Among the historical accomplishments of the 20th century, the most significant is the act that became crucial for the Jewish people: after two thousand years of dispersion around the world, on May 14, 1948, the UN decreed the creation of the State of Israel.
It seems that there will be readers, even quite knowledgeable ones, who would be interested in learning (or remembering) about the events in the Middle East that unfolded around the creation of the Jewish state and its struggle for existence. Moreover, many people know the foreign policy situation that prepared this act, and they know much less about the behind-the-scenes diplomacy that took place in those years on the sidelines of the UN.
On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly approved a plan to create two independent states in Palestine - Jewish and Arab.
Initially, the Soviet leadership was in favor of creating a single Arab-Jewish state, but then inclined to believe that the division of the mandated territory would be the only reasonable option for resolving the conflict between the Yishuv (this term was used to refer to a more or less organized Jewish community in Eretz Israel since the destruction Jerusalem in 70 and before the creation of the state Israel in 1948. In the Talmud Yishuv was the name of the population in general, but also the Jewish population of Eretz-Israel)and the Arabs of Palestine.
How the State of Israel was created, this is our article.
“The Jewish state was created not by the United States, but by the Soviet Union. Israel would never have appeared if Stalin had not wanted it .... " (L. Mlechin “Why did Stalin create Israel”).
The existence of Israel from the very moment of its proclamation to this day is not only a “stumbling block” for many political forces and countries, an irritant and an object of enduring hatred for many Arabs, but also an amazing fact of our time, the likelihood of which was negligible.
After the end of the Second World War and a new redivision of the world, when the pretty battered states came to their senses, they were not up to the problems of the Jewish people, and even more so - not up to the arrangement of the "Jewish home" in Mandatory Palestine. At that time, the "factor of Zionism" lost its relevance and weight.
"Spiritual" Zionism (ahad-hamism) collapsed, as its guide W. Churchill [ 1 ] was removed from the post of prime minister of England, and the new prime minister, together with Foreign Minister E. Bevin, were implacable opponents of this idea. "House of Rothschild" - Great Britain ceded the role of a superpower to America, simultaneously losing its colonies and Saudi Arabia's oil.
Theodor Herzl “Political Zionism” (herzlism) rested on the enthusiasm of illegal immigrants, and most importantly, on fanaticism and heroism, backed up by guerrilla warfare, of such leaders as D. Ben-Gurion and M. Begin; their faith in the implementation of the ideas of T. Herzl (1897 - 1904, founder of the political Zionism , Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, supporter of the re-creationJewish statehood), which at the time seemed to most to be nothing more than a daring scam.
The United States, which received all possible dividends from the war, saw in the newly created UN the prototype of the World Government and used nuclear blackmail to impose the New World Order of the Anglo-Saxons, did not consider political Zionism a significant force (not to be confused with the Jewish world - our comment). In their essentially fascist project of the New Order, there was no place for an independent Jewish state because the “white Protestants” considered themselves descendants of the “ten lost tribes” of the old Israel, and America - the “New Israel”, and not only because of the “streams Arab oil.
The dream of Dr. Herzl and his followers became a reality, his prophecy came true exactly 50 years later thanks to the unexpected, “cunning” move of the “old-timer anti-Semite” Joseph Stalin, his determination and active consistency. This move, which broke the plans of the Anglo-Saxons, became a saving "straw", which was seized on by the "cosmopolitans" - Ahad-Khamites (Ahad-ha-Am or Asher Gunzberg, 1856-1927, or Jewish Hitler, this ancient Hebrew word means "United among the People". He believed that Palestinephilism could not bring economic and social deliverance to the masses of the people, and preached emigration to America. In his opinion, Palestine should become the "spiritual center" of the Jewish people, from which the emanation of a revived Jewish culture would come. He believed that only what is written in Hebrew can be attributed to Jewish culture. Anything written in other languages \u200b\u200bcannot be attributed to it (including Yiddish, which he considered jargon). He is credited with authoring a book known titled “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” If this book has a place, it must be the work of a man who is fanatically fascinated by the idea of Jewish Nationalism or, more precisely, Judaism in his national alistic understanding.
It is widely believed that the state of Israel arose in this territory only in 1948. In order for readers to have a general idea of the milestones in the formation of this state, it is worth recalling the chronological time order of the formation of the state of Israel.
Israel has appeared on the world map three times.
FirstIsrael arose after an invasion led by Joshua and existed until the early 6th century BC, when it was divided into two different kingdoms during the Babylonian conquests.
Secondtimes Israel appeared after the Persians defeated the inhabitants of Babylon in 540 BC. However, the situation of the country changed in the 4th century BC, when Greece conquered the Persian Empire and the territory of Israel, and once again in the first century BC, when the region was conquered by the Romans.
The second time Israel acted as a small participant within the major imperial powers, and this position lasted until the destruction of the Jewish state by the Romans.
ThirdThe emergence of Israel began in 1948, like the previous two, it goes back to a collection of at least some of the Jews who were dispersed after the conquests around the world. The founding of Israel took place in the context of the decline and fall of the British Empire, and therefore the history of this country, at least in part, should be understood as part of the history of the British Empire.
For the first 50 years, Israel played an important role in the confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union, and, in a sense, it was a hostage to the dynamics of these two countries. In other words, as in the first two cases, the emergence of Israel takes place in a constant struggle for its sovereignty and independence, among imperial ambitions.
We omit the period of the Egyptian pharaohs, Roman legionaries and crusaders, and begin the chronological description from the end of the 19th century.
Year 1882. Start first aliyah(waves of Jewish emigration to Eretz-Israel).
