Danish Middle East Policy Blogging

I was watching some PBS show about the 6 Days War yesterday. They were talking about how Israeli PM Eshkol was under a lot of pressure to attack Egypt but, personally, didn't really want to. He was desperately seeking some kind of victory short of war that would relieve his position. Thus, he kept appealing to the western powers to use their navies to force open the Straits of Tiran, believing that Nasser would back down from such a confrontation, thus defusing the crisis without the need for war. The documentary explains that none of the western powers were going for it -- except Denmark.

The show didn't explain anything about why Denmark was so much more eager to involve itself aggressively in the situation than was anyone else. Does anyone out there in blog-land know anything about this?

Comments

I think the Danes wanted to send their top-notch cartoonist brigade to teach the Muslim hordes a few things about censorship.

Posted by gorillagogo | June 11, 2007 8:52 AM

Nitpick: you mean the Straits of Tiran (only one 'a').

Tirana is the capital of Albania, which probably slipped into your mind on account of Bush's trip there.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | June 11, 2007 8:54 AM

IIRC, Denmark was one of the most exceptional countries during WWII with respect to protecting their native Jewish population. The majority of them were smuggled out to Sweden when Germany demanded that they be handed over. Perhaps the above was simply an outgrowth of a very Jewish-friendly state with a history of coming to their aid?

Posted by Jew | June 11, 2007 8:57 AM

IIRC, Denmark was one of the most exceptional countries during WWII with respect to protecting their native Jewish population. The majority of them were smuggled out to Sweden when Germany demanded that they be handed over. Perhaps the above was simply an outgrowth of a very Jewish-friendly state with a history of coming to their aid?

Posted by Jew | June 11, 2007 8:57 AM

Could you fix the link?

Posted by David Houghton | June 11, 2007 9:09 AM

Probably felt the call of the longboats again.

Posted by tequila | June 11, 2007 9:17 AM

I'm not sure why Denmark was more willing to get involved than other countries. Michael Oren's "Six Days of War" doesn't say much about the Danes in particular, as far as I remember. By the way, that's an excellent book, certainly a must read for anyone interested in that war. This is in spite of Oren's dubious views on current Middle East affairs, including one article during the Lebanon war last summer where he bizarrely misread one of the clearly stated lessons of his own book and somehow ended up urging Israel to attack Syria.

They were talking about how Israeli PM Eshkol was under a lot of pressure to attack Egypt but, personally, didn't really want to.

The appeal for an international flotilla was based on guarantees that the Israelis believed they had gotten from the Eisenhower administration at the end of the Suez War, that a blockade by Egypt would be considered legitimate cause for an Israeli military response. It's true that Eshkol wasn't eager to go to war, but he seems to have decided after a couple of weeks that they had run out of options. Still, he continued to push for the flotilla in an attempt to make clear to the U.S. that they were doing everything they could to avoid war. His main concern shifted from avoiding war altogether to avoiding a repeat of the post-'56 war scenario, in which (from Israel's point of view) they were forced to withdraw without achieving sufficient political gains or security guarantees.

Posted by Haggai | June 11, 2007 9:27 AM

That is not an understanding of the 6-days war I'm familiar with at all. My understanding is that it was JOHNSON who wanted to force open Tiran using an international navy, that it was his idea and that the Israeli's favored outright combat. Admittedly, this is far from a settled historical question. This is the first I've heard of this notion that this was the idea of an Ehskol. It's pretty clear the Israeli's had every intention of going to war long before they did, and that they were just waiting for the US's greenlight. This smacks of the standard US revisionism on matters involving Israel.

Posted by soullite | June 11, 2007 9:28 AM

Just a guess here, but Denmark, geographically, sits astride 2 similarly narrow straits - Skagerrak and Kattegat that are important international waterways connecting the Baltic with the North Sea (and the Atlantic). So Denmark may have had an interest in the principle of maintaining passageway of international waters.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | June 11, 2007 9:47 AM

Denmark is very pro american and alwasy has been post-war I suspect it may well be unusally pro isreal-and remember at this point the US was not so unrepresenatively pro Isreal.

I vaguely remember the US was ok wiht the flotia idea as well.

Posted by edmund | June 11, 2007 10:04 AM

Very pro-American, and perhaps saw an opportunity to demonstrate this at zero cost. It wasn't going to be Danish ships that forced the Strait, was it?

Posted by Alex | June 11, 2007 10:28 AM

According to this CATO study:

...On May 21 Nasser mobilized his reserves. On May 22, with the UN forces gone and under the taunting of Syria and Israel, Nasser blocked--verbally not physically-- the Strait of Tiran, which leads from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba and the Israeli port city of Elath.(112) The strait's importance to the Israelis was more symbolic than practical; no Israeli flag ship had used it in nearly two years, although Iranian oil was shipped to Israel through it.(113)

So, it appears that most of this Strait of Tiran issue is bullshit anyway.

Posted by abb1 | June 11, 2007 10:49 AM

Slightly OT, but I clicked through to the link abb1 provided and found this little gem:

"If the chief natural resource of the Middle East were bananas, the region would not have attracted the attention of US policymakers as it has for decades."

Yes, because the idea of the US continually intervening in a region that only produces bananas is obviously ridiculous. "Banana Republic" is just a clothes store to the sublimely uncluttered mind of Sheldon Richman, "senior editor at the Cato Institute".

