MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES Department of International Relations and European Studies Study Field International Relations The Influence of Czechoslovakia on the Establishment of the State Israel Bachelor's thesis Veronika Frankovská Supervisor: PhDr. Vladimír Černý, PhD. UČO: 333308 Study Field: MV-ZU Year of Enrollment: 2008 Brno, 2011 I hereby declare that I wrote the submitted work “The Influence of Czechoslovakia on the Establishment of the State Israel” on my own, and that the only data and sources I used are mentioned in the thesis. Brno, the 2nd of May 2011 …………………………………. Veronika Frankovská 2 I would like to thank my supervisor PhDr. Vladimír Černý, PhD. for his guidance, advice and encouragement throughout the writing of my Bachelor’s thesis. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................5 2. Historical context....................................................................................................................7 2.1 Jews and the Czechoslovak Republic...............................................................................7 2.2 T. G. Masaryk and the support of Zionism......................................................................9 3. The fight for a Jewish state...................................................................................................11 3.1 The attitude of the world towards the establishment of the Jewish state.......................11 3.2 Diplomatic support of the USSR and Czechoslovakia...................................................12 3.3 The situation of Jews in Czechoslovakia and the reasons behind the support...............15 3.4 Jewish refugees and emigrants.......................................................................................16 4. On the brink of war...............................................................................................................19 4.1 The official stance of the Powers and UN......................................................................19 4.2 Czechoslovakia agrees to help.......................................................................................20 4.3 Specifications of the military aid....................................................................................23 4.4 The transports of the shipments......................................................................................24 4.5 The international reaction on arms sales........................................................................26 5. The change towards cold relations........................................................................................28 6. How Israel perceives the help of Czechoslovakia today.......................................................31 7. Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................33 8. Bibliography and sources......................................................................................................35 4 1. Introduction Czechoslovakia and Israel are connected in various eras of their history and the relations between the states are very warm in the present. In my work, I focus on the essential collaboration of these two countries before the actual establishment of the State Israel, which contributed to the founding of the state itself and enabled Israel to survive the first test of its complicated future – the War of Independence, called “The Catastrophe” by Arabs, when it had to face united surrounding Arabian countries and did so successfully. The major inspiration to this work was given by the Israeli ambassador in Prague, His Excellency Yaakov Levi, who spoke of T. G. Masaryk with great respect – even greater than our own country often does – during his presentation at Masaryk University. Most of the students listening to him were unaware of the close ties between Czechoslovakia and Israel. I believe that this knowledge should become much more common, what can be achieved if the issue is opened and discussed. At the same time, it should not be narrowed down and simplified to a selfless act of help which was put to an end by the communist coup ďétat in February 1948, as often mistakenly presented. The aim of my work is to try and explain the reasons and motives that led to the support of Israel and offer various perspectives on the issue. The theme of Czechoslovakia and Israel was thoroughly described in a monograph by Moshe Yegar, former Israeli ambassador in Prague, titled “Czechoslovakia, Zionism, Israel”, written in 1997. A very good source is also a study by Karel Kaplan, “Czechoslovakia and Israel in Years 1947 – 1953”, which was published along with a work by Jiří Dufek and Vladimír Šlosar on “Czechoslovak Material and Technical Assistance to Israel” in 1993. Another academic who was well educated in this issue was professor Vladimír Nálevka. This historian, specialized on Latin America and modern history, was participating in a very interesting interview on the topic that I also use as a source of information. Unfortunately, he passed away on the 6th of June 2010. I didn't have the chance to contact him but it made me feel that it is even more pressing to increase the awareness of this part of our history among the younger generation. In search of information about some parts of the Czechoslovak support of Israel and to clear out ambiguities, I did research in the archives of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Czech Republic and I found lots of valuable material in there. 5 The first part of the work introduces the situation of Jews in Czechoslovak republic and puts the Czechoslovak-Israeli relations into historical context. The Jews experienced a change in their position with the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak republic, as the Constitution of Czechoslovakia from year 1920 officially recognized Jewish nationality and their minority rights. I purposely avoid the era of the World War II (WWII), as it is a complicated part in history of both Jewish nation and Czechoslovakia and the connections and influences are few and irrelevant for the purpose of the work. The fight for the Jewish state was fully resumed after the war had ended. Thus the next part of the work summarizes the situation of establishment of the independent State Israel and the Czechoslovak diplomatic support on the grounds of United Nations General Assembly. It also covers the situation of Jews in Czechoslovakia and neighboring countries, and their emigration to Palestine. Even more essential than the diplomatic support was the material help; The Israeli lacked properly armed army and were fully aware that the Arabian countries plan to attack after the withdrawal of the British troops from the region. However, USA, followed by UN, imposed an arms embargo on Middle East. Czechoslovakia was one of the few countries that was willing to deal with the Jewish Agency, who represented the Jewish nation until the founding of the state, and to provide the needed weapons and aircrafts. The final parts of the work briefly cover the years that followed in which the relations of Czechoslovakia and Israel deteriorated under the influence of international factors, mainly the shift of stance of USSR towards Israel, and the era after the velvet revolution when they became positive again. 6 2. Historical context 2.1 Jews and the Czechoslovak Republic Jewish communities have been present in the territories of future Czechoslovakia since the beginning of the second millennium. They have been discriminated and given advantages, persecuted or supported, depending on the ruler and the country's situation, and very often the target of hatred among the Christian population. But Jews living in diaspora had little option but to accept such treatment. The community in the 17th century Prague consisted of 10,000 people, which was a remarkable number for its time. The breaking point of the ways of their life was the rule of Joseph II, who issued the Patent of Toleration in 1781.1 This royal edict extended religious freedom to non-Catholic Christian churches, but it also improved the situation of Jews: they were allowed to pursue all branches of commerce. However, they were required to found German-language primary schools or send their children to Christian schools, which led to a majority of Jews speaking German. Throughout the 19th century, Jews were getting more and more integrated into the society and the permission to move into cities made them a typical urban population. They fought for their rights in the 1848 revolution and their position improved after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, when Judaism was finally declared equal to all religions and churches.2 The shield that the Habsburg monarchy provided and their German background made Jews loyal supporters of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the Czech lands, most of their culture and the above-mentioned education stemmed from the German culture and was closely interconnected. Therefore it came as no surprise that Jewish minority didn't welcome the split of the monarchy at the end of World War I (WWI). The chaos it brought to cities meant the hazard of riots and pogroms for them, as often any kind of change in government did. It took them a while to get accustomed to the newborn Czechoslovak republic and start trusting it.3 But the Paris peace conference and the Fourteen points of American president Woodrow Wilson gave Jews good