Chapter One of "Middle East: Two Approaches to Conflict Resolution"

Second Installment of the Soviet Georgian book "Middle East: Two Approaches to Conflict Resolution" by Abon Tsitsiashvili

Dear Readers,

As promised, I’ll be translating a short but incisive book on the Middle East by a Soviet Georgian political scientist, Abon Tsistiashvili which examines two contrasting approaches to conflict resolution in the region. What compelled me to share this work is its sharp critique of U.S. imperialism and Israel—an analysis I believe is still deeply relevant today.

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This is the second installment - chapter one.

Two Approaches to the Struggle of the Peoples of the Arab Countries for Freedom and Independence

The main task of the Soviet People's Strategy is to ensure that the Soviet people can labor in conditions of lasting peace and freedom. In this regard, great importance is attached to achieving a political settlement of international conflicts on the basis of respect for the legitimate rights of states and peoples.

The principled foundations of the creation of a comprehensive system of international security in the political sphere, put forward by the XXVII congress of CPSU, require in international practice unquestioning respect for the sovereign choice of the paths and forms of its development by each people, and a fair political settlement of international crises and regional conflicts. The Soviet Union is making great efforts to achieve, in particular, the elimination of the dangerous military hotbed in the Middle East, in the Arab world.¹

The Middle East in the system of modern international relations. The United States has always considered the Middle East in two dimensions: its strategic location and its vast oil reserves.

At the junction of three continents, at the crossroads of air, sea and land routes connecting Europe with Africa and Asia, and in close proximity to the socialist states, the Arab countries are seen by American imperialism as an important strategic springboard. It is no coincidence that 14 of the 19 states under the jurisdiction of the United States Central Command, created in 1983, are Arab countries. This command has a 250,000-strong intervention corps of the “rapid deployment forces”.

As for oil, it is known that the world economy depends on oil more than on any other raw material. This was reflected not only in the development of international economic relations, but also in the development of world politics as a whole. “Politics and oil are inseparable. One is closely connected with the other everywhere in the world,”² emphasized the American scientist I. Edmonds.

The main areas of oil deposits and extraction are concentrated in the liberated countries. Almost 3/4 of the oil extracted in the non-socialist world falls on the liberated countries,³ while 3/4 of the consumption falls on the developed capitalist countries.

In 1983, the Middle East accounted for 63.2 percent of the oil reserves of capitalist countries and 44.2 percent of the gas reserves. In the same year, it provided 30.5 percent of the oil production of the capitalist world.⁴ At the same time, the United States has recently become less dependent on Middle Eastern oil. But its interest in these countries is still great - Washington's partners are still very dependent on Middle Eastern oil. At the end of the 1970s, the share of Middle Eastern oil in all oil imported into the United States was 30%, while for Western Europe and Japan this figure was 66 and 80%, respectively. At the same time, the share of oil from the Persian Gulf countries in American imports of this raw material is constantly decreasing, for example, in 1983 it was already 7%,⁵ while for America's allies this share remained at a high level. Declaring itself the defender of Western oil interests in the Middle East, Washington wants to use the situation to further subjugate its European partners and Japan, to prevent them from attempting to independently resolve many foreign policy problems, especially since “the relations between the three main centers of modern imperialism—the United States, Western Europe, and Japan—are fraught with overt and covert contradictions. The economic, financial, and technological advantage that the United States enjoyed over its closest competitors until the late 1960s has been seriously tested. Western Europe and Japan have managed to narrow the gap between their American masters in some areas.”⁶

In this situation, the role of oil in America's political course is growing even more, its aspiration to use oil to exert pressure on its allies in order to make them as obedient as possible and subject them to Washington's dictates.

The two factors mentioned above - the favorable military-strategic location of the Middle East and the oil wealth of this region - have always had priority in the development of American policy towards the Middle East.⁷ At the same time, since the mid-1970s, we have seen new accents in Washington's approach to the problems of the Middle East. These accents have developed in the process of Washington's retreat from the course of easing international tensions.

