Auschwitz Lines

Sarah Stern in The New Republic explains that Israel can't make peace with the Palestinians because of the "maximalist Palestinian position" which I was expecting to see described as the destruction of Israel, but which actually turns out to be reasonably characterized as "an Israeli retreat to the pre-1967 borders, which are actually the 1949 armistice lines." So why not make a deal like that? "These boundaries were nine miles wide at their narrowest point, lacking the strategic depth to enable Israel to defend itself, which led the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban (of the Labour Party) to dub them 'the Auschwitz lines.'"

Okay, but given that the '49 armistice was the result of an actual war, the lines can't have been all that indefensible. What's more, the lines were successfully defending in 1967. And Israel's conventional military superiority vis-a-vis its neighbors has grown larger. And now Israel has nuclear weapons! What's more, Israel now has peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt. If non-nuclear Israel could defend the '67 borders against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria combined surely it can defend them now against Syria alone with the help of its nuclear weapons.

Comments

I agree, but Israel of course attacked in 1967, and so didn't actually have to defend that border.

Posted by MHD | October 26, 2007 6:50 PM

Right. It's little known in the U.S. that Israel struck first to launch the major combat portion of five of its six big wars, with the famous exception of 1973. Israel chose when to transform on-going border skirmishes into major wars. This is not to say that Israel's pre-emptive strikes were unjustified. Israel was a small country with big enemies, so it did what it felt it had to do. But, here in the U.S., we don't seem to remember the actual history, other than 1973's.

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 26, 2007 7:11 PM

One of the biggest obstacles to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is the increasing religious motivation behind the existence of Israel. What started off as a basically secular movement has become almost fanatically religious, not just among Jews but also among fundamentalist Christians as part of their eschatology.

A withdrawal to pre-'67 borders is a very reasonable notion unless you see yourself as having a mandate from God to possess the land. Then it becomes much harder to find reason to compromise. n

Posted by Captain Noble | October 26, 2007 7:26 PM

"If non-nuclear Israel could defend the '67 borders against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria combined surely it can defend them now against Syria alone with the help of its nuclear weapons."

Nonsense. And today's Iran is such a fearsome threat that it makes Hitler look like a paper tiger.

Posted by Diana | October 26, 2007 7:27 PM

That's a pretty conveninent rewrite of history to claim that Israel "started" the 1967 war. Uhm, no.

As to the border retreat, I don't see anyone demanding we give Texas back to Mexico, which we gained via a war in 1845.

I'm as liberal as they come, but asking Israel to go back to those borders isn't just asking too much, it's asking more of Israel than has been asked of any other country in modernity. Countries never give back land claimed in territorial border wars.

America certainly never has.

Posted by WinSmith | October 26, 2007 7:29 PM

Winsmith,

America didn't decree that the persons inhabiting the conquered territory after the Mexican war could never be citizens.

Posted by William Burns | October 26, 2007 7:36 PM

As long as you know completely ignore Russia, great point WinSmith!

Posted by Rob | October 26, 2007 7:41 PM

Israel could make peace but won't. Firstly they won't because they don't have to because they have an overwhelming power advantage. Secondly or thirdly hardly matter but secondly a Palestinian state would not be viable. Little olive groves and dusty markets do not a modern state make.

The problem with the Palestinians is that they won't admit they were conquered. Of course modern history offers no examples of a people and a 'state' being conquered successfully, permanently.. It just hasn't happened for the last several hundred years so nobody knows how to do it or deal with it. The bible and ancient history have some examples wherein all the conquered people were all killed or driven far far away.

American fundamentalist Christians however remember this and to some degree embrace it as a solution. However there is the little problem that they also embrace the wiping out of the Jews too. Such a muddle.

Posted by rapier | October 26, 2007 7:46 PM

Sarah Stern's bio on the Endowment for Middle East Truth states:

Sarah Stern has had a rather lengthy history of advocacy for the state of Israel and the Jewish people. Right after the Oslo Accords had been signed, she had been contacted by three former Israeli diplomats who had worked in the embassy in Washington under the reign of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

They told her that they harbored grave suspicions that Chairman Arafat was not going to live up to one iota of the Accords he had just signed. They asked her if she would be their conduit to Capitol Hill, and help them to get the truth out about what it was that Chairman Arafat was actually saying to his people, in Arabic and how it differed from what he was saying to Western diplomats and journalists. Sarah immediately agreed, and was thrust full throttle into the fulcrum of the Middle East debate. (my emphasis)

There is no such thing as a Likudnik Lobby.

Posted by ndm | October 26, 2007 7:57 PM

"a Palestinian state would not be viable. Little olive groves and dusty markets do not a modern state make."

