Four years after the Soviet Union broke off relations with Israel, Gazit sat across from its envoys in a secret channel, Yevgeny PrimakovSoviet orientalist and envoy in the secret channel to Moscow; later Prime Minister of Russia.What they wanted: To test whether Israel could be influenced without renewing relations, and to strengthen Moscow’s place in the peace process.More on Yevgeny Primakov in “People and events” → among them, and passed the reports directly to Golda MeirPrime Minister, 1969–1974. Gazit headed her office twice: when she was Foreign Minister in the late 1950s, and as Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office from 1973.What they wanted: Security for Israel, and peace through direct negotiation, without a return to the 1967 lines.More on Golda Meir in “People and events” →.
A fork in the road
Talk to the power arming the enemy?
Talk, in secret
The price: Arousing suspicion in Washington, the main ally.
Stay silent
The price: Perhaps missing a shift in Moscow’s position.
And what happened?
The contacts went on in secret, and continued even after an Austrian paper exposed them in April 1975. No breakthrough came.
Sources (1)
- Yair Even — Secret talks with Moscow Diplomatic record
Israel and the world
Severed relations
The USSR had severed relations with Israel.