Arms shipments from Czechoslovakia to Israel 1947–49

In 1945 the the Jewish agency (later to become the Israeli government) and its armed wing the Haganah began a terroristic campaign of bombings and assassinations, against British officials and Palestinian civilians, in an attempt to overthrow the British Mandatory Government of Palestine and establish the State of Israel despite of the strenous and vocal opposition of the native Palestinian majority. In alliance with criminal terror gangs such as the Lehi, Irgun and Stern Gang, they carried out numerous bombings of marketplaces, villages, railway infrastructure and courts resulting in a large number civilian casualties and deaths.[1] Realising the need for more advanced and numerous weapons for its planned war, the Jewish agency began to clandestinely purchase weapons on the international market, in a secret operation codenamed Operation Balak .

The vast majority of the weapons were supplied to them by the Czechoslovak Communist regime which had seized power in the 1948 February coup and included large numbers of tanks, fighter aircraft and assorted light and heavy weapons. The Czech regime also undertook to train large numbers of Zionist soldiers and technicians on Czechoslovakian soil. The upper ranks of the regime were heavily Jewish as evidenced by the 1952 trial of General-Secretary Rudolf Slánský who along with 13 colleagues (10 of whom were Jews) was arrested and charged with being a Titoist and Zionist and subsequently executed. (see Slansky Trial)

The weapons delivered from Czechoslovakia proved to be of paramount importance for the establishment of Israel leading prime minister Ben-Gurion, to declare in 1968: (these weapons) “saved the country ... The Czech arms deal was the greatest help we then had ... without it, I very much doubt we could have survived the first month”.[2]

They were also used in the subsequent expulsions of more than 700,000 Palestinian Civilians, from their native land, an event know in Palestinian histography as the Nakba (catastrophe) and which historians argue were designed to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous populace to make space for immigrant Jews.[3][4]* Pappé, Ilan (2006). The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld. ISBN 978-1-85168-555-4. 

The arms contracts and deliveries

In June 1947 the Jewish agency realising the need for more advanced and numerous weapons for its planned self-styled War of Independence, attempted to clandestinely purchase weapons, some of them of former German army weapons, captured by the Czechoslovak army on its national territory. Upon discovery these attempts were stopped by the Czech government of President Benes. However at the insistence of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet government who at the time were strong supporters of Zionism, the Czech goverment capitualted and on January 14, 1948, Jan Masaryk, the Czech foreign minister signed an arms sale agreement overseen by Ivan Maisky, a Jewish Soviet diplomat, who played a key role in negotiations with the Zionist movement[5]

Under the aegis of the new regime led the arms shipments took tangible form and increased exponentially in quantity. Not only were large numbers of tanks, fighter aircraft and assorted light and heavy weapons supplied but the Czech government undertook to train large numbers of Zionist soldiers on Czechoslovakian soil. Amongst these were large groups of Jewish volunteers the size of approximately a brigade (about 1,300 men) trained, from August 20, 1948 until November 4, 1948 and numerous pilots technicians and maintenance mechanics.[6]

A telling example of Czechoslovak Communist support for Israel occured when the Government of Syria bought and paid for a quantity of Czechoslovakian arms for the Arab Liberation Army but the shipment was re-routed to Zionists in Palestine due to Haganah intervention.[7]

The regime and in particular the General-Secretary of the Communist party Rudolf Slánský and the intelligence chief and deputy Defence minister Bedřich Reicin, were enthusiastic supporters of the Zionists and did much to expidite the arms transfers. Upon Slánský's overthrow in 1951 these actions would be used as evidence to label him and his colleagues Zionists and sentence them to death in the Slansky trial, a famous staged "show trial". (See Below)

Deliveries

The first shipment of two hundred rifles, forty MG-34 machine guns, and bullets, secretly landed during the night of 31 March–1 April at a makeshift airfield at Beit Daras in a chartered American Skymaster cargo plane. The second larger shipment, covered with onions and potatoes— of forty-five hundred rifles and two hundred machine guns, with bullets, arrived at Tel Aviv port aboard the Nora on 2 April. (A third shipment of ten thousand rifles, 1,415 machine guns, and bullets, reached the Yishuv by sea on 28 April.) At last, the Haganah command had at hand a stockpile of thousands of weapons that it could freely deploy. The two shipments proved decisive. Without doubt, of all the shipments that subsequently reached the Yishuv, none was to have greater immediate impact or historical significance."[8]

