Arms shipments from Czechoslovakia to Israel 1947–1949

Between June 1947 and October 31, 1949 the Jewish agency (later to become the Israeli government) seeking weapons for Operation Balak, made several purchases of weapons in Czechoslovakia, some of them of former German army weapons, captured by the Czechoslovak army on its national territory, or newly produced German weapons from Czechoslovakia's post-war production. In this deal, sale activities of Czechoslovak arms factories were coordinated by a special-purpose department of the Československé závody strojírenské a kovodělné, n.p. (Czechoslovak Metal-Working and Engineering Works, Nat.Ent.) Holding, called Sekretariát D (Secretariat D), headed by Gen. Jan Heřman (ret.).

The deliveries from Czechoslovakia proved important for the establishment of Israel.

The first contract was signed on January 14, 1948, by Jan Masaryk, the Czech foreign minister. Ideology played no role in these initial transaction. They were exclusively commercial. The contract included 200 MG 34 machine guns, 4,500 P 18 rifles and 50,400,000 rounds of ammunition.

Syria bought from Czechoslovakia a quantity of arms for the Arab Liberation Army but the shipment arrived in Israel due to Haganah intervention.

After the Communist coup d'état in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, military support for the nascent state of Israel increased temporarily. However, Stalin's briefly held policy of support for the state of Israel soon evaporated, and in the wake of the Tito–Stalin split, all Communist Parties had to put their foreign policy in lockstep with the Kremlin's to prove their loyalty. In this context the Czechoslovak Communists ended weapons sales to Israel. Subsequently, Stalin carried out an international purge of Communist Party officials suspected of sympathy for nationalist or Jewish variations of communism. The Communist foreign minister Vladimír Clementis, who had been the main supporter in the Czechoslovak government of the arms exports to Israel, fell victim to this purge in the Slánský trial.

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