If Israel lost the war

Emperor of Scandinavia

Overall this is a wonderful book. I decided to buy this book because I saw it mentioned on this site!!!

So ive finished the book and here are some interesting things:

Robert Kennedy is not killed by Sirhan Sirhan.

President Lynon Johnson resigns. Hubert Horatio Humphrey becomes president.

West Germany orders america to withdraw forces from germany. It also withdraws its forces from NATO command.

Gaullism is on the rise in France

A similar movement is on the rise in the UK

The socialist government in Japan wants american forces out of the country.

China decides to heal the Sino-Soviet Rift

There is a United Arab Republic

China enteres the Vietnam war

An Algerian style restistance grows in Israel.

A Few thoughts and ideas.

1-If west germany withdraws its forces from NATO, boots U.S forces out of the country, would it join the block of unaligned nations or would it join the Warsaw Pact?

2-Without France and the UK in NATO, does the organization dissolve? What could a rump NATO made up of Italy,Netherlands,Turkey,Greece,Italy,Denmark,Norway, Belgium,Luxembourg,Portugal,Canada, and the U.S.A really do?
(What is NATO good for. Absolutely Nothing!!!)

3-If china heals the rift with the USSR, then the communist block will have more strength and presumably more unity. Presumably there will be no opening up of China by an american president?

4-If China joins in the Vietnam war, does america fold and withdraw or does the next president escelate the war?

In 1967 the United Arab Republic consists of Lebanon,Syria,Jordan, and Egypt.

Pro Nasser states are Morocco,Algeria,Libya,Tunisia,Iraq,Saudia Arabia,

5-How long does this United Arab Republic last? 5 years? 10 years?

6-Since Robert Kennedy was not assassinated, he is facing Richard Nixon in 1968. Who stands the better chance of winning?

7-Would the Israeli insurgency succeed in liberating israel?

Im thinking probally not because is Israel is small and should be relatively easy to occupy. Nasser certainly wont give up despite losing many thousands of soldiers. Nasser will go to the ends of the earth to avoid losing Israel.

This situation is certainly much different from the French in Algeria. For one Algeria is a much larger area to occupy than Israel.

So here are some thoughts and questions. What do you all think?
 

Laurentia

Banned
Emperor Norton I said:
Does this remind anyone else of the opening crawl for Red Dawn?
Click to expand...

Soviet Union suffers worst wheat harvest in 55 years...
Labor and food riots in Poland. Soviet troops invade...
Cuba and Nicaragua reach troop strength goals of 500,000. El Salvador and Honduras fall...
Greens Party gains control of West German Parliament. Demands withdrawal of nuclear weapons from European soil...
Mexico plunged into revolution...
NATO dissolves. United States stands alone.
 

Leistungsfähiger Amerikan

Mr. Emperor of Scandinavia, could you give the reasons some of the events occurred? They all seem sort of random and unrelated to me, but perhaps if I understood more background, I could comment. On another note, is the book worth picking up? Did you like it?
 

Emperor of Scandinavia

Leistungsfähiger Amerikan said:
Mr. Emperor of Scandinavia, could you give the reasons some of the events occurred? They all seem sort of random and unrelated to me, but perhaps if I understood more background, I could comment. On another note, is the book worth picking up? Did you like it?
Click to expand...

Yes I really enjoyed the book and i say it is certainly worth buying from amazon. The price I paid for the book was really cheap. Yes prepososterously cheat. The book was less than $5.00.

Now on to the substance.

Instead of what happened IRL with the Israeli airforce striking first and destroying the arab airforces; it is the other way around. On june 5th the arab airforce destroys israel's airforce on the ground.

Like IRL the 6 day war in this book also lasts 6 days. The state of Israel is desroyed and partioned between Egypt,Jordab,Syria,and Lebanon. They begin the process of ethnically cleansing the territory that was Israel.

Lyndon Johnson does not intervene in the middle east war because it looks like the Soviets will back up their Egyptian allies if the U.S intervenes.

Johnson becomes extremely unpopular and resigns in the hope that Humphrey will be able to better lead america in the world.

