourable impression on Greek public opinion, as a result of which the Greeks would find it difficult to comprehend their government’s favourable attitude towards the Arabs. In his words, his government would be unable to overlook this aspect.68 The Cyprus factor further complicated Greek-Arab-Israeli relations as Greek public opinion grew increasingly hostile towards Britain, while the Suez crisis highlighted its growing sympathy for Egypt—“sympathy for its ruler who has succeeded in stirring up Britannia and humiliating her”.69 Western attitudes to the Cyprus issue evoked neutralist and proSoviet feelings which, by eroding the influence of the pro-Israeli West, proved unhelpful to relations with Jerusalem. This is how the Israeli delegation in Athens reported on the effect of the Suez war on GrecoIsraeli relations: The average Greek makes the distinction between Israel’s light and Arab shade. There was…profound admiration for Israel’s social and economic advances, and its pioneering and civilizing role. But the average Greek will in no way come to terms with any Israeli action directed at humiliating Nasser or ridiculing him. Thus Nasser represents the leader Greece lacks and whom the Greek wants to see exacting judgement upon Britain, as he believes Nasser to have done. Hence, humiliating Nasser is like a blow at the Greek’s own pride.70


As if the Cyprus issue were not sufficiently complex, Turkey’s occupation of the northern portion of the island in 1974 drew forth analogies with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967: both cases were perceived by Greece as illegal acquisitions of territory, coupled with a bid to effect demographical changes by the establishment of new colonies.71 Given this, the Cyprus issue largely explains Greece’s continuing hostility towards Israel, and Greece’s policies vis a vis the Arab world.72 The issue replaced Athens’ earlier concern for the Greek minority in Egypt as a rationale for its continuing chilly relations with Israel. Greek ties with the Arab states grew progressively closer. “[We are] like a seventh Arab state,” proclaimed Greece’s UN representative in 1954. “Greece is the only Arab country to have helped the Palestinians,” The Times of London commented nearly 30 years later, during the Lebanon crisis.73 These links made Greece the only non-Arab country to receive economic aid from the Arab League (February 1982) 74 and made the Arab world into Greece’s second-largest export market (after the EEC): Greek construction companies also gained five billion dollars in building contracts. 75 Greece would therefore have much to lose by alienating the Arabs. “It is hard to swim against this emotional tide,” declared the Israeli delegation in Athens in 1956. 76 The same holds true in 1986, when emotions are still backed up by substantial interests. GRECO-ISRAELI COMMERCIAL LINKS Greco-Israeli commercial links are similarly complex. In a sphere apparently under the exclusive rule of business interest and quest of profit, emotions and prejudices remain evident. “Il est universellement reconnu que les plus intelligents et les plus éminents économistes du monde sont les israélites. C’est un privilège de leur race.” So wrote a newspaper closely linked to the Marshal Papagos government.77 For its part, Israel’s commercial dealings with Greece were overshadowed by the same stereotyped view which marked its diplomatic ties: the Greeks were viewed as tricky, underhanded and deceitful. Instructions were issued to subject any Greco-Israeli contract to the closest scrutiny to prevent renewed Greek “bamboozling”. As for the Greeks, they were convinced that the international financial wizards at its call made Israel a competitor to be feared. Israel’s commercial fleet (120,000 tons in 1953, as against Greece’s 8 million tons) aroused Greek concern, which was not dispelled by Israeli protestations that “at sea, we are an ant compared to the Greek elephant”.78 In a similar


manner, foreign currency disputes took on emotional undertones. The director of Greece’s Ministry of Commerce pronounced: “We knew that Israel would one day conclude such transactions…”79 The three dots in the original invite guesses as to his opinions on dealings with Jews and Israelis. When the two sides overcame their inhibitions and showed a willingess to engage in mutual commerce, its scope turned out to be quite limited. Israel soon concluded that the Greek market could do without Israeli imports i.e. that the two economies were not mutually complementary. In spite of providing the principal outlet for Greek carobs, Israel was unable to dictate terms to the Greeks in any sphere whether in the sale of dried fruits or tobacco or any other. Israel’s exports to Greece included pharmaceuticals and chemicals and, occasionally, bananas. Consequently, Greco-Israeli trade in 1954 did not exceed $600,000 each way.80 Within these limited commercial links, one outstanding feature was air traffic between Athens and Tel-Aviv. Israel occupied tenth place in passenger traffic to and from Athens, and sixth place in freight haulage.81 This was a result of the proximity of Athens, which was the European airport nearest to Israel. But as airliners extended their flying range, Israel’s use of Greek airports declined. Trade links between the two countries featured three-way deals, principally Israeli purchases of Greek commodities (carobs, cotton and tobacco) which were then sold to a third party. Similarly, Israel sold Greece Ethiopian meat, Brazilian coffee and Russian cotton (the latter served to improve Greek cotton fibres).82 Since 1954, bilateral trade has gradually expanded. In 1984, Israel’s exports to Greece (textiles, chemicals, industrial products, minerals) totalled $79.6 million; Greek exports to Israel (dried fruits and maritime transportation) came to $18.7 million. 83 But even here, politics have made their mark: bilateral trade is confined to private traders, since Greece does not permit Israeli companies access to official tenders. THE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH IN JERUSALEM But while Greco-Israeli relations overall are characterised by their complexity, Israel’s links with the Greek Orthodox Church constitute a focus of common interests and offer one of the few spheres of cooperation between the two sides. It should be noted that the Greek Orthodox Holy Synod in Jerusalem did not always coordinate its


policies with its Athens counterpart or with the Greek government; indeed, differences were, at times, sharp. The understanding between Israel and the Greek Orthodox Church was forged from force of circumstances. Israel offered the Jerusalem Synod assistance on two touchy points: defence of the Greek Orthodox Church against attempted Vatican encroachments in the Holy Places, and support for the Greekborn clergy in the inevitable conflicts with their native Arab congregations. When this assistance was backed up by Israeli concessions such as unfreezing church moneys and licensing its land for building, the Church responded favourably. In particular, it soon found a common language with Israel over the proposal to internationalise Jerusalem and the Holy Places. The concept of Internationalisation of the city of Jerusalem, provided for by the UN partition resolution of 1947, emerged as a threat both to Israel and to the Greek Orthodox Church when, in October 1948, the Holy See came out with unambiguous support for the plan, demanding the repatriation of Palestinian Christian refugees, whose numbers, particularly Catholics, had declined sharply when many of them fled during the 1948 war.84 Vatican support for internationalisation was perceived by the Jerusalem Synod as threatening its position among the city’s Christian churches, as well as among the various Patriarchates which compose the Greek Orthodox Church. Internationalisation of the Holy Places would have entailed their joint administration by the three faiths to whom the city is sacred. Of the onethird allotted to the Christians, the Greek Orthodox portion would be minor, whereas the Catholics would clearly enjoy predominance by virtue of the backing of the Pope and the Catholic bloc at the United Nations. Such an eventuality was perceived by the Greek Orthodox Church as prejudicial to the status and freedom of action it had enjoyed for the past 1,600 years. The Jerusalem Synod also feared that it would lose influence among the Greek Orthodox Patriarchates where, enjoying autonomous (autocephalous) status, it ranked fourth (after Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch). Consequently, the Patriarchate considered itself duty bound “to combat attempts by rival religious faiths and sects which desire to seize and conquer the most important institutions of our religion”. This in order to prevent Jerusalem becoming “un centre d’intrigues internationales”. 85 To this end, it was willing to enter into alliance with “Satan”—whether in the form of Jews or Communists—in blocking internationalisation. The Jerusalem Synod thereby deviated in policy from the other churches, which favoured internationalisation, as did the Greek government; its


