Abstract
The Soviet attitude towards the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) did not alter substantially after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, yet there was certainly a change of policy towards Israel. The intention here is to analyse the shift in the Soviet attitude towards Israel and consequent developments in Moscow’s perspective on the PLO during the 1980s. These two subjects are not unrelated and the assumption here is that the USSR tried to emphasise the linkage and to predicate its policies towards Israel on Israeli policy towards the PLO. Since it is further assumed that the USSR had at least a hypothetical interest in settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, an attempt will also be made to define the Soviet perception of peace in the Middle East.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and References
Alexander Zotov, ‘Palestine: Forty Years of Tragedy’, New Times, No 48, (1987), in particular p. 19;
V. I. Kiselev, Palestinskaya problema v Mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenyakh: regionalnye aspekt, (Moscow: Nauka, 1988);
Evgeni Korshunov, Shpionyi, terroristyi, divrsantyi (Moscow: Sovetskaya Rossiya, 1988).
Amnon Sella, Soviet Political and Military Conduct in the Middle East (London: Macmillan, 1981).
John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 91, 129. The first is a quotation from John Foster Dulles and the second from President Eisenhower.
Evgeni M. Primakov, ‘Soviet Policy toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict’, in William Quandt (ed.), The Middle East Ten Years after Camp David (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1988), pp. 387-407.
G. Drambyants, ‘Blizhnii vostok: vremya trevogi i borbyi’, Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, (MZ) No. 6, (1987), p. 60.
Leonid Medvedko, ‘Four Decades and a Year’, New Times, No. 52, (1988), p.22.
An interview with Naif Hawatmeh, The Middle East December 1987, p. 18.
See A. Kislov, ‘Novoe politicheskoe myshlenie i regionalnyie konfliktyi’, Mirovaia Ekonomika I Mezhdunarodnye Othosheiia (MEIMO), No. 8, 1988, p. 42.
Yehuda Lukacs and Abdalla M. Battah (eds), The Arab-Israeli Conflict ( London: Westview Press, 1988 ), pp. 95–6.
Sytenko in an interview in Cairo, USSR International Affairs Near East and South Asia 7 August 1987.
‘Primakov Interviewed on Middle East Issues’, Al Hawadith 25 August 1987, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) SOV-87–190, 1 October 1987, p.29.
USSR International Affairs Middle East and North Africa 7 January 1986, p. H15.
‘Official Comments on PLO Middle East Conference’, Kuwait KUNA 11 January 1988, FBIS-SOV-88–007, 12 January 1988, p. 30.
‘Shevardnadze Urges UN to Hold Mideast Parley’, Izvestia, FBIS-SOV-88–014, 22 January 1988, p.23.
‘Syrian Foreign Minister Talks with Polyakov’, TASS 16 February 1988, FBIS-SOV-88–031, 17 February 1988, p.40.
E. Dmitriev, ‘Mimaya konferentsia po blizhnem vostoku–svet i teni’, MEIMO, No. 3 (1988), pp. 53–59.
Leonid Medvedko, ‘Four Decades and a Year’, New Times, No. 52, (1988), p. 22.
The Soviet Union and the Middle East Vol. 13, No. 8–9, (1988), p. 9; Krasnaya zvezda 15 July 1988.
The Soviet Union and the Middle East Vol. 13, No. 8–9, (1988), p. 10.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1993 Royal United Services Institute
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sella, A. (1993). The Soviet Union, Israel and the PLO: Policy Shift in the 1980s. In: Hollis, R. (eds) The Soviets, Their Successors and the Middle East. RUSI Defence Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22968-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22968-0_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-22970-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-22968-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)