Settlers In the period up to 1903, about 35 thousand Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe moved to the province of the Ottoman Empire of Palestine. Huge financial and organizational assistance is provided by Baron Edmond de Rothschild. During this period, the cities of Zichron Yaakov are founded. Rishon Lezion, Petah Tikva, Rehovot and Rosh Pina.
Year 1897. First World Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. Its goal is to create a national home for the Jews in Palestine, which at that time was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
Congress opening At this conference, Theodor Herzl is elected president of the World Zionist Organization.
It should be noted that in modern Israel there is practically no city where one of the central streets would not bear the name of Herzl. It reminds us of something...
Herzl holds numerous negotiations with the leaders of the European powers, including the German Emperor Wilhelm II and the Turkish Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, in order to enlist their support in creating a state for the Jews. The Russian emperor informed Herzl that, apart from prominent Jews, he was not interested in the rest.
Year 1902. The World Zionist Organization establishes the Anglo-Palestinian Bank, which later became the National Bank of Israel (Bank Leumi).
The largest bank in Israel, Bank Hapoalim, was established in 1921 by the Israeli Union of Trade Unions and the World Zionist Organization.
Year 1902.The Shaare Zedek Hospital is founded in Jerusalem.
Former building of Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem The first Jewish hospital in Palestine was opened by the German doctor Chaumont Frenkel in 1843, in Jerusalem. In 1854, Meir Rothschild Hospital was opened in Jerusalem. Bikur Holim Hospital was founded in 1867, although it existed as a medical clinic since 1826, and in 1843 it had only three chambers. In 1912, Hadassah Hospital was founded in Jerusalem by a one-shift women's Zionist organization from the United States. Assuta Hospital was founded in 1934, Rambam Hospital in 1938.
Year 1904. Start second aliyah.
Winery in Rishon Lezion 1906 In the period up to 1914, about 40 thousand Jews moved to Palestine. The second wave of emigration was caused by a series of Jewish pogroms in the world, the most famous of which was the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. The second aliyah organized the kibbutz movement.
Kibbutz- an agricultural commune with common property, equality in labor, consumption and other attributes of communist ideology.
Year 1906. Lithuanian artist and sculptor Boris Schatz founds the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem.
Bezalel Academy of Arts Year 1909. The creation in Palestine of the paramilitary Jewish organization Ha-Shomer, the purpose of which, as it is believed, was self-defense and protection of settlements from raids by Bedouins and robbers who stole herds from Jewish peasants.
Year 1912. In Haifa, the Technion Technion (since 1924 - the Technological Institute) is founded by the Jewish German Ezra Foundation. The language of instruction is German, later Hebrew. In 1923, Albert Einstein visited and planted a tree there.
In the same 1912Naum Tsemakh, together with Menachem Gnesin, gathers a troupe in Bialystok, Poland, which became the basis of the professional Habim Theater created in 1920 in Palestine. The first theatrical performances in Hebrew in Eretz Israel date back to the period of the first aliyah. On Sukkot 1889 in Jerusalem, the Lemel school hosted the play Zrubavel, O Shivat Zion (Zrubavel, or the Return to Zion) based on the play by M. Lilienblum. The play was published in Yiddish in Odessa in 1887, translated and staged by D . Elin).
Year 1915. On the initiative of Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor, a "Mule Driver Detachment" is being created as part of the British army, consisting of 500 Jewish volunteers, most of whom are immigrants from Russia. The detachment takes part in the landing of British troops on the Gallipoli peninsula on the shore of Cape Helles, losing 14 dead and 60 wounded. The detachment is disbanded in 1916.
Hero of the Russo-Japanese War Joseph Trumpeldor Year 1917. The Balfour Declaration is an official letter from the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to Lord Walter Rothschild, in which, in particular, the following was said:
“His Majesty's Government are considering with approval the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will make every effort to contribute to the achievement of this goal; it is clearly understood that no action shall be taken which might violate the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by the Jews in any other country....”
After the defeat in the First World War, the Ottoman Empire lost its power over Palestine (the territory that came under the rule of the British crown).
In 1918, France, Italy and the United States supported the declaration.
Soldiers of the Jewish Legion near the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in 1917 Year 1917. On the initiative of Rotenberg, Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor, the Jewish Legion is being created as part of the British army.
Year 1919. third aliyah. Due to the British violation of the mandate of the League of Nations and the imposition of restrictions on the entry of Jews, until 1923, 40,000 Jews moved to Palestine, mainly from Eastern Europe.
Year 1920. Creation of the Jewish military underground organization Hagan in Palestine in response to the destruction of the northern settlement of Tel Hai by the Arabs, as a result of which 8 people died, including the war hero in Port Arthur Trumpeldor.
Naharaim hydroelectric power plant Year 1921. Pinchas Rutenberg (revolutionary and colleague of Pop Gapon, one of the founders of the Haganah Jewish self-defense units) founded the Jaffa Electric Company, then the Palestinian Electric Company, and since 1961 the Israeli Electric Company.
Territories covered by the British Mandate Year 1922. Representatives of the 52 countries that were members of the League of Nations (precursor to the UN) formally endorse the British Mandate for Palestine. Palestine then meant the current territories of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia.
It is noteworthy that by the "Palestinian Administration" the League of Nations meant the Jewish authorities and generally did not mention the idea of creating an Arab state in a mandated territory, which also includes Jordan.
Year 1924. fourth aliyah. In two years, about 63 thousand people move to Palestine. Emigrants are mainly from Poland, since by that time the USSR was already blocking the free exit of Jews. At this time, the city of Afula was founded in the Israel Valley on the lands purchased by the American Company for the Development of Eretz Israel.