only support came from the Church Affairs section of Greece’s Foreign Ministry (the ministry as a whole supported internationalisation) and from portions of the Athens Synod whose concern over the potential aggrandisement of the Vatican at the expense of their own church overcame their glee at the discomfiture of the Jerusalem Synod and at the prospective erosion of its position within the Greek Orthodox hierarchy as a result of internationalisation.86 Greek Orthodox links with the State of Israel—“Christkillers” was the description employed by the Church—initially enjoyed the tacit blessing of Athens. The Greek government of that time shunned contacts with the Israeli authorities, preferring to entrust talks about church property in Israel, and about its adherents who had fled at the outbreak of war, to church officials, preferably of junior rank.87 Later on a representative of the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs was sent to Greece to liaise with the Athens Synod. These contacts engendered what came to be known from 1950 as the four-point agreement:88 a. The Patriarchate shall send a cable to the Secretary General of the United Nations, its contents to be agreed between us. b. The Custodian General undertakes within one year to release from his control all Greek Orthodox property in all towns in the country, including Jerusalem. c. The Israeli government undertakes to permit the Greeks to transfer, of their moneys in Israel, a total of £1500 sterling per month for a period of six months, to the Old City [of Jerusalem]. d. The Israeli government will not permit any diminution in the status of the Patriarchate among the Greek Orthodox communities in Israel. This agreement calls for a number of clarifications. The release of Greek Orthodox property in Israel from the control of the Custodian General was intentionally delayed, so as to exert pressure upon the Church with regard to its position on Jerusalem.89 Concurrently with the agreement, the Patriarch undertook to act both covertly and overtly on the Jerusalem issue, in close coordination with the Israeli authorities. Talks were held in a tense atmosphere, with the Greeks fearful about possible reactions to the agreement, in Athens and in the Arab states, and in the Patriarchate in the Jordanian sector of Jerusalem. For an Israel short of foreign currency, section ‘c’ was a painful concession, doubly so as the funds were being transferred to Jordan, a hostile Arab state.


The agreement soon took on substance: the Patriarch Timotius cabled UN Secretary General Trygve Lie, conveying the Synod’s views on Jerusalem. Beyond the neutral terms and the courteous phrasing, the Patriarch’s cable gave first priority to the Greek Orthodox interests, ruling out internationalisation if it was not in cooperation with them and with regard to their privileged position, or if the Catholics enjoyed preferential treatment: Justice requires that, in the event of any commission being established for the Holy Places, fully adequate representation be accorded thereon to our Patriarchate, for it is our [Church] which during sixteen centuries has defended and preserved the Christian interests in the Holy Land…the U.N.O. [must] apply a sense of realism and of fitting responsibility to the treatment of this historic problem. Equity, justice and a clear understanding of realities…can serve as the basis for an early, practicable and lasting settlement…the Holy Places [can] be safeguarded effectively [only] in full harmony with the realities of the present situation in the Holy Land. 90 With Israeli assistance, the Jerusalem Patriarchate acted to foil internationalisation. The issue was compared with the 1847 Catholic attempt to hang a silver star in the Orthodox section of the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem—an act stubbornly resisted by the Greek Orthodox Church.91 It is noteworthy that Greek Orthodox statements referred to the Italian origins of the Pope, thereby compounding inter-Church rivalry by bringing in Greco-Italian enmity which had found such brutal expression only a few years earlier, during the Second World War. The understanding between the Patriarchate and the Israeli authorities extended to additional spheres: Greek Orthodox clergy and pilgrims were no longer subjected to Israeli searches at the crossing point between the two parts of Jerusalem; the Patriarchate’s assets in London banks, deposited by the British Mandate authorities and subsequently taken over by the Israeli government, were restored to the Church; 500 dunums of church land were ceded to the Jewish National Fund. Both sides were satisfied: the Greek Orthodox Church was gratified to declare that “the suspicious endeavours” against it had been “smashed to smithereens…we find comprehension for our duties for the benefit of the Holy Places…on the part of the Israeli authorities.” Israel regarded its links with the Patriarchate as a tremendous achievement,


“after angels triumphed over demons within the church”. 92 However, the Jerusalem Synod’s endeavours to foil Catholic schemes, even if this involved an alliance with “Satan”, presented the Greek government with an additional difficulty: what it saw as the excessively intimate links the Jerusalem Patriarchate was fostering—with Israel’s blessing—to the Pravoslav (Russian Orthodox) Church and Soviet representatives. Greek Orthodox links with the Russian sister-Church span the centuries; the fall of Constantinople in 1453 marks the beginning of mutual dependence and influence between the two Patriarchates. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Czarist Russia emerged as the defender of the Orthodox Churches in the Near East, its agreements with Turkey all punctiliously preserving Orthodox prerogatives. The Communist take-over in 1917 severed the link between the Pravoslav church and other Orthodox Churches outside Russia; the link, renewed in 1943, was further fostered until, by 1945, Moscow’s influence on the Orthodox Churches was greater than ever, until the resurgence of EastWest antagonisms. Nevertheless, one common interest survived: a joint hostility to the Holy See. Fear of the Vatican appears to have induced the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to tone down its complaints against Pravoslav agitation inciting local Greek Orthodox congregations against their imported clergy—part of the anti-Greek campaign pursued by the Soviet Union as the Greek Communist uprising was crushed.93 While there was considerable enmity between Constantinople’s “mother of Patriarchates” and its Moscow counterpart (first and fifth place respectively in the Orthodox hierarchy) the situation was different in Jerusalem. There a shared fear of the Catholics generated relatively good relations between the Holy Synod and the Pravoslav delegation, with exchanges of financial aid and of support in maintaining their respective positions among the Churches of the Holy Land. The Greek Patriarch helped the Russians in taking over the Mount of Olives church and the Ein Karem monastery, hitherto held by the “White” Russians; Greek Orthodox clergy benefited from Pravoslav financial assistance. Foreseeing Catholic predominance in an internationalised Jerusalem, the Greek Orthodox clergy, covertly encouraged by Israel, began to recruit Moscow’s support against internationalisation, going so far as to declare that, should the Catholics gain the upper hand, they would issue a public appeal for Soviet aid.94 Israel put in its oar by conveying to Washington that internationalisation would lead to an outcome paradoxical for the Christian world and undesirable to the West—a rapprochement between the Greek Orthodox Church and Moscow. 95


The Greek government regarded the Jerusalem Synod’s links with “the Monster known as the Russian Church”, combined with the consequent Soviet influence in the Jerusalem Patriarchate, as an omen for the end of Western Christian civilisation. 96 This aspect of the projected internationalisation was highlighted by a meeting between the Russian Church mission and the heads of Jerusalem’s Greek synod. In the meeting “the two apostles… hugged and kissed one another, and a torrent of mutual greetings in Russian filled the chamber, and the eyes of the Greek consul general and his aides popped out”.97 *** Internationalisation came to nothing. Its defeat should be attributed neither to the alliance between the Synod and the Pravoslavs, nor to Israel’s successes at the United Nations. The plan was foiled by the effective resistance of both Jordan and Israel, which blocked the efforts of the Catholic world. But the community of interests between Israel and the Greek Orthodox Church over internationalisation stands out as an instance of cooperation in the generally chilly relationship between Israel and Greece, which is overshadowed to this day by the Greek refusal to accord Israel de jure recognition. REPRESENTATION AND RECOGNITION Arguments over representation and level of recognition, persisting throughout the forty-year-long relationship between the two countries, have been marked by semantic hair splitting, verbal and ceremonial acrobatics, unfulfilled promises, political pressures, diplomatic intrigues, and, above all, by countless excuses, most of them hollow. Israel and Greece have maintained consular relations since 1949. Greece had a Jerusalem consulate dating back to Mandate times, and Moissis, a member of the Greek Zionist Federation, was nominated as Israel’s honorary consul in Athens. In the spring of 1952, the delegations were elevated to the rank of “diplomatic representations” (Moissis attained only the status of “honorary diplomatic representative”) but recognition still remained at a de facto level. 98 Defending its reluctance to go further, Greece claimed that, in the event of de jure recognition, the Arab states would expel their Greek minorities and “that [would be] a disaster…we don’t have room for them all. We have a natural increase of 100,000 annually, and even that is a burden for our country.”99 The expulsion by China and Rumania of small numbers of Greeks, whom Greece found difficulty in resettling, demonstrated what would happen in the event of Egypt taking similar


