Syrian attacks along the northern frontier continued, as did infiltration into Israel from Syrian-based camps, via Jordan and Lebanon. In April 1967, their shelling of farming operations in the demilitarized zones along
The Sea of Galilee were stepped up, with increasing fire being directed against Israeli border villages. On 7 April 1967, unusually heavy fire was directed by long-range guns against Israeli villages, and Israeli aircraft were sent into action against them. As the Israeli aircraft attacked the artillery positions of the Syrian Army, the Syrian Air Force was scrambled into action and attempted to intercept the Israeli attacking planes. An air battle developed between the French-manufactured Mysteres of the Israeli Air Force and the Russian-manufactured MiGs of the Syrian Air Force. In a series of dogfights, six Syrian aircraft were shot down. Commenting in a public interview on this air battle and on the Syrian provocations, the Israeli Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Yitzhak Rabin, issued a stern warning to the Syrian Government, indicating that Israel would not remain passive in the face of the Syrian attacks and provocations, and that, should activity on the part of the Syrians continue, Israeli reaction would be such as to endanger the very existence of the regime in Damascus. This warning, against a background of the shooting down of the six Syrian aircraft, gave rise to considerable apprehensions in the Syrian capital. They felt that Israel might attempt to take advantage of what appeared to be the comparative weakness of the Syrians and the lack of unity evident at the time in the Arab world, in order to launch an attack.
Fearful of Israeli reaction to their provocations, the Syrians now tried to impress on the Egyptians their apprehension of an impending Israeli attack. They also turned to the Russians, and urged them to make similar representations in Cairo. But, early in May 1967, Nasser was at one of the low-points of his career. For five years, his forces had been involved in the civil war in the Yemen without success against ill-armed tribesmen; his forces there were led by Field Marshal Abd el Hakim Amer, as they supported the left-wing revolutionaries. Other elements in the area (notably from Saudi Arabia and reportedly some Western powers) provided aid to the Royalist forces in the Yemen. Nasser was in conflict with King Hussein, w'hom he described in a speech on 1 May as an ‘agent and slave of the imperialists’. His relations with Saudi Arabia were near breaking point, and he could make no headway in the struggle against Israel. Against this background came the urgent request for assistance from Syria — strengthened by the appearance in Cairo on 13 May of a Soviet delegation, which informed the Egyptians that Israel had indeed massed some eleven brigades along the Syrian frontier. The Soviet Ambassador to Israel was invited by the Prime Minister of Israel, Levi Eshkol, to accompany him to the area bordering the Syrian frontier so that he would convince himself that the information about the concentration of Israeli forces was totally untrue. Indeed, instead of eleven brigades being concentrated there, there were hardly eleven companies in the area. The Soviet Ambassador, however, declined the invitation. The Russians were interested in pressing Syria’s case for political reasons of their own, and had no intention of helping Israel to deny their allegations. The Soviet Union was particularly interested in strengthening the regime in Syria, which had afforded the Soviet Union its first major foothold in the
Middle East. By influencing Egypt to threaten Israel from the south, the Russians gambled on strengthening Syria’s security and hence the government in Damascus.
In Israel, there was no sense of urgency. Indeed, in a press interview the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces at the time, Lieutenant-General Yitzhak Rabin, forecast a long period of quiet for Israel. Israel’s 19th Independence Day on 15 May was celebrated with the comfortable feeling that the Chief of Staffs prognostications were correct.
However, two days later, in a well-publicized mass demonstration, Nasser proceeded to move large forces through Cairo en route to the Sinai. Within a few days, by 20 May, some 100,000 troops organized in seven divisions (with over 1,000 tanks) had been concentrated along Israel’s south-western border. Hysteria seized the Arab world. Nasser was again at a peak of popularity, as one Arab government after the other volunteered support and was caught up in the enthusiasm of the impending war. On 17 May, Nasser had demanded the withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, had acceded to the request within two days without demur. Nasser had demanded that the UN forces withdraw from a number of points along the border. U Thant’s reply had been that he could not accept any limitation, and that all or none of the forces would remain. Without consulting the General Assembly or Security Council, in a move that was to haunt him to his dying day, U Thant acted: UN forces withdrew.