Year 1927. The Palestinian pound is put into circulation. In 1948, it was renamed to the Israeli lira, although the old name Palestine Pound was present on the banknotes in Latin script.
Sample banknote of the time This name was present on the Israeli currency until 1980, when Israel switched to shekels, and from 1985 to this day, a new shekel has been in circulation. Since 2003, the new shekel has been one of the 17 international freely convertible currencies.
Year 1929. Fifth Aliyah. In the period up to 1939, in connection with the flowering of Nazi ideology, about 250 thousand Jews moved from Europe to Palestine, 174 thousand of which in the period from 1933 to 1936. In this regard, tensions between the Arab and Jewish populations of Palestine are increasing.
Year 1933. Egged, the largest transport cooperative to this day, is being created.
Soldiers of the Jewish Brigade in Italy in 1945 Year 1944. The Jewish Brigade is created as part of the British Army. The British government initially opposed the idea of creating Jewish militias, fearing that it would give more weight to the political demands of the Jewish population of Palestine.
Year 1947. April 2nd. British government refuses from the Mandate for Palestine, arguing that it is unable to find an acceptable solution for the Arabs and Jews and asks the UN to find a solution to the problem.
Year 1947. November 29th. The United Nations adopts a plan for the partition of Palestine (UNGA resolution No. 181). This plan provides for the termination of the British mandate in Palestine by August 1, 1948 and recommends the creation of two states on its territory: Jewish and Arab. Under the Jewish and Arab states, 23% of the mandated territory transferred to Great Britain by the League of Nations is allocated (for 77%, Great Britain organized the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, 80% of whose citizens are the so-called Palestinians). Under the Jewish state, the UNSCOP commission allocates 56% of this territory, under the Arab - 43%, one percent goes under international control. Subsequently, the section is adjusted taking into account Jewish and Arab settlements, and 61% is allocated to the Jewish state, the border is moved so that 54 Arab settlements fall into the territory allocated to the Arab state. Thus, only 14% of the territories allocated by the League of Nations for the same purposes 30 years ago are allocated for the future Jewish state.
The Jewish authorities of Palestine gleefully accept the UN's plan for the partition of Palestine, Arab leaders, including the League of Arab States and the Arab High Council of Palestine, categorically reject this plan.
Partition plan for Palestine on the eve of the War of Independence, 1947 Year 1948. May 14th. The day before the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, David Ben-Gurion proclaims the creation of an independent Jewish state on the territory allocated according to the UN plan.
Year 1948. May 15th. The Arab League declares war on Israel and Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Trans Jordan attack Israel. Trans-Jordan annexes the West Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt annexes the Gaza Strip (territories allocated for an Arab state).
Year 1949. In July, a ceasefire agreement is signed with Syria. The War of Independence is over.
This is some prehistory of the creation of the State of Israel. As you can see, the process of its formation was long and it did not arise from scratch. And now let's dwell on some points that will help to understand how and why this state could arise, who defended the right of the Jews to a sovereign state, why the fight against cosmopolitanism was waged in the USA.
On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved a plan to create two independent states in Palestine - Jewish and Arab.
Documents show that of all the great powers at that time, the Soviet Union took the most definite and clear position on the question of the division of Palestine.
Initially, the Soviet leadership was in favor of the creation of a single Arab-Jewish state, but then inclined to believe that the division of the mandated territory would be the only reasonable option for resolving the conflict between the Yishuv and the Arabs of Palestine.
Defending resolution No. 181 at the Second Special Session of the UN General Assembly in April 1948, A.A. Gromyko emphasized:
“The partition of Palestine makes it possible for each of the peoples inhabiting it to have their own state. It thus makes it possible to radically regulate once and for all relations between peoples.
Both the USA and the USSR voted for Resolution No. 181 in November 1947. The position of the USSR remained unchanged. The US sought to delay and modify the text of the resolution before the vote. The “adjustment” of the US Middle East policy took place on March 19, 1948, when, at a meeting of the UN Security Council, the American representative expressed the opinion that after the end of the British mandate in Palestine, “chaos and major conflict” would arise, and therefore, he said, the United States believed that temporary guardianship should be established over Palestine. Thus, Washington actually spoke out against Resolution No. 181, which it voted for in November.
Soviet representative S.K. Tsarapkin in 1948 opposed:
“No one can dispute the high cultural, social, political and economic level of the Jewish people. Such people cannot be patronized. Such a people has every right to its own independent state.”
A. Gromyko (sitting) The Soviet position has always remained unchanged. So, even before the second decisive vote on November 29, 1947, Minister of Foreign Affairs A.A. Gromyko came up with a clearer proposal:
“The essence of the problem is the right to self-determination of hundreds of thousands of Jews and also Arabs living in Palestine… their right to live in peace and independence in their own states. We must take into account the suffering of the Jewish people, which none of the states of Western Europe could help during the period of their struggle against Hitlerism and Hitler's allies in protecting their rights and their existence ... The UN must help every people to obtain the right to independence and self-determination ... " [ 2 ],
“... The experience of studying the question of Palestine has shown that Jews and Arabs in Palestine do not want or cannot live together. A logical conclusion followed from this: if these two peoples inhabiting Palestine, both having deep historical roots in this country, cannot live together within the boundaries of a single state, then nothing else remains but to form two states instead of one - Arab and Jewish. In the opinion of the Soviet delegation, no other practically feasible option can be invented ... "[3].
