During 1987 there were a couple of incidents during the Iran-Iraq War where the Saudis downed IRIAF F4 Phantoms which had strayed into their airspace. Could such incidents have potentially escalated into more radical elements of the Iranian armed forces deciding to conduct systematic air-raids against the Saudis ? Would the US then definitely jump in against the Iranians ?
Iran-Iraq War expands- Saudi Arabia gets involved ?
- Thread starter Melvin Loh
- Start date
Iran Loses It's Air Force
The U.S. was not about to cede control of the Persian Gulf or its air space to Iran. Iran will simply lose more aircraft if they try this.
The U.S. was not about to cede control of the Persian Gulf or its air space to Iran. Iran will simply lose more aircraft if they try this.
Hyperion
Banned
But would the US be prepared at the time to commit a large number of forces to an armed conflict? Although the Cold War between the US and USSR is winding down, it is not yet over, and a large number of the forces that fought in the Gulf War in OTL are still needed in Germany in 1987.
If the US became involved in the conflict to protect the Saudis, it is possible that Iran might begin talks with the Saddam regime in hopes of bringing the conflict to a close so that they could free up forces to attack the US. How possible would it be to have a secret Iran-Iraq alliance formed as a result of US involvement in order to fight the US?
If the US became involved in the conflict to protect the Saudis, it is possible that Iran might begin talks with the Saddam regime in hopes of bringing the conflict to a close so that they could free up forces to attack the US. How possible would it be to have a secret Iran-Iraq alliance formed as a result of US involvement in order to fight the US?
Secret Iran-Iraq alliance
After years of bitter war between Iran and Iraq? Not very likely. They hated each other's guts. One of the two nations would need a leadership change for this to happen.
The U.S. carrier task force normally operating in the Straits of Hormuz, plus the Saudi air force would be enough to handle the Iranian air force.
After years of bitter war between Iran and Iraq? Not very likely. They hated each other's guts. One of the two nations would need a leadership change for this to happen.
The U.S. carrier task force normally operating in the Straits of Hormuz, plus the Saudi air force would be enough to handle the Iranian air force.
This could get interesting. Ol Ronnie had cozied up to the Iranians in the arms for hostages deal and this was the middle of Iran-Contra, so this could go one of two ways: (1) either he and his administration play it soft hoping that the Iranians reign themselves in all whilest providing the Saudis with whatever they needed to keep the Iranians in check, or, (2) they bomb the $#!% out of Iranian targets in an attempt to help the Iraqis win the Iran-Iraq War.
Scenario (2) could get VERY interesting since you could have Saddam win the war with a lot of US help. Reagan makes overtures and provides US technology to help Iraq beat the Iranians. In exchange, Reagan demands some limited, token social reforms. Because he beat the big, bad Iranians and brings home some spoils of war, he gets a 5-year pass and he doesn't need to crack down on political opponents. The Allatolah's are kicked out and a less radical, pro-Soviet government takes over in Iran which strikes a peace with Baghdad. Although Saddam is actually stronger militarily in TTL, he has less of a need to attack Kuwait and/or Saudi Arabia because he has the money to pay back the IIW debt. Expect him to develop WMD in the mid 1990's and leave America with a "What have we done????" feeling (please see Pakistan for more details on such a feeling).
Scenario (2) could get VERY interesting since you could have Saddam win the war with a lot of US help. Reagan makes overtures and provides US technology to help Iraq beat the Iranians. In exchange, Reagan demands some limited, token social reforms. Because he beat the big, bad Iranians and brings home some spoils of war, he gets a 5-year pass and he doesn't need to crack down on political opponents. The Allatolah's are kicked out and a less radical, pro-Soviet government takes over in Iran which strikes a peace with Baghdad. Although Saddam is actually stronger militarily in TTL, he has less of a need to attack Kuwait and/or Saudi Arabia because he has the money to pay back the IIW debt. Expect him to develop WMD in the mid 1990's and leave America with a "What have we done????" feeling (please see Pakistan for more details on such a feeling).
Grettir Asmundarsen
Banned
The US Would've IMMEDIATELY Gone to War With Iran
The FDR deal with Ibn Saud stood then and stands today. Inreturn for Saudi oil, the US will GUARANTEE their security. No, Micheal Moore didn't make that up (even if he did make up alot of other stuff).
Were it not for the US guarantee, the Arabian Peninsula might be part of the UAR--as well as Syria and Palestine (both East and West) and of course, Egypt.
Johnson and McNamara gave the okay for Israel's Pearl-Harbor attack on Egypt in 1967 because Nasser had troops in Yemen, thus threatening Saudi Arabia--look it up in any book detailing the Six-Day or June War written in the last fifteen or so years. (LBJ, however, doesn't seem to have given the okay for seizing the West Bank and Golan Heights though.)
The only reason that the US couldn't deal with Nasser was because of the Saudi Guarantee. Nasser's goal was the uniting of the Arab nation under a single flag. The English and French didn't like it because of their interests in Syria and Iraq. Nasser's popularity among all non-royal Arab clans, along with his secularism would've easily united them. (Israel's security was way down on the list for the US gov't--back then.)
Dave Bender said:
The FDR deal with Ibn Saud stood then and stands today. Inreturn for Saudi oil, the US will GUARANTEE their security. No, Micheal Moore didn't make that up (even if he did make up alot of other stuff).
Were it not for the US guarantee, the Arabian Peninsula might be part of the UAR--as well as Syria and Palestine (both East and West) and of course, Egypt.
Johnson and McNamara gave the okay for Israel's Pearl-Harbor attack on Egypt in 1967 because Nasser had troops in Yemen, thus threatening Saudi Arabia--look it up in any book detailing the Six-Day or June War written in the last fifteen or so years. (LBJ, however, doesn't seem to have given the okay for seizing the West Bank and Golan Heights though.)
The only reason that the US couldn't deal with Nasser was because of the Saudi Guarantee. Nasser's goal was the uniting of the Arab nation under a single flag. The English and French didn't like it because of their interests in Syria and Iraq. Nasser's popularity among all non-royal Arab clans, along with his secularism would've easily united them. (Israel's security was way down on the list for the US gov't--back then.)