Once again, after ten years, Israel faced Egyptian forces directly along the frontier. On 22 May, Nasser declared the Straits of Tiran closed to Israeli shipping and to shipping bound to and from Israel. That such an act would be a declaration of war had been made clear by Israel. The major powers attempted to establish a naval force in order to implement the assurances made to Israel in 1957, but no force or action emerged. On 26 May, Nasser told the Arab Trade Union Congress that this time it was their intention to destroy Israel. Contingents arrived from other Arab countries, such as Kuwait and Algeria. Israel was soon ringed by an Arab force of some 250,000 troops, over 2,000 tanks and some 700 front-line fighter and bomber aircraft. The world looked on at what was believed by many to be the impending destruction of Israel. But no international action was taken. Every effort was made by the Soviet and Arab delegates to the United Nations to pre-empt any effort that might be made by the West to intervene and obstruct the Arab plans; they went out of the way to minimize the seriousness of the situation and to permit developments to take their course. The Israeli Government, headed by Levi Eshkol, made urgent efforts to solve the crisis by diplomatic means, despatching Foreign Minister Abba Eban to the heads of government of the Western great powers. But the mission was in vain. A sudden change in French policy emerged, and the traditional sympathy of the French Government for Israel disappeared, against the background of a new French bid for Arab support. For years, as long as the French had been involved in the war in Algeria, in which the Algerian rebels enjoyed massive support from the Arab world (particularly from Egypt), a community of interest had
Developed and existed between France and Israel. However, with the conclusion of hostilities in Algeria and the French withdrawal from that country, President de Gaulle did not perceive any further common interests with Israel, and indeed declared that France’s interest now was to gain favour in the Arab countries and develop relations with them, particularly commercial and military. Thus, in Israel’s hour of crisis, her ally, France, without any word of warning, turned her back on her. Israel, it seemed, was on her own.
Israel was thrown into a crisis, as its reserves remained mobilized, denuding the country of its manpower, and grave doubts existed as to the ability of the Eshkol Government to decide upon a war and to wage a war. The Chief of Staff, General Rabin, at one point collapsed, allegedly because of nicotine poisoning, and for some forty-eight hours was inactive, his place being taken by Major-General Ezer Weizman, formerly commander of the Air Force and at that time Chief of the General Staff Operations Branch.7 Political pressures grew, in the face of what was interpreted by the public as hesitation on the part of the Government. Finally, Eshkol acceded to public pressure and formed a National Unity Government, co-opting General Moshe Dayan to his cabinet as Minister of Defence and Menachem Begin, the leader of the Opposition, as Minister without Portfolio.
Meanwhile, the Arab armies mobilized, as additional contingents joined Nasser’s forces. Two battalions of Egyptian commandos were flown from Egypt to Jordan, and moved to the Latrun area in order to operate against Israel’s main artery — the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road. While hysteria developed in the Arab world. King Hussein of Jordan, who but a few weeks earlier had been characterized by President Nasser in a May Day speech as a lackey of the imperialists, flew to Cairo in order to achieve a reconciliation. He later explained to Western diplomats that what he had done was to take out an insurance policy, having regard to the hysteria that now gripped the Arab world. Signing a defence agreement with President Nasser, he agreed to the appointment by the Egyptians of an Egyptian general. General Abdal Muneim Riadh, as joint commander of the Arab forces operating on the Jordanian front. King Hussein flew back to Jordan on 30 May, accompanied this time by a sworn enemy, namely Ahmed Shukeiri, the vociferous leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO. And, three days later. General Riadh arrived with his staff to take over his new command.
The Arab forces were poised to attack, and the new Israeli Minister of Defence, General Dayan, made it clear that every day of delay in launching a pre-emptive strike against Egypt would mean heavier casualties for the Israeli forces. But doubts have been expressed as to whether or not the Egyptians really intended to attack Israel and as to what might have happened had Israel not taken pre-emptive steps. For
Israel, from a strategic point of view, faced by a mobilized military offensive alliance surrounding the country on at least two borders (the Jordanian and the Egyptian) against the background of mass hysteria, war was inevitable. It will be recalled that one of the deciding factors in 1956 that brought Ben-Gurion to a decision to go to war was not only President Nasser’s behaviour but also the development of a military alliance against Israel, which first included Egypt and Syria, and which, in the week before the final decision to attack was taken, included the Jordanians. Here, in 1967, a similar development was again taking place, with Jordan joining the offensive alliance that had already been forged between Egypt and Syria. This situation was one that left Israel, in the view of its military commanders, with very few options. Furthermore, the Government of Israel had frequently made it quite clear that the blocking of the Straits of Tiran would be interpreted by Israel as an active declaration of war by the Arab countries.
In retrospect, it is now possible to evaluate correctly Nasser’s estimate of the situation and his plan as he moved towards a confrontation. Indeed, it was possible to obtain a very clear insight into his thinking by analysing carefully the articles of Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, Editor of Al Ahram, who was Nasser’s closest confidante at that time. Nasser’s thinking was set out by Heikal in an article which he published in Al Ahram on 26 May. It is clear from this and from a subsequent analysis of statements made in Egypt that, when Nasser ordered the United Nations Emergency Force to withdraw on 17 May, he did so on the basis of three assumptions:
1. That, after the United Nations forces would be withdrawn at his request, he would close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.
2. That, following this action, the Israelis would be likely to try to open the Straits by force and break the blockade. This would lead to war.
3. That, in the event of an outbreak of war, the ratio of forces and the state of preparedness of his forces guaranteed Egypt military success. Nasser was convinced that, in a combination of both the military and political struggle that would ensue, he would gain the upper hand.
World History