Posted by ajay | June 11, 2007 10:55 AM

Re abbl

Of course, the fact that Egypt has massed 100,000 troops near the border with Israel and the fact that dictator Nasser of Egypt announced that his intention was to remove the State of Israel from the map had nothing to do with subsequent events.

Posted by SLC | June 11, 2007 11:18 AM

The strait's importance to the Israelis was more symbolic than practical; no Israeli flag ship had used it in nearly two years,

Which completely ignores and discounts the non-Israeli flag ships that used it as well as violations of international law.

That Cato Report is chock-full of one-sided anti-Israeli revisionism. For example, no mention at all of years of Syrian shelling of the Israeli settlements in the Galilee from the Golan Heights yet prominent mention of Israeli raids into Syrian territory going after guerillas.

I'd look for a bit more objective source to base any arguments upon.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | June 11, 2007 11:44 AM

. . . dictator Nasser of Egypt announced that his intention was to remove the State of Israel from the map . . .

Actually Nasser said that eliminating Israel would be his war aim if the Israelis started a war.

Of course the Israelis were the Good Guys, so the idea of their initiating hostilities was just ridiculous.

Except that, they did.

Posted by David Tomlin | June 11, 2007 11:49 AM

The documentary explains that none of the western powers were going for it -- except Denmark.

According to Martin Gilbert's Israel: A History, the US and UK asked eighty other countries to support the action, 'but only two - Canada and Denmark - were willing to do so without equivocation.' (p. 377)

Posted by David Tomlin | June 11, 2007 12:02 PM

SLC,

Relying on Abb1 for information on Israel is like relying on the Christian Coalition for information on women's rights. Here's his latest pronouncement on Israeli scientists and their country:

These are people who help maintain a criminal, oppressive and very dangerous regime, that has been causing all kinds of troubles to the rest of society: terrorism, extremism, millions of refugees

http://crookedtimber.org/2007/06/07/boycotting-the-boycotters/#comment-199879

Posted by Harry G | June 11, 2007 12:16 PM

Denmark, geographically, sits astride 2 similarly narrow straits - Skagerrak and Kattegat that are important international waterways connecting the Baltic with the North Sea (and the Atlantic). So Denmark may have had an interest in the principle of maintaining passageway of international waters.

While they certainly have an interest in the controlling principles, it's an interest that pulls them in the opposite direction from favoring armed intervention to force open blockaded straits . . .

Posted by rea | June 11, 2007 12:46 PM

Ethel-to-Tilly

I'd look for a bit more objective source to base any arguments upon.

I love the idea of an "objective source" re: Israel.

Posted by tfo | June 11, 2007 1:41 PM

discounts the non-Israeli flag ships that used it

Huh? What's that supposed to mean? No one was stopping any non-Israeli flag ships from crossing. And Israeli flag ships didn't need to cross. It was pretty much an unfriendly but symbolic gesture, used by Israel as a pretext for war.

For example, no mention at all of years of Syrian shelling of the Israeli settlements in the Galilee from the Golan Heights yet prominent mention of Israeli raids into Syrian territory going after guerillas.

Here's another Richman's piece, this one specifically about the Golan Heights: The Golan Heights: A History of Israeli Aggression. Educate yourself, fella.

Posted by abb1 | June 11, 2007 2:04 PM

Iranian oil was shipped to Israel through it

Yup, just "symbolic".

Posted by Jimmy | June 11, 2007 2:26 PM

Iranian oil

Sure, fair point; yet not a single ship had been stopped there. It's not known whether an Iranian ship carrying oil would've been stopped or not, we can only guess. So it's quite accurate to call it 'symbolic'.

Posted by abb1 | June 11, 2007 2:40 PM

Re David Tomlin

As is usual with Israel bashers, Mr. Tomlin doesn't provide the entire statement of dictator Nasser. What he actually stated was that his object was to provoke an Israeli attack which would give him the excuse to eliminate Israel from the map. He well knew that Israel had called up most of its reserves and had only 2 options, either surrender or attack as the Israeli economy could not withstand a prolonged reserve callup.

Re Harry G

"Relying on Abb1 for information on Israel is like relying on the Christian Coalition for information on women's rights."

Actually, relying on Abb1 for information on Israel is like relying on David Duke for such information.

Posted by SLC | June 11, 2007 3:24 PM

Re Dennmark and support for Israel. 1967 was only 22 years after 1945, the memory of the Holacaust and WWII was still strong; and Dennmark was probably both pro-Zionist and pro-American as a result of the WWII experience. Not that one had much to do with the other in 1967, as America and Israel were not seen as the allies that they became after 1968 and 1969, when the U.S. replaced France as Israel's chief arms supplier, so many on the Left could be Zionists to while still being anti-American. Only in the 1970s did the the Palestinians became the cause celebre of the Left.

Posted by Rick Kane | June 11, 2007 5:15 PM

The Danes engaged in some naval posturing recently in the Canadian arctic. They landed troops on a rock between Greenland and Baffin Island; the Canadians tore it out later (I think this was in '04 or '05). I seem to recall Canadian concerns that the Danish navy far outclassed theirs.

Posted by Ben Cronin | June 11, 2007 5:45 PM

p.s. I should add that the Danes put a plaque on the island claiming it, and this is what the Canadians removed.

Posted by Ben Cronin | June 11, 2007 6:19 PM