??? Uh, the immediate concern of Israel was the fact that the bordering Arab states massed the bulk of their armies on her borders, not Nasser's expedition in Yemen. Further, the Egyptian meddling in Yemen was coming to a bad end... by the time of the 6-Day War, Nasser's forces were essentially beaten in Yemen... with or without the approval of the US, Israel would have struck at the Arab airforces... Yemen was a side issue by this time...Grettir Asmundarsen said:
OK, I know that US naval forces were already in action against Iran during Reagan's administration, but I'm not sure about the timing... was it during the war, or afterwards?jclark said:
Grettir Asmundarsen
Banned
Dave Howery said:
Israel my well have attacked Egypt without LBJs okay (but I doubt it--Eshkol had no stomach for war with Egypt; he was interested in the Golan Heights, for the water) anyway but LBJ and McNamara wanted to get rid of Nasser because of Saudi Arabia.
And the Arab armies were not massing on Israel's borders; the Hashemites didn't turn over command of the Arab Legion to Iraq until after Israel's Pearl Harbor atttack. Egypt's army was the only one in a threatening position--and they moved into that because the SovComs were telling Nasser that Israel was preparing to attack Syria. Read up on it, these facts aren't even in contention.
It was a Pearl Harbor attack because it was launched for the same reasons, with the same method. Nasser had moved troops into Sharm el-Shaykh and threatened Israel's Iranian oil supply; FDR had cut off Japan's oil. Cutting off an industrialized country's oil supply is a casus belli: that's why the US is willing to go to war for Saudi Arabia.
What the hell....?!? What ATL do you live in? The Arab nations DID mass armies on Israel's borders for the specific purpose of wiping out Israel. Nasser was the primary reason behind this, mainly due to his desire to distract his people from his failure in Yemen. Nasser started the whole thing by moving forces into the Sinai and demanding that the UN forces leave. Two battalions of Egyptians were moved into Jordan before the pre-emptive strike. You are making it sound as if Israel struck out of the blue with no provocation... that is completely wrong. Basically, the Arabs surrounded Israel with large forces and dared them to come out and fight (I've read contemporary Time and Newsweek from that time, and it's pretty clear). Israel was ringed by 250,000 Arab troops, 2000 tanks, and 700 aircraft BEFORE the pre-emptive strike. Nasser's plan was detailed after the war by a friend of his, who Nasser confided in: essentially, Israel was to be surrounded by overwhelming forces, Egypt would close the Straits of Tiran and hope to provoke Israel into using force to open them, upon which the Arab armies would crush Israel. The pre-emptive strike foiled this plan. It is plainly shown that Israel was initially unprepared for the crisis by the fact that Yitzhak Rabin (Israeli CoS) collapsed in the middle of his frantic work to get the reserves mobilized. The Israeli govt. itself underwent some changes due to the crisis. If Israel had been planning all this ahead of time, they certainly did a poor job of it...
Japan didn't strike out of the blue, either. They just hit where it really wasn't expected.
the difference being we weren't massing for war against them (as proved by the frantic shipbuilding we had to do, and the scarcity of capital ships we had in the Pacific for the first year)...Cloudy Vortex said:
Dave Howery said:
Define "we". Many of us wanted to put the Japanese in their place, enough that Tokyo assumed that we all did. And no one want to Japan to conquer China with no fight from us. Japan wanted to conquer China at all costs and felt they were reasonably invincible.
But you're right. Israel attack is more a hybrid of that and Germany's declaring war on Russia and France in 1914.
Grettir Asmundarsen
Banned
You are simply misinformed. Go to the library and get a book on the subject. US News and World Report's version of it (which is basically what you are spouting) is stilted. Read Moshe Dayan's autobiography.
Among other sources:
Bickerton, Ian J., and Carla L. Klausner. A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. 1991.
Shlaim, Avi. The Iron Wall. New York: Norton. 2000.
Smith, Charles D.. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. New York: St.
Martin’s. 1988.
Humphreys, R. Stephen. Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a
Troubled Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1999.
Failing that, please provide your sources--if they are reputable, I probably have them on my libnrary bookshelf.
Among other sources:
Bickerton, Ian J., and Carla L. Klausner. A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. 1991.
Shlaim, Avi. The Iron Wall. New York: Norton. 2000.
Smith, Charles D.. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. New York: St.
Martin’s. 1988.
Humphreys, R. Stephen. Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a
Troubled Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1999.
Failing that, please provide your sources--if they are reputable, I probably have them on my libnrary bookshelf.
Grettir Asmundarsen
Banned
I'm not being anti-Israel. I've done alot of research on the subject. I wrote a term paper on it for an IR class:
The Six-Day War
On the morning of 5 June 1967, Israel launched an attack upon Egypt. The resulting chain of events led to the Israeli capture—and occupation—of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, from the Kingdom of Jordan (Mideast). In arriving at the decision to attack, Israel behaved in accordance with the rational actor model. That is, they: 1) defined and assessed the situation; 2) specified the primary goals; 3) considered alternative means of achieving those goals; 4) selected the alternative best suited to maximize the goals; and 5) took the decided upon action (International 227-28).
In Syria, a Ba’athist coup in 1963 was followed by another in February 1966 in which General Salah Jadid, the most radical Arab leader to date, assumed power (Bickerton 142). This new extreme left-wing government “embarked on a fierce anti-Zionist ideological offensive” (Shlaim 234) which called for a “popular war for the liberation of Palestine and sponsored Palestinian guerrilla attacks on Israeli targets” (Shlaim 234). Since the “end” of the 1949 War of Independence, Israel and Syria had been separated on the Golan Heights by demilitarized zones established between the international borders and the forward line of Syrian advance in that war. Border clashes had been ongoing since 1949 but, Jadid’s rhetoric and support for Palestinian Fatah guerrillas served to heighten the tension markedly by June 1967. This wasn’t seen as necessarily a threat to Israel’s security but it raised the level of mutual hostility between the Israelis and Syrians (Shlaim 234). Many Israeli military and political leaders were unhappy with “the 1949 armistice lines with Syria” and didn’t see them as final (Shlaim 236).
Since 1962, Gamal Abdel Nasser, ruler of Egypt and living symbol of Pan-Arabism, had been bogged-down in a civil war in Yemen--which was costing his government a million dollars a day (Bickerton 142). His nation was in desperate financial straits due to a western embargo that resulted from the 1956 Suez Crisis as well as internal political impingement on domestic economic planning (Bickerton 142). The high-point of Pan-Arabism had come in 1958 (Humpries 62) when Syria merged with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic and the Hashemite dynasty in Iraq was overthrown (Bickerton 141). Since then, however, the star of Pan-Arabism—and Nasser himself—had begun its denouement. Syria withdrew from the UAR in 1961 after Nasser began nationalizing industries (Bickerton 141) and other Arab leaders had begun accusing him of “hiding behind the United Nations Emergency Forces (UNEF) stationed in Sinai since 1957” (Smith 191) (Shlaim 237).