action. The menace was doubly grave in view of Greece’s shaky economy and its enormous expenditure on defending 900 km. of borders from Albania to Turkey. Egypt took advantage of the Greek predicament, extracting concessions by threats against its Greek minority. Greece was at a disadvantage, there being no Egyptians residing in Greece against whom reprisals could be taken. Under the circumstances, recognition of Israel—a suggestion causing “an explosive reaction” whenever mentioned by Greek diplomats in Cairo—was a luxury Greece could not afford, particularly in view of Egypt’s internal instability and Nasser’s anti-foreign demagogy. 100 A further Greek excuse for keeping recognition at a de facto level was a possible Greek role as mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Greeks insisted that such mediation would be out of the question unless they retained the Arabs’ trust. For example, Ankara’s seemingly warm relations with Israel excluded Turkey from the list of potential peacemakers, whereas Greece, hailed as the friend of the Arabs and enjoying their confidence, was “the ideal mediator”. Forgoing such an option for mere de jure recognition would have been foolish. In anticipation of Greek mediation, the Greeks felt Israel should show restraint over Greece’s pro-Arab bias: “As you know, the Arabs are immature, they are like children, and they must receive special treatment,” argued Alexis Kyrou, the director general of Greece’s Foreign Ministry, in this context.101 A far more tangible reason for Greek reluctance to recognise Israel was, as we have seen, the Cyprus crisis. In the course of time, as talk of “mediation” was shown up as hollow, and Greece’s denial of de jure recognition did not prevent Egypt’s repression of its Greek minority, Athens laid growing stress on the Cyprus issue as justification. With Arab votes crucial in UN debates on Cyprus, Greece could not risk jeopardising them by de jure ties with Israel. The Greek contention that improved relations would have to wait until the island’s problems were resolved102 guaranteed prolonged stagnation on the question of recognition. Even after fulfilment of the Greek preconditions—peace between Israel and Egypt103 and the resolution of the problem of Egypt’s Greek minority—the Cyprus issue remained the final stumbling block. When Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and invaded Lebanon in 1982, Greece seized upon these events as further pretexts for maintaining its low level of recognition. 104 The Greeks endeavoured to please everyone. Israel was told that recognition was a purely formal matter which should not prejudice development of relations; if written agreement was sought, commercial


and air transport accords were as valid as de jure recognition.105 One senior Greek Foreign Ministry official, while vehemently arguing against de jure ties, appeared to see no contradiction in emphasising: “I am a man who hates abnormal situations; the relations between our two countries are abnormal without precedent. You therefore have an ally in me.”106 All of this was for Israeli ears. But when the Greek representative in Israel submitted his letter of accreditation in Jerusalem in June 1955, Arab governments demanding clarifications were told by the Greek Foreign Ministry that, in the absence of de jure recognition, this step, like overall Greco-Israeli relations, lacked significance. 107 At the same time, Greece cashed in on Israeli efforts to achieve de jure links by presenting Arab states with demands for a quid pro quo for nonrecognition. An Israeli diplomat was therefore warned: “Have no doubt, whenever you take any initiative with Kyrou, he will immediately ‘sell’ it to the Arab delegations. The man is considered crafty and calculating.”108 Beyond being a matter of high policy, the recognition controversy displayed semantic and ceremonial aspects which, were they not of substantive importance in bilateral relations between two sovereign states, might have evoked a smile. We have already mentioned Israel’s insistence that communication between the two foreign ministers be by letter, rather than by mere telegram: the absence of such a letter robbed the Greek representative of an invitation to the Independence Day banquet “so he should sense where matters stand”. When Israel’s diplomatic staff in Athens registered with the Greek Foreign Ministry, the Israeli delegation attempted to sneak in terms such as “Israeli legation”, “Israeli minister”. 109 Later, there were initiatives to elevate the delegation to legation rank without official publication or mutuality i.e. Israel alone would set up a legation in Athens, while Greek representation in Israel remained unchanged. Israel did not insist upon an exchange of ministers, but would settle for the legations being run by charges d’affaires for the time being. With regard to the appropriate opportunity for the change, Israel proposed a time when Arab rulers were tied down by mutual subversion and domestic matters. The Greeks panicked: “The Egyptians could say, with justice: this is the way our Greek ‘friends’ behave, taking advantage of our momentary internal weakness to stab us in the back!”110 Shameful indeed! Avraham Darom, a professional diplomat with the personal rank of Minister, deliberately nominated as Israel’s representative in Athens in place of Asher Moissis, described the Greek response as follows:


We thought that the simple fact of the presence of such a man, accorded the personal title of Minister, would add to the discomfort of the Greek Foreign Ministry and would thus become, in itself, an element for the solution of the problem. It seems to me, however, that we are somewhat unduly optimistic and that the Greek Government is perfectly able to go on in such a state of discomfort, if such exists at all. My last conversation with Mr. Kyrou on this subject proved that my presence in Athens does not disturb him in the least and that he is quite able to by-pass all his previous assurances and commitments and forever find some new flimsy excuse to delay the normalisation of the relations between the two countries sine die.111 Within the same context, Israel considered a démarche aimed at testing the Greeks. As Greece held de jure recognition to be a mere formality unrelated to normal relations between the two countries, the Athens delegation proposed an Israeli initiative to extend bilateral relations. Greece would certainly refuse on the grounds that the absence of recognition made it impossible to conclude legally valid agreements on such matters as customs and extradition. This, said the Athens delegation, would show up Greek insincerity and the baselessness of their pretexts. Greek perfidy would be displayed for all to see, and Israel could gloat!…112 The question of recognition and the level of representation were interrelated issues. As hopes of recognition were dissipated in clouds of petty verbiage, the representatives of both countries eventually made their own status a laughing stock. The Greek deputy-consul in Jerusalem was caught smuggling dollars and gold between Israel, Jordan and Europe. The man confessed his offences; to forestall publication, he offered to serve as a police informer against other diplomats, and to supply information about the Arab states. 113 Meetings with Greek representatives in Israel were reported by Israeli Foreign Ministry officials with unconcealed contempt, total disbelief, and near-disgust: “[The representative] himself ‘loves’ us and ‘hates’ the Arabs, [consequently] as a ‘friend’ he offers the information for free!” Or: “I w as obliged to listen to [his] Levantine effusiveness about the beauty of our landscape and how it reminds him of Greece.” Again: “To my great consternation, [the Greek representative] declared that…he would soon visit me regularly every Monday!” 114 Conversely, the Israeli delegation in Athens found ever-growing difficulty in trying to clarify its status. Would the representative whose personal rank was “minister” be “a