Washington, which set itself the goal of reshaping the world according to its own rules, embarked on the path of confrontation with unbridled militarism, socialism, and national liberation forces. “The right-wing group that came to power in the United States and its main NATO allies sharply deviated from the path of de-escalation to the path of military-industrial policy.”⁸ The main hope is based on trying to achieve American military superiority over the Soviet Union and to resolve the struggle between the two world socio-political systems by military force.

At the same time, preparations for a fierce confrontation with the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community are underway simultaneously at the global and regional levels. Here we have in mind the problem of local conflicts, the purpose of which is to “expand” the front of the struggle against the Soviet Union. Several important signs can be observed in the American policy towards local conflicts: 1) “management” of conflict situations in order to further distance them from resolution; 2) strengthening of its own military presence, associated both with attempts to control the development of conflict situations, and with the tasks of their unilateral settlement in the interests of US policy; 3) artificial linking of various conflict situations together; 4) monopolization of the political settlement of conflict situations by the US in order to provide for American interests to a greater extent than before.⁹ The main focus of President Reagan's administration's approach to the Middle East was America's demands, dictated by the harsh military-political confrontation with the Soviet Union.

Thus, the policy of the United States in the Middle East is aimed at protecting the interests of American oil companies,¹⁰ maintaining American control over oil supplies to Western European countries and Japan, strengthening its dominance in this region, and preventing the growth of the Soviet Union's role there.

The Middle East is in the immediate vicinity of the military borders of the Soviet Union, and the events taking place there cannot but concern its interests.

The Soviet Union has emerged and continues to emerge as a potential theater of military action against the destabilization of the Middle East. This is precisely where the United States and Israel are heading. Washington strategists have included the region, along with Western Europe and the Far East, in the so-called "Third Central Zone".

In the near future, there is a real danger of the deployment of American medium-range missiles in the Middle Eastern states. Few, if any, doubt that if Pershing and cruise missiles appear there, they will be directed against the Soviet Union and its allies. It is quite natural that such a development of events cannot but worry the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union consistently opposed and continues to oppose foreign military presence in the region. The Soviet Union did not have and does not have a single military base in the territory of the Near and Middle East. The United States, however, has military bases there. In the Indian Ocean region and the Persian Gulf zone, from American territory. Many thousands of kilometers away, Washington has about 30 military bases, where 140,000 American servicemen are stationed. 48 percent of the White House's military spending outside its own country goes to strengthening its positions in the Near and Middle East.

The Soviet government has consistently spoken out and continues to speak out against the use of force in relations between states, against the acquisition of territories by force. Therefore, the Soviet government believes that in order to achieve a comprehensive, peaceful, just settlement of the Middle East conflict, the Israeli army must be withdrawn from all Arab territories occupied by it.

The Soviet Union, the Western countries and the solution of the Palestinian question at the United Nations in 1947.

“Our ideal is a world without weapons and violence, a world where each peoples freely chooses its path of development and its way of life,”¹¹ we read in the political report of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

41 years ago, the Soviet Union, as a result of its victory in the Great Patriotic War, saved humanity from the danger of fascist enslavement. A world socialist system was created and is successfully developing. “Today, the fate of peace and social progress is especially closely linked to the dynamism of the economic and political development of the world system of socialism.”¹² Dozens of independent states have arisen on the ruins of colonial empires. “... the emergence of previously enslaved peoples on the path of independence, the increase in their share in world politics and the economy is one of the distinctive features of the modern era.”¹³

The victories of the Soviet Army in the Great Patriotic War gave impetus to the unprecedented rise of the Arab national liberation movement, and the authority of the Soviet Union in the Middle East increased. The Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with Egypt in August 1943, and with Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq in July-August 1944.

Contrary to the United States and other Western countries, the Soviet Union demanded the admission of Syria and Lebanon to the original membership of the United Nations. The Soviet Union was the only major power that supported the demand for the withdrawal of British and French troops from the territories of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.