The first shipment of two hundred rifles, forty MG-34 machine guns, and bullets, secretly landed during the night of 31 March–1 April at a makeshift airfield at Beit Daras in a chartered American Skymaster cargo plane. The second larger shipment, covered with onions and potatoes— of forty-five hundred rifles and two hundred machine guns, with bullets, arrived at Tel Aviv port aboard the Nora on 2 April. (A third shipment of ten thousand rifles, 1,415 machine guns, and bullets, reached the Yishuv by sea on 28 April.) At last, the Haganah command had at hand a stockpile of thousands of weapons that it could freely deploy. The two shipments proved decisive. Without doubt, of all the shipments that subsequently reached the Yishuv, none was to have greater immediate impact or historical significance."[8]

==Slánský trial

Main article: Slánský trial

In November 1952 Slánský and 13 other high-ranking Communist bureaucrats (10 of whom were Jews) were arrested and charged with being Titoists and Zionists, official USSR rhetoric having turned against Zionism, though official relations would not be severed until 1953.Party rhetoric asserted that Slánský was spying as part of an international western capitalist conspiracy to undermine socialism and that punishing him would avenge the Nazi murders of Czech communists Jan Šverma and Julius Fučík during World War II. Whatever the case, Slánský was hurt by his image as a "Zionist" figure (he was Jewish, at a time when, throughout the Eastern bloc, Jewish communist leaders who lead the recently Soviet installed regimes, were being used as scapegoats by Stalin for shortages and economic problems). Though his and his associates considerable material and diplomatic support to Israel lend credence to at least some of these accusations.

These allowed his former ally Gottwald and Minister of Defence Antonín Zápotocký, both populists, to tar him with charges of belonging to the bourgeoisie. Slánský and his allies were also unpopular with and opposed by old-time party members, the government, and the party’s Political Bureau. In prison after his arrest, Slánský was tortured and he attempted suicide. The trial of the 14 national leaders began on 20 November 1952. As in the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s, the defendants were craven in court, admitting guilt and requesting to be punished with death. Slánský was found guilty of "Trotskyite-Titoist-Zionist activities in the service of American imperialism" and publicly[9] hanged at Pankrác Prison on 3 December 1952.

The remaining accused and their fates are given below:

References

  1. ↑ "Jewish Terrorism under the British Mandate". Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle-east.
  2. ↑ Bialer, Uri (1990). Between East and West: Israel’s Foreign Policy Orientation 1948-1956,. Cambridge University Press.
  3. ↑ Rosemarie Esber (2008). Under the cover of war.
  4. ↑ Nur-eldeen Masalha (1991). Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought.
  5. ↑ Réal, Michel. "The forgotten alliance". Le Mond Diplomatique. Le Mond Diplomatique.
  6. ↑ (Czech)Czech army page
  7. ↑ Yoav Gelber (1 January 2006). Palestine 1948: War, Escape And The Emergence Of The Palestinian Refugee Problem. Sussex Academic Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-84519-075-0. Retrieved 13 July 2013. In December 1947 Syria bought a quantity of small arms from the Skoda plant in Czechoslovakia for the ALA. Jewish saboteurs blew up the ship that carried the cargo to the Middle East and sank it in the Italian port of Bari. The arms were later salvaged and reshipped in August 1948 to Syria — this time for arming Palestinian combatants — but the Israeli navy intercepted the freight and seized the weapons.
  8. 1 2 Morris,2008,p.117, "The first shipment—of two hundred rifles, forty MG-34 machine guns, and 160,000 bullets—secretly landed during the night of 31 March–1 April at a makeshift airfield at Beit Daras in a chartered American Skymaster cargo plane.29 A second and far larger shipment, covered with onions and potatoes— of forty-five hundred rifles and two hundred machine guns, along with five million bullets—arrived at Tel Aviv port aboard the Nora on 2 April. (A third shipment—consisting of ten thousand rifles, 1,415 machine guns, and sixteen million rounds— reached the Yishuv by sea on 28 April.) Before this, the Haganah high command had had to “borrow” weapons from local units for a day or two for specific operations, and the units (and settlements) were generally reluctant to part with weapons, quite reasonably arguing that the Arabs might attack while the weapons were on loan. Now, at last, the Haganah command had at hand a stockpile of thousands of weapons that it could freely deploy. The two shipments proved decisive. As Ben-Gurion put it at the time, “After we have received a small amount of the [Czech] equipment . . . the situation is radically different in our favor.” Without doubt, of all the shipments that subsequently reached the Yishuv, none was to have greater immediate impact or historical significance."
  9. ↑ Brent, Jonathan and Naumov, Vladimir P., Stalin's Last Crime, John Murray (Publishers), London, 2003, page 191
  10. ↑ Ministerstvo spravedlnosti, Proces s vedením protistátního spikleneckého centra v čele s Rudollfem Slánským, Orbis Praha 1953

Sources

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