diplomatic representative” officiating at a “diplomatic mission”, or could he be called a charge d’affaires, and would the “representation” henceforth be called “legation”? Should Israeli diplomats respond to an invitation to the royal palace when it was addressed to the “Israeli legation”, or should they direct their attention to the accompanying letter from the Greek Foreign Ministry, which was dispatched to “the Israeli diplomatic mission”? After an error of protocol was pointed out to the French ambassador to Athens, he lost patience: “he could recall no precedent for the complexity of appellations such as that characterising Israel’s relations with the Greeks.” 115 Matters were further complicated by the diplomatic privileges granted to, or withheld from, Greek and Israeli diplomats. Did a “diplo matic representation” enjoy immunity, and did a “representative” have the right to use code? Was Asher Moissis—a Greek citizen serving as Israel’s representative to Greece—eligible to the privileges reserved for foreign diplomats? What of diplomatic number plates, invitations to diplomatic banquets and identification papers for diplomatic staff? When the matter was partially regulated with the Greeks, the overjoyed Israeli holder of a diplomatic identity card exclaimed: “I had the honour of being the first Israeli to receive such a document after 2,000 years!” 116 The wretched state of representation is best exemplified by the unique position of a Greek citizen—Moissis—serving as Israel’s honorary consul in Athens. Eager to expand links, Israel sought to replace Moissis by a professional diplomat; Greece, preferring relations at a low level, declared itself keenly interested in the retention of Moissis. Israel notified Moissis: “ From our viewpoint, there is no change in his status”—i.e. he was not the diplomatic representative Jerusalem would prefer, even if the local authorities felt otherwise—and pointed out that there was no precedent for a local citizen serving as a foreign diplomatic representative. But, to the delight of the Greek Foreign Ministry, its Israeli counterpart’s judicial section accidentally did dredge up a number of precedents: in 1714, Sir Patrick Lawless officiated as Spain’s representative in London, and he was succeeded by General Wall, likewise a British subject; in 1907, Venezuela permitted one of its citizens to serve as Nicaraguan minister to Caracas. If those were not sufficient, in 1910 the United States allowed an American citizen to act as a secretary at the Siamese legation in Washington. 117 Upon this historical vindication, Moissis was nominated as Israel’s honorary diplomatic representative in Athens, further emphasising the poor state of bilateral relations. If the Greeks did not care, why should Israel complain?


*** The preceding text already contains conclusions, and we shall not restate them. Instead, we shall cite a New York Times report on Greek reactions to Israel’s Lebanon campaign, and sections from an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres published in the Greek daily Kathimerini in March 1985. The New York Times report quotes Greek accusations of Israel’s adoption of Nazi methods and of crimes against humanity. For the first time in 35 years, bilateral relations took a turn for the worse when Greek dock-workers boycotted ships flying the Israeli flag. Greek volunteers signed up to fight alongside the Palestinians in Lebanon, and the wife of the Greek Prime Minister, Margaret Papandreou, headed a large demonstration outside the Israeli legation in Athens. Bank accounts were opened to receive donations for Lebanese casualties, the numbers being screened regularly by Greek state television. The Archbishop of Athens appealed to the Greek people for donations to demonstrate their sympathy with the Palestinians in Lebanon; the churches became fund-raising centres. 118 The Peres interview features the following exchange with the Greek journalist, Jean Jose Cohen: Peres: I am very satisfied with relations between the ancient Greeks and the ancient Jews, but I am not satisfied with the relations between Greece and Israel. In fact, I am very disappointed. And as I am unable to explain why this happens, I don’t think I am obliged to interpret it. Cohen: Is Israel doing anything to improve relations? Peres: Israel is not to blame for these relations, and there is therefore no need for it to take steps to improve them. We have no difficulty in maintaining good relations with Greece. The difficulties come from Greece, not from Israel. 119 The harsh words directed against Israel in Athens in June 1982, and the indifference, verging on apathy, evident in Jerusalem in March 1985, can be traced back to the early years of Greco-Israeli relations, as here depicted. In other words, two countries without substantial grounds for conflict, and with many common interests, apparently reached the conclusion that no benefit would accrue from a concerted endeavour to ameliorate relations between them.


NOTES 1. Zvi Ankori, “Greek Orthodox-Jewish Relations in Historic Perspective— The Jewish View”, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, vol. 13, fall 1976, no. 4, pp. 538, 544. 2. Ibid. pp. 545–8. 3. David Ben-Gurion, War Diary (Hebrew), Tel-Aviv 1982, p. 902, 25 Dec. 1948. 4. Foreign Ministry, memorandum from the legal adviser, 24 Oct. 1951, Jerusalem, Israel State Archives (ISA) 2412/2/a. 5. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 27 Dec. 1953, ISA 2537/5. 6. Foreign Ministry, Information to Israeli delegations abroad, 2 Aug. 1951, ISA 2411/13/a. 7. Gershon Avner, Director of Foreign Ministry’s West European section, 12 Dec. 1949, ISA 2537/3. 8. For impoundment of the planes, see correspondence from March to December 1950, ISA 460/13. 9. Memorandum by Gershon Avner, 2 June 1950, ISA 2412/2. 10. See the daily Ethnos, May—June 1951, for border incidents between Israeli and Syrian army units in the Tel el Mutilla area. See also Israeli consulate in Athens, survey of the Greek press, 13 June 1951, ISA 460/3. 11. For release of the Jewish prisoners, see correspondence for FebruaryDecember 1953, ISA 459/6. 12. See the Greek daily Kathimerini, 26 Oct. 1952. See also Athens to Foreign Ministry, 2 Oct. 1952, ISA 458/21. 13. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 22 Jan. 1954, ISA 2519/20/a. Israel demanded the proceeds of unclaimed Jewish property, for use in rehabilitating Greek immigrants to Israel. The demand rested upon a Greek law enacted in 1946 (no. 846) whereby any Jew who resided in Greece in 1940 and now required rehabilitation was entitled to benefit from this property, whether he continued to reside in Greece or had emigrated. See memorandum from Foreign Ministry (D. Avni) undated, ISA 2544/7. 14. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 15 June 1952, ISA 2544/7; Athens to Foreign Ministry, 15 Feb. 1953, ISA 2544/7. 15. For details on the Israeli navy’s rescue operations following the earthquake in Greece, August 1953, see ISA 459/13. 16. See editorial in Kathimerini, 23 Aug. 1953. See also Athens to Foreign Ministry, 24 Aug. 1953, ISA 458/12. 17. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 31 Aug. 1953, ISA 459/13. 18. Shertok to Eliyahu Epstein (Washington representative of the Jewish Agency) 18 May 1948. ISA Documents on Israeli Foreign Policy, May 14, 1948-Sept. 30 1948, Jemsalem 1981, Document no. 21. The planes were finally stripped down and conveyed by freight planes.


19. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 7 Jan. 1952, ISA 458/21. 20. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 15 July 1952, ISA 2544/7. For American Jewish initiatives concerning Greco-Israeli relations, see also Foreign Ministry to World Jewish Congress, 30 May 1951, ISA 460/16; Athens to Foreign Ministry, 21 May 1953, ISA 458/21. 21. Conversation between Greek and Israeli diplomats in Washington, 15 June 1954, ISA 413/9/a. For the influence of the Greek lobby in the U.S., see Jacob M.Landau, “Johnson’s 1964 Letter to Inonu and Greek Lobbying of the White House”, Jerusalem Papers on Peace Problems, 1979, No. 28, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations. 22. Belgrade to Foreign Ministry, 27 May 1954, ISA 2510/7; Athens to Foreign Ministry, 12 Sept. 1954, ISA 2544/9/a. 23. Panos Tsakaloyannis, “Greek Foreign Policy and the Middle East”, p. 1. Paper submitted at the colloquium on European Foreign Policy Making and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, University of Amsterdam, 3–4 Feb. 1983. 24. Memorandum from Gershon Avner, 25 Sept. 1950, ISA 2518/17/a. 25. Head of Protocol to Director General, 21 March 1951, ISA 2537/9/a. 26. Conversation with the Turkish minister to Israel, 1 July 1953, ISA 2411/ 34/b. 27. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 27 July 1953, ISA 458/21. The Athens delegation’s request led the Foreign Ministry to reply: “We are interested, not in diminishing [Moschopolus’] diplomatic value, but in enhancing the value of our delegation in Greece.” 7 Sept. 1953, ISA 458/ 21. 28. Correspondence between the Foreign Ministry and Athens, 2 March 1955, 5 April 1955, ISA 2518/17. 29. Foreign Ministry to Athens, 10 Aug. 1954, ISA 458/21; see also Athens to Foreign Ministry, 3 Aug. 1954, ibid. 30. Gershon Avner to Israeli minister in Brussels, 22 Jan. 1952, ISA 2537/3. Author’s emphasis. 31. Foreign Ministry, section for International Institutions, Sept. 1949, ISA 2424/5. Israel ultimately abstained in the vote on dismantling UNSCOB. See summary of Israeli votes on Greek issues up to the 6th General Assembly (Paris 1951), ISA 2391/16/b. 32. Gershon Avner to Brussels, 22 Jan. 1952, ISA 2537/3. Author’s emphasis. 33. Gershon Avner to London, 12 Dec. 1949, ISA 2537/3. 34. The weekly Prosopigikos Kosmos, organ of the Greeks from Asia Minor, 30 Dec. 1951. See also, Athens to Foreign Ministry, 27 Jan. 1952, ISA 460/3. 35. Gershon Avner to London, 12 Dec. 1949, ISA 2537/3.