Umm, the Palestinians have the the highest education rate in the Middle East. I think they can do better than "olive groves and dusty markets."

Posted by fostert | October 26, 2007 8:09 PM

Maybe some day, Mr. Yglesias will come to realize that the obstacle to an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is the refusal of the latter to agree to a Jewish state in the Middle East. The Palestinians have demanded in the past that Palestinian refugees be resettled in Israel and they continue to demand it. It ain't going to happen. Period, end of story and until the cease and desist from demanding it, there will be no agreement. See attached link.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1192380583399

Posted by SLC | October 26, 2007 8:15 PM

Everyone talks about Israel, but what about poor Maryland? It, too, has an indefensible border - only 5 miles wide at one point! Why, a coordinated Virginia-Pennsylvania attack could cut Maryland in two!

And what about Alaska? At points along it's panhandle, it's less than 20 miles wide. Those socialist Canadians could push them right into the sea!

And has anyone notice that narrow stretch of Indian land between Nepal and Bangladesh? Unconscionable, asking the Indians to live with such indefensible borders!

We should launch a world war immediately, in the name of defensible cartography. All nations are entitled to fat, rectangular borders. Like Colorado has, for instance.

Posted by Peter Bautista | October 26, 2007 8:17 PM

"Like Colorado has, for instance."

Just so you know, Wyoming is the only rectangular state. Due to a surveying error, there is a slight jog on the southern border of Colorado. There is also a small deviation on the border with Utah.

Posted by fostert | October 26, 2007 8:24 PM

Nonsense. And today's Iran is such a fearsome threat that it makes Hitler look like a paper tiger.

I have sat here for five minutes trying to decide if this is a joke. Because if it isn't... dear God, that's ignorance.

Posted by Freddie | October 26, 2007 8:35 PM

"Umm, the Palestinians have the the highest education rate in the Middle East. I think they can do better than "olive groves and dusty markets."

Just look at the Singapore they're building in Gaza.

Posted by Juan | October 26, 2007 8:44 PM

Don't those 1949 armistice lines raise another question? If the Palestinians weren't satisfied with Israel living behind the 1949 borders when it did, why would they be satisfied with them today? Remember, Fatah and the PLO were both formed before the West Bank and Gaza were in Israeli hands. People keep forgetting that.

Posted by Juan | October 26, 2007 8:50 PM

Israel can't make peace with the Palestinians because of the maximalist Palestinian positions that were endorsed/accepted by earlier Israeli prime ministers and American Presidents?

What?

Asking Israel to go back to those borders isn't just asking too much, it's asking more of Israel than has been asked of any other country in modernity. Countries never give back land claimed in territorial border wars.

This is the opposite of truth. Israel would be the first country given permission to keep terrtiory captured by military conquest since 1945.

Posted by glasnost | October 26, 2007 8:57 PM

Once upon a time, back before Oslo, didn't the Israelis insist that the Palestineans accept U.N. Resolution 242 as a precondition to any negotiations? Doesn't U.N. Resolution 242 call for all parties to return to the pre-1967 boundaries? Isn't that what Stern now says is out of the question?

Posted by k | October 26, 2007 9:20 PM

If by given permission you mean international recognition, you would have to be to before the Hague Convention of 1907.

Ongoing present occupation/annexation in which the occupying power is trying to make territorial claims would be limited to the West Bank, Golan Heights, Western Sahara, and parts of Azerjaiban.

The list of places that were militarily occupied and returned since 1905 is one hell of list. I think it would include nearly nation in Africa.

WinSmith is nuts.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 26, 2007 9:20 PM

I think that plans is simple, and realistic.

Surround Palestinian-occupied lands with a wall from all sides, thow out the keys, and wait for Iranians to come and do something about it. Since it will not happen for at least 5 years, Israel can enjoys piece and security.

Plan B is to explain Iraqis that Iranians and Palestinians are all bad people, to be avoided.

Plan C is to stay in Iraq forever, so security of Israel is not compomise, and intimidate Iran so it does not try to undermine the occupation.

Pland D is to bomb Iran.

Plan E....

Posted by piotr | October 26, 2007 9:21 PM

If Israel doesn't want to redraw its borders it can always grant citizenship to all peoples living under its control.

Posted by Die Endlösung der palästinensischfrage | October 26, 2007 9:49 PM

MHD- Israel did indeed attack Egypt first in '67 (after Egypt closed the Straits ot Tiran, cutting off Israel's only source of oil). But Israel did not attack Jordan and signalled that if Jordan did not attack, Israel would not bring it into the war. Encouraged by Nasser, Jordan did attack, on 5 June 1967. Israel counter-attacked the next day.

