USSR and ISRAEL

I don't think it is that simple Stevve, brayen has raised a point that doesn't get raised very often. It was the USSR which first funded and armed the young Israeli state. I think it is overly simple to say that the USSR was an imperialist state. You are right that it was a bastardised form of "communism" where the working class increasingly lost out to a growing bureaucracy, but at the same time it was fundamentally different to imperialist countries. For a start it had a nationalised economy, not a capitalist market economy. Secondly it did not export capital and compete for spheres of influence in the same way that the imperialist countries did. The USSR was quite happy to compromise as long as "their" national borders were safe (in fact the USSR was never safe as long as it existed alongside imperialism)

brayen, to address your question, what we have to remember is that a lot of the Jews who moved to Palestine were communists and had traditions in the European labour movements. It is worth mentioning that the Labour movement in Israel played a massive part in building the state. Today Histadrut, the trade union federation, is still one of the biggest employers and collective farming (the Kibbutzim) was widespread in early Israel. It is natural then that hundreds of thousands of Jews in Palestine would have looked to the USSR as an alternative and infact the USSR saw that they could get an important point of support there in what is a strategically important defensive region.

It wasn't obvious in the least that Israel would become a tool of imperialism. In fact the British preferred to rest on the weak Arab monarchies in the region - the idea of creating a regional super power was the last thing on their mind! The imperialists wanted to divide and rule. Can I just say, if you want to learn more about the history of Israel and Palestine and the role that the imperialists played, you must read these articles:

http://www.marxist.com/israel-palestine-history130902.htm
http://www.marxist.com/israel-turns-60.htm

Of course Israel was a nationalist endeavour (although you should be very careful in using the term fascist - particularly in connection with Israel) but the Stalinist USSR was very nationalistic as well - this was never a problem.