Israel, meanwhile, had its own problems. Until a unity government was formed on June 1st, only five days before the beginning of the 1967 war, the government of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol had been besieged from within by accusations of incompetence and “softness” toward the Arabs (Shlaim 223). Eshkol had been elected Prime Mininster in 1963 and assumed the title of Defense Minister as well. He embarked upon a program of building up the deterrent power of the Israeli Defense Forces, making the armored corps and air force the top priorities (Shlaim 218). In 1965, a rather ugly internecine fight took place in which David Ben Gurion, former Prime Minister and mentor to Eshkol, attempted to unseat him. When this failed, Ben-Gurion founded his own party--the Israel Workers List or Rafi--whose leaders, says Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations at St. Anthony’s College at Oxford University, had no coherent economic or social policies and “were united by a thirst for power and by the desire to see a more aggressive policy prevail in the conflict with Israel’s neighbors” (Shlaim 223). Shimon Peres and Moshe Dayan resigned from the government and joined Ben-Gurion in the opposition (Shlaim 223).
In 1964, Israel completed work on the National Water Carrier, which took water from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev Desert (Kantor). This led The Arab leaders, at the first Arab League Summit at Cairo that year, to decide to reduce the water flow into the lake by diverting some of its tributaries in Syria and Lebanon (Hashemite). Violent confrontation ensued and the Arabs were forced to abandon their plan. Current Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is quoted by journalist, Adel Darwish, as having once said: “People generally regard 5 June 1967 as the day the Six-day war began. That is the official date. But, in reality, it started two-and-a-half years earlier, on the day Israel decided to act against the diversion of the Jordan” (Darwish). Avi Shlaim writes, in The Iron Wall, that Yitzak Rabin traced the origins of the 1967 War to the Cairo summit’s decision to divert the Jordan, as well (Shlaim 230). The first attack by al-Fatah (Arafat’s group) inside Israel was a New Years 1965 raid against the National Water Carrier (Smith 190)(Shlaim 232).
In November 1966, with Soviet encouragement, Syria and Egypt signed a defense pact (Bickerton 149). Days later, a massive Israeli raid in on Samu, Jordan destabilized the regime of King Hussein and exposed Jordan’s military weakness (Shlaim 233). On 7 April 1967 a border skirmish escalated into an air battle in which six Syrian aircraft were shot down and Israeli jets “buzzed” Damascus (Smith 198). On 12 May, Yitzak Rabin—Eshkol’s Chief of Staff—in a newspaper interview, “threatened to occupy Damascus and overthrow the Syrian regime” if Fatah attacks didn’t stop (Shlaim 236).
The Soviet Union attached a great deal of importance to the survival of the Syrian regime (Shlaim 237). In early May 1967, the Soviets fed Nasser misinformation about the Israelis massing forces in the north in preparation to attack Syria (Bickerton 150)(Shlaim 237)(Smith 198). Nasser, knowing that the Israelis were militarily stronger than all the Arab confrontation states combined (Shlaim 236) and probably aware that the Soviet report was false (Bickerton 150), nonetheless felt the need to take action in order to impress Arab public opinion and to retain his position as leader of the Arab world (Shlaim 237).
On May 14, Egypt announced that its “armed forces were in a state of maximum alert” and sent troops into the Sinai (Bickerton 150). Two days later, Nasser asked the UNEF to concentrate in Gaza and, two days after that requested that all UN troops be withdrawn from Egypt (Bickerton 150). Secretary General, U Thant, complied with these requests immediately and Egyptian troops moved into the vacated UNEF positions. Syria, Jordan, and Iraq also began to mobilize (Bickerton 150).
Nasser’s most fateful move came on May 22. With Jordan and Saudi Arabia accusing him of being a coward, he moved his troops into Sharm al-Sheikh—at the southern tip of the Sinai—and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (Smith 198)(Bickerton 150). With the Suez Canal already closed to Israel, this cut them off from the Indian Ocean and their (secret) Iranian oil supply; for Israel this was a casus belli or justification for war (Shlaim 237)(Bickerton 150). The Israeli government immediately mobilized all of its reserve troops (Smith 199).
The closing of the Straits of Tiran duplicated the conditions that brought about the 1956 Israeli invasion of Sinai (Shlaim 237). Although Israel’s economy could survive the closing of the straits, “the deterrent image of the IDF could not” (Shlaim 237). Egyptian troops—80, 000 infantry and 900 tanks, according to Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban (Bickerton 158)--were taking up forward positions in Sinai (Smith 199). The Soviets were playing games (Shlaim 237) while the semi-friendly regime in Jordan was egging Nasser on (Smith 198), and the United Nations had cut-and run (Bickerton 150). Finally, on May 30, Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt and “agreed to allow Iraqi troops to enter Jordanian territory in the event of hostilities” (Bickerton 150).
The situation inside Israel had become tense. On May 23, Chief of Staff Rabin suffered a “breakdown” and was incapacitated with “acute anxiety for the following 24 hours, after which he returned to full activity” (Shlaim 239). He had advised immediate military action after the closing of the straits but Eshkol still was looking for a diplomatic solution (Shlaim 239). The Israeli government was paralyzed with indecision until the unity government was formed the day after Jordan signed the defense pact with Egypt (Shlaim 237-38). The two weeks of waiting between the closing of the straits and the decision to attack, according to Avi Shlaim, is called “the period of waiting” (Shlaim 238). During this time, the Israeli people, themselves, “succumbed to a collective psychosis. The memory of the Holocaust was a powerful force which deepened the feeling of isolation and . . . perception of threat” (Shlaim 238). This feeling was exacerbated further by bellicose statements from the Egyptian government regarding the imminent destruction of Israel (Smith 199) and weak leadership on the part of Eshkol (Shlaim 238). The prolonged full mobilization also added dire psychological and economic effects (Bickerton 150).
Israel’s stated primary goal was to reopen the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (Shlaim 239)(Bickerton 150). But Charles D. Smith, history professor at San Diego State, in Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, quotes Israeli Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, as saying: “For us the importance of denying Nasser political and psychological victory had become no less important than the concrete interest in the issue of navigation” (Smith 200). Opening the Gulf of Aqaba to shipping may have been the casus belli but, denying Nasser a political triumph to hold up before the Arab world was important also (Smith 200). Protecting the “deterrent power” and image of the IDF was important as well (Shlaim 239). To the Israeli generals, the deployment of Egyptian troops to forward positions in Sinai was the largest concern (Shlaim 240).