So you are wrong when you say that Israel did not have to defend that border. You can have any opinion you want but you're not entitled to your own facts.

Posted by bloix | October 26, 2007 9:56 PM

"Doesn't U.N. Resolution 242 call for all parties to return to the pre-1967 boundaries?"

You can't look it up? It will take you three seconds on Google.

"If Israel doesn't want to redraw its borders it can always grant citizenship to all peoples living under its control."

If it did that but kept political power out of Palestinian hands, like Jordan does, would that be OK?

Posted by Juan | October 26, 2007 9:58 PM

MHD- Israel did indeed attack Egypt first in '67 (after Egypt closed the Straits ot Tiran, cutting off Israel's only source of oil)

Closing the straits meant almost literally nothing. No Israeli ships had traveled through there in the two previous years. Israel's oil purchases at the time came from Iran and mainly entered the country through Haifa.

You can have any opinion you want but you're not entitled to your own facts.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 26, 2007 10:36 PM

Matthew, you forget about how the '49 lines, began because of what happened in '47-48. Egypt
then under some weak prime minister flunkie of
Prince Farouk having fought part of their long
standing conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood that would lead to the deaths of Hasan al Banna
(Tariq Ramadan's grandfather)and Nograibi Pasha
in short order. Syed Qutb was still a junior official in the Ministry of Education before turning to jihadism after witnessing the
'corruption' of Greeley,Colorado. Lebanon's forces including future prime minister Fuad Shehab
then Prince regent Hussein of Jordan, One of the
Italian-like coalition governments in Iraq; under
Pachachi or Sadr. and in the background, King Ibn Saud. all ganged up on Egypt. They lost, hence the
armistice lines, and the Fedayeen which Arafat would fashion into the PLO after '56, while operating under Egyptian and Jordanian occupation
till '67.

Posted by narciso | October 26, 2007 10:40 PM

You want to try that again narciso?

Thinking it was the fucked up formatting, punctuation, and grammar, I read that four times trying to figure out your point and I still don't get it.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 26, 2007 10:55 PM

None of which is relevant because Israel does not need any borders to be defended because it is:

1) illegal - the UN had no legal authority to partition Palestine as it did, based on its own commission set up to study exactly that point.

2) a rogue state - due to its war crimes since its founding and its possession of nuclear weapons.

3) a terrorist state - due to its engaging in terrorism against the United States and other countries repeatedly since it was founded, including the bombing attacks in Egypt in 1954, its assault on the USS Liberty, and its spying on the United States and possible connections with 9/11.

The only appropriate solution is for the UN to renounce the partitioning of Palestine, dissolve the state of Israel, disarm Israel of its nuclear arsenal, enact the state of Palestine with full citizenship and right of return to all Palestinians and Jews (and anybody else who used to live there), and have the international community guarantee the protection of that state and its citizens from attack by any neighboring state.

The Zionists and the extremist Islamists go home crying and everybody is satisfied, if not happy.

Failing that, the only solution which WILL occur despite anyone's opinion will be the eventual destruction of Israel, probably by one of its own nuclear weapons stolen and used against it.

So you have a choice: 1) a Palestine of Palestinians and Jews, 2) glow in the dark Israel.

There's no other outcome other than the complete genocide of the Palestinians - which, inevitably, will end in the same result - glow in the dark Israel, sooner or later.

Now, you just MIGHT succeed in getting a two-state solution - but only if you eliminate both Zionists and extremist Islamists from the negotiating parties. Good luck with that one.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 26, 2007 11:17 PM

You want to try that again narciso?...Thinking it was the fucked up formatting, punctuation, and grammar, I read that four times trying to figure out your point and I still don't get it.

FYI: narciso's dad was e.e. cummings. If only all political commentary could be in free verse!

Posted by James Gary | October 26, 2007 11:28 PM

"Don't those 1949 armistice lines raise another question? If the Palestinians weren't satisfied with Israel living behind the 1949 borders when it did, why would they be satisfied with them today? Remember, Fatah and the PLO were both formed before the West Bank and Gaza were in Israeli hands. People keep forgetting that."

They weren't satisfied, Juan, because the UN partition plan was ridiculously unfair to the Palestinians. People keep forgetting that. In fact, in the US it's a safe bet most people never knew it in the first place, but the UN in its wisdom was going to give 55 percent of the land to one third of the people (the Jews), and the supposedly Jewish state was going to be nearly half Arab. The Israelis were happy to accept the UN recognition of a Jewish state, but from what I've read, they weren't about to accept the actual borders. Fortunately for them, neither were the Palestinians.

