Quote from Timothy Fitzpatrick on February 15, 2023, 20:27

Feb. 1, 2011

The harsh winter of early 1947 was accompanied in England by the most serious fuel crisis in the history of the country. Industry practically stopped, the British were desperately cold. The British government, more than ever, wanted good relations with the Arab oil-exporting countries. On February 14, Foreign Minister Bevin announced London's decision to refer the question of Mandatory Palestine to the UN in view of the fact that British proposals for peace were rejected by both Arabs and Jews. It was a gesture of desperation.

“NOW THERE WILL BE NO PEACE HERE” On

March 6, 1947, adviser to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs Boris Stein handed over a note on the Palestinian issue to First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky: “Until now, the USSR has not formulated its position on the question of Palestine. The referral by Great Britain of the question of Palestine for discussion by the United Nations presents an opportunity for the USSR for the first time not only to express its point of view on the question of Palestine, but also to take an effective part in the fate of Palestine. The Soviet Union cannot but support the demands of the Jews for the creation of their own state on the territory of Palestine.

Vyacheslav Molotov and later Joseph Stalin agreed. On May 14, Andrey Gromyko, the permanent representative of the USSR to the UN, voiced the Soviet position. At a special session of the General Assembly, he, in particular, said: “The Jewish people suffered exceptional disasters and suffering in the last war. On the territory dominated by the Nazis, the Jews were subjected to almost complete physical extermination - about six million people died. The fact that not a single Western European state was able to protect the elementary rights of the Jewish people and protect it from violence by fascist executioners explains the desire of the Jews to create their own state. It would be unfair not to take this into account and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize such an aspiration."

Joseph Stalin acted as the "godfather" of the state of Israel

"Since Stalin was determined to give the Jews his own state, it would be foolish for the United States to resist!" - concluded US President Harry Truman and instructed the "anti-Semitic" State Department to support the "Stalinist initiative" in the UN.

In November 1947, it adopted resolution No. 181 (2) on the creation of two independent states on the territory of Palestine: Jewish and Arab immediately after the withdrawal of British troops (May 14, 1948) On the day the resolution was adopted, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Jews, distraught with happiness took to the streets. When the UN made a decision, Stalin smoked a pipe for a long time, and then said: "That's it, now there will be no peace here." "Here" is in the Middle East.

The Arab countries did not accept the UN decision. They were incredibly outraged by the Soviet position. The Arab communist parties, which are accustomed to fighting against "Zionism - agents of British and American imperialism," were simply confused, seeing that the Soviet position had changed beyond recognition.

But Stalin was not interested in the reaction of the Arab countries and local communist parties. It was much more important for him to consolidate, in defiance of the British, diplomatic success and, if possible, to join the future Jewish state in Palestine to the created world camp of socialism.

For this purpose, a government "for the Jews of Palestine" was prepared in the USSR. Solomon Lozovsky, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a former deputy people's commissar for foreign affairs, director of the Soviet Information Bureau, was to become the prime minister of the new state. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, tanker David Dragunsky was approved for the post of Minister of Defense, Grigory Gilman, a senior intelligence officer of the USSR Navy, became Minister of the Navy. But in the end, a government was created from the international Jewish Agency, headed by its chairman, Ben-Gurion (a native of Russia); and the “Stalinist government”, which was already ready to fly to Palestine, was dissolved.

The adoption of the resolution on the division of Palestine served as a signal for the beginning of the Arab-Jewish armed conflict, which lasted until mid-May 1948 and was a kind of prelude to the first Arab-Israeli war, which in Israel was called the "War of Independence". US arms

embargointo the region, the British continued to arm their Arab satellites, the Jews were left with nothing: their partisan detachments could defend themselves only with homemade guns and rifles and grenades stolen from the British. In the meantime, it was becoming clear that the Arab countries would not allow the UN decision to take effect and would try to exterminate the Palestinian Jews even before the declaration of the state. The Soviet envoy to Lebanon, Solod, after a conversation with the Prime Minister of this country, reported to Moscow that the head of the Lebanese government expressed the opinion of all Arab countries: “if necessary, the Arabs will fight for the preservation of Palestine for two hundred years, as it was during the Crusades ".