The concern for the establishment of a lasting, reliable peace in the Middle East was a red line in the Soviet Union's approach to the Palestinian problem. The Soviet Union demanded the abolition of the British colonial mandate over Palestine, established by the 1920 San Remo Conference, the evacuation of British troops from its territory, and the cessation of foreign interference in Palestinian affairs. It considered the most correct solution to be the creation of a unified, independent Arab-Jewish democratic state on the territory of Palestine, where Arabs and Jews would enjoy equal rights.

Since such a decision could not be implemented in the specific conditions of the time and, above all, as a result of the hostility incited by Western powers between Jews and Arabs, the Soviet Union voted in favor of the United Nations resolution of November 29, 1947, on the partition of Palestine into two independent democratic states: an Arab and a Jewish state, and on the creation of an international zone in Jerusalem.

The Soviet delegation to the United Nations supported this decision only after it became clear that the conditions in Palestine did not allow for the creation of the original option of a unified democratic Arab-Jewish state.

As subsequent events have shown, the United Nations decision on Palestine of November 29, 1947 was not entirely ideal. It failed to unravel the complex and intricate knot of contradictions created by the imperialists and Zionists.

As early as November 2, 1917, the British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration, in which the British government pledged to promote the creation of a "national home for the Jewish people in Palestine."¹⁴ The San Remo Conference of the Entente Powers (April 1920) decided to transfer the Mandate for Palestine to Britain, and in July 1922 the British Mandate was approved by the League of Nations, which came into force on September 29, 1923. The Balfour Declaration, which effectively formalized the alliance of British imperialism with international Zionism, served the purpose of strengthening the colonial occupation of Palestine, where the British authorities found a foothold in the form of Jewish settlers. With the support and permission of the British ruling circles, an intensive Zionist invasion began, mass immigration of Jews to the territory of Palestine. In the period from the publication of the Balfour Declaration to the decision of the United Nations to divide the mandated territory of Palestine — 1917-1947 — the number of Jewish settlers increased more than 10 times, from 57 thousand to 608 thousand.¹⁵

Immigration received a particularly wide impetus during World War II and the first post-war years. Zionist emissaries launched active work, playing on Jewish feelings, calling on Jews, who had endured all the horrors of the Hitlerite genocide, to emigrate to Palestine, while the expulsion of Arabs from there was ongoing. At the same time, the political struggle of Palestinian Arabs against British colonialism was growing. At the forefront of this struggle were demands for the abolition of the British mandate and an end to Jewish immigration and Zionist encroachment in Palestine.

In May 1942, a representative conference was held at the Biltmore Hotel in New York, attended by about six hundred American Zionists and a number of leaders of the international Zionist movement, including H. Weizmann and D. Ben-Gurion. The conference adopted the "Biltmore Program", which put forward, in particular, the demand that "Palestine should become a Jewish state.”¹⁶ In December 1946, at its first post-war congress, the leaders of international Zionism raised the issue of the immediate creation of a state.¹⁷

During this period, the Zionists are already placing their main hopes on the United States of America. This is understandable. Before and during World War II, the United States became the leading capitalist country. This led to a change in the orientation of international Zionism from England to Washington. One thing is clear: Zionism has always considered the search for a strong ally as the main task in implementing its plans for the conquest of Palestine.

The same period also includes a sharp intensification of the terrorist activities of the “Haganah”, “Irgun Zvei Leumi”, and the “Stern” gang in Palestine. In this way, they tried, on the one hand, to push the British colonial administration to make a decision to cancel the mandate and lift the restrictions on Jewish immigration introduced to appease the Arabs, and, on the other hand, to create an unbearable situation for the Palestinian Arabs in order to force them to leave their homeland.