So the Palestinians rejected it and after a couple dozen massacres or so, a large portion of them were ethnically cleansed. So yeah, Juan, you're right--the problems didn't start in 1967, but I'm always amazed at people who seem to think the Palestinians had no just cause for complaint before then. It's a tribute to the sheer stupidity of public discourse in the US that I've seen this same argument made in the supposedly liberal media.

I don't have a favored solution myself--well, in theory one state with equal rights for all would be nice, but there are probably enough crazies on both sides to turn that situation into a civil war.

Posted by Donald | October 26, 2007 11:56 PM

"They weren't satisfied, Juan, because the UN partition plan was ridiculously unfair to the Palestinians."

Donald, you are confused. I wasn't talking about the 1947 UN partition plan, but the 1949 armistice lines. The armistice lines weren't determined by the UN; they merely demarcated where the opposing forces were when the ceasefire of the 1948-49 war took effect.

Posted by Juan | October 27, 2007 12:24 AM

MHD - no Israeli-flagged ships traveled through the Straits of Tiran because Israel had no merchant marine in the Red Sea or the Gulf. But Iranian and 3d country flagged ships brought all of Israel's oil to the Port of Eilat through the Straits of Tiran. When Egypt closed the Straits to ships bound for Israel it was only a matter of time until the Israeli army and air force would have no fuel. They had no choice but to attack.

You say that Iranian oil came to Israel through Haifa. Have you looked a map recently? The ships would have had to come through the Suez Canal, which of course was closed to Israel.

As I say, you can have your own opinions but you really shouldn't make shit up.

In any event, I see you've given up on your false statement that Israel didn't have to defend its eastern border from Jordanian attack.

Posted by Bloix | October 27, 2007 12:47 AM

Oops- sorry. That was Ed Marshall who lied about Israel's oil supplies. I guess all assoles look the same.

Posted by bloix | October 27, 2007 12:49 AM

I didn't lie about anything, but I'm going to assume you are just misinformed instead of being a mendacious asshole.

If looking at a map is important why is Eilat different than Haifa? If you don't know the answer, and exactly why it's important to pretend that Eilat was crucial, maybe you need to understand the subject you feel like lecturing people about and if you do understand why it's important to this narrative then I'm not the liar.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 27, 2007 1:28 AM

Wikipedia describes the situation leading up to the Six-Day War via-a-vis the Jordanians rather differently than the Zionists here do:

Israel and Jordan: The Samu Incident

On 12 November 1966 an Israeli border patrol hit a mine, killing three soldiers and injuring six others. The Israelis believed the mine had been planted by militants from Es Samu on the West Bank. Early on the morning 13 November, King Hussein, who had been having secret meetings with Abba Eban and Golda Meir for three years concerning peace and secure borders, received an unsolicited message from his Israeli contacts stating that Israel had no intention of attacking Jordan.[9] However, at 5:30 a.m. in what Hussein described as an action carried out "under the pretext of 'reprisals against the terrorist activities of the P.L.O.' Israeli forces attacked Es Samu, a village in the Jordanian-occupied West Bank of 4,000 inhabitants, all of them Palestinian refugees whom the Israelis accused of harboring terrorists from Syria".[10]

In "Operation Shredder", Israel's largest military operation since 1956, a force of around 3,000-4,000 soldiers backed by tanks and aircraft divided into a reserve force, which remained on the Israeli side of the border, and two raiding parties, which crossed into the Jordanian-occupied West Bank. The larger force of eight Centurion tanks followed by 400 paratroopers mounted in 40 open-topped half-tracks and 60 engineers in 10 more half-tracks headed for Samu, while a smaller force of 3 tanks and 100 paratroopers and engineers in 10 half-tracks headed towards two smaller villages, Kirbet El-Markas and Kirbet Jimba. Conflicting reports of this incident have been made. According to Terrence Prittie's Eshkol: The Man and the Nation 50 houses were blown up but the inhabitants had been evacuated hours before. The 48th Infantry Battalion of the Jordanian army, commanded by Major Asad Ghanma, ran into the Israeli forces north-west of Samu and two companies approaching from the north-east were intercepted by the Israelis, while a platoon of Jordanians armed with two 106 mm recoilless guns entered Samu. In the ensuing battles three Jordanian civilians and fifteen soldiers were killed; fifty-four other soldiers and ninety-six civilians were wounded. The commander of the Israeli paratroop battalion, Colonel Yoav Shaham, was killed and ten other Israeli soldiers were wounded.[11][12] According to the Israeli Government, fifty Jordanians were killed but the true number was never disclosed by the Jordanians in order to keep up morale and confidence in King Hussein's regime.[13]