Arms poured into Palestine. The sending of "Islamic volunteers" began. The military leaders of the Palestinian Arabs Abdelkader al-Husseini and Fawzi al-Kawkaji (who recently served the Führer loyally) launched a broad offensive against Jewish settlements. Their defenders retreated to coastal Tel Aviv. A little more, and the Jews will be "thrown into the sea." And, no doubt, this would have happened if not for the Soviet Union.

Together with weapons from the countries of Eastern Europe, Jewish soldiers arrived in Palestine who had experience in participating in the war against Germany.

STALIN PREPARING A BRIDGE HEAD

On Stalin's personal order, at the end of 1947, the first batches of small arms began to arrive in Palestine. But this was clearly not enough. On February 5, a representative of the Palestinian Jews, through Andrei Gromyko, convincingly asked for an increase in supplies. Having listened to the request, Gromyko, without diplomatic evasions, asked in a businesslike way whether it was possible to ensure the unloading of weapons in Palestine, because there was still almost 100,000 British troops there. This was the only problem that the Jews in Palestine had to solve, the USSR took care of everything else. Such guarantees have been received.

The Palestinian Jews received weapons mainly through Czechoslovakia. And at first, captured German and Italian weapons, as well as those produced in Czechoslovakia at the Skoda and ChZ factories, were sent to Palestine. Prague made good money on this. The airfield in České Budějovice was the main transshipment base. Soviet instructors retrained American and British volunteer pilots - veterans of the recent war - on new machines. From Czechoslovakia (through Yugoslavia), they then made risky flights to the territory of Palestine itself. Dismantled aircraft were brought with them, mainly German Messerschmit fighters and British Spitfires, as well as artillery and mortars.

One American pilot said: “The machines were loaded to capacity. But you knew that if you landed in Greece, the plane and cargo would be taken away. If you sit in any Arab country, they will simply kill you. But when you land in Palestine, poorly dressed people are waiting for you. They don't have weapons, but they need them to survive. These will not let themselves be killed. Therefore, in the morning you are ready to fly again, although you understand that each flight may be the last.

Deliveries of weapons to the Holy Land were often overgrown with detective details. Here is one of them.

Yugoslavia gave the Jews not only airspace, but also ports. The Borea transport ship under the Panamanian flag was the first to load. On May 13, 1948, he delivered to Tel Aviv cannons, shells, machine guns and about four million rounds of ammunition - all hidden under a 450-ton cargo of onions, starch and cans of tomato sauce. The ship was already ready to moor, but then the British officer suspected smuggling, and under the escort of British warships, the Borea moved to Haifa for a more thorough inspection. At midnight the British officer looked at his watch. "The mandate is over," he told the captain of the Borea. You are free to continue on your way. Shalom! Borea became the first ship to unload in a free Jewish port. Following from Yugoslavia, other transport workers arrived with a similar "stuffing".

Permanent Representative of the USSR to the UN Andrei Gromyko actively promoted the idea of ​​"the right of the Jewish people to create their own state"

On the territory of Czechoslovakia, not only future Israeli pilots were trained. In the same place, in Ceske Budejovice, tankers and paratroopers were trained. One and a half thousand infantrymen of the Israel Defense Forces were trained in Olomouc, another two thousand in Mikulov. Of these, a unit was formed, which was originally called the "Gottwald Brigade" in honor of the leader of the Czechoslovak communists and the leader of the country. The brigade was transferred to Palestine through Yugoslavia. Medical personnel were trained in Wielka Strebn, radio and telegraph operators in Liberec, and electrical engineers in Pardubice. Soviet political instructors conducted political classes with young Israelis. At the "request" of Stalin, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria refused to supply weapons to the Arabs, which they did immediately after the end of the war purely for commercial reasons.

In Romania and Bulgaria, Soviet specialists trained officers for the Israel Defense Forces. Here, the preparation of Soviet military units for the transfer to Palestine to help Jewish combat units began. But it turned out that the fleet and aviation would not be able to provide a swift landing operation in the Middle East. It was necessary to prepare for it, first of all, to prepare the host. Stalin soon realized this and set about building a "Middle Eastern bridgehead." And already trained fighters, according to the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, were loaded onto ships to be sent to Yugoslavia in order to save the “fraternal country” from Tito who had gone too far.

