867N.01/5–1047: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Durbrow) to the Secretary of State
1712. Recent press articles (Embtels 1636, April 30 and 1670, May 61) as well as Gromyko’s conduct in special GA meeting provide further indication that long-range Soviet policy toward Palestine is based upon:
- 1.
- Opposition to formation in all or part of Palestine of Jewish State, which USSR would regard as Zionist tool of West, inevitably hostile to Soviet Union.
- 2.
- Support of [Arab?] side in Palestine controversy, and specifically of independence of Palestine with present Arab majority population. Chambrinski in Red Fleet article2 was undoubtedly speaking for Soviet Union in declaring “progressive circles of entire world consider entirely just demand of Palestinian people for independence and democratic path of development.[”]
So far the Kremlin has been content to play a waiting game, accumulating good will as a result of unsuccessful British and American initiatives and the mounting hostility of the Arabs, and to a lesser extent the Jews, toward the UK and the US. It seems likely that the Soviet Government will continue to avoid any overt decision in favor of the Arabs until it is in a better position than at present to take active measures to expand its influence throughout Moslem world, unless decision should be forced upon it earlier by developments. We should accordingly expect Soviet representatives during UN handling of issue cautiously but consistently to support Arab side, while leaving enough uncertainty to avoid alienating world Jewish opinion. Soviet representatives are likely to speak in general terms of ideals of independence and democracy, to charge that Jewish-Arab hostility has been artificially engendered by British imperialists and imply that this artificial racial animosity clouds the only real conflict of interests …3 that of the mass of the population, both Jewish and Arab, against the Zionist politicians on one side and the feudal Arab lords on the other.
Gromyko’s support of the proposal to permit access to the General Assembly to “the Jewish Agency and other representative Jewish organizations” fits into this general picture, as a concession to the Jewish side which could only cause confusion and probable embarrassment to the British and ourselves. However, we believe his action in this connection was motivated primarily by other considerations. The Soviet Government has attempted, not without some success, to use the UN as a sounding board for its propaganda, and has particularly sought to extend and increase the utility of this device by securing official recognition of the WFTU. Admission of miscellaneous Jewish groups would clearly pave the way for renewed demands for recognition first of the WFTU and subsequently of a whole series of front agencies of Soviet foreign policy from the World Federation of Democratic Women to the Greek EAM.
[Page 1083]Department please repeat London as No. 205, Paris as 198, and Jerusalem, asking latter repeat Arab capitals.