36. Avner to Ankara, 22 Jan. 1951; Avner to Brussels, 23 Dec. 1951, ISA 2537/3; Athens (Moshe Sasson) to Foreign Ministry, 29 Jan. 1953, ISA 2516/1/a. 37. Gershon Avner to Brussels, 22 Jan. 1952, ISA 2537/3. 38. Foreign Ministry to Brussels, 23 Dec. 1951, ISA 2537/3. 39. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 31 July 1954, ISA 2548/4/b. For the “luxury of following the line of ‘broggez’” see ISA 2521/10/b, 3 Aug. 1954. 40. Shabtai Rosen, Foreign Ministry’s legal section, to Gershon Avner, 21 Oct. 1951, ISA 2551/8/a. 41. It should be noted that in the writer’s conversations with Foreign Ministry officials, this contention was denied, as was any confrontation between “Hellenists” and “Turks”. 42. Avner to Moissis, 22 Nov. 1949, ISA 460/11. A grave charge was directed against Moissis by Israel’s Ministry of Religious Affairs (Yaacov Herzog); during negotiations for the purchase of land owned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jemsalem, Moissis reassured the Greeks, telling them they need not fear confiscation of the land if they did not consent to sell it voluntarily. “But that [confiscation] was our only weapon!”, Herzog complained to Avner, 10 April 1951, ISA 2523/8/a. 43. Moissis to Foreign Ministry, 6 Aug. 1950, ISA 2552/4. For an account of an emotional meeting with Salonika’s Jewish community, which was terrified that the anti-Semitism rampant in Russia would spread to Greece in the event of a world-wide flare-up, see Athens to Foreign Ministry, 2 March 1953, ISA 459/8. After so many of their brethren had recently been massacred by the Germans, Greek Jews looked to Israel to protect them from total extermination. 44. A source in the Israeli Foreign Ministry. 45. Avraham Darom to Foreign Ministry, 4 Aug. 1954, ISA 458/21. 46. United Nations section to Foreign Minister, 4 Nov. 1952, ISA 2424/6/a. For the Israeli position on the Cyprus issue and support for selfdetermination, see Athens to Foreign Ministry, 4 Nov. 1954: “Greece expected support on the part of Israel, since it [Israel] had received its own independence on the basis of the same principle, and the Greeks never imagined that…we would deny this principle.” ISA 458/18. 47. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 31 July 1954, ISA 2548/4/b. 48. Ibid. 49. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 4 May 1954, ISA 458/21; Foreign Ministry to Athens, 9 Feb. 1955, ISA 2521/10/b. 50. Washington to Foreign Ministry, 10 Sept. 1954, ISA 2548/4/b. 51. Ankara, Elyashiv Ben Horin, to Foreign Ministry, 17 Aug. 1954, ibid. 52. West European section to Foreign Minister, 24 Oct. 1954, ISA 2411/34/b. 53. Ibid. 54. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 23 Oct. 1956, ISA 2548/6.


55. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 23 July 1956, ISA 2516/1/b. Further on the absence of authenticity in Enosis, see Israeli consulate in Nicosia to Foreign Ministry, 18 Aug. 1952, ISA 2601/12; Athens to Foreign Ministry, 17 June 1954, ISA 2536/24. 56. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 18 May 1954, ISA 458/12. 57. Correspondence under the code names “Alkana” and “Rhodes”, 22 July 1948, ISA 2412/2. 58. Ibid. Author’s emphasis. 59. Pipinelis to Yitzchaki (press attaché at the Greek consulate in Jerusalem), Athens, 22 July 1948, ISA 2412/2. 60. The Greek consul in Israel to Foreign Ministry, 7 March 1950, ISA 2552/ 2. 61. Vienna to Foreign Ministry, 15 April 1952, ISA 458/16; Israeli police to Foreign Ministry, 13 April 1952, and 9 May 1952, ISA 2537/9/a; Foreign Ministry to Athens, 21 April 1952, ISA 458/16. 62. See memoranda of Michael Comey and Hanan Sidor, 7 May 1952 and 10 March 1953, ISA 2449/1. 63. For refusal to cooperate on intelligence matters, see Athens to Foreign Ministry, 27 Dec. 1953, ISA 458/21. See also, General Staff, Intelligence Department, to Foreign Ministry, 17 Jan. 1954, ISA 2491/11/a, for objection to visits of Greek officers and preference for cooperation with the armies of Turkey and Yugoslavia. 64. See monthly report on Israel in the Greek Press, 9 June 1955, ISA 2527/5/ b. 65. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 27 Dec. 1953, ISA 2537/5. 66. In view of the desperate quest after any ray of light in Greek policy towards Israel, hopes were raised by a notable “innovation” in the government of Marshal Papagos which took office in Greece in November 1952: “The salient difference between the present regime and its predecessor is…that this regime has not given us numerous promises which it did not intend to implement… At least, it has become possible for us to gauge the true situation, without making the error of clutching at promises.” This “refreshing innovation” and the fact that it was worthy of mention tells much about the deterioration of bilateral relations. See Athens to Foreign Ministry, 27 Dec. 1953, ISA 2537/5. 67. Athens (Moshe Sasson) to Foreign Ministry, 27 Dec. 1953, ISA 458/21. 68. Foreign Ministry, research section, 3 Dec. 1954, ISA 2391/16/b. 69. Athens, Yaakov Horam, to Foreign Ministry, 22 Nov. 1956, ISA 2403/16/ b. 70. Ibid. In the summer of 1956, Greek pilots helped the Egyptians to operate the Suez Canal, instead of the French and British crews which departed. 71. Tsakaloyannis, p. 8. 72. Ibid.


73. Foreign Ministry, research section, 3 Dec. 1954, ISA 2391/16/b; The Times, 23 June 1982. 74. Tsakaloyannis, p. 15. 75. Ibid. For statistical data showing decline in Greek exports to the Arab world (1982–5) see The Development of Greek Exports in 1985, Athens, Center for Export Research and Studies, August 1986, table 3. I am indebted to Professor Dimitri Constas of Pantios School of Political Sciences, Athens, who helped me on this point. 76. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 22 Nov. 1956, ISA 2403/16/b. 77. The Athens daily Ethnicos Kiryx, 25 March 1954. Author’s emphasis. See also review of the Greek press, March-April 1954, ISA 460/3. 78. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 3 July 1953, ISA 458/1. See also article on Israel’s commercial fleet in the Cretan paper Patris, 17 Sept. 1953; Athens to Foreign Ministry, condensed economic report for 1954, 18 Oct. 1954, ISA 2383/18. 79. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 9 Aug. 1953, ISA 2547/6/b. 80. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 6 Aug. 1954, ISA 2547/6/b. 81. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 18 Oct. 1954, ISA 2383/18. Further on Greco-Israeli commerce, see Athens to Foreign Ministry, 26 July and 9 Dec. 1954, ISA 458/5. 82. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 1 June 1953, 9 Dec. 1954, and 2 Feb. 1955, ISA 2547/6/b. 83. Source in the Israeli Foreign Ministry. 84. Uri Bialer, “The Road to the Capital—the Establishment of Jerusalem as the Official Seat of the Israeli Government in 1949”, Studies in Zionism, vol. 5, no. 2, Autumn 1984, p. 279. 85. The Archimandrite Ikonomides, see the Athenian daily Athineiki, 6 Aug. 1952. See also Athens to Foreign Ministry, 11 Aug. 1952, ISA 2523/8/a; Foreign Ministry, aide memoire, undated, on the statements of representatives of the Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, ISA 459/4. 86. For Greece’s voting in the UN on the Jerusalem issue, see ISA 459/3. For disagreements within the Greek Foreign Ministry on internationalisation, see Athens to Foreign Ministry, 30 Nov. 1949, ISA 459/4. For differences between the Greek Patriarchate in Jerusalem and the Orthodox Church in Athens, see Ministry of Religious Affairs to Foreign Ministry, 15 July 1954, ISA 2523/8/b. 87. For church contacts with the Israeli authorities see ISA, files of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, 5824/c no. 4781. 88. Ministry of Religious Affairs, Yaakov Herzog, to Foreign Ministry, 12 Nov. 1950, ISA 2523/8/a. 89. The property of the Greek Patriarchate was regarded as absentee property because its owners—the Jerusalem Greek Synod—were in Jordanian territory. 90. Letter to the UN General Secretary, 29 Sept. 1950, ISA 2523/ 8/a.