OUR MAN IN HAIFA

Together with weapons from the countries of Eastern Europe, Jewish soldiers who had experience in participating in the war against Germany arrived in Palestine. Secretly sent to Israel and Soviet officers. There were great opportunities for Soviet intelligence. According to State Security General Pavel Sudoplatov, “the use of Soviet intelligence officers in combat and sabotage operations against the British in Israel began as early as 1946.” They recruited agents among the Jews leaving for Palestine (mainly from Poland). As a rule, these were Poles, as well as Soviet citizens, who, taking advantage of family ties, and in some places forging documents (including nationality), traveled through Poland and Romania to Palestine. The relevant authorities were well aware of these tricks, but were instructed to turn a blind eye to it.

At the direction of Lavrenty Beria, the best officers of the NKVD-MGB were seconded to Palestine.

True, to be precise, the first Soviet "specialists" arrived in Palestine shortly after the October Revolution. In the 1920s, on the personal instructions of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first Jewish self-defense forces "Israel Shoikhet" were created by the resident of the Cheka Lukacher (operational pseudonym "Khozro").

So Moscow's strategy was to intensify clandestine activities in the region, especially against the interests of the United States and Great Britain. Vyacheslav Molotov believed that it was possible to implement these plans only by concentrating all intelligence activities under the control of one department. An Information Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR was created, which included the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Ministry of State Security, as well as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. The Committee reported directly to Stalin, and was headed by Molotov and his deputies.

At the end of 1947, Andrey Otroshchenko, the head of the Komiinform Information Department for the Near and Far East, convened an operational meeting at which he said that Stalin had set the task of guaranteeing the transition of the future Jewish state to the camp of the closest allies of the USSR. To do this, it is necessary to neutralize the ties of the Israeli population with American Jews. The selection of agents for this "mission" was entrusted to Alexander Korotkov, who headed the department of illegal intelligence in Komiinform.

Pavel Sudoplatov wrote that he singled out three Jewish officers for covert operations: Garbuz, Semyonov and Kolesnikov. The first two settled in Haifa and created two intelligence networks, but did not take part in sabotage against the British. Kolesnikov managed to organize the delivery of small arms and faustpatrons captured from the Germans from Romania to Palestine.

Sudoplatov's people were engaged in specific activities - they were preparing the same bridgehead for a possible invasion of Soviet troops. They were most interested in the Israeli military, their organizations, plans, military capabilities, ideological priorities.

And while disputes and behind-the-scenes negotiations were going on at the UN about the fate of the Arab and Jewish states on the territory of Palestine, the USSR began to build a new Jewish state at a shock Stalinist pace. We started with the main thing - with the army, intelligence, counterintelligence and police. And not on paper, but in practice.

The Jewish territories resembled a military district that had been raised on alert and urgently began military deployment. There was no one to plow, everyone was preparing for war. By order of Soviet officers, among the settlers, people of the required military specialties were identified, delivered to the bases, where they were hastily checked by the Soviet counterintelligence, and then urgently taken to the ports, where, secretly from the British, ships were unloaded. As a result, in tanks, just delivered from the side to the pier, the full crew sat down and drove military equipment to the place of permanent deployment or directly to the place of fighting.

Israeli special forces were created from scratch. The best officers of the NKVD-MGB (“Stalin’s falcons” from the “Berkut” detachment, the 101st intelligence school and the “C” department of General Sudoplatov), ​​who had experience in operational and sabotage work, took direct part in the creation and training of the commandos: Otroshchenko, Korotkov, Vertiporoh and dozens of others. In addition to them, two generals from the infantry and aviation, a vice admiral of the Navy, five colonels and eight lieutenant colonels, and, of course, junior officers for direct work on the ground, were urgently sent to Israel.

David Ben Gurion. Golda Meir

Among the "juniors" were mostly former soldiers and officers with the corresponding "fifth column" in the questionnaire, who expressed a desire to repatriate to their historical homeland. As a result, Captain Galperin (born in Vitebsk in 1912) became the founder and first head of the Mossad intelligence service, created the Shin Bet public security and counterintelligence service. The “honorary pensioner and faithful heir of Beria”, the second person after Ben-Gurion, entered the history of Israel and its special services under the name Iser Harel. Officer "Smersh" Livanov founded and directed foreign intelligence "Nativa Bar". He took the Jewish name Nehimia Levanon, under which he entered the history of Israeli intelligence. Captains Nikolsky, Zaitsev, and Malevany "set" the work of the Israel Defense Forces special forces, two Navy officers (names could not be established) created and trained a naval special forces unit.