Eshkol, as I previously mentioned, seemed determined to find a diplomatic means of reopening the straits but was impaired by stress, a lack of experience in foreign affairs, “and by domestic political concerns” (Shlaim 238-39). On May 23, Abba Eban was was sent on a mission to Paris, London and Washington “to secure international action to reopen the Straits of Tiran” (Shlaim 239). American President Lyndon Johnson promised Eban that he would act, together with other maritime powers, to open the straits (Shlaim 240) and asked Israel to give his administration a couple of weeks in which to do it (Smith 199-200). Johnson also told Eban that his military advisors were unanimous in their opinion that Egypt wasn’t planning to attack and that if they did, Israel would “whip the hell out of them” (Shlaim 240). Finally, he warned Israel against the initiation of hostilities: “Israel will not be alone unless it decides to go it alone” (Shlaim 240). On the night of May 27-28, the Israeli cabinet acceded to Johnson’s request and agreed to delay any decision about going to war for two weeks (Smith 200). Meanwhile, efforts in the United Nations Security Council were fruitless due to the Soviet veto (Bickerton 150).
The problem with a diplomatic solution was that, although said diplomatic solution would reopen the straits, it would do little for restoring the “deterrent power” of the IDF. On June 1, Eshkol, in forming the new unity government—which included Rafi, as well as the conservative Gahal, led by Menachem Begin, who believed that the Kingdom of Jordan was part of Israel (Smith 194)—was forced to turn over his defense portfolio to one of his harshest critics, Moshe Dayan (Smith 200)(Shlaim 238).
On June 2, Nasser, in response to American overtures, agreed to send his Vice President, Zakariya Mohieddine, to Washington on June 7 in order to discuss diffusing the “potential for confrontation over the Tiran blockade” (Smith 200). Even to Abba Eban—who had been against the military option until June 1st—this would be totally unacceptable: “It was probable that this initiative would aim at a face-saving compromise—and that the face saved would be Nasser’s not Israel’s” he is quoted as saying (Smith 200).
Not satisfied with the outcome of Eban’s mission, the Israeli cabinet sent the head of Mossad, Meir Amit, to the United States to “clarify how the Americans saw the situation, whether they planned to act, and how they would react if Israel seized the military initiative” (Shlaim 240). Apparently, American policy had changed between the visit of Eban and the “secret mission” of Amit (Shlaim 240). In meetings with officials of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pentagon s, including Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Amit—who shifted the emphasis from the legal issue of the Straits of Tiran to the strategic issue of the Egyptian forces in Sinai—“apparently received encouragement for an Israeli assault intended to destroy Nasser’s Soviet-supplied arsenal and severely damage his and Moscow’s prestige” (Smith 200)(Shlaim 241). It seems that the primary goal had shifted from the reopening the Straits of Tiran to the humiliation of Nasser.
On May 24—the day Rabin was “ill”-- Eshkol had been presented with two war plans: Atzmon, which “called for the capture of the Gaza strip and the southern flank of El-Arish” on the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai, and Kardom, which “called for the capture of the eastern part of the Sinai Peninsula up to Jebel Libni” (Shlaim 242). Both of these plans called for Israel to hold the captured territory until Egypt opened the Straits of Tiran (Shlaim 242). Eshkol approved the second plan, Kardom (Shlaim 243). Once Dayan became Minister of Defense, however, he changed Kardom by expanding the area to be captured to include Sharm al-Shaykh. He also “changed the underlying conception from limited war to total war” by making the destruction of Egyptian forces the primary aim—“without consulting or informing the cabinet” (Shlaim 243). Once Dayan had changed the plan, Rabin suggested that the Suez Canal would be the most militarily logical place to stop the advance. Dayan dismissed the suggestion as being “political madness” since the Suez Canal wasn’t an Egyptian waterway but an international one. (Shlaim 243).
Also worth mentioning here are the “contingency plans [which] called for minor border modifications in the borders with Jordan and Syria” (Shlaim 243). These plans “called for the capture of the demilitarized zones on the border with Syria and for linking Jerusalem with the Israeli enclave on Mount Scopus” (Shlaim 243). According to Shlaim, the Israelis “wanted to avoid a clash with Jordan and of having to deal with the predominantly Palestinian population of the West Bank” (Shlaim 243).
So Israel, as they assessed the situation, saw: a radical and belligerent government (Syria) to their north (northwest, actually) that was mobilizing troops (Bickerton 150); a belligerent government (Egypt) to their south (southeast, really) that had positioned eighty thousand troops (Bickerton 158) on their common border and was openly threatening Israel’s destruction (Smith 199); a cutting off of their only trade route to eastern Asia and the Indian Ocean (Shlaim 237); a coming economic crisis due to a full mobilization of reserves (Bickerton 150); and a national feeling of impending doom; a toothless and retiring United Nations (Bickerton 150); and a “go-ahead” for military action from the American Secretary of Defense (Smith 200)(Shlaim 241).
The goals that Israel wanted to achieve all stated (and cited) previously were: reopening the Straits of Tiran; the humiliation of Nasser and the pan-Arabist movement; the destruction of the Egyptian forces in the Sinai; and the preservation of the IDF’s “deterrent power.”
The alternatives for achieving the (publicly stated) primary goal, reopening the straits, wouldn’t be achieved by simply doing nothing. The diplomatic alternative for opening the straits would achieve the goal, eventually, but the economic effects of waiting would become more severe. Opening the straits through the use of force looked like a relatively easy and quick alternative.
The alternatives for achieving the humiliation of Nasser were fewer. Doing nothing would have the absolute opposite effect and, in Israel’s view, probably encourage him (Smith 200). Diplomatically humiliating him probably wasn’t possible, unless the Israelis could get the Soviets to dress him down. Achieving this goal militarily seemed the most efficient and easiest alternative.
Destruction of the Egyptian forces in the Sinai wasn’t possible if Israel did nothing. Destruction of those forces through diplomatic means—treaties and such-- although possible, was probably unlikely in the short term. The best way to destroy an enemy’s army is probably not merely defeat it but, to crush it.
The selection of which alternative to use was really a no-brainer once the United States gave its blessing to military action (Smith 200)(Shlaim 241). Doing nothing wouldn’t accomplish any of Israel’s goals and would actually strengthen Nasser’s position in the Arab world (Smith 200). Allowing diplomacy to work would eventually accomplish the goal of reopening the Straits of Tiran but, again, would wind up strengthening Nasser, just as the diplomacy during the ’56 Suez Crisis had done (Shlaim 186). Diplomacy could probably get the Egyptians to withdraw from their forward positions in Sinai but would actually leave them less vulnerable to military destruction since they would be farther from Israeli air bases. A diplomatic solution might also have a debilitating effect upon the IDF’s deterrent power if it wasn’t utilized.