As a result of all of the above, the situation in Palestine became quite tense. England could not endure. It managed the situation, while wanting to maintain control over Palestine. In April 1947, London transferred the Palestine issue to the United Nations.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II) on the partition of Palestine and the creation of two states in Palestine - Jewish and Arab - on the former British Mandate territory.¹⁸ The resolution allocated 14.1 thousand sq. km. of territory (56% of the territory of Palestine) to the Jewish state with 498 thousand Jews and 497 thousand Arabs, and 11.1 thousand sq. km. to the Arab state. km (43% of the Palestinian territory) with a population of 725,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews. As for Jerusalem, Part III, paragraph “a” of the resolution states: “The city of Jerusalem shall exist as a separate entity enjoying a special international status.”¹⁹ Its population was determined as 105,000 Arabs and 100,000 Jews.

What was the Soviet Union's position?

When discussing the Palestine issue at the United Nations, the Soviet delegation demanded the abolition of the British Mandate, the withdrawal of British occupation troops from the mandated territory, and the cessation of outside interference in the internal affairs of the Palestinians. It supported the creation of a united democratic Arab-Jewish state in Palestine. However, taking into account the real situation in Palestine, which by the time the resolution of November 29, 1947 had turned into a hotbed of violent clashes between the Jewish and Arab communities, the Soviet Union voted for the creation of two separate states. “When the question of the fate of Palestine was being considered,” Comrade A. A. Gromyko pointed out, “the Soviet Union voted in favor of the creation of the State of Israel together with the State of Palestine. By voting for the creation of Israel, we were voting for a peaceful Israel, not for an aggressive Israeli state.”²⁰

On May 14, 1948, at 6:01 a.m., the creation of the State of Israel was announced. At 6:11 a.m., Washington recognized the new state de facto.

Israel — a source of aggression.

Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization in 1920–1931 and 1935–1946, became the first president of the State of Israel, and David Ben-Gurion, president of the Executive Committee of the World Zionist Organization, was appointed the first prime minister. The theory and practice of Zionism were elevated to the status of state policy.

Thus, immediately after the creation of the State of Israel, a militant, chauvinistic group came to the head of its government.

The prospect of creating two states in the former British Mandate of Palestine did not suit the Zionist leadership, which had firmly established itself in Palestine with the help and support of American imperialism and which wanted only to create a Jewish state. Under these conditions, the Zionist leaders, after the adoption of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on November 29, 1947, took the course of preventing the creation of an Arab state in the territory of Palestine at any cost.

According to the Arab historian A. Sayegh, the Zionist tactics consisted in the use of force, attacks and occupation of large centers and cities of Palestine in the territory allocated to the Arabs, in order to prevent by all means the creation of the Arab state of Palestine envisaged by the United Nations resolution. From December 1947 to February 1948 alone, the armed units of the "Haganah", "Irgun" and "Stern"²¹ carried out more than two thousand attacks on the peaceful Arab population in order to force them to leave their native places under the threat of extermination.²²

In essence, the Zionists had already launched an undeclared war to drive the Palestinians out of their own lands.²³ The culmination of all this was the most brutal massacre of the Arab population by the Zionist units of the Irgun and Stern on April 9 and 10, 1948, in the village of Deir Yassin. During this “operation,” the raiders killed all the inhabitants of the village. 250 women, old people, and children, and then threw them into a well. “Without the victory at Deir Yassin,” the then head of the Irgun, later Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, shamelessly boasted, “there would have been the state of Israel.”

Understandably, faced with the threat of such physical annihilation, many Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland and seek salvation in neighboring Arab countries, primarily Jordan, and as a result of the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli war, during which Washington in every way fueled Tel Aviv's expansionist aspirations, Israel captured 6.6 thousand sq. km of the territory intended for the creation of the Palestinian Arab state and West Jerusalem. The remaining part of the Palestinian territory, which Israel was unable to conquer at that time, was divided between Jordan and Egypt. The West Bank of the Jordan River and the eastern part of Jerusalem were temporarily transferred to Jordanian control, and an Egyptian administration was established in the Gaza Strip.

As a result of the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli war, 340,000 Palestinians left their homelands, and the total number of Palestinian refugees increased to 740,000.