Some of the scouts got into piquant situations, if they happened in another place, serious consequences could not be avoided. So, one Soviet agent infiltrated the Orthodox Jewish community, and he himself did not even know the basics of Judaism. When this was discovered, he was forced to admit that he was a personnel Chekist. Then the council of the community decided: to give the comrade a proper religious education. Moreover, the authority of the Soviet agent in the community has grown dramatically: the USSR is a fraternal country, the settlers reasoned, what secrets could there be from it?

Immigrants from Eastern Europe willingly made contact with Soviet representatives, told everything they knew. Jewish soldiers were especially sympathetic to the Red Army and the Soviet Union, and did not consider it shameful to share secret information with Soviet intelligence officers. The abundance of sources of information created a deceptive sense of their power among the staff of the residency. “They,” we quote Russian historian Zhores Medvedev, “intended to secretly rule Israel, and through it also influence the American Jewish community.”

The Soviet secret services were active both in the left and pro-communist circles, and in the right-wing underground organizations LEHI and ETSEL. For example, a resident of Beersheba Chaim Bresler in 1942-1945. was in Moscow as part of the LEHI representation, was engaged in the supply of weapons and trained militants. He has photographs of the war years with Dmitry Ustinov, the then Minister of Arms, later Minister of Defense of the USSR and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, with prominent intelligence officers: Yakov Serebryansky (he worked in Palestine in the 1920s with Yakov Blumkin), General of State Security Pavel Raikhman and other people. Acquaintances were quite significant for a person included in the list of heroes of Israel and veterans of LEHI.

Tel Aviv, 1948

INTERNATIONAL SINGING IN CHOIR

At the end of March 1948, Palestinian Jews unpacked and assembled the first four captured Messerschmitt-109 fighters. On this day, the Egyptian tank column, as well as the Palestinian partisans, were only a few dozen kilometers from Tel Aviv. If they had captured the city, the Zionist cause would have been lost. There were no troops capable of covering the city at the disposal of the Palestinian Jews. And all that was sent into battle - these four aircraft. One returned from the battle. But when they saw that the Jews had aviation, the Egyptians and Palestinians got scared and stopped. They did not dare to take a virtually defenseless city.

As the date of the proclamation of the Jewish and Arab states approached, passions around Palestine ran high in earnest. Western politicians vying with each other advised the Palestinian Jews not to rush to proclaim their own state. The American State Department has warned Jewish leaders that if the Jewish state is attacked by Arab armies, the United States should not be expected to help. Moscow insistently advised that a Jewish state should be proclaimed immediately after the last English soldier left Palestine.

The Arab countries did not want the emergence of either a Jewish state or a Palestinian one. Jordan and Egypt were going to divide Palestine, where in February 1947 there were 1 million 91 thousand Arabs, 146 thousand Christians and 614 thousand Jews, among themselves. For comparison: in 1919 (three years before the British Mandate), 568 thousand Arabs, 74 thousand Christians and 58 thousand Jews lived here. The balance of power was such that the Arab countries did not doubt their success. The Secretary General of the Arab League promised: "It will be a war of annihilation and a great massacre." The Palestinian Arabs were ordered to leave their homes temporarily so as not to accidentally come under fire from the advancing Arab armies.

Moscow believed that Arabs who did not want to stay in Israel should settle in neighboring countries. There was another opinion. It was voiced by the Permanent Representative of the Ukrainian SSR to the UN Security Council Dmitry Manuilsky. He proposed "to resettle Palestinian Arab refugees in Soviet Central Asia and create an Arab union republic or an autonomous region there." Funny, isn't it! Moreover, the experience of mass migrations of peoples from the Soviet side was available.

On the night of Friday, May 14, 1948, to the salute of seventeen guns, the British High Commissioner for Palestine sailed from Haifa. The mandate has expired. At four o'clock in the afternoon, the State of Israel was proclaimed in the museum building on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. to vote for the declaration of independence, promising the arrival of two million Jews from the USSR within two years, read out the Declaration of Independence prepared by "Russian experts".

A massive wave of Jews was expected in Israel, some with hope, and some with fear. Soviet citizens - retirees of the Israeli special services and the IDF, veterans of the Israeli Communist Party and former leaders of numerous public organizations in unison argue that indeed in post-war Moscow and Leningrad, other large cities of the USSR, rumors about "two million future Israelis" were intensively spread. In fact, the Soviet authorities planned to send so many Jews in the other direction - to the North and the Far East.

