During the Cold War, the Soviet Union spent millions funding Palestinian leaders in a proxy war between the U.S. and the USSR. But why would the USSR invest so much time and energy in backing a stateless and largely powerless group of people?

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:51 US-USSR proxy war in the Middle East
1:20 USSR support for Israel
1:51 USSR ends support for Israel
3:17 Stalin’s anti-Zionism campaign
4:07 Soviet-Arab relations
5:46 Palestinians as USSR proxy
6:16 Palestinian identity before 1948
7:45 Arab nationalism and a Palestinian state
9:36 KGB recruits Yasser Arafat
10:26 1967 Six Day War
11:00 The KGB funds of PLO terrorism
11:31 Arafat's Soviet Romanian handler
11:53 The KGB cleans up Arafat’s image

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Image and footage credits:
Passia.org
Dan Hadani Collection, The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, The National Library of Israel
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Executive Producer:
— Barry Skolnick
Co-Executive Producer:
— Shmuel Katz
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Translation credits:
Portuguese: Saymon Pires, www.livrariasafra.com.br, @safralivraria

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