Soviet Policy Toward Israel Under Gorbachev (review)

Book Reviews 117 a successful, well-educated, socially prominentVienneseJew who is, in the course of the action, not merely rejected by his gentile friends and associates, but eventually killed in a duel by a ruined aristocrat whom he has actually tried to help but who refuses to acknowledge that a Jew can behave in anything but a contemptible manner. Kornberg argues persuasively that it is this play which represents Heal's conversion to Zionism and that the much better known The jewish State, which appeared two years later, merely represents an elaboration of the themes already fully developed in the earlier work. This book, which, aside from its use of psycho-history, is firmly based in the canon of traditional intellectual history as well, represents an unmistakable advance in Her.d scholarship. In particular, Kornberg's argument that Herzl's character and mind-set were both fully developed in his assimilationist youth is compelling. Thus the tendencies toward opting for all-inclusive solutions and elitist means to implement them, which so distressed even Herzl's most fervent admirers in his days as the leader of Zionism, are to be understood as nothing more complex than a nostalgic, romantic Prussianism asserting itsel~ out of context. Future scholarship will have no choice but to incorporate these insights. They appear inescapable. Paul P. Bernard Department of History University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Soviet Policy Toward Israel Under Gorbachev, by Robert O. Freedman. The Washington Papers, No. 150. New York: Praeger, 1991. 141 pp. $39.95 (c)j $11.95 (p). InJune 1992, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachevwas honored during his visit to Israel with a peace prize and two doctoral degrees. By that time, Soviet Jewish emigration to Israel had reached record levels, the Soviet Union had joined the anti-Iraqi alliance during the Gulf War, the Soviet Union and Israel had established full diplomatic relations (October 1991), and the Soviet Union had reentered the Arab-Israeli peace process via the Madrid Conference (October-November 1991). Of course, the Soviet Union had itself collapsed in December 1991, and Gorbachev had been forced out of office. 118 SHOFAR Winter 1995 Yol. 13, No. ~ From a policy of hostility toward Israel and alignment with the PLO and other radical Arab forces, the Soviet Union had undergone a major policy transformation in the Middle East, and the impetus for such change was provided by Gorbachev. Robert Freedman therefore provides a valuable service by carefully outlining the application ofGorbachev's "New Thinking" to the subject of Israel through January 1990. Although events have by now outrun Freedman's narrative, his account of the Soviet shift in both strategy and tactics is nevertheless highly instructive and bears contemporary policy relevance. Gorbachev, who became general secretary in March 1985, moved cautiously during his first year and a half even though the dovish Shimon Peres was the Israeli prime minister. As explained by Freedman, fundamental policy transformation toward Israel began in 1987 when Israel was under the leadership of the hawkish Yitzhak Shamir. Bilateral Soviet-I'sraeli relations were not really the key variable, as Gorbachev saw Israel as a steppingstone toward further detente with the United States. The Soviet economywas disintegrating, and Gorbachev therefore sought both strategic arms limitations and American trade and aid concessions through the possible repeal of the restrictive Jackson-Yanik and Stevenson amendments . From the Soviet perspective, Israel had an influence over U.S. policy, so Gorbachev played his Israel card, as had Rumania's Ceausescu and Zaire's Mobutu. As Freedman ably explains, the Soviets hoped to enhance their image in the United States; overtures toward Israel were not aimed at driving a wedge between Jerusalem and Washington. In the Middle East context, Moscow was not abandoning the Arabs. Ties to Syria remained strong, relations with Egypt were improved, and the Soviet Union championed the cause of an independent Palestinian Arab state. As the Soviet Union cozied up to Israel, it used Jewish emigration as a lever in the superpower arena (re: Jackson-Yanik) and the prospect of diplomatic relations with Israel (which had been broken in June 1967) as a lever in the Middle East arena in regard to participation in Arab...