On May 18, the Soviet Union was the first to recognize the Jewish state de jure. On the occasion of the arrival of Soviet diplomats, about two thousand people gathered in the building of one of the largest cinemas in Tel Aviv, Esther, and about five thousand more people stood on the street who listened to the broadcast of all the speeches. A large portrait of Stalin and the slogan "Long live friendship between the State of Israel and the USSR!" were hung over the presidium table. The working youth choir sang the Jewish anthem, then the anthem of the Soviet Union. "Internationale" was already sung by the whole hall. Then the choir sang "March of the Artillerymen", "Song of Budyonny", "Get Up, Huge Country".

Soviet diplomats stated in the UN Security Council: since the Arab countries do not recognize Israel and its borders, Israel may not recognize them either.

LANGUAGE OF THE ORDER - RUSSIAN

On the night of May 15, the armies of five Arab countries (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as “seconded” units from Saudi Arabia, Algeria and a number of other states) invaded Palestine. The spiritual leader of the Muslims of Palestine, Amin al-Husseini, who was at the same time with Hitler throughout the Second World War, addressed his followers with the admonition: “I declare a holy war! Kill Jews! Kill them all!" “Ein brera” (no choice) was how the Israelis explained their readiness to fight even in the most adverse circumstances. Indeed, the Jews had no choice: the Arabs did not want concessions on their part, they wanted to exterminate them all, in fact, declaring a second Holocaust.

The Soviet Union "with all its sympathy for the national liberation movement of the Arab peoples" officially condemned the actions of the Arab side. In parallel, instructions were given to all law enforcement agencies to provide the Israelis with all the necessary assistance. A mass propaganda campaign in support of Israel began in the USSR. State, party and public organizations began to receive a lot of letters (mainly from Jewish citizens) with a request to send them to Israel. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) was actively involved in this process.

Immediately after the Arab invasion, a number of foreign Jewish organizations approached Stalin personally with a request to provide direct military support to the young state. In particular, special emphasis was placed on the importance of sending "Jewish volunteer pilots on bombers to Palestine." “You, a man who has proven his foresight, can help,” said one of the telegrams from American Jews addressed to Stalin. “Israel will pay you for the bombers.” It was also noted here that, for example, in the leadership of the "reactionary Egyptian army" there are more than 40 British officers "in the rank of a captain."

On the night of May 15, the armies of five Arab countries (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as “seconded” units from Saudi Arabia, Algeria and a number of other states) invaded Palestine. Another batch of “Czechoslovak” aircraft arrived on May 20,

and after 9 days, a massive air strike was launched against the enemy. Since that day, the Israeli Air Force has gained air supremacy, which greatly influenced the victorious end of the War of Independence. A quarter of a century later, in 1973, Golda Meir wrote: “No matter how radically the Soviet attitude towards us has changed over the next twenty-five years, I cannot forget the picture that presented itself to me then. Who knows if we would have survived if it were not for the weapons and ammunition that we were able to purchase in Czechoslovakia”?

Stalin knew that Soviet Jews would ask for Israel, and some (necessary) of them would receive a visa and leave to build a new state there according to Soviet patterns and work against the enemies of the USSR. But mass emigration of citizens of a socialist country, a victorious country, especially its glorious warriors, he could not allow.

Stalin believed (and not unreasonably) that it was the Soviet Union that saved more than two million Jews from imminent death during the war years. It seemed that the Jews should be grateful, and not put a spoke in the wheel, not lead a line contrary to Moscow's policy, not encourage emigration to Israel. The leader was literally infuriated by the news that 150 Jewish officers had officially asked the government to send them as volunteers to Israel to help in the war against the Arabs. As an example to others, they were all severely punished, some were shot. Did not help. Hundreds of servicemen with the help of Israeli agents fled from groups of Soviet troops in Eastern Europe, others used a transit point in Lvov. At the same time, they all received fake passports for fictitious surnames, under which they later fought and lived in Israel. That is why there are very few names of Soviet volunteers in the Mahal (Israeli Union of Internationalist Warriors) archives, according to the well-known Israeli researcher Michael Dorfman, who has been dealing with the problem of Soviet volunteers for 15 years. He confidently states that there were many of them, and they almost built the "ISSR" (Israeli Soviet Socialist Republic). He still hopes to complete the Russian-Israeli TV project, interrupted due to default in the mid-1990s, and in it "to tell a very interesting, and perhaps sensational story of the participation of Soviet people in the formation of the Israeli army and special services" , in which "there were many former Soviet military personnel." who dealt with the problem of Soviet volunteers for 15 years. He confidently states that there were many of them, and they almost built the "ISSR" (Israeli Soviet Socialist Republic). He still hopes to complete the Russian-Israeli TV project, interrupted due to default in the mid-1990s, and in it "to tell a very interesting, and perhaps sensational story of the participation of Soviet people in the formation of the Israeli army and special services" , in which "there were many former Soviet military personnel." who dealt with the problem of Soviet volunteers for 15 years. He confidently states that there were many of them, and they almost built the "ISSR" (Israeli Soviet Socialist Republic). He still hopes to complete the Russian-Israeli TV project, interrupted due to default in the mid-1990s, and in it "to tell a very interesting, and perhaps sensational story of the participation of Soviet people in the formation of the Israeli army and special services" , in which "there were many former Soviet military personnel."

