There has hardly been a Middle East peace plan in the past 40 years -- including the current Saudi version -- that does not demand a return to the status quo of June 4, 1967. Why is that date so sacred? Because it was the day before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in which Israel scored one of the most stunning victories of the 20th century. The Arabs have spent four decades trying to undo its consequences.
In fact, the real anniversary should be now, three weeks earlier. On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser ordered the evacuation from the Sinai Peninsula of the U.N. buffer force that had kept Israel and Egypt at peace for 10 years. The United Nations complied, at which point Nasser imposed a naval blockade of Israel's only outlet to the south, the port of Eilat -- an open act of war.
How Egypt came to this reckless provocation is a complicated tale (chronicled in Michael Oren's magisterial "Six Days of War") of aggressive intent compounded with miscommunication and, most fatefully, disinformation. The Soviet Union had reported urgently and falsely to its Middle East clients, Syria and Egypt, that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian border for an attack. Israel desperately tried to disprove this charge by three times inviting the Soviet ambassador in Israel to visit the front. He refused. The Soviet warnings led to a cascade of intra-Arab maneuvers that in turn led Nasser, the champion of pan-Arabism, to mortally confront Israel with a remilitarized Sinai and a southern blockade.
Why is this still important? Because that three-week period between May 16 and June 5 helps explain Israel's 40-year reluctance to give up the fruits of that war -- the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza -- in return for paper guarantees of peace. Israel had similar guarantees from the 1956 Suez war, after which it evacuated the Sinai in return for that U.N. buffer force and for assurances from the Western powers of free passage through the Straits of Tiran.
All this disappeared with a wave of Nasser's hand. During those three interminable weeks, President Lyndon Johnson did try to rustle up an armada of countries to run the blockade and open Israel's south. The effort failed dismally.
It is hard to exaggerate what it was like for Israel in those three weeks. Egypt, already in an alliance with Syria, formed an emergency military pact with Jordan. Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco began sending forces to join the coming fight. With troops and armor massing on Israel's every frontier, jubilant broadcasts in every Arab capital hailed the imminent final war for the extermination of Israel. "We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants," declared PLO head Ahmed Shuqayri, "and as for the survivors -- if there are any -- the boats are ready to deport them."
For Israel, the waiting was excruciating and debilitating. Israel's citizen army had to be mobilized. As its soldiers waited on the various fronts for the world to rescue the nation from its peril, Israeli society ground to a halt and its economy began bleeding to death. Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, later to be hailed as a war hero and even later as a martyred man of peace, had a nervous breakdown. He was incapacitated to the point of incoherence by the unbearable tension of waiting with the life of his country in the balance, knowing that waiting too long would allow the armies of 100 million Arabs to strike first his country of 3 million.
We know the rest of the story. Rabin did recover in time to lead Israel to victory. But we forget how perilous was Israel's condition. The victory hinged on a successful attack on Egypt's air force on the morning of June 5. It was a gamble of astonishing proportions. Israel sent the bulk of its 200-plane air force on the mission, fully exposed to antiaircraft fire and missiles. Had they been detected and the force destroyed, the number of planes remaining behind to defend the Israeli homeland -- its cities and civilians -- from the Arab air forces' combined 900 planes was . . . 12.
We also forget that Israel's occupation of the West Bank was entirely unsought. Israel begged King Hussein of Jordan to stay out of the conflict. Engaged in fierce combat with a numerically superior Egypt, Israel had no desire to open a new front just yards from Jewish Jerusalem and just miles from Tel Aviv. But Nasser personally told Hussein that Egypt had destroyed Israel's air force and airfields and that total victory was at hand. Hussein could not resist the temptation to join the fight. He joined. He lost.
The world will soon be awash with 40th-anniversary retrospectives of the war -- and exegeses on the peace of the ages that awaits if Israel would only to return to lines of June 4, 1967. But Israelis are cautious. They remember the terror of that June 4 and of that unbearable May when, with Israel in possession of no occupied territories whatsoever, the entire Arab world was furiously preparing Israel's imminent extinction. And the world did nothing. And has not, since. Charles, you almost make me want to watch Fox News, again...
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/20/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I was following the news back in 1967. I thought Israel was going to be wiped off the map then. Its victory truly seemed a miracle.