At this crucial moment Great Britain took a consistently anti-Jewish position. Forced to renounce the Mandate for Palestine, it voted against Resolution No. 181 and then essentially pursued an obstructionist policy, creating serious obstacles to the settlement of the Palestinian problem. Thus, the British government did not comply with the decision of the UN General Assembly to open a port for Jewish emigration in Palestine on February 1, 1948. Moreover, the British authorities detained ships with Jewish emigrants in the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea and forcibly sent them to Cyprus, and even to Hamburg.
On April 28, 1948, speaking in the House of Commons of the British Parliament, Foreign Minister E. Bevin stated that, in accordance with the Transjordan Treaty concluded in March, Great Britain
"will continue to provide funds for the maintenance of the Arab Legion, as well as send military instructors."
Why did the USSR defend the right of the Jews to their own statehood and why did the USA want to at least delay the adoption of Resolution No. 181?
The USSR wanted to remove imperialist Great Britain from the Middle East, to strengthen its position in this strategic region (more on that later).
And now it is worth explaining the US position on the Jewish question in a little more detail.
First, it is necessary to clarify what "cosmopolitanism" is. Probably, many of us have ever heard such words as "cosmopolitanism", "cosmopolitan", but does everyone understand their meaning correctly? In some countries, the concept of these terms is somewhat distorted, at different times the meaning of this view of the world was perceived and interpreted differently.
Marginal notes. What is cosmopolitanism?
The meaning of the term "cosmopolitanism" is to be found in the Greek language, where kosmopolites is a citizen of the world. That is, a cosmopolitan is a person who considers his homeland not a particular state or region, but the planet Earth as a whole. At the same time, cosmopolitans tend to deny their national identity, such a person sees himself as a citizen of the whole world, and perceives humanity as one big family.
In our opinion, it is important to think not only for your country and your people, but for the entire planet, because no matter how many peoples inhabit it, how many borders are drawn, the Earth is our common home, but at the same time you need to have your own national identity , remember your roots and take care of your small Motherland.
There is an opinion that the US government, long before the events of the 1940s, took an unambiguously pro-Zionist position on the Palestinian issue. This is not true. In fact, the United States showed serious hesitation in its approach to solving this problem due to strong pro-Arab and anti-Jewish sentiments in the ruling circles of the country.
There were also anti-Semitic sentiments in the United States at that time. There was an anti-Semitic campaign in the press by Henry Ford, who replicated the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” all over America (whether they exist or not, let the experts say, but the text has been circulating around for a long time and excites the minds).
Anti-Jewish sentiment intensified when in 1947 the famous "Hollywood Ten" of film writers and directors was accused of "anti-American activities" - eight of them were Jews. And although they were accused of communist propaganda, but Jewish origin also played a role. So in the United States, in their own way, they also fought against “cosmopolitanism”, which was often expressed in the behavior of Jews who historically did not have their own small homeland, and therefore were more reminiscent of the mafia, against which there was a struggle, both in the USA and in the USSR.
Therefore, two powerful lobbies clashed with the United States: the oil monopolies with multi-billion dollar investments in Arab countries and the Jewish financial lobby, which exists not only in the United States. The White House is faced with a difficult choice. The US presidential election is approaching. The five million Jewish electorate could not be ignored.
On the eve of the historic UN vote, Jews handed a petition to Truman, unambiguously demanding the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Under the petition - 100 thousand signatures of Jews - prominent statesmen and public figures.
And, finally, the US could not afford to remain isolated when it became clear that at the UN General Assembly the majority of countries would vote for Resolution 181.
The British Mandate officially ended at midnight, 12:00 noon, 14 May 1948. At 4 pm in Tel Aviv, at a meeting of members of the Jewish National Council, the establishment of the State of Israel was proclaimed.
On May 15, the Arab League declared that "all Arab countries from this day on are at war with the Jews." On the night of May 14-15, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen invaded Palestine from the north, east and south, and King Abdullah hurried to issue new banknotes with his portrait and the inscription: “Arab Hashemite Kingdom” .
Israel's foreign policy situation at the time was complex: a hostile Arab encirclement, an unfriendly British stance, erratic support for the United States, and a deteriorating relationship with the Soviet Union despite its support.
In 1947, Great Britain's referral of the question of Palestine to the discussion of the United Nations provided the USSR with an opportunity 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 could not but support the demands of the Jews to create their own state on the territory of Palestine.
When discussing this issue, Vyacheslav Molotov, and then Joseph Stalin, agreed with this decision. On May 14, 1947, Andrei 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 in the last war exceptional disasters and sufferings. In 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."
Now it is worth dwelling on such an issue, which liberals sometimes interpret based on their convictions, including because of their negative attitude towards the USSR and Stalin, as the Jewish question during the years of Soviet power.
The Jewish Question and Stalin
It was after the October Revolution that the legal and social status of Russian Jews radically improved. So in 1912, 6.4 thousand Jews lived in Moscow, in 1933 - 241.7 thousand. The population of Moscow grew during these years from 1 million 618 thousand to 3 million 663 thousand. In other words, the Jewish population of Moscow grew 17 times faster than the population of other peoples and nationalities.
The Soviet leadership did not prevent Jews from entering key positions in the state. In particular, from the memoirs of Academician Pontryagin (mathematician, 1908-1988), one can learn that in 1942, 98% of graduates of the Physics Department of Moscow State University were Jews. After the war, a certain graduate student complained to Pontryagin that "Jews are being wiped out, last year 39% of Jews were admitted to graduate school, and only 25% this year."
