Jewish flight from the
USSR alternative "promised lands". For its part, the United States made the establishment of a direct air link between the USSR and Israel a condition for the USSR getting "most favored nation" status in commercial relations — it was granted to almost all the East European countries in 1989.
The Soviet Union has hesitated somewhat, and for the moment has preferred to
A MASSIVE GENERAL STRIKE by Palestinians in February confronted international public opinion with the problem of large-scale immigration of Soviet Jews into Israel, where the
Shamir government is trying to convince them to settle in the territories occupied in 1967. This problem is not new, but up until now the PLO leadership has sought to solve it through diplomatic negotiations with the USSR. However, as the
Palestinians have learned several times to their cost, this method is not very effective unless it is combined with more concrete forms of pressure.
ANTONIO MOSCATO
ORBACHEV is subject to all
G sorts of pressures, almost always much more effective than those of the PLO. First of all, there is an international campaign on human rights (which was started before he took the leadership of the CPSU and which has not been interrupted), which has pressed him to let citizens belonging to oppressed groups whose right to emigrate is supported by a state, or even groups of compatriots abroad, to leave the
USSR.
The right to emigrate has been very widely granted not only to Jews but also to Volga Germans and Armenians.
The
Volga Germans were victims of Stalin, deported from their home areas during the second world war as "Germans"
and therefore potential supporters of Hitler, although they had settled in Russia two centuries before, and supported Soviet power at the time of the revolution. They were allowed to emigrate on the basis of an accord with West Germany, which financed their move.
Armenian emigration encouraged
The Armenians were authorized to leave both because of a campaign waged by the diaspora communities and in order to defuse a factor of instability (the departure of the least controllable elements and those who inhabited the areas bordering
Azeri populations has been favored).
Over the last three decades, Jewish emigration has been subject to very inconsistent legislation.
The rules have always been conditioned by negotiations with the
United States (and therefore with the powerful Jewish institutions and the pro-
Israeli lobby — although these do not automatically agree — which wield considerable weight in American political life), but not directly with Israel.
On the other hand, especially over the last ten years, 70 to 90% of Soviet citizens who got an exit visa because of their Jewish origins stopped in Vienna or Rome to wait for a visa for the United States or Canada. In fact, among the small minority that agreed to go to Israel there were a certain number of persons who were not even of Jewish origin, but were just looking for more comfortable lodging than that provided by the Italian authorities in Ostia or Ladispoli (small satellite towns of Rome).
Today, the situation has changed radically. For various reasons, the USSR has begun a rapprochement with Israel, with which it has reestablished diplomatic relations. Face-to-face meetings between representatives of the Soviet and Israeli governments — which occurred already in secret in the Brezhnev years - have multiplied and gone public.
Moreover, Gorbachev and Shevarnadze have gone well beyond the formality of reestablishing public relations with Israel. They have agreed to discuss with Israeli representatives the conditions for what amounts to the deportation of the Soviet Jews, without admitting this to international public opinion. This, moreover, has rightly aroused the indignation of the democratic, anti-racist minority in the Jewish community in Israel.
To prevent the 90 to 95% of Jewish emigrants who show not the slightest interest in "returning to the land of their ancestors" from going to other countries, the Israeli leaders have pursued two courses. They successfully demanded that the United States block immigration permits granted by other countries. Secondly, they negotiated an air link between Moscow and Tel-Aviv to stop any running away to permit only rare direct flights, giving priority to flights through Bucharest (whose air link with Israel was never interrupted, thanks to the good relations that Causescu maintained with Tel Aviv) or via Budapest, where a link with Israel was recently re-established in the context of Hungary's rapprochement with the United States and European imperialism. What is more, in the wake of the 1989 upsets, Czechoslovakia, Poland and East Germany have resumed diplomatic relations with Israel.
This attitude is not only due to external pressures. In many of these countries (first of all Poland, where some decades ago a "Communist" minister, Moczar, had an army printing house reprint the Protocols of Zion), official "anti-Zionism" has had an anti-semitic undercurrent that has led a number of oppositionists to distrust any criticisms of Israel, even well-founded ones.
The same so-called Communist governments went on to characterize as "progressive" many Arab regimes that not only did not deserve this appelation but aroused a strong hostility among the Soviet, Czech and East German peoples because of the arrogance and corruption of their representatives, whose privileges made them resemble the local bureaucrats.
"Fraternal aid" spent on weapons
What is more, the idea began to spread among citizens of the Soviet Union and the East European countries that their privations were the result of the generosity with which their governments had been offering "fraternal aid" to these regimes, which the latter used mainly to buy weapons.
Thus, Gorbachev and the leaders of the hybrid regimes set up from Berlin to Bucharest after the 1989 political earthquakes, have certainly not had to confront any popular pressure on behalf of the Palestinians. Instead, they are faced by a favorable attitude to Israel that has arisen on the rebound against the policy followed in the past. But this factor is not decisive (these leaders have been able quite effectively to resist many other demands by their peoples). The real problem is why so many Soviet citizens are ready to use any pretext today to emigrate, and why their number includes so many Jews.
First of all, you have to understand the worries of most Soviet citizens about the worsening of all their country's problems, 11 when there is no hint of any solution on July 16, 1990 • #189 International Viewpoint
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