Thus, the resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations of November 29, 1947 remained unfulfilled. The Arab state of Palestine could not be created.

Thus arose the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Israel's brazen aggressive actions to seize the territory of Palestine. are only part of the general expansionist course based on the ideology of Zionism. As early as 1904, the "father of Zionism" T. Herzl declared that the territory of the Jewish state should stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the issue of Israel's borders was even bypassed in its Charter of Independence. "The size of the Jewish state will be determined by war," these words of Ben-Gurion, the first head of the Israeli government, contain the credo of Tel Aviv's expansionist policy.

In accordance with the general Zionist concept of creating a "Greater Israel", the policy of constant territorial expansion pursued by the Israeli government - the June 1967 aggression - resulted in the occupation of the entire territory of Palestine, in particular, Israel occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River (5.5 thousand sq. km), the Gaza Strip (258 sq. km), the eastern part of Jerusalem, as well as the territories of Egypt (the Sinai Peninsula - 56 thousand sq. km) and Syria (the Golan Heights - about a thousand sq. km), a total of more than 60 thousand sq. km. This, in turn, led to the expulsion of a new significant part of the Palestinian Arabs from this territory.

Throughout the entire 38 years of the existence of the State of Israel, its official policy was based on ignoring the very fact of the existence of the Arab people of Palestine. For example, Golda Meir, while serving as Prime Minister of Israel, theatrically stated: “The Palestinian people? I have never heard of such a thing. Can you tell me where and when there were such people? Did they exist?” The manual for action was developed back in the late 1940s by M. Begin, who stated: “There is no room for two peoples in Palestine... The only solution is Palestine without Arabs. There is no other way out without the deportation of all Arabs from neighboring countries.”²⁴

The occupation of the entire territory of Palestine by Israel and the Zionist policy of racial discrimination against the Palestinian people are in direct contradiction to the Charter of the United Nations and the resolution of its General Assembly of November 29, 1947 on the question of Palestine.

Thus, the state, which was born as a result of the long anti-colonial liberation struggle of the Jewish and Arab population of Palestine against the British colonizers, under the leadership of Zionist leaders, itself became the implementer of a colonial policy towards the Arabs.

1. The term "Arab World" encompasses 21 Arab countries from the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea in the east, to the Atlantic Ocean in North Africa in the west, and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In Arab and Western European literature, the countries of the "Arab World" are often divided into two groups: Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia form the Arab West (Arabic: "al-Maghrib"), and the rest of the Arab countries east of Libya form the Arab East (Arabic: "al-Mashreq"). The total area of ​​the "Arab World" is 13 million sq. km, with a population of 150 million.

2. Mashin V.V., Yakovlev A.I. The Persian Gulf in the Plans and Policies of the West. Moscow, 1985, p. 22. (In Russian)

3. Tugendhet K., Hamilton N. Oil: the Biggest Business. Moscow, 1978. (English version, published in 1986 by TBS The Book Service Ltd)

4. Abroad, 1985, No. 24, p. 8. (Russian: За рубежом, 1985, № 24, с. 8.)

5. Primakov A.E. Persian Gulf: Oil and Monopolies. M., 1983. (Russian Примаков А. Е. Персидский залив: Нефть и монополии. M., 1983.)

6. M.S. Gorbachev, Political Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the XXVII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, pp. 23-25.

7. Primakov E. M. The History of One Conspiracy. (US Middle East Policy in the 70s and Early 80s). Moscow, 1985, pp. 122-124. (Russian: Примаков Е. М. История одного сговора. (Ближневосточная политика США в 70-е начале 80-х годов). М., 1985, c. 122-124.