United Nations Military Observers prepared a report[14] to be presented to the UN Security Council. Jordan declared all its losses while Israel refused permission to interview any military personnel involved. They failed to declare their losses, and denied that a Jordanian Hunter Jet Fighter was shot down in their territories. They also denied the involvement of their Air force. In the village and the vicinity of the village the investigating Observers found that 125 houses, a clinic, a 6-classroom school and a workshop had been completely demolished. A mosque and 28 houses had been damaged. In a flour mill, 2 explosive charges were found which had failed to detonate. The investigating Observers were provided with death certificates for 14 Jordanian servicemen and 5 civilians killed.

Two days later, in a memo to President Johnson, his Special Assistant Walt Rostow wrote "retaliation is not the point in this case. This 3000-man raid with tanks and planes was out of all proportion to the provocation and was aimed at the wrong target" and went on to describe the damage done to U.S. and Israeli interests: "They've wrecked a good system of tacit cooperation between Hussein and the Israelis... They've undercut Hussein. We've spent $500 million to shore him up as a stabilizing factor on Israel's longest border and vis-à-vis Syria and Iraq. Israel's attack increases the pressure on him to counterattack not only from the more radical Arab governments and from the Palestinians in Jordan but also from the Army, which is his main source of support and may now press for a chance to recoup its Sunday losses... They've set back progress toward a long term accommodation with the Arabs... They may have persuaded the Syrians that Israel didn't dare attack Soviet-protected Syria but could attack US-backed Jordan with impunity."[15]

Facing a storm of criticism from Jordanians, Palestinians, and his Arab neighbors for failing to protect Samu, Hussein ordered a nation-wide mobilization on 20 November.[16]

On 25 November the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 228 unanimously deploring "the loss of life and heavy damage to property resulting from the action of the Government of Israel on 13 November 1966", censuring "Israel for this large-scale military action in violation of the United Nations Charter and of the General Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan" and emphasising "to Israel that actions of military reprisal cannot be tolerated and that, if they are repeated, the Security Council will have to consider further and more effective steps as envisaged in the Charter to ensure against the repetition of such acts."[17]

In a telegram to the State Department on 18 May 1967 the U.S. ambassador in Amman, Findley Burns, reported that Hussein had expressed the opinion in a conversation the day before that

Jordan is just as likely a target in the short run and, in his opinion, an inevitable one in the long run... Israel has certain long range military and economic requirements and certain traditional religious and historic aspirations which in his opinion they have not yet satisfied or realized. The only way in which these goals can be achieved, he said, is by an alteration of the status of the Occupied West Bank (never internationally recognized as Jordanian). Thus in the King's view it is quite natural for the Israelis to take advantage of any opportunity and force any situation which would move them closer to this goal. His concern is that current area conditions provide them with just such opportunities-terrorism, infiltration and disunity among the Arabs being the most obvious and recalling the Samu incident Hussein said that if Israel launched another Samu-scale attack against Jordan he would have no alternative but to retaliate or face an internal revolt. If Jordan retaliates, asked Hussein, would not this give Israel a pretext to occupy and hold Jordanian or Occupied territory? Or, said Hussein, Israel might instead of a hit-and-run type attack simply occupy and hold territory in the first instance. He said he could not exclude these possibilities from his calculations and urged us not to do so even if we felt them considerably less than likely.[18]

In addition, the discussion there of the Straits of Tiran does not make it clear whether under international law the Israelis had the right to consider the requirement of Egyptian permission to use the Straits as a "blockade", which might be considered an "act of war" under some circumstances, and thus had the right to conduct any more military action than necessary to open the passage.

The rest of the discussion there is interesting. Basically Nasser had no real desire or ability to go to war, he merely had overshot his rhetoric and was almost forced to start a war. Jordan's Hussein was in the same boat. Only the Syrians were really imterested, but without Egypt and Jordan they were no match for the Israelis either.

There was considerable back and forth between Israel, the US, and Russia and Egypt before the Israelis attacked. With a little more patience on the Israeli side, it is possible that a diplomatic solution would have been found. The Russians in particular informed Nasser that they would not support him if he attacked Israel under the current circumstances.

Once the attack occurred, Nasser allegedly misled Jordan's Hussein as to the progress of the war, leading him to join in the conflict. The same is alleged of Syria's Assad - that he reluctantly joined the battle based on false reports of Egyptian military success.

Almost the entire success of the campaign was a result of Israel's surprise attack on the Egyptian Air Force, destroying it, which then enabled it to engage both the tiny Jordanian Air Force and the Syrian Air Force.