Less well known to the general public are the facts of the mobilization of volunteers for the Israel Defense Forces, which was carried out by the Israeli embassy in Moscow. Initially, employees of the Israeli diplomatic mission assumed that all activities to mobilize demobilized Jewish officers were carried out with the approval of the USSR government, and the lists of Soviet officers who had left and were ready to leave for Israel were sometimes handed over by the Israeli ambassador Golda Meyerson (since 1956 - Meir) personally to Lavrenty Beria. However, later this activity became one of the reasons for "accusing Golda of treason", and she was forced to leave the post of ambassador. With her, about two hundred Soviet military personnel managed to leave for Israel. Those who did not have time were not repressed, although most of them were demobilized from the army.

How many Soviet soldiers went to Palestine before and during the War of Independence is not known for certain. According to Israeli sources, 200,000 Soviet Jews used legal or illegal channels. Of these, “several thousand” are military personnel. In any case, the main language of "interethnic communication" in the Israeli army was Russian. He also occupied the second (after the Polish) place in all of Palestine.

Moshe Dayan

The first Soviet resident in Israel in 1948 was Vladimir Vertiporoh, sent to work in this country under the pseudonym Rozhkov. Vertiporoh later admitted that he went to Israel without much confidence in the success of his mission: firstly, he did not like the Jews, and secondly, the resident did not share the leadership's confidence that Israel could be made a reliable ally of Moscow. Indeed, experience and intuition did not deceive the scout. The political focus changed dramatically after it became clear that the Israeli leadership had reoriented its country's policy towards close cooperation with the United States.

The leadership led by Ben-Gurion feared a communist takeover from the moment the state was proclaimed. Indeed, there were such attempts, and they were brutally suppressed by the Israeli authorities. These are the shooting of the Altalena landing ship on the Tel Aviv roadstead, later called the “Israeli cruiser Aurora”, and the uprising of sailors in Haifa, who considered themselves followers of the case of the sailors of the Potemkin battleship, and some other incidents, the participants of which did not hide their goals - the establishment of Soviet power in Israel on the Stalinist model. They blindly believed that the cause of socialism was victorious all over the world, that the "socialist Jewish man" was almost formed, and that the conditions of the war with the Arabs had created a "revolutionary situation." All that was needed was a “strong as steel” order, one of the participants in the uprising said a little later, after all, hundreds of "red fighters" were already ready "to resist and oppose the government with weapons in their hands." It is no coincidence that the epithet of steel is used here. Steel was then in vogue, like everything Soviet. A very common Israeli surname, Peled, means "Stalin" in Hebrew. But the "lament" of the recent hero of Altalena followed - Menachem Begin called on the revolutionary forces to turn their weapons against the Arab armies and, together with Ben-Gurion's supporters, defend the independence and sovereignty of Israel.

INTERBRIGADES IN JEWISH

In a continuous war for its existence, Israel has always evoked sympathy and solidarity from Jews (and non-Jews) living in different countries of the world. One example of such solidarity was the voluntary service of foreign volunteers in the ranks of the Israeli army and their participation in hostilities. All this began in 1948, immediately after the proclamation of the Jewish state. According to Israeli data, approximately 3,500 volunteers from 43 countries then arrived in Israel and took direct part in the hostilities as part of the Israel Defense Forces units and formations - Tsva Hagan Le Israel (abbreviated IDF or IDF). According to the countries of origin, the volunteers were divided as follows: approximately 1000 volunteers came from the USA, 250 from Canada, 700 from South Africa, 600 from the UK, 250 from North Africa, 250 each from Latin America, France and Belgium. There were also groups of volunteers from Finland, Australia, Rhodesia and Russia.

