During the postwar years, Beria supervised the establishment of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and chose their Soviet-backed leaders. Starting in 1948, Abakumov initiated several investigations against these leaders, which culminated with the arrest in November 1952 of Rudolf Slánský, Bedřich Geminder and others in Czechoslovakia. These men were frequently accused of Zionism, "rootless cosmopolitanism", and providing weapons to Israel. Such charges deeply disturbed Beria, as he had directly ordered the sale of large amounts of Czech arms to Israel. Altogether, fourteen Czechoslovak communist leaders, eleven of them Jewish, were tried, convicted and executed as part of Soviet policy to woo Arab nationalists, which culminated in the major Czech-Egypt arms deal of 1955.How Rivalries End, Karen Rasler et al. p.39