#2
I was in AF - in SAC of all places - when this went off. We were hunkered down in alert mode since no one knew where this would lead. But it was over so quickly (actually less than the 6 days) that it made Gulf War I seem like a century.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
05/20/2007 6:56 Comments ||
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#3
"Six Days of War" is a great read
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2007 8:18 Comments ||
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#5
I was in the Navy, we were somewhre inside the med, fairly between Egypt and Italy when the ship (Refrigerated freighter) made an emergency "U" turn, and went back to Norfolk.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/20/2007 13:19 Comments ||
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#6
Done Nothing! What about teh Billions in US dollars that go to Isreal every year?
#8
I think that the US spends more on Arabs and the Palestinians that it spends on Israel. We also have to rememeber the Saudis hiding behind their women in harems while Americans spilled their blood protecting them from Saddam. And once the danger had passed they plotted 9/11.
#9
We also have to rememeber what was at stake: not the destruction of the state of Israel but the genocide of its entire population, not even the cold and aseptical genocide a la Auschwitz (I know about the cruelties of the Enzatztruppen and about what happened to those who weren't sent immeditely to the gas chambers) but a Rwanda-type one. Given the genocidiacl hate instilled in their own populations and the Palestinians by the imams and the nazi-inspired Arab regimes (eg Baas full name is National socialist party fopr Arab renewal) it is easy to imagine the scenes of hooror in Israeli meternities. Another Rwanda that was what was at stake.
#10
Legend has it that during the May-June period in 1967, Egypt's air wing would be on high alert from sunrise until about ten o'clock, the optimal time for Israeli aircraft to come out of the rising sun which would blind Egyptian gunners and pilots.
Supposedly, Egypt's air wing routinely would stand down after ten o'clock and then go on alert the next morning at sunrise. The story goes that Israel's fighter jets swept in right after ten o'clock, managing to catch and destroy the bulk of Egypt's aircraft on the ground without opposition.
#12
Oren's book, pg 171 - Day One: the Egyptians assumed they would be attacked at dawn, flew their sunrise patrols and returned to base at 8:15AM - they were attacked on the ground. Only 4 training flights were in the air, none armed
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2007 17:41 Comments ||
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#13
The attack was on 7:45. Egyptians had been expecting an attack at sunrise when the sun would have been in the eyes of egptian artillerymen. For days they had been flying large CAPs just before sunrise but by 7:3O the egyptian planes landed, probably with little or no fuel and their pilots went to have breakfast. This day the breakfast pause was abruptly interrupted timetable.
#1
"Society will shame you to death. This pressure does not exist in the West."
Which is why so many high context cultures are extremely backwards, violent and unindustrialized.
"I come from a culture that's very sensitive to criticism," she says. "We were never brought up to look at what we had done to cause a particular problem.
"It's always about blaming others, saying, maybe it's the next-door neighbour who did it, or, no, it's the next town, or another country, or other religions.
It all about humiliation, the bane of high context cultures.
"It's never, 'What have we done?' or, 'What is our part in this tragedy?' And if you do admit, 'We've made a mistake and we are sorry for it', you become the bearer of the sin and everything will be thrown at you."
Which largely sums up Islam's treatment of women. To this day they are still being punished for Eve's supposed betrayal of Adam in Eden. This is also symptomatic of Islamic institutional memory as a whole. It propels blood vendettas and regional conflicts for centuries at a time.
To Darwish, Sharia law is the problem that any woman in the Middle East must face. "You can't live alone as a woman you must live with your husband or your parents. If you have sex out of wedlock you could go to prison. If you want to convert become a Buddhist, for example, you can go to jail for it. When push comes to shove, Sharia law does not protect women. It's the stumbling block, it's what's making Islam impossible to change."
Nonie nails it. Shari'a is also what will bring about Islam's demise. Its intransigence and promotion of global domination combine to make it totally implaccable. Islam's adamant refusal to change, reform or even respond to outside pressure will eventually require its extermination.
#2
I was able to meet and speak with Nonie Darwish a couple of weeks ago. I purchased her book. She is very brave woman. Her story about growing up in Gaza and Islamic life is very chilling. I do, however, get the sense there may be a long term glimmer of hope in dealing with Islam. She points out that most of the followers know in their hearts that they are living a lie. They're just too afraid to openly talk about it.
#3
They're just too afraid to openly talk about it.
If you hold your breath long enough to avoid uttering anything controversial, eventually you die of suffocation. If the global Muslim community cannot bring themselves to speak out against their jihadist masters, then they will choke on their own silence. Tough shit.
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