These were not accidental people - military professionals, veterans of the armies of the anti-Hitler coalition, with invaluable experience gained on the fronts of the recently ended World War II. Not all of them had a chance to live to see victory - 119 foreign volunteers died in the battles for the independence of Israel. Many of them were posthumously awarded the next military rank, up to brigadier general.

The story of each volunteer reads like an adventure novel and, unfortunately, is little known to the general public. This is especially true for those people who, in the distant 20s of the last century, began an armed struggle against the British with the sole purpose of creating a Jewish state on the territory of Mandatory Palestine. Our compatriots were at the forefront of these forces. It was they who in 1923 created the paramilitary organization BEITAR, which was engaged in military training of fighters for Jewish detachments in Palestine, as well as to protect Jewish communities in the Diaspora from Arab gangs of pogromists. BEITAR is an abbreviation of the Hebrew words Brit Trumpeldor ("Trumpeldor's Alliance"). So it was named after the officer of the Russian army, the Knight of St. George and the hero of the Russian-Japanese war, Joseph Trumpeldor.

In 1926, Beitar joined the World Organization of Revisionist Zionists, which was headed by Vladimir Zhabotinsky. The most numerous combat formations of BEITAR were in Poland, the Baltic countries, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Hungary. For September 1939, the command of Etzel and BEITAR planned to carry out the operation "Polish Landing" - up to 40 thousand BEITAR fighters from Poland and the Baltic countries were to be transferred on ships from Europe to Palestine in order to create a Jewish state on the conquered foothold. However, the outbreak of World War II crossed out these plans.

The division of Poland between Germany and the USSR and its subsequent defeat by the Nazis dealt a heavy blow to the formations of BEITAR - together with the entire Jewish population of occupied Poland, its members ended up in ghettos and camps, and those who found themselves on the territory of the USSR often became the object of persecution by the NKVD for excessive radicalism and arbitrariness. The head of the Polish BEITAR, Menachem Begin, the future Israeli prime minister, was arrested and sent to serve his term in the Vorkuta camps. At the same time, thousands of Beytar soldiers fought heroically in the ranks of the Red Army. Many of them fought as part of the national units and formations formed in the USSR, where the percentage of Jews was especially high. In the Lithuanian division, the Latvian corps, in the army of Anders, in the Czechoslovak corps of General Svoboda there were entire units, in which commands were given in Hebrew. It is known that two pupils of BEITAR, Sergeant Kalmanas Shuras from the Lithuanian division and lieutenant Antonin Sohor from the Czechoslovak corps, were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for their exploits.

When the state of Israel was created in 1948, the non-Jewish part of the population was exempted from compulsory military service on an equal basis with the Jews. It was believed that it would be impossible for non-Jews to fulfill their military duty due to their deep family, religious and cultural ties with the Arab world, which declared total war on the Jewish state. However, already during the Palestinian war, hundreds of Bedouins, Circassians, Druze, Muslim Arabs and Christians voluntarily joined the ranks of the IDF, who decided to link their fate forever with the Jewish state.

Circassians in Israel are the Muslim peoples of the North Caucasus (mainly Chechens, Ingush and Adyghes) living in villages in the north of the country. They were called up both to the combat units of the IDF and to the border police. Many of the Circassians became officers, and one rose to the rank of colonel in the Israeli army. “In the Israeli War of Independence, the Circassians joined the Jews, who were then only 600 thousand, against 30 million Arabs, and since then they have never changed their alliance with the Jews,” said Adnan Kharkhad, one of the elders of the Circassian community.

PALESTINE: STALIN'S ELEVENTH IMPACT?