The west Germans withdraw their troops from Nato command becausethey beleive if the soviets invade, then america will abandon them like they did to israel.

France has withdrawn from Nato, and it looks like Britain will soon do the same. They do that because if america isnt standing behind their allies,so France and the U.K are going to go it on their own or find new allies.

Robert Kennedy is not killed because Sirhan Sirhan goes home to gloat in the victory over israel with his arab brothers.

Robert Kennedy soon goes on to win the Democratic nomination to face off against Nixon.

The moderates in china decide to once again buddy up with the USSR because it looks like the cold war advantage has shifted toward the communists. China allows soviet planes to use bases in china. President Humphrey puts in 225,000 troops into vietnam making the american troop total 1,050,000. The chinese send in several hundered thousand troops to aid the north.

The united arab republic is made up of middle eastern and north african muslim countries. Not all members are happy to have joined. Lebanon is not happy about being forced to join, Iraq joined voluntary before it was forced to join, King hussein of Jordan was assassinated and then the govt was taken over by a cabal of pro Nasser politicans/generals who joined the UAR. Saudia Arabia is placating Nasser with territory on the southern arabian peninsula in the hope that nasser will stop there. Iran under the Shah is in the gunsights of Nasserwho might soon try to take him out. Algeria and Libya are independent pro Nasser states.

Brezhnev is taking a new tough line by appointing a new bunch of Hardliners/ war hawks: Marshal Ivan Jakubovsky as commander of the Warsaw pact forces to replace Grechko, KGB chief Yuri Andropov to replace Suslov in the politburo. Also soviet missles were put at a second degree alert,7 missle firing submarines were dispatched to the south china sea, and the dispatch of four wings of Sukhoi-7 tactical bombers to Nanning airforce base in China.

The socialist Japanese govt is trying to throw its cards in with the "winning side" that being the Warsaw Pact and international communism. So japan is trying to get U.S soldiers to leave Japan.

this is all because america let the arabs destroy the small and democratic state of israel in the middle east.

I think this should be a descent description for now. If i can find more info i will post.
 

B_Munro

Over-the-top pro-Israel propaganda: from the Wikipedia article:

"The three writers had the openly proclaimed aim of helping Israel's case in international public opinion, and justifying its act in having been in actual history the one to attack first. This aim is evident in the book's numerous depictions of atrocities committed by the victorious Arab armies, including detailed depictions of the mass rape of Israeli women, the public execution of Moshe Dayan by the Egyptian occupiers of Tel Aviv and the appointment of Nazi war criminals to run the Arab occupiers' secret police." [1]

One of its authors is still preaching to the right wing choir in his writings... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Hillary

Bruce

[1] Plus, it's really insulting to the Israeli military to show them as so totally overwhelmed: as an Israeli reviewer of the time mentioned, it if anything might give Arabs an unrealistic picture of their own chances... :)
 

galveston bay

B_Munro said:
Over-the-top pro-Israel propaganda: from the Wikipedia article:

"The three writers had the openly proclaimed aim of helping Israel's case in international public opinion, and justifying its act in having been in actual history the one to attack first. This aim is evident in the book's numerous depictions of atrocities committed by the victorious Arab armies, including detailed depictions of the mass rape of Israeli women, the public execution of Moshe Dayan by the Egyptian occupiers of Tel Aviv and the appointment of Nazi war criminals to run the Arab occupiers' secret police." [1]

One of its authors is still preaching to the right wing choir in his writings... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Hillary

Bruce

[1] Plus, it's really insulting to the Israeli military to show them as so totally overwhelmed: as an Israeli reviewer of the time mentioned, it if anything might give Arabs an unrealistic picture of their own chances... :)
Click to expand...

I read the book in the 1970s (it was in my high school library). It seemed a bit of a reach for me, although not impossibly so after seeing Israel face defeat in the early stages of the October War. The consequences indicated seemed to be a bit further of a reach, and even at 15 years of age I could smell political agenda. But it was no worse than "If the South had Won the Civil War" and was one of the first alternate history books I ever read so it remains memorable.
 

