Soviet Policy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Actions, Patterns, and Interpretations

Abstract

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev hardly made mention of the Middle East in his five and a half-hour speech to the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). His only comments were, We are in favor of stepping up a collective search for ways to solve conflict situations in the Near and Middle East, in Central America, and southern Africa, and in all the seething points of the planet.' His primary concern in foreign policy was very clearly the United States. He opened with a lengthy discussion of the contradictions in the present world, the chief one being between the two systems of socialism and capitalism. In his section on foreign policy the focus on the United States was overwhelming, even coming before the discussion on the socialist community. The general secretary never got around to discussing the problems of the national liberation movements in the Third World, only the poverty and misery that has resulted from imperial plunder, especially American. He spent more time on the importance of combating terrorism than he did on the need for a just settlement to the Palestinian problem. The party program, of course, gave primary place to cooperation with the Socialist Countries, and strengthening Relations with the Liber-