Once air superiority was achieved, the Israelis essentially dominated the battlefield, although some ground engagements were apparently very tough.

More interesting is the section "Alleged Accusations of IDF killings of Egyptian prisoners of war" - establishing once again that when the Zionists get a chance, they commit war crimes.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 27, 2007 1:38 AM

In addition, the discussion there of the Straits of Tiran does not make it clear whether under international law the Israelis had the right to consider the requirement of Egyptian permission to use the Straits as a "blockade", which might be considered an "act of war" under some circumstance

This is where the legalese comes in. It's important to this narrative to keep Eilat in the picture because that piece of real estate anchors Israeli claims to right of passage and the rest. It was never actually an important port in any other sense. It was a backwater Arab villiage and outside the theoretical Jewish state mandates from the U.N. in the fourties. It was razed to the ground and it's inhabitants expelled in order to make the claims on the Straits in the future.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 27, 2007 2:10 AM

Besides closing the straights of Tiran (which is an act of War as would it have been if the Soviets blockading new York Harbor in the cold war), Nasser removed all the UN peace keepers from the buffer zone in the Sinai and massed tens of thousands of troops on Israel's border.

Matt,
You seem to quote Dennis Ross when it suits your needs. Read his book or Bill Clinton's on why the peace process failed: Arafat's refusal to make peace

Posted by Dave | October 27, 2007 2:28 AM

MYTH

"Israel's military strike in 1967 was unprovoked."

FACT

A combination of bellicose Arab rhetoric, threatening
behavior and, ultimately, an act of war left Israel no choice but
preemptive action. To do this successfully, Israel needed the element of
surprise. Had it waited for an Arab invasion, Israel would have been at a
potentially catastrophic disadvantage.

While Nasser continued to make speeches threatening war,
Arab terrorist attacks grew more
frequent. In 1965, 35 raids were conducted against Israel. In 1966, the
number increased to 41. In just the first four months of 1967, 37 attacks
were launched.5

Meanwhile, Syria's attacks on Israeli kibbutzim
from the Golan Heights provoked a
retaliatory strike on April 7, 1967, during which Israeli planes shot
down six Syrian MiGs. Shortly thereafter, the Soviet Union — which
had been providing military and economic aid to both Syria and Egypt —
gave Damascus information alleging a massive Israeli military buildup
in preparation for an attack. Despite Israeli denials, Syria decided to
invoke its defense treaty with Egypt.

On May 15, Israel's Independence
Day, Egyptian troops began moving into the Sinai and massing near the
Israeli border. By May 18, Syrian troops were prepared for battle along the
Golan Heights.

Nasser ordered the UN
Emergency Force, stationed in the Sinai since 1956, to withdraw on May
16. Without bringing the matter to the attention of the General
Assembly, as his predecessor had promised, Secretary-General U Thant
complied with the demand. After the withdrawal of the UNEF, the Voice of
the Arabs proclaimed (May 18, 1967):

As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence.6

An enthusiastic echo was heard May 20 from Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad:

Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.7

On May 22, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli shipping and all ships bound for Eilat. This blockade cut off Israel's only supply route with Asia and stopped the flow of oil from its main supplier, Iran. The following day, President Johnson expressed the belief that the blockade was illegal and unsuccessfully tried to organize an international flotilla to test it.

Nasser was fully aware of the pressure he was exerting to force Israel's hand. The day after the blockade was set up, he said defiantly: "The Jews threaten to make war. I reply: Welcome! We are ready for war."8

Nasser challenged Israel to fight almost daily. "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight," he said on May 27.9 The following day, he added: "We will not accept any...coexistence with Israel...Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel....The war with Israel is in effect since 1948."10

King Hussein of Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt on May 30. Nasser then announced:

The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations.11

President Abdur Rahman Aref of Iraq joined in the war of words: "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear -- to wipe Israel off the map."12 On June 4, Iraq joined the military alliance with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

The Arab rhetoric was matched by the mobilization of Arab forces. Approximately 250,000 troops (nearly half in Sinai), more than 2,000 tanks and 700 aircraft ringed Israel.13

By this time, Israeli forces had been on alert for three weeks. The country could not remain fully mobilized indefinitely, nor could it allow its sea lane through the Gulf of Aqaba to be interdicted. Israel's best option was to strike first.On June 5, the order was given to attack Egypt.

Posted by The Hammer | October 27, 2007 3:06 AM

You have to be quite the Arab apologist to claim Israel's raids on Egyptian airfields were a "surprise".

Both countries had been at full mobilization for three weeks before that.