Emperor of Scandinavia

Nevertheless i still found this book quite interesting, and i would recommend it to those who want an unusual read. Part of the reason why i find this book interesting is that Israe is one of the smallest states in the middle east yet is also the most powerful state that keeps everyone else in line. The fact that israel survived to this day was not assured, and that it wasnt crushed in its infancy in the 1948 war of independence is near ASB in itself.
 
NORGCO

NORGCO

Remember the USS Liberty!

I do not believe that the destruction of Israel in 1967 war would result in the consequences described. The consequences are said to be the result of President Johnson letting Israel be destroyed.

Given that the US Sixth Fleet was at one point during the six day war preparing an airstrike against the Israeli Navy and that at this point Israel was aligned more with the French than the USA a failure to ride to the rescue would not be seen as meaning Germany would be abandoned to the Soviets. Germany was critical to the whole Western alliance, Israel was still a somewhat socialist state first recognised by Joseph Stalin and French supported. Take note of the inventory of the Israeli Airforce of the era, its critical equipment is French.

Um, everyone is aware of the USS Liberty incident, right? The Liberty was an intelligence ship sitting off the Israeli coast monitoring the war and the Israeli's spent hours shooting it to pieces, including machine-gunning the lifeboats as the crew tried to abandon ship. The surviving crew insist to this day that there is no way the Israeli's did not know they were killing Americans.

The willingness of the Israeli government to order such an attack indicates the lack of friend and ally status fairly dramatically. Even if it didn't happen in the new timeline that the state of relations was such that it did in OTL indicates that the diplomatic consequences of the loss of Israel would not be too extreme to the USA .
 
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Wendell

I'd be curious to see what a more realistic situation would be resulting from this admittedly problematic POD.
 

B_Munro

Well, for one thing, I suspect the winners would immediately fall out over who got what...flashbacks of the Balkan wars... :)

Bruce
 

gridlocked

Banned
I read and enjoyed the book. The book is the worst case but hardly ASB. A successful surprise attack could have crippled Israel, a country without strategic depth, military allies, and also was much weaker in the mid 60s than today. The 67 War takes place less than 20 years after independence, and the Soviets were generously supplying many of the Arab countries with arms.

I thought the book did a good job especially depicting the Johnson administration whose reactions and debates form the core of the book. The authors ARE sympathetic to (Labour/kibbutz 60s) Israel, which might be a problem for a few on this board.

As to the world after Israel's defeat it is not that crazy, if a bit one sided in the sense that most of the butterflies except the survival of Robert Kennedy favor the Soviets. It has been more than a few years, but if I remember correctly the dominoes fall like this: WARNING SPOILERS

Because Israel was not an US ally, it was not seen by the Johnson Administration (until after a Soviet backed victory) that the destruction of Israel was 'scored' by most as a defeat for the West and that Johnson's dithering made him seem weak. So the President's counter move was a massive escalation to knock the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnam War. This backfires because by early 68 the war in Vietnam is already very unpopular and the US invasion of North Vietnam brings the Chinese into the war despite assurances that this would not happen. With China involved, and no political support at home, the war turns into an even bigger disaster than OTL.

With a defeat in the West and a disaster in Asia the Cold War balance shifts. With America letting a Western democracy be overrun and just a year later Americans openly talking about abandoning South Vietnam, our allies wonder if they can count on the Americans willingness to risk war on their behalf. Nasser rides the wave of pan-Arab nationalism adding more countries to his UAR while being even more dependent on the Soviet technology and Soviet help to keep his new far flung republic together.

The Soviet hardliners gain more power in Moscow and successfully tighten their grip on the Warsaw Pact. Facing Domestic unrest and Soviet Victories, West Germany cuts a deal with the USSR that many on the left have been advocating for a long time. Basically W. Germany becomes a neutral and leaves NATO in return for Soviet guarantees. This wrecks NATO. China without an US diplomatic option (remember Humphrey is President, not Nixon) and with China needing help fighting the Americans in Vietnam decides to patch things up with the successful Russians. With NATO is disarray and anti war protest sweeping the States, Japan's newly elected Socialist question their arrangement with the US.

I believe the book ends with the Soviets winning, but hardly having won the Cold War. So again a worst case, but not ASB.
 
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