An attack in which the Egyptian forces in the Sinai were crushed and Sharm al-Shaykh captured would certainly accomplish the goal of humiliating Nasser and, obviously, would accomplish the goal of reopening the straits. It would also re-establish and even enhance the IDF’s “deterrent power,” if they were to do it on their own (Shlaim 240).
Dayan’s modifications to Plan Kardom would accomplish every one of the goals. The Israelis were stronger than all of the Arabs combined; Johnson knew it (Shlaim 240), Nasser knew it (Shlaim 228, 237), Eshkol—or, at least, his military advisors--knew it (Smith 197), and Brezhnev probably knew it (Smith 197). Eshkol and Rabin had been building up the Israeli air and armored forces for the past four years and the IDF was itching to “go.”
Although the Eshkol government was “divided internally, debated options endlessly, improvised, and . . . seized opportunities as they arose” (Shlaim 249), they acted in accord with the rational player model.
Works Cited
Bickerton, Ian J., and Carla L. Klausner. A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli
Conflict. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. 1991. 141 142 149 150 158
Darwish, Adel. “Water Wars.” Geneva Conference on Environment and
Quality of Life. June 1994. Retrieved 7 December 2002
<http://www.mideastnews.com/WaterWars.htm>
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. “History.” 6 December 2002 < http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_periods3.html>
Humphreys, R. Stephen. Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a
Troubled Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1999. 62
Kantor, Shmuel. The National Water Carrier (Ha’Movil Ha’Artsi). 5 December
2002. <http://research.haifa.ac.il/~eshkol/kantorb.html>
Managing Water for Peace in the Middle East: Alternative Strategies.
7 Dec 2002. < http://www.un.org/Pubs/unu/973a2.htm>
The Mideast: A Century of Conflict. “Part 4: The 1967 Six Day War.” National
Public Radio. 3 October 2002. Retrieved 4 December 2002.
<http://www.npr.org/news/specials/mideast/history/history4.html>
Pearson, Frederic S., and J. Martin Rochester. International Relations: The
Global Condition in the Twenty-first Century. New York: McGraw- Hill. 1998. 227-28
Shlaim, Avi. The Iron Wall. New York: Norton. 2000. 186 218 223 228 232-43
249
Smith, Charles D.. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. New York: St.
Martin’s. 1988. 190-91 197-200
The Six-Day War
On the morning of 5 June 1967, Israel launched an attack upon Egypt. The resulting chain of events led to the Israeli capture—and occupation—of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, from the Kingdom of Jordan (Mideast). In arriving at the decision to attack, Israel behaved in accordance with the rational actor model. That is, they: 1) defined and assessed the situation; 2) specified the primary goals; 3) considered alternative means of achieving those goals; 4) selected the alternative best suited to maximize the goals; and 5) took the decided upon action (International 227-28).
In Syria, a Ba’athist coup in 1963 was followed by another in February 1966 in which General Salah Jadid, the most radical Arab leader to date, assumed power (Bickerton 142). This new extreme left-wing government “embarked on a fierce anti-Zionist ideological offensive” (Shlaim 234) which called for a “popular war for the liberation of Palestine and sponsored Palestinian guerrilla attacks on Israeli targets” (Shlaim 234). Since the “end” of the 1949 War of Independence, Israel and Syria had been separated on the Golan Heights by demilitarized zones established between the international borders and the forward line of Syrian advance in that war. Border clashes had been ongoing since 1949 but, Jadid’s rhetoric and support for Palestinian Fatah guerrillas served to heighten the tension markedly by June 1967. This wasn’t seen as necessarily a threat to Israel’s security but it raised the level of mutual hostility between the Israelis and Syrians (Shlaim 234). Many Israeli military and political leaders were unhappy with “the 1949 armistice lines with Syria” and didn’t see them as final (Shlaim 236).
Since 1962, Gamal Abdel Nasser, ruler of Egypt and living symbol of Pan-Arabism, had been bogged-down in a civil war in Yemen--which was costing his government a million dollars a day (Bickerton 142). His nation was in desperate financial straits due to a western embargo that resulted from the 1956 Suez Crisis as well as internal political impingement on domestic economic planning (Bickerton 142). The high-point of Pan-Arabism had come in 1958 (Humpries 62) when Syria merged with Egypt to form the United Arab Republic and the Hashemite dynasty in Iraq was overthrown (Bickerton 141). Since then, however, the star of Pan-Arabism—and Nasser himself—had begun its denouement. Syria withdrew from the UAR in 1961 after Nasser began nationalizing industries (Bickerton 141) and other Arab leaders had begun accusing him of “hiding behind the United Nations Emergency Forces (UNEF) stationed in Sinai since 1957” (Smith 191) (Shlaim 237).
Israel, meanwhile, had its own problems. Until a unity government was formed on June 1st, only five days before the beginning of the 1967 war, the government of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol had been besieged from within by accusations of incompetence and “softness” toward the Arabs (Shlaim 223). Eshkol had been elected Prime Mininster in 1963 and assumed the title of Defense Minister as well. He embarked upon a program of building up the deterrent power of the Israeli Defense Forces, making the armored corps and air force the top priorities (Shlaim 218). In 1965, a rather ugly internecine fight took place in which David Ben Gurion, former Prime Minister and mentor to Eshkol, attempted to unseat him. When this failed, Ben-Gurion founded his own party--the Israel Workers List or Rafi--whose leaders, says Avi Shlaim, professor of international relations at St. Anthony’s College at Oxford University, had no coherent economic or social policies and “were united by a thirst for power and by the desire to see a more aggressive policy prevail in the conflict with Israel’s neighbors” (Shlaim 223). Shimon Peres and Moshe Dayan resigned from the government and joined Ben-Gurion in the opposition (Shlaim 223).
In 1964, Israel completed work on the National Water Carrier, which took water from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev Desert (Kantor). This led The Arab leaders, at the first Arab League Summit at Cairo that year, to decide to reduce the water flow into the lake by diverting some of its tributaries in Syria and Lebanon (Hashemite). Violent confrontation ensued and the Arabs were forced to abandon their plan. Current Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is quoted by journalist, Adel Darwish, as having once said: “People generally regard 5 June 1967 as the day the Six-day war began. That is the official date. But, in reality, it started two-and-a-half years earlier, on the day Israel decided to act against the diversion of the Jordan” (Darwish). Avi Shlaim writes, in The Iron Wall, that Yitzak Rabin traced the origins of the 1967 War to the Cairo summit’s decision to divert the Jordan, as well (Shlaim 230). The first attack by al-Fatah (Arafat’s group) inside Israel was a New Years 1965 raid against the National Water Carrier (Smith 190)(Shlaim 232).