Posted by David | October 27, 2007 3:21 AM

In any evident, it came as a big surprise to the Egyptians, who had their planes shot up as badly at dawn on the first day of the war as the Americans did at Hickam Field on December 7, 1941.

Nasser was a grandstanding blowhard. The Israelis, in contrast, were very, very serious in 1967.

The overall point is that very few Americans understand that the Israeli tradition, in five wars out of six, has been to be the one who holds the whip hand, who escalates from border skirmish to war. Maybe it's a good tradition, maybe it's a bad tradition, but few here in America seem to know it even exists.

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 27, 2007 7:09 AM

The side which escalates a war is not the side which started it.

Posted by David | October 27, 2007 8:11 AM

Very few people in America know ANYTHING about Israel or the Middle east. As both public schools and the media more or less conspire (there is simply no other way to put it) to tell Americans an extremely biased and incorrect version of the history of the region and it's peoples, it's not really shocking.

This is something you can see fairly clearly from the rabid, right wing zionists who come to post here to defend their favorite country (hint: Not this one). They don't really care what REAL history is. Israel must always have done the right thing, or your just plain lying as far as they are concerned. Truth, to them, means nothing when it gets in the way of their cherished personal opinions.

Posted by Soullite | October 27, 2007 8:25 AM

Re Richard Steven "bottom" Hack

Again, convicted armed bank robber, ex-con, and bottom to the brothers, Mr. Hack, continues his campaign of lies about the State of Israel. I think that Mr. Hammer has totally discredited him as a commentator. I suspect that it's probably time for Mr. Hack to get his daily dose of anti-virals.

Re Soullite

Mr. Soullite apparently considers anyone US citizen who has the temerity to have an unsoullite thought in his/her head to be less then patriotic to the USA. The fact is that, like his soul brothers RKU, Ed Marshall, Richard Steven "bottom" Hack, Mr. argiebargie, Don Williams, Mr. Reality Man, etc., he fervently desires the elimination of the State of Israel. I have some unfortunate news for them. The State of Israel will be around long after all of them have shuffled off this mortal coil. ROFL.

Posted by SLC | October 27, 2007 9:00 AM

You know, this "Israel started the Six Day War" stuff is on a par with Holocaust denial. It's part of the white is black, war is peace campaign - Jews are Nazis, Palestinians are victims of a Holocaust, Israelis are stormtroopers, Sharon is Hitler. It's a Karl Rove strategy - take your adversary's strongest point and use it against him.

Posted by Bloix | October 27, 2007 11:25 AM

I'm wondering about Mr. Sailer's repeated assertion that Israel initiated military action "five of six times".

I count four: the Sinai campaign in 1956, the Six-Day War, and the two Lebanon invasions. He has stipulated that Israel did not initiate in 1973. So (unless I'm missing one somewhere) that leaves 1948. Is it Sailer's contention that Israel commenced the hostilities in 1948? That would be a, shall we say, new interpretation.

Posted by Thlayli | October 27, 2007 11:34 AM

You know, this "Israel started the Six Day War" stuff is on a par with Holocaust denial.

Go fuck yourself.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 27, 2007 11:46 AM

Yes, Israel struck first in 1967, it was a preemptive strike.

However, all the maroons today who get the vapors from Mahmoud's comments would have headed for the hills in the face of the Arab agression in 1967: shutdown of the straits, massing of armies, aggression pacts, and chilling, pointed rhetoric predicting the imminent destruction of israel at the hands of those armies.

Only a total fool could argue Israel's strike was not justified -- if they waited to be attacked first, as the United States advised them at the time, they could very well all be dead.

And why were the Israelies in such a precarious state? Because of their 1967 borders.

Matt, try to do some background reading before endorsing such nonsense.

Posted by Nathan | October 27, 2007 12:02 PM

I don't get the "narrowest point" argument. So, there is a narrow strip, so what? A hypothetical Palestinian state with 1967 borders would consist of two disconnected pieces without even a narrow strip. The mainland US is not connected to Alaska. The original UN partition map (here) had two connection points - zero width for each state. So what? What is the argument here?

Any place a state has a border with another state - it's a vulnerability; if they don't like it, they either should conquer this whole planet or find themselves some other planet.

Posted by abb1 | October 27, 2007 12:04 PM

Re Ed Marshall

"You know, this "Israel started the Six Day War" stuff is on a par with Holocaust denial.

Go fuck yourself."

What a snappy comeback. Mr. Marshall is a poopyhead.

Posted by SLC | October 27, 2007 12:34 PM

Juan, you spoke as though it was a mystery why the PLO formed before 1967--I pointed out that it was because of the ethnic cleansing of 1948. There was nothing favorable about the UN plan for the Palestinians, and of course their situation was even worse in 1949.