91. For the Bethlehem incident, see Meir Mendes, The Vatican and Israel (Hebrew), Jerusalem, the Hebrew University, 1983, p. 26. 92. Sources for the understanding between the Patriarchate and the Israeli authorities are: Ministry of Religious Affairs, Yaakov Herzog, to Foreign Ministry, 30 Oct. 1951, Ministry of Religious Affairs to Finance Ministry, 18 Nov. 1951, ISA 2523/8/a; Moshe Sharett, to Interior Minister, 31 July 1952, ISA 2396/2/b; the Greek daily Athineiki, 6 Aug. 1952. See also Athens to Foreign Ministry, 11 Aug. 1952, ISA 2523/8/a. 93. Foreign Ministry, study on the relations among the Eastern Churches, ISA 2523/8/a. 94. Yaakov Herzog to the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, 7 Sept. 1949, ISA 2451/4. 95. Ibid. The Moscow Patriarchate adopted a vigorous position against internationalisation, reiterating it over the years as political developments required. When the internationalisation issue arose again after the 1967 Six Day War, the Patriarchate indignantly criticised the “colonial concept” of internationalisation. See Walter Zander, Israel and the Holy Places of Christendom, London, 1961, p. 114. 96. Ministry of Religious Affairs, Yaakov Herzog, to Foreign Ministry, 24 March 1949, ISA 2523/8/a. 97. Foreign Ministry, visit to Israel of the Greek Patriarch, 16 April 1951, ibid; Israel Ziper, Ministry of Religious Affairs, emissary to Athens, 19 Oct. 1951, ibid. 98. Surprisingly, Israeli Foreign Ministry documents for the years under consideration contain no reference to the legal aspects of the recognition controversy between the two countries. Neither does this paper consider the legal aspects of bilateral relations, since they appear to have had no impact on mutual interaction. Each side probably interpreted international law to its own convenience whenever the recognition issue arose. Israel contended that, after Greece’s de facto recognition, it was up to Greece also to extend de jure recognition. Greece generally argued that recognition was a single act; having recognised Israel, there was no significance to the distinction between de facto and de jure. However, in its dealings with the Arabs, Greece insisted that its non de jure recognition of Israel was not fortuitous. It should be noted that most writers distinguish between de facto and de jure recognition. De facto recognition is extended when the state offering recognition does not consider the state recognised to have fulfilled a number of conditions for de jure recognition; de facto recognition is a temporary step, until the aforementioned conditions are fulfilled, when de jure recognition is extended. If the conditions remain unfulfilled, de facto recognition is withdrawn; if the conditions have been fulfilled, de jure recognition is a triviality. If the conditions remain unfulfilled permanently, de facto recognition is voided automatically, or is withdrawn outright. See Max


99. 100. 101.

102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

111. 112. 113. 114.

115.

116.

Sorenson (ed.), Manual of Public International Law, London and New York, 1968, pp. 279–80; H. Lauterpacht, Recognition in International Law, Cambridge University Press, 1947, p. 340. The following statement effectively answers all arguments about whether or not there is any distinction between de facto and de jure recognition: “General propositions about the distinction between de jure and de facto recognition are to be distrusted since…everything depends on the intention of the government concerned.” Ian Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, Oxford, 1976, p. 96. Rome to Foreign Ministry, on conversation with the Greek ambassador to Italy, 3 July 1952, ISA 2537/7/a. Ibid.; London to Foreign Ministry, 5 Nov. 1952, ibid.; London to Foreign Ministry, 1 Oct. 1954, ibid. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 27 May 1954, ISA 458/21; Belgrade to Foreign Ministry, on the conversation with Alexis Kyrou, director general of the Greek Foreign Ministry, 11 Aug. 1954, ISA 2391/16/b. Foreign Ministry, research section, 30 Jan. 1956, ISA 2564/25. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 27 Dec. 1953, ISA 2537/5. Tsakaloyannis, p. 7. Foreign Ministry to Stockholm, 25 May 1952, ISA 2537/4. Statement of Mr. Hadzivassiliaeo, Greek Foreign Ministry, see Athens to Foreign Ministry, 6 Feb. 1956, ISA 2548/6. Foreign Ministry research section, 30 Jan. 1956, ISA 2564/25. Foreign Ministry to Athens, 1 June 1954, ISA 2521/10/b. See also Foreign Ministry to Athens, 20 July 1954, ISA 458/21. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 15 Feb. 1954, ISA 458/21; Athens to Foreign Ministry, 3 Aug. 1954, ibid. Athens to Foreign Ministry, on the reaction of the Greek Foreign Ministry’s director-general to the proposal, 2 March 1954, ISA 2521/10/ b. For elevation of the representations to legations and their conduct by charges d’affaires, see Athens to Foreign Ministry, 4 May 1954, ISA 458/ 21; Belgrade to Foreign Ministry, 11 Aug. 1954, ISA 2391/16/b. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 3 Aug. 1954, ISA 458/21. Athens to Foreign Ministry, 3 Aug. 1954, ISA 2521/10/b. Foreign Ministry to Athens, 6 Nov. 1950, ISA 460/13. Memoranda to director general of Foreign Ministry, on the treatment of Greek consul, 13 Feb. 1951 and 31 July 1951, ISA 2412/6/a; director general to West European section, 31 Aug. 1954 ISA 458/18. Foreign Ministry, memorandum from West European section, 15 Sept. 1952, Athens to Foreign Ministry, 22 Feb. 1954, ISA 458/21; Athens to Foreign Ministry, 26 June 1953, ISA 2516/1/a. Foreign Ministry to Athens, 12 Nov. 1952, Athens to Foreign Ministry, 15 June 1953, ISA 458/21; Athens to Foreign Ministry, 14 Jan. 1953 and 22 Jan. 1953, ISA 2516/1/a.


117. Foreign Ministry, memorandum on Greek affairs, 7 Aug. 1952, ISA 2537/ 4; Yosef Takoa, deputy legal adviser, 7 Aug. 1952, 2518/17. Author’s emphasis. 118. The New York Times, 21 and 26 June, 1982. 119. Appeared in the Greek daily Kathimerini, 10 March 1985, and subsequently in Enymerotiko Deltio, the Central Committee of Greek Jewry, 15 March 1985.

