ABSTRACT

In the late 1960s to early 1970s the Soviet Union frequently reiterated the tenet that the nature and extent of Jewish emigration from the USSR to Israel were inextricably linked with the ‘Middle East crisis’. Although other factors besides the Middle East influenced Moscow’s stand on this emigration, notably Soviet domestic considerations and Soviet relations with the West, particularly the USA, it can indeed be ascertained that the issue of Jewish emigration played a role in Soviet-Arab relations in this period.