Stalin and the Jews during the Great Patriotic War
The Soviet Union saved millions of Soviet Jews from the Nazi genocide. The Jewish problem, imperceptible to the majority of the country's population in the conditions of the general tragedy of the war and the death of millions of Russians, Ukrainians and other representatives of the Soviet peoples on the battlefields, became especially acute in early 1943. After the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, the troops of the Red Army, advancing to the west, discovered the monstrous facts of the complete extermination of Jews in the territories previously occupied by the Germans. Jews were simply shot and killed in special vans - "gas chambers". The concentration camps for the elimination of Jews - Majdanek, Auschwitz and others were filled mainly with Jews brought from Western countries, as well as Polish Jews. Soviet Jews who fell into the occupation were liquidated on the spot. This practice began in the Baltic States and Western Ukraine as early as July 1941. But still, about 70 percent of the Jews who lived in Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other areas were able to escape by leaving for the eastern regions of the USSR. There were also hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Poland, Rumania, Bessarabia and Hungary and from some other European countries.
The European Jews, physically exterminated by Hitler, had at that time no other refuge than the USSR, even if they managed to escape from the Nazi genocide. The American government refused to issue visas to Jewish refugees and did not meet the minimum quotas for Jewish emigration that were introduced in 1933-1939 at the beginning of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaign. Britain prevented the arrival of Jews in Palestine, which was a British mandated territory. The British and American press wrote very little about the extermination of Jews in Europe during the war years.
It was the USSR that allowed the Jews to fulfill the dream of several generations - to create the state of Israel: in 1948, the Jews of the USSR and the whole world had a second homeland (which, at the same time, did not at all contribute to the growth of their patriotism towards the USSR). Stalin was a supporter of the creation of the State of Israel. Even more can be said - without Stalin's active support for the project of creating the state of Israel on the territory of Palestine, such a state would not currently exist. Hasidic rabbi Aaron Shmulevich wrote:
“We must not forget about the role of the USSR and Stalin in the creation of the State of Israel. Only thanks to the support of the Soviet Union, the UN adopted a resolution on the creation of the state.
“Since Stalin was determined to give the Jews their 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).
marginal notes
For: 33
Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Belarus, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukrainian SSR, Republic of South Africa, USA, USSR, Uruguay, Venezuela.
Against: 13
Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.
Abstained: 10
Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, Great Britain, Yugoslavia.
The supporters of the partition managed to collect the two-thirds of the votes necessary for this. The Soviet Union gave its three votes in support of the resolution (in addition to the USSR, Ukraine and Belarus, represented in the UN as separate delegations, participated in the vote), as well as Poland and Czechoslovakia thanks to what is also a success of Soviet diplomacy. The five votes of the Soviet bloc played a decisive role in this final vote, which is the decisive role of the USSR and personally I.V. Stalin. At the same time, the USSR managed to negotiate with the United States, which also voted in favor of the formation of a Jewish state. Jerusalem and Bethlehem, according to the UN decision, were to become a territory under international control. [6].
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" [ 4 ]
“Here” is in the Middle East, apparently, his words turned out to be prophetic.
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 - the agents of British and American imperialism," were simply confused, seeing that the Soviet position had changed beyond recognition.
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.
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.
David Ben-Gurion, future prime minister, proclaims Israel's independence under a portrait of Theodor Herzl. At four o'clock in the afternoon, the State of Israel was proclaimed in the museum building on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv (Judea and Zion also appeared among the variants of the name; and herethere is one oddity: in the past of the Jews, a state called Judea existed for a thousand years, but a state called Israel - only 100, such a “strange” matrix). Future Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, after persuading frightened (after the US warning) ministers 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".
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.
Documents, figures and facts give a certain idea of the role of the Soviet military component in the formation 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 (is that a question).
Although he did everything to ensure that within six months the mobilization capabilities of sparsely populated Israel could "digest" a huge amount of supplied weapons. Young people from the "nearby" states - Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, to a lesser extent, Czechoslovakia and Poland - made up the conscript contingent that made it possible to create a fully equipped and well-armed Israel Defense Forces.
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 government institutions, not to mention kibbutzim.”
The political nature of Stalin's attitude towards Jewish problems is evident from the fact that he showed himself to be an active supporter of the establishment of the State of Israel. Even more can be said - without Stalin's support for the project of creating a Jewish state on the territory of Palestine, this state could not have been created in 1948. Since Israel could actually appear only in 1948, since it was at that time that the British mandate to rule this territory ended, Stalin's decision against Great Britain and its Arab allies was of historical significance.
Israel's pro-American orientation was all too clear. The new country was created with the money of wealthy American Zionist organizations, which also paid for the weapons that were purchased in Eastern Europe. In 1947, many in both the USSR and Israel believed that the USSR's position in the UN was determined by moral considerations. Gromyko briefly became the most popular person in Israel.
Golda Meir Even Golda Meir in 1947 and 1948 was convinced that Stalin was helping the Jews out of some lofty moral considerations:
“The recognition of the Soviet Union, which followed the American one, had other roots. Now I have no doubt that the main thing for the Soviets was the expulsion of England from the Middle East. But in the fall of 1947, when the debates were taking place in the United Nations, it seemed to me that the Soviet bloc was supporting us also because the Russians themselves had paid a terrible price for their victory, and therefore, deeply sympathizing with the Jews who had suffered so hard from the Nazis, they understood that they deserved their own state." [ 5 ]
In reality, in Stalin's opinion, the creation of Israel at that time and for the foreseeable future corresponded to the foreign policy interests of the USSR. By supporting Israel, Stalin drove a wedge into relations between the US and Great Britain and between the US and the Arab countries. According to Sudoplatov, Stalin foresaw that the Arab countries would subsequently turn towards the Soviet Union, disillusioned with the British and Americans because of their support for Israel. Molotov's assistant Mikhail Vetrov retold Stalin's words to Sudoplatov:
“Let's agree to the formation of Israel. It will be like an awl in the ass for the Arab states and make them turn their backs on Britain. Ultimately, British influence will be completely undermined in Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Iraq." [ 7 ]
Stalin's foreign policy forecast was largely justified. In the Arab and many other Muslim countries, the influence of not only Britain but also the United States was undermined. But what is the political course chosen by Israel?
