Adeeb. (1998). The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press. Khalid, Adeeb. (2000). “Society and Politics in Bukhara, 1868-1920.” Central Asian Survey 19: 367-396. Ro’i, Yaacov. (2000). Islam in the Soviet Union: From the Second World War to Gorbachev. New York: Columbia University Press. Steinwedel, Charles. (1999). “Invisible Threads of Empire: State, Religion, and Ethnicity in Tsarist Bashkiria, 1773-1917.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York. Swietochowski, Tadeusz. (1995). Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. New York: Columbia University Press.
ADEEB KHALID
During most of the Soviet period, Soviet-Israeli relations were strained if not broken. Although Moscow gave diplomatic and even military support (via Czechoslovakia) to Israel during its war of independence (1948-1949), by 1953 it had shifted to a pro-Arab position and it broke diplomatic relations with Israel during the June 1967 Six-Day War. From the mid-1960s until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, the USSR, seeking to align the Arab world against the United States, called Israel the “lynchpin of U.S. imperialism in the region.” Under Gorbachev, however, the USSR made a major shift in policy, taking an even-handed position in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and by 1991 had reestablished full diplomatic relations with Israel.
In the period since the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Moscow and Jerusalem, already warming in the final years of the Soviet Union when Gorbachev was in power, continued to improve. Trade between the two countries rose to a billion dollars per year, Jews were free to emigrate from Russia to Israel, and the two countries even cooperated in the production of military equipment such as helicopters and airborne com-mand- and-control aircraft (AWACS). On the diplomatic front, under both Yeltsin and Putin, Russia took a balanced position, unlike the pre-Gorbachev Soviet government, which consistently took a pro-Arab, anti-Israeli stand. However, during the period when Yevgeny Primakov was Russia’s Foreign Minister and Prime Minister (1996-1999), there was a marked tilt toward the Arab position. Following Primakov’s ouster and the renewed Russian involvement in a war against Islamic rebels in Chechnya (where Israel supported Russia diplomatically), Russia under Putin’s leadership switched back to a balanced position. Some Russian leaders even compared the Islamic- based terrorism Israel faced, from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to the Islamic-based opposition Russia was battling in Chechnya.
The major problem in the Russian-Israeli relationship was the supply of Russian arms and military technology-including missile technology-to Iran. Given the fact that the clerical leadership of Iran called for Israel’s destruction and supplied weapons to both Hezbollah and to the Palestinian Authority to fight Israel, Israel bitterly opposed the Russian sales. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran became Russia’s number one ally in the Middle East, and Russia continued to supply Iran with arms.
One of the dynamic aspects of the Russian-Israeli relationship after 1991 was the role of the million-plus Jews from the former Soviet Union (FSU) who emigrated to Israel. They formed the largest Russian-speaking diaspora outside the FSU and constituted a major cultural bond between Israel and Russia. As the Russian vote became increasingly important in Israeli elections, candidates for the post of Israeli Prime Minister sought to cultivate this electorate by announcing their wish to improve ties with Russia. For its part, Moscow, especially under Putin, developed a special relationship with the Russian community in Israel and saw that community as a tool to enhance Russian-Israeli trade and hence improve the Russian economy. Below the level of official relations, the Russian mafia created ties (including money-laundering ties) with its Russian counterparts in Israel, and this led to joint efforts by the Russian and Israeli governments to fight crime, occasioning frequent mutual visits of the Ministers of the Interior of both countries to deal with this problem.
Another major change from Soviet times was Russia’s willingness to follow the U.S. lead in seeking to end the Israeli-Arab conflict. Thus Russia supported the OSLO I and OSLO II peace agreements in tandem with U.S. efforts to end the Al-Aksa intifada through the U.S.-backed Mitchell Report. Such action was facilitated in part by the decreasing importance to Russia of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which was pivotal to Moscow’s policy in the Middle East during Soviet times, and in part by Russia’s desire, especially under Putin, to demonstrate cooperation with the United States. See also: JEWS; IRAN, RELATIONS WITH; IRAQ, RELATIONS WITH; REFUSENIKS; UNITED STATES, RELATIONS WITH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Freedman, Robert O. (2001). Russian Policy Toward the Middle East Since the Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Yeltsin Legacy and the Challenge for Putin (The Donald W. Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, no. 33). Seattle: Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. Nizamedden, Talal. (1999). Russia and the Middle East. New York: St. Martin’s. Rumer, Eugene. (2000). Dangerous Drift: Russia’s Middle East Policy. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Shaffer, Brenda. (2001). Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Vassiliev, Alexei. (1993). Russian Policy in the Middle East: From Messiasism to Pragmatism. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press.
From the time of Italy’s unification in the mid-nineteenth century through the post-Soviet era, schizophrenic collaboration and competition in the Balkans and Danubian Europe has marked Italo-Russian relations, with national interests consistently trumping shifting ideologies in both countries.
The schizophrenia was there from the beginning. Although Tsar Alexander II, for example, objected to Italy’s unification, the wars fought to that end could not have been arranged and contained without the Tsar’s complicity. By the late 1870s liberal Italy was becoming enmeshed in the Triple Alliance with Austria and Germany. Although it was primarily directed against France, the Italians hoped the alliance would also blunt autocratic Russia’s penetration of the Balkans. Later, Russia’s defeat at Japanese hands in 1905 removed the counterbalance to Austria’s influence in the Balkans, and Italy became every bit as aggrieved as Russia by Austria’s conduct during the First Bosnian Crisis (1908-1909). The result was the Italo-Russian Racconigi Agreement (1909). Of the European powers, only Italy supported Russia on the Straits Question. Although Rome promised several times to stand by its obligations taken at Racconigi, Russia proved unable to use the Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912) as an excuse to reexamine the Straits Question.
During World War I, both Rome and Petrograd feared Austro-German advances into the Balkans. Rome, however, was no more eager to see Germanic dominance replaced by Russian-led Panslavism than Russia was to see it replaced by Italian influence. The complex, multilateral negotiations that brought Italy into the war (1915) required the uneasy compromise of Russian and Italian ambitions in the Balkans. These compromises seriously eroded Russia’s political situation and betrayed Serbia, Russia’s ally and caucasus belli. After the war, Italy generally refrained from supporting the anti-Bolshevik White armies during Russia’s civil war, although Rome did provide small contingents to the Allied intervention in Vladivostok and briefly planned to intervene in Georgia.
Thereafter, Italo-Soviet relations fell into the old grooves of Realpolitik. Even Benito Mussolini’s rise to power (1922) had little effect on diplomatic directions. Despite the presumed ideological antipathies dividing communist Russia and fascist Italy, the Duce exploited Italy’s position between the Allies and the Soviets to reintroduce Russia into Europe and to arbitrate among the great powers. Although commercial aspirations motivated Italy’s recognition of the Soviets (1924), the fascists and soviets also drew together in common hostility to responsible parliamentary systems of government. By 1930, the Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany were tending to ally against France and its allies.
With Hitler’s rise to power (1933), Moscow and Rome sought ways to contain the threat of a resurgent Germany. Through extensive cooperation, both began to support the status quo to block German expansion, especially in the Balkans. Russia’s nonaggression pact with Italy (1933) marked a significant step in its Collective Security policy directed against Germany. Italy’s successful defense of Austria (1934)-the one successful example of Collective Security before World War II-seemed to vindicate Soviet policy.
Good relations, despite Moscow’s extraordinary efforts at appeasement, collapsed during the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-1936) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Afterward the Italo-Soviet economic agreements (February 1939) began a rapprochement and presaged the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August. Even after World War II