8. M.S. Gorbachev, Political Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the XXVII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 108

9. According to the Survey of Current Business, a bulletin published by the United States Department of Commerce, profits transferred to America by American companies as a result of operations with foreign oil reached 60 billion dollars, exceeding similar figures for the entire previous half century. Пpaвда. - 8 Mapra 1983 года. (Pravda, 1983)

10. According to the Survey of Current Business, a bulletin published by the United States Department of Commerce, profits transferred to America by American companies as a result of operations with foreign oil reached 60 billion dollars, exceeding similar figures for the entire previous half century. Пpaвда. - 8 Mapra 1983 года. (Pravda, 1983)

11. M.S. Gorbachev, Political Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the XXVII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, pp. 83-107

12. Ibid page 121

13. Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (new edition), Tbilisi, 1986, p. 81

14. Klyuchnikov Yu., Sabanin A. International politics of modern times in treaties, notes and declarations. Moscow, 1925, parts 1-11, p. 87. Ключников Ю., Сабанин А. Международная политика новейшего времени в договорах, нотах и декларациях. М., 1925, ч. 1-11, с. 87.

15. Oksanii A. On the Palestinian problem. Problems of the economy and history of the countries of the Middle East. Оксании А. К вопросу о палестинской проблеме. Проблемы экономики и истории стран Ближнего

16. Dmitriev E. The Palestinian Knot. M., 1978, p. 29 Дмитриев Е. Палестинский узел. М., 1978, с. 29

17. Yaroslavtsev I. What is Zionism accused of? Moscow, 1984, pp. 22-23. Ярославцев И. В чем обвиняется сионизм. М., 1984, с. 22-23.

18. The Palestinian problem. Organizations and conferences, pp. 5-29. Documents

19. A. Tsitsiashvili

20. Gromyko A. A. Lenin's Course of Peace. Moscow, 1984, p. 503. Громыко А. А. Ленинским курсом мира. М., 1984, с. 503.

21. In the 1930s and 1940s, Jewish paramilitary organizations and groups of a chauvinistic type were formed in Palestine, which tried to resolve the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine by force. The largest of them were: "Haganah” (“Self-Defense”), which later became the core of the Israeli army, “Irgun Zvai Leumi” (“National Military Organization”), “Stern” group. A common feature of the activities of all these organizations was terror and violence against the Palestinian Arab population, and their goals were comprehensively depicted in the emblem of “Irgun”: a map of Palestine, which includes both banks of the Jordan River, weapons in their hands and the inscription in Hebrew “Rak Kach” “Only this way”. All these military organizations were terrorists. They were under the leadership of the former rulers of the State of Israel. For example, the "Haganah" was led by the Minister of Defense G. Meir in the government and the Minister of Foreign Affairs M. In the Begin government, Moshe Dayan and former Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Army Chaim Barlev, the leader of the Irgun Tzvai Leum group, Menachem Begin, the former Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir, who emigrated to Palestine in 1937 from Poland, where he was originally from, and bore the surname Jaziernicki. Explaining this circumstance, A. Lilienthal wrote in 1978: “Yesterday's terrorists have become the prime ministers, generals and other leading figures of the present State of Israel, and the army, which... widely used terrorism, the Haganah, the Irgun and the Stern units, is now the Israeli army. Lilienthal A. M. The Zionist Connection. What Price Peace? NY, 1978, p. 37

22. Prokofiev D. The Great Robbery of the Palestinians. Asia and Africa Today. 1985, No. 8, pp. 27-30. Прокофьев Д. Большое ограбление палестинцев. Азия и Африка сегодня. 1985, № 8, с. 27-30.

23. Important to emphasize Zionists had been planning to expel the Arabs from Palestine for two decades before the creation of the State of Israel. The magazine “New Judea” wrote in 1937 after the end of the World Zionist Congress: “G. Meir (G. Meir, later the Prime Minister of Israel - A.Ts.) supports the plans for the deportation of the Arabs from Palestine… C. Weizmann confirmed during the Congress that over time the possibility of the deportation of the Arabs from Palestine without difficulty will arise” Tuma Emil. Zionism in Close-Up. M., 1985, p. 114. 06. Тума Эмиль. Сионизм крупным планом. М., 1985, с. 114. 06.

24. Izvestia, September 16, 1984. Известия, 16 сентября 1984 года.