Cold War Dilemmas, Superpower Influence, and Regional Interests: Greece and the Palestinian Question, 1947–1949

Abstract

This article discusses official attitudes toward the creation of the state of Israel from the eruption of the postwar international crisis in Palestine until the end of Arab-Israeli War of 1948–1949. In 1947–1949, Greek policy toward the Middle East was determined by a mix of regional, political, and ideological factors: the Greek security problem during the early Cold War era, including the Greek civil war; the existence of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem; the Greek government's need to take into account the position of the Greek diaspora community in Egypt; commercial interests in the Eastern Mediterranean; anti-Semitism; the need to secure Arab votes in support of the Greek question before the United Nations; and relations between Greece and its new superpower patron, the United States. Greek decisions were dominated by Cold War needs, but the United States did not impose policy on its junior partner.