The Gradual Changes of the Attitude of Czechoslovak Diplomacy toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict during the 1948–1967 Period

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32422/mv-cjir.1795
Keywords: Arab-Israeli conflict, Six-Day War, Czechoslovakia, Middle East, Cold War, Czechoslovak diplomacy

Abstract

This study examines the evolution of Czechoslovak foreign policy towards selected actors of Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948–1967. Once very friendly relations of Czechoslovakia with Israel were soon replaced by a gradually developing cooperation with some Arab actors. However, even this partnership encountered several difficult moments. Despite long-term ideological disputes with Arab nationalist leaders, Czechoslovakia demonstrated unconditional support for the Arab coalition in the Six-Day War (1967), and the pro-Arab orientation had become the unquestionable line of Czechoslovak Middle East policy in the Cold War. Since the article is based on the New Cold War History approach, in addition to the previously unpublished information from the archival documents it also aims to offer a partial interpretation of Czechoslovakia’s diplomatic position as a satellite state of the Soviet Union with regard to its foreign policy strategies towards selected Middle Eastern Third world countries in the first two decades of the Cold War.

Author Biography

Eva Taterová, Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, evataterova@gmail.com

Eva Taterova is a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic. She earned her PhD in International Relations from Masaryk University, Czech Republic, and her M.A. degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. In the spring semester of 2017 she taught Czech history within the Frank A. Belousek Fellowship Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA in the capacity of a visiting scholar. Her research interests include foreign policy and diplomacy of Czechoslovakia during the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, politics and history of the Middle East, and anti-Semitism in Central Europe.

Issue
Vol 57 No 1 (2022)
Section
Research Articles
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