Incidentally, the fighting in 1948 began in 1947. The Arab countries joined in after Israel declared statehood in May 1948, but there was already an intercommunal war going on between the Palestinians and the Israelis, with hundreds of thousands of Arabs already expelled. Deir Yassin happened in April. The fighting in 1947 was probably started by the Palestinians--the Israelis responded with Plan Dalet. The outside Arab rulers then came under pressure from their populations to save the Palestinians, a cause which didn't actually interest them too much and they weren't prepared for war then, any more than they were in 1967.

Not that I have any sympathy for the Arab leaders, then or now. Or the Israeli leaders either.

Posted by Donald | October 27, 2007 1:44 PM

Come on, Matt! First, Israel would clearly prefer that any future war not have to rise to the level of nuke-rattling, for obvious reasons. Second, Israel came damn close to losing the conventional Yom Kippur War against Egypt and Syria alone -- and would no doubt prefer not to run anywhere remotely near that risk again.

That being said, I definitely don't support this strategic argument being used as an excuse for retaining West Bank settlements. If Israel wants to retain additional territory at its wasp waist for military reasons, Israel should limit its use of that territory to military ones.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | October 27, 2007 3:40 PM

"Juan, you spoke as though it was a mystery why the PLO formed before 1967"

No I didn't. I merely pointed out that, since the West Bank and Gaza were both in Arab hands when the PLO and Fatah were formed, it raises the question of why the Palestinians would be satisfied by just having the West Bank and Gaza again today. When Arafat was alive he spoke of a plan to conquer Israel in stages: to first gain whatever he could be negotiations, and then continue the struggle for the rest. There is nothing in the history of the conflict to suggest that if Israel ceded all of the West Bank to the Palestinians the Palestinians would leave them in peace.

Posted by Juan | October 27, 2007 3:50 PM

When Arafat was alive he spoke of a plan to conquer Israel in stages: to first gain whatever he could be negotiations, and then continue the struggle for the rest.

If that's true, then that's no different than the attitude of Zionist leaders.

"As from the late 1970s Israel would always reject the admittedly ambiguous peace overtures of the PLO on the ground that they were part of a 'strategy of phases', the final objective of which was to take over the whole of Palestine and eventually do away with the State of Israel altogether. But the copyright for the strategy of phases might lie elsewhere: it was conceived by the leaders of the Yishuv in the mid 1930s; it was inherent in the notion they had of the real meaning of partition as the first stage of wider territorial accomplishments. By endorsing partition, as it was proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937, Ben Gurion did not necessarily mean to relinquish the Zionist claim for the entire Eretz-Israel. The miniscule Jewish state proposed by the Commission could by no means solve the Jewish question or satisfy the minimal yearnings of Zionism. But, as Ben Gurion put it, it 'can serve as a decisive stage along the path to greater Zionist implementation.'..To his son Amos he wrote in October of the same year: "Erect a Jewish state at once, even if it is not in the whole land. The rest will come in the course of time. It must come."

-Shlomo Ben-Ami (former Foreign Minister of Israel), Scars of War, Wounds of Peace , p. 24-25.

Posted by Peter H | October 27, 2007 4:29 PM

In the War of Independence, the Israelis took the initiative in terms of transforming skirmishes and irregular massacres into a full war of armies. See "The History of the Jews" by Paul Johnson, p. 527:

"The British mandate was not due to end until May 15. But early in April Ben Gurion took what was probably the most difficult decision in his life. He ordered the Haganah on to the offensive to link up the various Jewish enclaves and to consolidate as much as possible of the territory allotted to Israel under the UN Plan. The gamble came off almost immediately."

Now, that's probably less of a clear cut example than the other four, and reasonable arguments could be raised about them too (except maybe 1956).

Overall, I'm not criticizing Israel, a country in a difficult position, for doing what it felt it had to do. I'm just pointing out that most Americans aren't aware of the history.

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 28, 2007 2:25 AM

Yes those war-mongering genocidal Zionist Nazis have quite a nerve defending themsevles from those poor noble self-sacrificing Palestinian Suicide Bombers! Israel has withdrawn from the Sinai so as to have peace with Egypt even though it meant giving up valuable oil fields. They have withdrawn from Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and partially from the West Bank. Their reward for that has been missiles lobbed at their desert communities in the Negev and suicide bombers from the West Bank. The Israelis are determined to put their borders so that there main population centers, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa are out of rocket range. Any other sane country would want similar secure borders.

Posted by David All | November 2, 2007 5:27 PM