Discussions are still going on: why did the Arabs need to invade Palestine? After all, it was clear that the situation at the front for the Jews, although it remained quite serious, nevertheless improved significantly: the territory allotted to the Jewish state of the UN was already almost completely in the hands of the Jews; Jews captured about a hundred Arab villages; Western and Eastern Galilee were partly under Jewish control; Jews achieved a partial lifting of the blockade of the Negev and unblocked the "road of life" from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The fact is that each Arab state had its own calculation. King Abdullah of Transjordan wanted to capture all of Palestine - especially Jerusalem. Iraq wanted access to the Mediterranean through Transjordan. Syria set its sights on Western Galilee. The influential Muslim population of Lebanon has long looked with greed at the Central Galilee. And Egypt, although it had no territorial claims, toyed with the idea of ​​becoming the recognized leader of the Arab world. And, of course, in addition to the fact that each of the Arab states that invaded Palestine had their own reasons for the "campaign", they were all attracted by the prospect of an easy victory, and this sweet dream was skillfully supported by the British. Naturally, without such support, the Arabs would hardly have agreed to open aggression.

The Arabs lost. The defeat of the Arab armies in Moscow was regarded as the defeat of England and was incredibly happy about this, they believed that the positions of the West had been undermined throughout the Middle East. Stalin made no secret of the fact that his plan was brilliantly carried out.

An armistice agreement with Egypt was signed on February 24, 1949. The front line of the last days of fighting turned into an armistice line. The sector of the coast near Gaza remained in the hands of the Egyptians. No one challenged the Israelis for control of the Negev. The besieged Egyptian brigade left Falluja with weapons in hand and returned to Egypt. She was given all military honors, almost all officers and most of the soldiers received state awards as "heroes and winners" in the "great battle against Zionism." On March 23, a truce with Lebanon was signed in one of the border villages: Israeli troops left this country. With Jordan, an armistice agreement was signed on about. Rhodes on April 3, and finally, on July 20, a truce agreement was signed with Damascus on neutral territory between the positions of the Syrian and Israeli troops, according to which Syria withdrew its troops from a number of areas bordering Israel, which remained a demilitarized zone. All these agreements are of the same type: they contained mutual obligations of non-aggression, defined armistice demarcation lines with the special proviso that these lines should not be considered as "political or territorial boundaries." The agreements did not mention the fate of the Arabs of Israel and Arab refugees from Israel to neighboring Arab countries.

Documents, figures and facts give a certain idea of ​​the role of the Soviet military component in the development of the State of Israel. Nobody helped the Jews with weapons and immigrant soldiers, except for the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe. Until now, in Israel one can often hear and read that the Jewish state survived the "Palestinian war" thanks to "volunteers" from the USSR and other socialist countries. In fact, Stalin did not give the "green light" to the volunteer impulses of the Soviet youth. But he did everything to ensure that within six months the mobilization capabilities of sparsely populated Israel could "digest" the huge amount of weapons supplied. Young people from "nearby" states - Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, to a lesser extent, Czechoslovakia and Poland - made up the conscription contingent,

In general, 1,300 km2 and 112 settlements were under Israeli control, allotted by the UN decision to the Arab state in Palestine; 300 km2 and 14 settlements were under Arab control, destined for the Jewish state by the UN decision. In fact, Israel occupied a third more territory than was envisaged in the decision of the UN General Assembly. Thus, under the terms of the agreements reached with the Arabs, three-quarters of Palestine remained with Israel. At the same time, part of the territory allotted to the Palestinian Arabs came under the control of Egypt (the Gaza Strip) and Transjordan (since 1950 - Jordan), which in December 1949 annexed the territory, which was called the West Bank. Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Transjordan. Large numbers of Palestinian Arabs fled the war zones for safer places in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as neighboring Arab countries. Of the original Arab population of Palestine, only about 167 thousand people remained in Israel. The main victory of the War of Independence was that already in the second half of 1948, when the war was still in full swing, one hundred thousand immigrants arrived in the new state, which managed to provide them with housing and work.

In Palestine, and especially after the creation of the State of Israel, there were exceptionally strong sympathies for the USSR as a state that, firstly, saved the Jewish people from destruction during World War II, and, secondly, provided enormous political and military assistance to Israel in his struggle for independence. In Israel, they loved “comrade Stalin” as a human being, and the vast majority of the adult population simply does not want to hear any criticism of the Soviet Union. “Many Israelis idolized Stalin,” wrote the son of the famous intelligence officer Edgar Broyde-Trepper. “Even after Khrushchev’s report at the 20th Congress, Stalin’s portraits continued to adorn many state institutions, not to mention kibbutzim.”

Author:

Valery YAREMENKO

Original source:

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Source: https://topwar.ru/3231-sovetskaya-vojna-za-nezavisimost-izrailya.html