The latter was inevitable. The democratic political system of Israel and its pro-Western orientation were increasingly determined, which did not meet the hopes of the Stalinist leadership. In 1951, a correspondent of the Novoe Vremya magazine visited Israel. He wrote:
"Three years of Israel's existence cannot but disappoint those who expected that the emergence of a new independent state in the Middle East would help strengthen the forces of peace and democracy."
And in 1956, in the journal International Affairs, it was said:
"Israel unleashed a war against the Arab countries literally the day after the English flag was lowered in Jerusalem on May 14, 1948 and the formation of the State of Israel was proclaimed."
And the United States concluded with Israel "Agreement on Mutual Security Assistance". And they provided Israel with a loan of 100 million dollars, which indicated that the young state had contact not only with American Jews, but also with the government of this country.
It became increasingly clear that Israel's future would depend more and more on friendly relations with the United States. But, on the other hand, it was necessary to maintain positive relations with the USSR. Not only the government, but also a significant part of the population of the revived Jewish state were interested in developing economic, cultural and military cooperation with a powerful state, which also had great authority in the world after the victory over Nazi Germany.
D. Ben Gurion On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the October Revolution, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion sent congratulations addressed to Stalin. On November 8, 1952, the House of Friendship between Israel and the USSR was solemnly opened in Tel Aviv.
US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in a personal conversation with British Ambassador MacDonald in November 1948, said:
“England has proven to be an unreliable guide in the Middle East — her predictions have so often failed. We must strive to maintain Anglo-American unity, but the United States must be the senior partner."
It was this division of roles that developed in the future - the United States gradually became the "guide" in the Middle East.
In December 2012, the most influential Henry Kissinger said that America had overstrained itself, and in ten years there would be no Israel... But one can guess that “the West has betrayed the Jews” for a long time, and the US policy on the Jewish issue has always been ambivalent.
In a very controversial but very curious book by D. Loftus and M. Aarons "The Secret War Against the Jews" (1997), America is accused of Nazism, large-scale secret games, where the Jews are "a bargaining chip." Here is just one sentence from this book:
"The mighty world powers are constantly hatching secret plans aimed at the complete or partial destruction of Israel" ...
And what was and is the position of the USSR / Russia?
Now let's look at our then Motherland. USSR -the only one in the worldthe state of that time, where in the Criminal Code there is an article for anti-Semitism. By the end of the 1920s, Jewish collective farms and state farms, schools and theaters were operating in the country, and there were national Jewish territorial units at the level of local self-government.
For Stalin, the Jews are the equal people of the USSR, like all others, worthy of earning happiness by their labor (whatever our liberals say today).
As early as March 28, 1928, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted a resolution "On assigning to KOMZET for the needs of the continuous settlement of free lands by working Jews in the Amur strip of the Far Eastern Territory." And on May 7, 1934, the Jewish Autonomous Region was formed in the USSR, apparently in response to the introduction of the ardent anti-Semite Hitler into the game, knocking out provocative "trump cards" from some of the Zionists. Those. for the first time since biblical times, Jews received their public education (before that, we recall that all Jewish self-government for centuries was limited to the borders of the ghetto!). At the height of the Holocaust of 1944-45, intelligence reports began to fall on the table to Stalin that, thanks to Oppenheimer (an American scientist), the United States would receive an atomic bomb within the next year. And for Joseph Vissarionovich, the question
“How to keep the US and the West from aggression against the USSR against the backdrop of a nuclear monopoly?” has become extremely important. As Vladimir Ilyich said, "delay in death is like ..."
Not to fully use the Jewish factor, which the USSR successfully used throughout the Great Patriotic War, would have been an unaffordable luxury for Stalin. He was well aware that until the situation of mutually assured destruction, the West would not give up its attempts to conquer Russia, and immediately after the Second World War, the Third World would begin, first “cold”, and then “strange”. He moved his Jewish divisions into the cover forces from the Third World War ... This is how the state of Israel was formed, to which our country always treats with respect.
Igor Kurchatov (1903 - 1960) And in 1949, thanks to our scientists, headed by Kurchatov, under the leadership of Beria, the first nuclear bomb appeared, the project of which was laid back in 1940. This is how Russia's nuclear shield was created, which to this day is the guarantor of our security and sovereignty.
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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, Soviet Foreign Ministry adviser Boris Shtein handed over a note on the Palestinian question 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 their own state, it would be foolish for the United States to resist!” - US President Harry Truman concluded 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 - the 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".
The Americans imposed an embargo on the supply of weapons to 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 rifles 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 of participating in the war against Germany
STALIN IS PREPARING A BRIDGE HAND
By the personal order of Stalin, already 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, a full crew got into the tanks, which had just been delivered from the side to the pier, and drove military equipment to the place of permanent deployment or directly to the battlefield.
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. Theoretical training was regularly reinforced by practical exercises - raids on the rear of the Arab armies and cleansing of the Arab villages.
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 development 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.
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, because 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 1,000 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 Anders' army, in the Czechoslovak corps of General Svoboda, there were entire divisions 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, on neutral territory between the positions of Syrian and Israeli troops, a truce agreement was signed with Damascus, 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 conscript contingent that made it possible to create a fully equipped and well-armed Israel Defense Forces.
