Israel Studies

Israel Studies 4.2 (1999) 121-144

The Desire to Belong Syndrome: Israel and Middle-Eastern Defense, 1948-1954

Elie Podeh

Introduction

Becoming a recognized member of the Middle-Eastern state system has been a permanent target of Israel since its foundation. Ostracized, however, by most Middle-Eastern countries, Israel has been compelled to leapfrog over the Arab circle and establish friendly relations with Western and Eastern states alike. Naturally, the question of foreign policy orientation was a major consideration for the newly-born state. Following a short period of oscillation between East and West (1948-1950)--a policy called "non-identification"--Israel's orientation gradually tilted toward the West. ¹ As a result, it became more involved in world affairs, and its desire to play a part in Western defense plans proportionally increased. Thus, the question of Israel's participation in Western schemes for the defense of the Middle East became acute in the early 1950s.

This article analyzes the Israeli attitude toward strategic cooperation with the West in the Middle East in the early 1950s, and attempts to shed new light on a rather neglected topic, as well as to offer a new framework for understanding Israel's behavior. ² The underlying assumption is that Israel's keen desire to associate itself with Western defense plans should be analyzed within the context of what I term--"the desire to belong syndrome."

Suffering from a growing sense of insecurity and isolation in the face of Arab animosity, Israel aimed to secure Western support in order to consolidate its position in the Middle East. Israel's immediate concerns were to obtain arms, to secure a guarantee of its boundaries as fixed in the armistice agreements (1949), and to be recognized as a major regional player. All these targets could be attained by Israel's association with Western regional defense schemes directed against the Soviet Union in the early 1950s. [End Page 121]

The advantages of being a member in Western alliances were substantial. Thus, Israel's obsession to associate itself with Western plans was not related to fears of the Soviet Union, but to its own peculiar problems in the Middle East as a Jewish state surrounded by a hostile Arab environment. The reason for Israel's failure to become a part of Western defense plans, according to several scholars, was due to the ramifications of the Arab-Israeli conflict--the recognition that the Arab states, with their communication systems, military bases, and oil fields, constituted more of a vital interest to the West than Israel. ³ While not negating this argument, I believe that several Israeli mistakes made during the negotiations with the Western powers over regional defense played a crucial role in Israel's final exclusion from these plans. The most significant was the fact that David Ben-Gurion, the Prime Minister, and Moshe Sharett, the Foreign Minister, conveyed the impression that Israel's cooperation with the West in wartime was assured with only the details left to be worked out. Consequently, the Western powers correctly concluded that any formal defense arrangement was unnecessary, since it would only exacerbate already strained relationships with the Arab states. As a result, Western-Israeli relations suffered from a "mistress syndrome"; while the Arab states became the legal "wife," Israel became a desirable, but hidden, ally. Eventually, however, the West came to realize that the "mistress" was more trustworthy than the legal "wife."

Seeds of Cooperation

Following the 1948 War, Israeli decision-makers were confronted with the dilemma of foreign policy orientation. A neutral stance in international affairs was a natural choice for a young state looking for support both from West and East. Moreover, the prospects of massive Jewish immigration from the Eastern Bloc and the relative strength of the leftist parties in Israeli politics, militated against a tendency toward the West. Consequently, Israeli decision-makers developed a policy known as "non-identification." Yet the long association--sometimes even cooperation--between the Zionist movement and Britain and the United States during the mandate period made Israel more prone to...