Finding the ultimate pipe: Israel's covert activity to protect the rights of the Jewish community in Turkey (1960–1961)

Abstract

How can a state advocate on behalf of a diaspora community whose minority rights are threatened in a foreign country without appearing as intervening in this country's domestic affairs, thereby jeopardizing their bilateral relations? This is precisely the dilemma that Israel faced in 1960 when the Turkish government decided to close the national Jewish institutions in Turkey at a time when Israeli-Turkish relations were becoming increasingly amicable. On the one hand, Israel wanted to act, but on the other, it did not want to jeopardize its relations with Turkey, a country very sensitive to issues of national sovereignty and minorities. Wanting to intervene but fearing an adverse reaction from Ankara, Israeli diplomats decided to secretly mobilize B'nai B'rith, a Jewish-American organization. Based on primary sources from Israeli and B'nai B'rith archives, we analyze the Israeli decision to intervene, its mode of implementation, and the challenges faced by Israeli officials concerning their interactions with the Jewish actors in Turkey and the United States. We present a form of multilateral diaspora engagement taking place in multiple geographies in which one Jewish diaspora—the Jewish-American organization B'nai B'rith—was mobilized by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to perform unofficial diplomacy in the aid of another Jewish diaspora—the Jewish community in Turkey—for the purpose of reopening the latter's communal institutions. Looking at the motivations for engagement and the balances of power shaping it, we offer a new look on the dynamics of claiming and agency between states and diasporas.