Index

Abdullah, King of Jordan, 5, 10, 12, 26, 34, 57, 68 Aden, 76 Aegean earthquake, 1953, 92–94, 121 n15 Aid, US, to Israel, 49 Air bases, undergound fuel supplies, 57 Aircraft, Israeli purchases, 94 Albania, 98, 115 Aleppo, 68 Alexandretta, 67, 78 Alexandria, 106, 110 American Jews, 53–3, 69, 94–2 Anatolia, 51 Ankori, Zvi, 87, 120 n1 Antioch, 110 Arab affairs, separate department, 20 Arab Department, Jewish Agency, 7 Arab diplomacy, Sasson, 34–5 Arab informants, Ankara legation, 1, 4, 7–8 Arab League, 68, 109 Arab minority, Israel, 21, 23–4 Arab revolt, Ottoman Empire, 67 Arab states, 90, 97 Greek minorities, 115 Greek relations with, 108–6 Korean war neutrality, 52–2 monitoring, 57 relations with Turkey, 66–8 Turkish ties with, 61

Arab world, divisions within, 17–18 Israeli pcrception of, 19 Turkish interests, 78 Arab-Israeli conflict, 6, 69 possible Greek mediation, 115 Arazi, Tuvia, 9 Armenians, 47 Armistice commissions, mixed, 13, 23 Army, Israeli, 23 Athens, 92 Athens Synod, 111 Athineiki, 125 n85 Aviation agreement, Israel-Turkey, 61 Azzam Pasha, 34, 68 Baghdad Pact, 69 Balance of trade, Israeli-Turkish, 63– 1 Balkan Pact, 5, 57, 71–2, 95, 107 Bar-Zohar, Michael, 84 n114, 84 n115, 84 n117 Begin, Menahem, 20 Beirut, 30 Ben Ya’akov, Yitzhak, 35 n3, 39 n107, 39 n112 11, 79 n12, 80 n16 Ben Zvi Yitzhak, 59 Ben-Gurion, David, 15, 22, 26, 59, 75– 5, 77, 90, 120 n3 Berne, 27, 38 n90 ,

129


Bethlehem, Church of the Holy Nativity, 112, 125 n91 Beyazid, Sultan, 62 Bialer, Uri, 37 n33, 125 n84 Bilateral trade, Israel-Greece, 110 Border incidents, Israel-Syria, 121 n10 Boycott, Israeli ships, 119 Britain, 52,92, 101, 102 Middle East presence, 46–5 British Mandate, Palestine, 63 Brownlie, Ian, 126 n 98 Bulgaria, 59, 98 Byzantium, 87 Catholic Church, 110, 112, 113 China, 115 Christian refugees, Palestinian, 110 Church of the Holy Nativity, Bethlehem, 112, 125 n91 Civil war, Greece, 91–8, 97 Cohen, Jean Jose, 120 Cominform, 108 Commercial links, Greco-Israeli, 109– 7 Communications, Ankara legationTel Aviv, 6, 57 Communism, alleged Israeli, 68, 104– 2 Turkish opposition to, 6 Communist movement, Iraq, 74 Communist uprising, Greece, 91–8, 98, 113 Communists, Jewish prisoners in Greece, 91–8 Constantinople, 57, 96, 110, 113 Cultural exchanges, Israeli-Turkish, 59–8 Cyprus, 1, 46, 55, 57, 69–71, 76, 94, 101–104, 108, 116 Czechoslovakia, 94 Darom, Avraham, 96, 117 Dayan, General Moshe, 39 n98

Defence pact, Turkey, 5, 57, 69 Democratic Party, Turkey, 47 Denmes, 77 Diplomacy, Israeli-Arab relations, 15– 17 Diplomatic representation, IsraelGreece, 118–17 Diplomatic salon, Sasson, 28–34 Earthquake, Aegean, 1953, 92–94, 121 n15 East European Jews, 6, 48–8 Eastern bloc diplomats, Turkey, 48 Economic aid, Greece, from Arab League, 109 Economic boycott, Israel, 21 Economic relations, Israeli-Arab, 16 Economy, Turkish, 62 Egypt, 67, 68, 78, 82 n87, 91 Greek minority, 90, 105–4, 109, 115, 116 Egyptian-Saudi bloc, 17 Egyptians, 7 Ein Karem monastery, 113 Emigration, Turkish Jews, 47 Enosis, 69–9, 84 n93, 101–9, 103, 123 n55 Enymerotiko Deltio, 127 n119 Erbakan, Necmettin, 79 n7 Ethiopia, 34, 69, 75 Ethnic minorities, Middle East, 15 Ethnicos Kiryx, 123 n77 Ethnos, 121 n10 Evacuation, Greek Jews, preparation for, 100–8 Exports, Israel-Turkey, 64 Eytan, Walter, 1, 27 Falangist militia, 9 Farouk, King of Egypt, 68, 106 Fascism, Greek, alleged, 104–2 Fenerbahce football team, 57 Fisher, Maurice, 25, 43, 62 Force, Israeli-Arab relations, 15–17

INDEX 131

Foreign Ministry, Israel, 19–24, 26, 47, 47, 70, 96, 100, 102 Greece, 111, 116, 117, 119 Turkish, 28 Foreign trade, Turkey, 62 Franjiyeh, Hamid, 26 General Assembly, UN, 97 Germany, Turkish trade with, 63 Golan Heights, 78 Great Britain see Britain Greco-Israeli relations, 87–7 commercial links, 109–7 Cyprus and, 93–104 deteriorating, 95–6 emotional elements in, 100–8 representation and recognition, 114–17 third party interventions, 94–2 Greece, 5, 47, 55, 57, 71, 78, 79 Cyprus issue, 69–71 regional policies, 107–6 Greek citizen, Israeli representative in Athens, 100–8, 118–17 Greek civil war, 97 Greek Communists, 70, 104 Greek lobby, USA, 94–2 Greek minorities, Arab states, 115 Egypt, 90, 105–4, 109, 115, 116 Greek navy, 93 Greek Orthodox Church, 70, 87, 90, 92, 110–12 Greek property, in Israel, 92–9 Greek Zionist Federation, 115 Greeks, Turkey, 47 Gruen, George, 79 n7, 80 n19, 81 n55, 81 n64, 82 n65, 82 n75, 84 n118 Gulf of Akaba, 82 n87 Hagana, 7, 105 Hapoel football team, 29, 57

Harkabi, General Yehoshapat, 35 n10, 72 Hashemite bloc, 17 Hatay, 67, 78 Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 57, 96 Hellenists, Israeli Foreign Ministry officials, 70, 100, 102 Herut Party, Israel, 6, 49 Herzog, Chief Rabbi, 61 Herzog, Yaacov, 122 n42 Holocaust, 100 Holy Places, internationalisation, 110– 9, 112, 114, 125 n86, 125 n95 Hore-Belisha, Leslie, 27 Hostility, Israel-Greece, 97–5 Hussein Ibn Ali, King of the Hejaz, 67 Ikonimides, Archimandrite, 125 n85 Imports, Israel-Turkey, 64 India, 73, 74 Industrial links, Israel-Turkcy, 76, 77 Information-gathering, Ankara legation, 57–6 Insurgents, Kurdish, 74 Intelligence service, Israel, 1, 7 International Postal Union, 91 Internationalisation, Holy Places, 110–9, 112, 114, 125 n86, 125 n95 Iran, 10, 34, 59, 69, 74, 75, 77 Iranian Jews, 37 n33 Iraq, 6, 10, 17, 57, 59, 67, 69 Kassemite revolution, 75–5, 78 Turkish pact with, 73–4 Iraqi Jews, 9, 37 n33 Iraqi nuclear reactor, bombing, 116 Islam, 47, 47–7, 59, 67 Islamic National Salvation Party, 79 n7 Israel, 34 aid in Aegean earthquake, 92–94, 121 n15 aid to Turkey, 76


contacts and influence in Turkey, 1–7 Greek de facto recognition, 114– 16 intelligence service, 7 interest in relations with Turkey, 57–6 Middle Eastern policy, 11–19 neutrality, 46–51 territorial expansion, 20 Israel Radio, 47 Israel-Arab War, 1948, 47 Israeli Army, 23 Israeli legation, as Middle East listening post, 7–11 Israeli property, in Greece, 92–9 Israeli-Arab relations, 11–19 Israeli-Greek relations, 69–9 Israeli-Turkish peripheral pact, 75–6 Israeli-Turkish relations, 43–4, 57–65 Israeli-Turkish-Arab triangle, 65–8 Istinyeli, Sefkati, 61, 73, 74 Japan, 52 Jemayel, Pierre, 9 Jerusalem, 30 Jerusalem Law, 78 Jerusalem Patriarchate, 112–11, 125 n86, 125 n89, 125 n92 Jerusalem Post, 62, 81 n57 Jerusalem Synod, 110–8, 111, 114 Jewish Agency, 7, 47, 91 Jewish community, Greece, 92, 122 n43 Jewish Federation, Salonika, 101 Jewish minorities, Arab countries, 21 Jewish National Fund, 112 Jewish prisoners, Greece, release, 91– 8 Jews, East European, 6, 48–8 place in Turkey, 47–6 Jordan, 17, 19, 57, 69, 75 Judaism, 87