In November 1966, with Soviet encouragement, Syria and Egypt signed a defense pact (Bickerton 149). Days later, a massive Israeli raid in on Samu, Jordan destabilized the regime of King Hussein and exposed Jordan’s military weakness (Shlaim 233). On 7 April 1967 a border skirmish escalated into an air battle in which six Syrian aircraft were shot down and Israeli jets “buzzed” Damascus (Smith 198). On 12 May, Yitzak Rabin—Eshkol’s Chief of Staff—in a newspaper interview, “threatened to occupy Damascus and overthrow the Syrian regime” if Fatah attacks didn’t stop (Shlaim 236).
The Soviet Union attached a great deal of importance to the survival of the Syrian regime (Shlaim 237). In early May 1967, the Soviets fed Nasser misinformation about the Israelis massing forces in the north in preparation to attack Syria (Bickerton 150)(Shlaim 237)(Smith 198). Nasser, knowing that the Israelis were militarily stronger than all the Arab confrontation states combined (Shlaim 236) and probably aware that the Soviet report was false (Bickerton 150), nonetheless felt the need to take action in order to impress Arab public opinion and to retain his position as leader of the Arab world (Shlaim 237).
On May 14, Egypt announced that its “armed forces were in a state of maximum alert” and sent troops into the Sinai (Bickerton 150). Two days later, Nasser asked the UNEF to concentrate in Gaza and, two days after that requested that all UN troops be withdrawn from Egypt (Bickerton 150). Secretary General, U Thant, complied with these requests immediately and Egyptian troops moved into the vacated UNEF positions. Syria, Jordan, and Iraq also began to mobilize (Bickerton 150).
Nasser’s most fateful move came on May 22. With Jordan and Saudi Arabia accusing him of being a coward, he moved his troops into Sharm al-Sheikh—at the southern tip of the Sinai—and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (Smith 198)(Bickerton 150). With the Suez Canal already closed to Israel, this cut them off from the Indian Ocean and their (secret) Iranian oil supply; for Israel this was a casus belli or justification for war (Shlaim 237)(Bickerton 150). The Israeli government immediately mobilized all of its reserve troops (Smith 199).
The closing of the Straits of Tiran duplicated the conditions that brought about the 1956 Israeli invasion of Sinai (Shlaim 237). Although Israel’s economy could survive the closing of the straits, “the deterrent image of the IDF could not” (Shlaim 237). Egyptian troops—80, 000 infantry and 900 tanks, according to Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban (Bickerton 158)--were taking up forward positions in Sinai (Smith 199). The Soviets were playing games (Shlaim 237) while the semi-friendly regime in Jordan was egging Nasser on (Smith 198), and the United Nations had cut-and run (Bickerton 150). Finally, on May 30, Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt and “agreed to allow Iraqi troops to enter Jordanian territory in the event of hostilities” (Bickerton 150).
The situation inside Israel had become tense. On May 23, Chief of Staff Rabin suffered a “breakdown” and was incapacitated with “acute anxiety for the following 24 hours, after which he returned to full activity” (Shlaim 239). He had advised immediate military action after the closing of the straits but Eshkol still was looking for a diplomatic solution (Shlaim 239). The Israeli government was paralyzed with indecision until the unity government was formed the day after Jordan signed the defense pact with Egypt (Shlaim 237-38). The two weeks of waiting between the closing of the straits and the decision to attack, according to Avi Shlaim, is called “the period of waiting” (Shlaim 238). During this time, the Israeli people, themselves, “succumbed to a collective psychosis. The memory of the Holocaust was a powerful force which deepened the feeling of isolation and . . . perception of threat” (Shlaim 238). This feeling was exacerbated further by bellicose statements from the Egyptian government regarding the imminent destruction of Israel (Smith 199) and weak leadership on the part of Eshkol (Shlaim 238). The prolonged full mobilization also added dire psychological and economic effects (Bickerton 150).
Israel’s stated primary goal was to reopen the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (Shlaim 239)(Bickerton 150). But Charles D. Smith, history professor at San Diego State, in Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, quotes Israeli Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, as saying: “For us the importance of denying Nasser political and psychological victory had become no less important than the concrete interest in the issue of navigation” (Smith 200). Opening the Gulf of Aqaba to shipping may have been the casus belli but, denying Nasser a political triumph to hold up before the Arab world was important also (Smith 200). Protecting the “deterrent power” and image of the IDF was important as well (Shlaim 239). To the Israeli generals, the deployment of Egyptian troops to forward positions in Sinai was the largest concern (Shlaim 240).
Eshkol, as I previously mentioned, seemed determined to find a diplomatic means of reopening the straits but was impaired by stress, a lack of experience in foreign affairs, “and by domestic political concerns” (Shlaim 238-39). On May 23, Abba Eban was was sent on a mission to Paris, London and Washington “to secure international action to reopen the Straits of Tiran” (Shlaim 239). American President Lyndon Johnson promised Eban that he would act, together with other maritime powers, to open the straits (Shlaim 240) and asked Israel to give his administration a couple of weeks in which to do it (Smith 199-200). Johnson also told Eban that his military advisors were unanimous in their opinion that Egypt wasn’t planning to attack and that if they did, Israel would “whip the hell out of them” (Shlaim 240). Finally, he warned Israel against the initiation of hostilities: “Israel will not be alone unless it decides to go it alone” (Shlaim 240). On the night of May 27-28, the Israeli cabinet acceded to Johnson’s request and agreed to delay any decision about going to war for two weeks (Smith 200). Meanwhile, efforts in the United Nations Security Council were fruitless due to the Soviet veto (Bickerton 150).
The problem with a diplomatic solution was that, although said diplomatic solution would reopen the straits, it would do little for restoring the “deterrent power” of the IDF. On June 1, Eshkol, in forming the new unity government—which included Rafi, as well as the conservative Gahal, led by Menachem Begin, who believed that the Kingdom of Jordan was part of Israel (Smith 194)—was forced to turn over his defense portfolio to one of his harshest critics, Moshe Dayan (Smith 200)(Shlaim 238).
