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55  P.1 to M.Shertok (Jerusalem)

COPY:CZA S25/486

Cairo, 1 January 1946

Confidential

I had yesterday a long conversation with the correspondent of TASS Ianchenko. His view could be summarized as in the following way:

   ‘I see that your people are continuing the rioting2. it seems to me that this tactic will not pay. It gives the English the pretext and opportunity to remain in these places and instead of getting rid of them you will help them to get stronger. I know that these are the extremists. These tactics to blow up government offices as a demonstration is a silly way of fighting. The railroad business was much cleverer because it had a definite purpose and showed that hindrances can be made in future military operations.

   In the last conference in Moscow3 the talks about Iran failed because Molotov said to Bevin that Russia is ready to evacuate Iran if England will evacuate Egypt and Palestine. We have much more rights on Iran than England on Egypt and Palestine. Anyway Teheran is much nearer to our borders than Cairo and Jerusalem to Landon. The day is near when Russia will have her say in the Middle Eastern affairs and we must be therefore prepared to know all what is going on on these places.

   My colleague Korostovtsev returned just from Palestine. He did not contact neither your nor Arab authorities and tried to see Palestine with his own eyes. He visited your colonies and settlements without that anyone knew who he was. He is very impressed with all what he saw and especially with the collective settlements4.

   We understand very well that the Arab feudalism does not want to accept this form of life and that the British are fighting it in order not to allow social reforms to spread in the Middle East where feudalism is their base and their only hope. The more had Soviet Russia to be interested in Jewish Palestine.

注释

1.Short for Palcor (Palestine correspondents), the Jewish Agency news service. The author was apparently Yolande Harmer, an agent recrutted by Sasson. SeeGelber， Shorshei babavatselet，pp.645-7。The original document was written in flawed English. It has been reproduced here without editorial intervention.

2.Reference is to activities of the Jewish resistance movement-a joint venture of underground bodies-the Hagana, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Group (Lehi), which began coordinated sabotage activities in October 1945. The most notable were the raid on Atlit detention camp and the release of illegal immigrants there on 10 October 1945, and blowing up the Palestine railway system in a number of locations on the night of 31 October-1 November 1946.

3.The Moscow meeting of the American, British and Soviet foreign ministers which took place from 16 to 27 December 1945. The meeting discussed and concluded arrangements on most of the postwar issues in Europe and the Far East but failed to reach an agreement on Iran, where the Soviet troop withdrawal was being delayed.

4.See Doc.57.

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And Moscow actually is. Our Minister in Cairo Sh[chi]borin is already one month in Moscow and I am sure that all these questions are discussed these. He specially went to Palestine before going to Moscow to see the things himself.

   Please give us therefore the full picture of Arab social life, description of parties, newspapers and history of ruling families stressing the primitive form of life, the rule of few families, the feudal relationship in the villages, their inner struggles, etc.

   We know very well that due to the Jewish immigration the standard of Arab life in Palestine is higher than in the whole of the Middle East and that in the same time the relationship with the Jews better than in other countries.

   The hatred to Jews in the Orient is a part of feudal policy supported by Britain in order to avert attention of the population from more important issues. The 2^nd of November was a typical act of this policy in the same way as it was happening in Czarist Russia5.

   So please give us what way can Soviet Russia help the Jewish Palestine. You also stressed that although you understand that we are now against the [Arab] League, you also explained me that Palestine is far from the Russian border and that there is a danger that approaching you today Russia will have to drop you tomorrow with the changing political stage and with the permanent international bargaining.

   I understand these thoughts and fellings very well. I must frankly say that I have no answer to all that. And I would like to discuss all these questions with Shchiborin when he will come back from Moscow. He will probably bring with him more definite views of Moscow.

   I personally also think that Russia must find a way of understanding with the Arabs, but knowing their backwardness and your progressiveness all our sympathy will be with your experiment and I suppose that we are well equipped to look for a solution to the Arab-Jewish question.

   Speaking about boycott6. According to our information the English are definitely opposed to the boycott. It came as a great surprise to them and there were talks between them to dismiss Azzam7. The reason of their opposition is probably that they are afraid that a boycott system is a dangerous idea which can tomorrow be used against the British goods as well.

   I personally don’t believe that it can be realized in practice.

注释

5.On the occasion of the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration on 2 November, Arab rioters took to the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, looting and beating Jews.

6.In a meeting that took place in Cairo in December, five Arab countries, Egypt, Irap, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon imposed an economic boycott on the products of the Jewish community in Palestine.

7.Abd al-Rahman Azzam. Secretary-general of the Arab League.

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   You know probably that a couple of fdays ago Soviet Moslem pilgrims passed Cairo on their way from mecca8. They told me that King Ibn Saud delivered a long speech to the pilgrims asking them to boycott the Jews in all the countries where they live. Our pilgrims were also received by Ibn Saud and he asked them about the life in Russia.

   I brought to them an American correspondent and the head of the pilgrims told him all the story, adding that an appeal to Soviet Moslems to fight the Jews is ridiculous, and that what they saw showed them that Soviet Moslems are four hundred years in advance of the Arabs in the Middle East and that life in Soviet Asia is incomparable with the life here. The Sheikn asked only the correspondent not to stress it out too much in order not to spoil the relationship between the Soviet Moslems and the Ara countries. One of the pilgrims was a professor of the University of Kazan, a doctor (Tatar) whose job was to look after the health of the pilgrims. But when it was known that a Sovieet doctor arrived, thousands of Arabs in Saudia came to see him asking for medical help.

   We will have probably an increase of pilgrims in the year 1946. There will be also thousands of pilgrims in Easter to Palestine. Soviet government applied already for their visas. You say that people will think that it is an avantguard of the Red Army. That is true. Everything is used to throw suspicion on us.

   Anyway, I think that we must do everything to help you and when you will have the Jewish state don’t forget that I am one deserves a medal for the help in establishing this state.

注释

8. In 1945, 17 Soviet Muslims had been allowed to make the bajj-the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina on the occasion of ‘Id-Adba. (The previous year, the first time the bajj had been permitted in 20 years, just 6 had gone.) The 1945 delegation- the last one to go until 1953- was headed by the chairman of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the chairman of the Central Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Inner Russia, and the Deputy chairman of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Inner Russia, and the deputy chairman of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Transcaucasia.