Karpat, Kemal, 79 n4, 82 n87 Kassemite revolution, Iraq, 75–5, 78 Kathimerini, 119, 121 n12, 121 n16, 127 n119 Kemal Ataturk, see Mustafa Kemal Ataturk Kemalism, 47, 48 Kephalonia, 92 Ketayeb Party, Lebanon, 8, 9 Knesset, 6, 49 Köprülü, Fuad, 54, 79 n10 Koran, 47 Korean War, 52–2 Kurds, 15, 74 Kyrou, Alexis, 115, 116 Landau, Jacob M., 121 n21 Lauretpacht, H., 126 n98 Lawless, Sir Patrick, 119 Lebanese, trips to Turkey, 7 Lebanon, 9, 15, 69, 75, 109, 116, 119– 18 Left-wing, Israeli, 104–2 Left-wing character, alleged, Israel, 47, 48–9 Left-wing movement, Greece, 91–8 Legal aspects, recognition, 126 n98 Libya, 21 Liddell Hart, B.H., 82 n72 Lie, Tiygve, 112 Loans, Turkey, 54–4 London, 6, 57 Mapai Party, Israel, 49 Mapam Party, Israel, 6, 20, 49 Maronites, 9 Menderes, Adnan, 25, 54, 75–5, 77 Mendes, Meir, 125 n91 Merchant fleet, Greek, 109 Meroz, Yohanan, 55, 70, 102 Metallurgical industry, Turkish, 65 Middle East, British presence, 46–5 Greek policy, 90, 107–6

INDEX 133

Israeli policy, 11–19 subversion, 75 US influence, 9, 51 Middle East Department, Foreign Ministry, 19–24, 26, 47, 47 Military attachés, Israeli, in Ankara, 5, 6, 57 Military cooperation, lack of, IsraelGreece, 105 Military hardware, Israeli-Turkish trade, 65 Military investment, US, in Turkey, 6 Military links, Israel-Turkey, 76, 77 Military technology, US, 57 Ministry of Commerce, Greece, 109 Ministry of Minorities, Israel, 23 Ministry of Religious Affairs, 111, 122 n42, 125 passim, 126 n97 Mixed armistice commissions, 13, 23 Modernisation, Turkey, 68 Moissis, Asher, 100–8, 115, 117, 118– 17, 122 n42 Moschopolus, Ioannis, 96, 121 n27 Moscow Patriarchate, 125 n95 Moslem loyalties, Turkey, 46 Moslem property, Israel, 59 Moslem world, Turkish interests, 78 Moslems, Soviet Union, 48 Mossad, 10, 13, 37 n33 Mosul, 67 Mount Carmel, 59 Mount of Olives Church, 113 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, 43, 47, 59, 67 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 76, 106, 107, 108, 115 Nasserist subversion, Middle East, 75 NATO, 5, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 107 Nazareth, 104 Negev, 24 Nehru, Jawarhalal, 74 New York Times, 119 Nicaragua, 119

Nicosia, 104 Ottoman Empire, 43, 47, 59, 62, 66, 67, 70, 77, 87 Pakistan, 5, 57, 73–4 Palestine, 34, 50, 69, 90 British Mandate, 63 partition, 46, 90–7 Palestinian Arabs, 7 Palestinian Jews, 91 Palestinian refugees, 18 Palestinians, 7, 21–2 Lebanon, 120 Palmach, 105 Papagos, Field Marshal Alexander, 109, 123 n66 Papandreou, Margaret, 120 Partition, Palestine, 46, 90–7 Partition resolution, UN, 110 Patriarchates, Greek Orthodox, 110 Peres, Shimon, 119, 120 Peripheral pact, Israeli-Turkish, 75–6 Pipinelis, Panayotis, 104 Piraeus, 93, 105 Pravoslav Church, 113–12 Press, Israeli, Turkey and, 62 Property, Greek Orthodox, in Israel, 111–10 Prosopigikos Kosmos, 122 n34 Rafael, Gideon, 40 n124 Recognition, Israel, by Greece, 114– 16, 126 n98 Refugee problem, 21–2 Religious Affairs Ministry, Turkey, 47 Reparations agreement, IsraeliGerman, 49 Repatriation, Palestinian Christian refugees, 110 Representation, levels of, IsraelGreece, 118–17 Rome, 26


Royal Hellenic Airforce, 91 Rumania, 98, 115 Russian Orthodox Church, 113–12 Ruz-al-Yusuf, 68 Sadat, Mohammed Anwar el-, 34 Salonika, 92, 101, 122 n43 Sasson, Eliyahu, 1, 20, 54, 57, 68–7 Arab diplomacy, 34–5 character, 4 information-gathering activities, 7–9 and Israeli-Arab relations, 12–13, 16, 18 lifestyle, 28–34 refugee problem and, 21–2 views on Arab affairs, 25–8 Scientific links, Israel-Turkey, 76, 77 Sea of Galilee, 18 Sebilurresad, 47, 47 Secular state, Turkey as, 43, 67 Security, Pakistan, 73 Security Council, 59, 97, 98 Segev, Shmuel, 84 n116 Segev, Tom, 38 n57, 38 n88, 40 n116 Shabtai Zvi, 77 Shai, Colonel Uriel, 35 n7, 35 n12, 80 n40 Sharett, Moshe, 6, 13, 22, 25, 26, 27, 33, 35 n18, 38 n82, 38 n90, 39 n91, 59, 69, 94, 96 Shi’ites, 74 Shimoni, Yaakov, 15, 38 n63, 40 n123, 40 n124 Shitrit, Bechor Shalom, 23 Siberia, 73 Simon, Dr Michael, 61 Sinai, 21 Sinai War, 25 Soldiers, Turkish, 66 Solel Boneh Construction Company, 64 Sorenson, Max, 126 n98 Soviet Jews, 49

Soviet manoeuvres, Turkish border, 76 Soviet subversion, Middle East, 75 Soviet Union, 6, 48, 51, 52, 73, 78, 108, 113 Spain, 62, 63, 119 State Department, US, 30, 55, 94 Strategic cooperation, Israel-Turkey, 46, 65–8 Sudan, 75 Suez Canal, 123 n70 Suez Canal zone, British occupation, 67 Suez crisis, 76 Suez War, 75, 107, 108 Sunnis, 74 Switzerland, 7 Syria, 6, 10, 18, 57, 59, 67, 68, 75, 78 Syrians, 7 Teheran, Israeli representative, 13 Tel Aviv, 29, 57 Tel el Mutilla, 121 n10 Territorial conflicts, Turkish-Arab, 67 Territorial expansion, Israel, 20 Teveth, Shabtai, 81 n48 Times, The, 109 Timotius, Patriarch, 112 Trade, Israeli-Arab, 16 Israeli-Greek, 110 Israeli-Turkish, 46, 63–3 Trade unions, Turkey, 49–9 Tsakaloyannis, Panos, 121 n23, 123 n71, 123 n74, 126 n104 Tsaldaris, Constantine, 91 Turkey, 20, 34, 115 anti-communism, 46–51 Eastern neighbours, 73–4 importance for Israel, 1–7 interest in relations with Israel, 51– 5 Israeli aid, 76

Amikam Nachmani Israel, Turkey and Greece Uneasy Relations in the East Mediterranean 1987

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