On June 2, Nasser, in response to American overtures, agreed to send his Vice President, Zakariya Mohieddine, to Washington on June 7 in order to discuss diffusing the “potential for confrontation over the Tiran blockade” (Smith 200). Even to Abba Eban—who had been against the military option until June 1st—this would be totally unacceptable: “It was probable that this initiative would aim at a face-saving compromise—and that the face saved would be Nasser’s not Israel’s” he is quoted as saying (Smith 200).
Not satisfied with the outcome of Eban’s mission, the Israeli cabinet sent the head of Mossad, Meir Amit, to the United States to “clarify how the Americans saw the situation, whether they planned to act, and how they would react if Israel seized the military initiative” (Shlaim 240). Apparently, American policy had changed between the visit of Eban and the “secret mission” of Amit (Shlaim 240). In meetings with officials of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pentagon s, including Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Amit—who shifted the emphasis from the legal issue of the Straits of Tiran to the strategic issue of the Egyptian forces in Sinai—“apparently received encouragement for an Israeli assault intended to destroy Nasser’s Soviet-supplied arsenal and severely damage his and Moscow’s prestige” (Smith 200)(Shlaim 241). It seems that the primary goal had shifted from the reopening the Straits of Tiran to the humiliation of Nasser.
On May 24—the day Rabin was “ill”-- Eshkol had been presented with two war plans: Atzmon, which “called for the capture of the Gaza strip and the southern flank of El-Arish” on the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai, and Kardom, which “called for the capture of the eastern part of the Sinai Peninsula up to Jebel Libni” (Shlaim 242). Both of these plans called for Israel to hold the captured territory until Egypt opened the Straits of Tiran (Shlaim 242). Eshkol approved the second plan, Kardom (Shlaim 243). Once Dayan became Minister of Defense, however, he changed Kardom by expanding the area to be captured to include Sharm al-Shaykh. He also “changed the underlying conception from limited war to total war” by making the destruction of Egyptian forces the primary aim—“without consulting or informing the cabinet” (Shlaim 243). Once Dayan had changed the plan, Rabin suggested that the Suez Canal would be the most militarily logical place to stop the advance. Dayan dismissed the suggestion as being “political madness” since the Suez Canal wasn’t an Egyptian waterway but an international one. (Shlaim 243).
Also worth mentioning here are the “contingency plans [which] called for minor border modifications in the borders with Jordan and Syria” (Shlaim 243). These plans “called for the capture of the demilitarized zones on the border with Syria and for linking Jerusalem with the Israeli enclave on Mount Scopus” (Shlaim 243). According to Shlaim, the Israelis “wanted to avoid a clash with Jordan and of having to deal with the predominantly Palestinian population of the West Bank” (Shlaim 243).
So Israel, as they assessed the situation, saw: a radical and belligerent government (Syria) to their north (northwest, actually) that was mobilizing troops (Bickerton 150); a belligerent government (Egypt) to their south (southeast, really) that had positioned eighty thousand troops (Bickerton 158) on their common border and was openly threatening Israel’s destruction (Smith 199); a cutting off of their only trade route to eastern Asia and the Indian Ocean (Shlaim 237); a coming economic crisis due to a full mobilization of reserves (Bickerton 150); and a national feeling of impending doom; a toothless and retiring United Nations (Bickerton 150); and a “go-ahead” for military action from the American Secretary of Defense (Smith 200)(Shlaim 241).
The goals that Israel wanted to achieve all stated (and cited) previously were: reopening the Straits of Tiran; the humiliation of Nasser and the pan-Arabist movement; the destruction of the Egyptian forces in the Sinai; and the preservation of the IDF’s “deterrent power.”
The alternatives for achieving the (publicly stated) primary goal, reopening the straits, wouldn’t be achieved by simply doing nothing. The diplomatic alternative for opening the straits would achieve the goal, eventually, but the economic effects of waiting would become more severe. Opening the straits through the use of force looked like a relatively easy and quick alternative.
The alternatives for achieving the humiliation of Nasser were fewer. Doing nothing would have the absolute opposite effect and, in Israel’s view, probably encourage him (Smith 200). Diplomatically humiliating him probably wasn’t possible, unless the Israelis could get the Soviets to dress him down. Achieving this goal militarily seemed the most efficient and easiest alternative.
Destruction of the Egyptian forces in the Sinai wasn’t possible if Israel did nothing. Destruction of those forces through diplomatic means—treaties and such-- although possible, was probably unlikely in the short term. The best way to destroy an enemy’s army is probably not merely defeat it but, to crush it.
The selection of which alternative to use was really a no-brainer once the United States gave its blessing to military action (Smith 200)(Shlaim 241). Doing nothing wouldn’t accomplish any of Israel’s goals and would actually strengthen Nasser’s position in the Arab world (Smith 200). Allowing diplomacy to work would eventually accomplish the goal of reopening the Straits of Tiran but, again, would wind up strengthening Nasser, just as the diplomacy during the ’56 Suez Crisis had done (Shlaim 186). Diplomacy could probably get the Egyptians to withdraw from their forward positions in Sinai but would actually leave them less vulnerable to military destruction since they would be farther from Israeli air bases. A diplomatic solution might also have a debilitating effect upon the IDF’s deterrent power if it wasn’t utilized.
An attack in which the Egyptian forces in the Sinai were crushed and Sharm al-Shaykh captured would certainly accomplish the goal of humiliating Nasser and, obviously, would accomplish the goal of reopening the straits. It would also re-establish and even enhance the IDF’s “deterrent power,” if they were to do it on their own (Shlaim 240).
Dayan’s modifications to Plan Kardom would accomplish every one of the goals. The Israelis were stronger than all of the Arabs combined; Johnson knew it (Shlaim 240), Nasser knew it (Shlaim 228, 237), Eshkol—or, at least, his military advisors--knew it (Smith 197), and Brezhnev probably knew it (Smith 197). Eshkol and Rabin had been building up the Israeli air and armored forces for the past four years and the IDF was itching to “go.”
Although the Eshkol government was “divided internally, debated options endlessly, improvised, and . . . seized opportunities as they arose” (Shlaim 249), they acted in accord with the rational player model.
Works Cited
Bickerton, Ian J., and Carla L. Klausner. A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli
Conflict. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. 1991. 141 142 149 150 158
Darwish, Adel. “Water Wars.” Geneva Conference on Environment and
Quality of Life. June 1994. Retrieved 7 December 2002
<http://www.mideastnews.com/WaterWars.htm>
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. “History.” 6 December 2002 < http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_periods3.html>
Humphreys, R. Stephen. Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a
Troubled Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1999. 62
Kantor, Shmuel. The National Water Carrier (Ha’Movil Ha’Artsi). 5 December
2002. <http://research.haifa.ac.il/~eshkol/kantorb.html>
Managing Water for Peace in the Middle East: Alternative Strategies.