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.”
In 1947, Great Britain returned its Mandate for Palestine to the United Nations. On November 29, the UN Special Committee on Palestine recommended that Palestine be divided into two independent states - Jewish and Arab. After the British left Palestine, on May 15, 1948, the establishment of the State of Israel was proclaimed. The newly emerged state opened its doors to Jewish immigrants from all over the world.
The Second World War ended, the world celebrated the victory over Nazism. In this war, a significant part of the almost 9 million Jewish community of Europe perished, but the trials were not over for the survivors.
After the war, the British placed even greater restrictions on Jewish repatriation to Palestine. The answer was the creation of the "Jewish Resistance Movement". Despite the naval blockade and border patrols established by the British, from 1944 to 1948, about 85 thousand people were transported to Palestine by secret, often dangerous routes.
The situation in the country was extremely unstable, almost a crisis, and the British government was forced to transfer the solution of the Palestinian problem to the hands of the UN. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly by a majority of votes - 33 against 13 - adopted a resolution on the division of Palestine into two states.
The establishment of the State of Israel, the first Jewish state in nearly 2,000 years, was announced in Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948. The declaration took effect the next day, when the last British soldiers left Palestine. Day 15 May Palestinians called al-Nakba - "Catastrophe".
Since the beginning of the year, hostilities have taken place between Arab and Jewish forces aimed at holding and seizing territories. The Jewish militant organizations Irgun and Lehi achieved great success, having won back not only the territories allotted to them by the UN declaration, but also a significant part of those that were intended for the Arab state.
On April 9, Jewish militants massacred a significant number of residents of the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem. Frightened by this, several hundred thousand Palestinians fled to Lebanon, Egypt and what is now the West Bank.
Jewish forces made headway in the Negev, in the Galilee, in West Jerusalem, and in much of the coastal plain.
On the day of the declaration of Israel, five Arab countries - Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq - declared war on him and immediately invaded the territory of the newly created state, but their armies were driven back by the Israelis. In the 15-month war, more than 6,000 people died on the Israeli side. They gave their lives to make the existence of the State of Israel a reality. The following year, the Knesset, Israel's parliament, passed a law on a national holiday on the 5th day of the month of Iyar, called Yom Ha'atzmaut - Independence Day.
As a result of the armistice, Israel included in its borders a significant part of the former British Palestine. Egypt held the Gaza Strip; Jordan annexed the neighborhoods of Jerusalem and the lands now known as the West Bank; this comprised about 25% of Mandatory Palestine's territory.
The monstrous catastrophe that befell the Jewish people under Hitler clearly demonstrated that the only solution to the problem is the creation of an independent Jewish state in Eretz Israel, where the Jewish people will be provided with a decent existence in conditions of freedom and security.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world prayed for the realization of the dream of many generations. This cherished dream became a reality - the outstanding Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel in the ancient homeland of the Jewish people. Ben-Gurion announced: "We, the members of the Provisional National Council, the representatives of the Jewish population and the Zionist movement, on the day of the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, by virtue of our natural and historical right and on the basis of the decision of the UN General Assembly, hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish State on Earth Israel - the State of Israel".
The State of Israel was created at the cost of the lives of thousands of soldiers and officers who died in order for the Jewish people to have their own corner on earth - the country in which their ancestors lived, the country in which the Holy Temple stood and the Jewish kingdom was.
The State of Israel does not forget those to whom it owes its existence. The eve of Independence Day is declared the Day of Remembrance for the soldiers who died in Israel's wars. In the evening, memorial candles are lit. In Jerusalem, at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl, the central ceremony of this day is being held, which is opened by the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces with the Yizkor prayer. The leadership of the state and members of the families of the victims take part in the mourning ceremony.
At ten o'clock in the morning, the sound of a siren is heard and life stops for two minutes throughout the country - people standing up pay tribute to the memory of the dead soldiers. State flags have been flown at half mast, mourning rallies are held in military cemeteries throughout the day, and mourning meetings are held in schools. At the monuments to the dead, soldiers and schoolchildren carry an honor guard. The whole country is seized on this day with a special mood, saluting those who fell, fighting for the creation of the state and the safety of its inhabitants.
In Israel, the holiday is celebrated with solemn receptions, military bases are open to the public, air parades are held and the equipment of the navy is demonstrated. Today, Israel can be proud of the technical equipment of the army.
Religious Jews read special prayers and always the “a-Lel” prayer, symbolizing the national liberation of Israel.
With the onset of darkness, Memorial Day ends - and a colorful ceremony of celebrating Independence Day begins on Mount Herzl. 12 people, men and women, representing different segments of the Israeli population, light 12 torches in honor of the achievements of the State of Israel. The national flag is again raised to the top of the flagpole. At the end of the ceremony, the night sky is lit up with colorful fireworks. The squares of the cities are filled with celebrating people.
Artists perform on the stage, orchestras play. The streets and balconies of houses are decorated with Israeli flags. In synagogues, a prayer is read for the well-being and security of the state, which also expresses the hope that all the sons of the Jewish people will return to their country. Independence Day ends with a solemn ceremony of presenting the Israeli State Prizes in the field of scientific research, literature and art.
In the post-war period, any religion was oppressed in the USSR, and the "Jewish question" became an international problem. First of all, this is due to the fact that the Jewish intelligentsia supported socialist ideals at a time when religious communities practically could not carry out their activities. In the USSR, there were no days off on days tied to religious holidays. Moreover, government offices worked six days a week and any traditional holidays fell on working days.
Joseph Stalin showed himself as an active supporter of the creation of the State of Israel. Since Britain ruled the territory of Palestine until 1948, Stalin's policy against the British Mandate and the Arab allies played a historic role.
