DOCUMENTS ON SOVIET-ISRAELI RELATIONS, 1941-1953

Edited by The Israel Foreign Ministry; The Foreign Ministry of the Russian
Federation; The Israel State Archives; The Russian Federal Archives; The
Cummings Center for Russian Studies, Tel Aviv University; the Oriental
Institute, the Russian Academy of Sciences

Forewords by David Levy, Foreign Minister of the State of Israel and Igor Ivanov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation

Translations from Hebrew, Russian and French

This annotated collection of approximately 500 documents gives unprecedented insight into the relationship between the Soviet Union and Palestine/Israel from 1941 to 1953. The majority of the documents appear here for the first time - declassified and published in accordance with a special bilateral agreement signed by the Israeli and Russian Foreign Ministries in 1993. The agreement, which ensured access to the archives of both sides, and the five-year cooperative effort which followed, has made it possible to considerably broaden traditional perspectives of Israeli-Soviet diplomacy. The volume fills gaps in our understanding of a number of controversial topics: among them, the evolution of the Soviet position on the UN Partition vote, Eastern bloc arms sales to both Jews and Arabs, maneuvering on both sides over emigration of Jews from the USSR and Eastern Europe; and the deterioration and eventual dissolution of diplomatic relations between Israel and the USSR in the 1950s.

In addition, this collection reveals startling new information regarding the nature of the relations between Knesset members from the left-wing Mapam Party and Soviet embassy officials, discussions of population transfer as a solution to the demographic problem in Palestine and the role of Russian property in the holy land as a factor in the formulation of Soviet Near East policy

Documents on Israeli-Soviet Relations is a vital addition to library
collections in the humanities and social sciences and essential reading for serious scholars and students of the period.

Illustrations, glossary, abstracts, biographical notes, index

Part I 1941-May 1949 528 pp. 10 b/w illus
Part II May 1949-1953  536 pp. 10 b/w illus

List of Documents and Abstracts

0 7146 4843 4 cloth £125/$195 set
Cummings Center Series Vol. 13