7 Dec 2002. < http://www.un.org/Pubs/unu/973a2.htm>
The Mideast: A Century of Conflict. “Part 4: The 1967 Six Day War.” National
Public Radio. 3 October 2002. Retrieved 4 December 2002.
<http://www.npr.org/news/specials/mideast/history/history4.html>
Pearson, Frederic S., and J. Martin Rochester. International Relations: The
Global Condition in the Twenty-first Century. New York: McGraw- Hill. 1998. 227-28
Shlaim, Avi. The Iron Wall. New York: Norton. 2000. 186 218 223 228 232-43
249
Smith, Charles D.. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. New York: St.
Martin’s. 1988. 190-91 197-200
Grettir, you who are in error.
1) Israel attacked Syria in response to the Syrian bombardment, as well as nearly 20 years of shelling and sniping. It is true that Syria could hardly avoid war after Soviet/Syrian lies about non-existant Israeli buildups had led Nassar to disaster but...
2) Jordan's army was placed under Egyptian command, not Iraqi, prior to the war. Not only were two battalions of Egyptian commandos deployed to the West Bank, but many believe it was the Egyptian general who cost Jordan the war by brainlessly redeploying the two armored brigades available, leaving them out in the open for air strikes, and for no clear reason. See My Way With Israel by King Hussein himself.
3) The Arab armies were certainly massing on the border, Egypt alone had over 50% more tanks than the Israelis did.
4) Yemen had nothing to do with Israel's actions.
5) There is an enormous difference between refusing to trade with a nation, and blockading a nation. The latter is, by definition, an act of war. That would also mean Egypt struck the first blow of the war. Thus, the Pearl Harbor comparison is absurd. If FDR had deployed a navy five times the actual size to blockade Japan, such a comparison might be valid.
6) No one gave Israel any approval for an attack on Jordan because, at the time, the Israeli government desperately hoped Jordan would remain neutral. If not for deliberate lies by Nassar, perhaps they would have. A West Bank still part of Jordan would make for an interesting thread.
It is also distressing that so much of the work quoted depends on Shlaim, whose commitment to historical and factual accuracy often plays second fiddle to his personal ideology. As is common, he makes many factual errors.
1) Israel attacked Syria in response to the Syrian bombardment, as well as nearly 20 years of shelling and sniping. It is true that Syria could hardly avoid war after Soviet/Syrian lies about non-existant Israeli buildups had led Nassar to disaster but...
2) Jordan's army was placed under Egyptian command, not Iraqi, prior to the war. Not only were two battalions of Egyptian commandos deployed to the West Bank, but many believe it was the Egyptian general who cost Jordan the war by brainlessly redeploying the two armored brigades available, leaving them out in the open for air strikes, and for no clear reason. See My Way With Israel by King Hussein himself.
3) The Arab armies were certainly massing on the border, Egypt alone had over 50% more tanks than the Israelis did.
4) Yemen had nothing to do with Israel's actions.
5) There is an enormous difference between refusing to trade with a nation, and blockading a nation. The latter is, by definition, an act of war. That would also mean Egypt struck the first blow of the war. Thus, the Pearl Harbor comparison is absurd. If FDR had deployed a navy five times the actual size to blockade Japan, such a comparison might be valid.
6) No one gave Israel any approval for an attack on Jordan because, at the time, the Israeli government desperately hoped Jordan would remain neutral. If not for deliberate lies by Nassar, perhaps they would have. A West Bank still part of Jordan would make for an interesting thread.
It is also distressing that so much of the work quoted depends on Shlaim, whose commitment to historical and factual accuracy often plays second fiddle to his personal ideology. As is common, he makes many factual errors.
Grettir Asmundarsen
Banned
Grimm Reaper said:
You are wrong on every point--see my other post (I'm not being anti-Israel). If you still contend that I am wrong, please provide YOUR own sources for that opinion. I know what I'm talking about on this subject.
Grettir, please advise as to which of the following were wrong on any point:
That Jordan had allied with Egypt prior to the war, resulting in two Egyptian battalions being deployed and an Egyptian general assuming command.
That the Egyptian general proceeded to maneuver the 40th and 60th Armored Brigades needlessly, while subject to Israeli air power.
That Syria had been shelling Israel for nearly twenty years, with air raids as well, and launched a major bombardment during the war.
That Syria had deliberately lied to Nassar, setting the stage for the war, as they could SEE from the Golan whether or not Israeli forces were massing.
That Egypt, Jordan, and Syria had massed forces greatly outweighing the Israeli army, with Egypt alone over 900 tanks whereas Israel had slightly over 600 in total, mostly upgraded WWII models.
That Israel's action had nothing to do with Yemen, and everything to do with a perceived threat to their own state.
That there is an enormous difference between refusing to sell to a nation, and using military force to blockade a nation.
That a blockade is, by definition of international law, an act of war.
That neither the US nor anyone else approved an attack on Jordan.
That Israel hoped Jordan would not be involved in the war, deploying forces according to that hope, leaving little more than reservist infantry and one paratroop unit(also infantry) for the first two days of combat.
That Nassar lied to King Hussein, even going so far as to present Israel planes returning to base as attacking EAF planes.
That Jordan had allied with Egypt prior to the war, resulting in two Egyptian battalions being deployed and an Egyptian general assuming command.
That the Egyptian general proceeded to maneuver the 40th and 60th Armored Brigades needlessly, while subject to Israeli air power.
That Syria had been shelling Israel for nearly twenty years, with air raids as well, and launched a major bombardment during the war.
That Syria had deliberately lied to Nassar, setting the stage for the war, as they could SEE from the Golan whether or not Israeli forces were massing.
That Egypt, Jordan, and Syria had massed forces greatly outweighing the Israeli army, with Egypt alone over 900 tanks whereas Israel had slightly over 600 in total, mostly upgraded WWII models.
That Israel's action had nothing to do with Yemen, and everything to do with a perceived threat to their own state.
That there is an enormous difference between refusing to sell to a nation, and using military force to blockade a nation.
That a blockade is, by definition of international law, an act of war.
That neither the US nor anyone else approved an attack on Jordan.
That Israel hoped Jordan would not be involved in the war, deploying forces according to that hope, leaving little more than reservist infantry and one paratroop unit(also infantry) for the first two days of combat.
That Nassar lied to King Hussein, even going so far as to present Israel planes returning to base as attacking EAF planes.