The modern and independent State of Israel came into being in May 1948. On the day Israel declared itself a separate state, its territory was invaded by an army from Syria, Egypt and Jordan. Thanks to the effective and quick military assistance provided by the Soviet Union, the Israelis managed to repulse the attack, but the Arab-Israeli conflict is the main problem of the state at the present time.
After the end of the first war, Israeli policy was directed towards building the state for which the Jewish people fought so long and hard. During the general election process, two political leaders were chosen who later led the struggle for Israeli independence. Chaim Weizmann became the first president of the state, and David Ben-Gurion became the prime minister. In just the first ten years of Israel's existence, industrial output doubled and the number of workers quadrupled. The system of education, culture, art, construction - everything was in the development stage. On the tenth anniversary of Israel, the population has already passed the two million mark.
Israel today
Israel is a small country of amazing beauty, which is known throughout the world for its epochal history. At present, the independent state of Israel is famous for its great achievements in the field of medicine, economy, science and industry. Israel will soon become the world's leading tourism destination. Currently, the state is visited annually by more than two million people. In just 66 years, Israel has achieved such tremendous success despite difficult conditions and constant attacks from Palestine. Perhaps such a state level is due to the fact that the Jewish people honor their traditions and will not change their beliefs for anything, but will strive for a prosperous future and come up with new ideas aimed at
When it comes to how the state of Israel was formed in the 20th century, the opinion is often expressed that all this was possible only thanks to the help of the USSR and the USA. In order to understand this difficult issue, it is necessary to touch on all the milestones in the formation of this state, without going into its ancient history, which until now has few reliable historical sources, but there are enough various kinds of falsifications. When the state of Israel was formed, the main stages of preparation for its creation will be described below. When considering this issue, the events of the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries were analyzed.
First wave of emigration
Balfour Declaration
Great Britain considered itself entitled to dispose of the destinies of peoples. Its military and economic power underpinned its political strategy. The Ottoman Empire, which included Palestine, was among the "losers" in the First World War. Its territory was now claimed by the victors. It was they who began to cut the political map of the Middle East at their own discretion. The states of Iraq and Syria were formed. The Kurds never received their statehood. Based on political ambitions, the British government considered it right to send some kind of "warning message" to the Jews.
On November 2, 1917, a letter was published from the British Foreign Secretary addressed to Lord Rothschild as head of the Zionist Federation in England. It was a letter about the creation of a Jewish national home, which, however, should in no case violate any rights of the local Palestinians. According to one of the most prominent British politicians - Lloyd George, it was a pragmatic deal to persuade the communities to cooperate.
Britain, which was at the head of the allies, wanted to receive support from the United States. Knowing about the influence of the Jewish communities in America on the government, the British offered to help in the formation of Israel as a "hearth" (not even autonomy).
Fight for survival
The Balfour Declaration contributed to the growth of emigration. The local Arab population viewed the settlers as invaders. Therefore, outbreaks of violence periodically occurred. Initially, this found expression in the usual predatory raids on peaceful Jewish farmers. Murders, robberies, violence prompted emigrants to recall their experience of self-defense while living in other states. Ha-Shomer can be considered the first paramilitary Jewish organization. Former underground revolutionaries offered worthy resistance to the Bedouin robbers. But the organization was not numerous, and the conflict was gaining momentum.
British government opposition
England was not interested in increasing emigration to Palestine, so she looked through her fingers at the Arab pogroms. To top it off, the government issued a law in world historiography known as the "White Book". Its essence is to limit the flow of refugees. Thus, Her Majesty's Government doomed the Jews to certain death in fascist concentration camps, "not noticing" the manifestation of Palestinian aggression towards the settlers. The Jews were persistently looking for a way out of the vicious circle.
Haganah
The transformation of individual self-defense units into a monolithic powerful underground organization was dictated by the need for survival. The first settlers naively believed that by leaving the hostile European society, they would move away from anti-Semitism. In fact, there was a movement "from the fire to the frying pan." The more difficult the situation, the more disciplined the Haganah became. However, a split occurred among them: one part helped the British in the fight against fascism, and the second, using terrorist methods, fought the British.
One thing was clear: it was necessary to attract new allies to our side in order to effectively solve the problem. Therefore, all aspirations were turned towards the USSR and the USA, in the hope that Israel would be formed as a country.
The fate of the peoples of the East interested America to a lesser extent than the presence of oil reserves in these territories, so the choice of an ally in the person of the USSR was obvious. It should be noted the far-sightedness of the leader Stalin in resolving this issue. The Israelis were given captured German weapons and Messerschmitt aircraft (which surpassed British aircraft in terms of technical characteristics). Ultimately, it was their air strikes that became the turning point in the fight for Tel Aviv. The Arabs were stunned by the appearance of aviation, so their offensive was stopped, although, with all the forces available at that time, the city could not have offered worthy resistance. In the future, the tightened reserves strengthened the "weak points" in the defense.
What year was the state of Israel formed?
The decision to grant the status of independence to the country of the Jews was made in several stages. First, a UN resolution was adopted on the division of the land of Palestine in 1947 and the loss of Britain's mandate in this territory. The English troops were to leave the land within the next six months. It was decided to take advantage of this circumstance in the Provisional Government of Israel and proclaim the independence of the Jewish state on May 14, 1948. Only eight hours remained before the expiration of the British Mandate. The answer to the question in what year Israel was formed as a state recognized in the international arena is obvious. The first country to declare this de jure was the USSR, although de facto, 10 minutes after the proclamation, the United States declared this.
