The Relationship Blossoms: 1971–6

Abstract

In the period from 1971 to 1976, the October 1973 war was the central determining event in the Middle East which had a profound impact on the Soviet position in the region and necessitated significant shifts in the Soviet strategic approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This chapter analyses the evolution of one of the most important of these shifts - the fundamental reorientation of Soviet thinking towards the Palestine question. While prior to the war the Soviet Union focused its diplomatic energies on securing an Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 and had considered the Palestinian question as a secondary and predominantly refagee issue, in the aftermath of the war the Soviet Union became committed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state and argued that, without such a state, there could be no effective resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The status of the PLO in Soviet strategic thinking was to enjoy a similar transformation. In contrast to the highly qualified and lukewarm support it had received before the war, the PLO was elevated in Moscow to the ranks of a strategic ally and was accorded a central role in the Arab national liberation movement.