Roland Dannreuther

The Relationship Deteriorates: 1981–5

Soviet concerns over the loyalty of the PLO and the strategic value of Soviet PLO relations grew in intensity as the vulnerability of the PLO’s principal base in the Lebanon became increasingly exposed. By the early 1980s, the PLO’s position in Lebanon was under pressure from a number of directions. The right-wing Likud government in Israel, un-der the leadership of Menachem Begin, had made clear its determination to destroy the PLO in Lebanon. Within Lebanon itself, the quasi-inde-pendence of the territory under PLO control — the so-called ‘Fatahland’ — had alienated the local Muslim community, particularly the Muslim Shi’i population of the South, which had earlier been a bedrock of support for the PLO within the country. And, for its part, Syria, which had gained Arab legitimation for its presence in Lebanon, exerted con-siderable pressure on the PLO to reduce its independent decision-making and to subordinate its policies to Syrian strategic oversight.

The Relationship Blossoms: 1971–6

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.

Towards a Reluctant Relationship: 1964–70

In the memorable phrase of Malcolm Kerr, the late 1950s and early 1960s was the period of the ‘Arab Cold War’, when the quest for Arab unity assumed a greater priority to the goal of the liberation of Palestine.1 However, by the mid-1960s increasing frustration with the Arab states’ failure either to unite or effectively to confront the Israeli state forced the nationalist Arab regimes to refocus their energies on the Palestinian question. Nasir’s sponsorship of the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964 was Egypt’s response to defending its self-proclaimed leadership of the radical Arab struggle against Israel. Syria’s support for the guerrilla activities of Fatah, the Palestinian faction which remained independent of the PLO until 1968, reflected Syria’s competitive resolve to assume the Palestinian mantle against its Egyptian rival. The massive Israeli victories of the June 1967 war only accelerated the process whereby the Arab-Israeli conflict dominated Arab policy-making and the PLO emerged as an independent Palestinian actor in its own right, with Fatah and the other Palestinian guerrilla organizations assuming leadership of the organization.

The Lebanese Civil War

In April 1975, a small incident in the Beirut suburb of Ain al-Rummanah sparked off a civil war which was to destroy the fragile unity of Lebanon. It also set a pattern for over fifteen years whereby the Lebanon became the proxy battlefield for the Arab-Israeli conflict and, just as importantly, for a number of destructive inter-Arab conflicts and disputes. As such, the Lebanese civil war, which lasted until autumn 1976, can be considered as the antithesis of the Rabat Summit. While Rabat had been a visible demonstration of Arab unity and collective Arab purpose, the Lebanese civil war highlighted the continuing salience of Arab disunity and the political and ideological tensions in inter-Arab relations. Both at Rabat and in Lebanon, the PLO played a central and formative role. However, while at Rabat the PLO had been the catalyst for forging an Arab unity around the Palestine question, in Lebanon it was a principal cause of a violent intra-Arab conflict which was to destroy much of Lebanon’s social fabric.

Framework of Soviet Engagement in the Arab—Israeli Conflict

By the time of the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964, the Soviet Union had already been deeply involved in the affairs of the Middle East. Indeed, some of the influences on Soviet policy can been traced back to the Russian Imperial involvement in the affairs of the Ottoman empire, which included an active interest in the region of Palestine. However, the Soviet Union developed its own distinctive set of policies which reflected its specific interests in response to the tumultuous geostrategic changes in the Middle East after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Two developments in Soviet policy-making towards the Middle East and the Palestine question were of particular significance. The first was the decision made by Stalin in 1947 to support the partition of Palestine and subsequently to provide substantial diplomatic and material support to the creation of the state of Israel. The second was the decision by Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, to sanction the Czechoslovak arms deal with Egypt in 1955, which initiated the Soviet commitment to the radical Arab nationalist regimes in their confrontation with the West and with Israel.

The Final Rise and Fall of a Relationship: 1986–91

By 1986, the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and his more established PLO counterpart, Yasir Arafat, faced the political reality that both the Soviet Union and the PLO had suffered a critical decline in their political standing in the Middle East. For the Soviet Union, the success of Andropov’s campaign to undermine the Reagan plan and the US-Israeli objectives in Lebanon had turned into a pyrrhic victory. As the failure of the Chernenko July 1984 Peace plan demonstrated, the Soviet Union lacked the power and influence unilaterally to promote a substantive peace process. But, given the Soviet Union’s obstructive and competitive behaviour in the aftermath of the Lebanon war, the United States was even more determined to exclude Moscow from any collaborative participation in the peace process. The end result of this was that the Soviet Union’s influence was limited to a small band of ‘Soviet Faithfuls’ - such as Syria, South Yemen and Libya - whose radical rejectionism and predilection to terrorism had increasingly led them to be treated as international pariahs by most countries outside the Soviet bloc.1

An Opportunity Missed: 1977–80

Although the Lebanese civil war had greatly tested the Soviet Union’s new alliance with the PLO, and had threatened to undermine Soviet relations with Syria, the onset of 1977 appeared to promise a restora-tion of Soviet fortunes. In the latter part of 1976, the major Arab states made a number of diplomatic moves to resolve their differences and to resurrect a pan-Arab strategy towards the reconvening of the Geneva Conference. This was officially confirmed at the quadripartite Riyadh Summit on 9-10 January 1977, when Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia agreed to co-ordinate a common political programme. This Arab resolve towards a more unified stance also coincided with, and was a direct response to, the inauguration of a new United States administra-tion under President Jimmy Carter. Like the Arab states, the Soviet Union was at least cautiously optimistic that the new administration would seek to reinvigorate the peace process. In particular, Moscow hoped that the change of administration would seek to transcend Kissinger’s legacy and promote a more all-embracing and comprehen-sive peace, which would potentially include, rather than deliberately exclude, the participation of the Soviet Union.