Myths
and Facts - Road to Suez
MYTH
“Arab governments were prepared to accept Israel after the 1948 war.”
FACT
In the fall of 1948, the UN Security Council called on Israel and the
Arab states to negotiate armistice agreements. Thanks to UN mediator
Ralph Bunche's insistence on direct bilateral talks between Israel and
each Arab state, armistice agreements between Israel and Egypt, Jordan,
Lebanon and Syria were concluded by the summer of 1949. Iraq, which had
also fought against Israel, refused to follow suit.
Meanwhile, on December 11, 1948, the General Assembly adopted a
resolution calling on the parties to negotiate peace and creating a
Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC), which consisted of the United
States, France and Turkey. All Arab delegations voted against it.
After 1949, the Arabs insisted that Israel accept the borders in the
1947 partition resolution and repatriate the Palestinian refugees before
they would negotiate an end to the war they had initiated. This was a
novel approach that they would use after subsequent defeats: the
doctrine of the limited-liability war. Under this theory, aggressors may
reject a compromise settlement and gamble on war to win everything in
the comfortable knowledge that, even if they fail, they may insist on
reinstating the status quo ante.
MYTH
“Israel's military strike in 1956 was unprovoked.”
FACT
Egypt had maintained its state of belligerency with Israel after the
armistice agreement was signed. The first manifestation of this was the
closing of the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping. On August 9, 1949, the UN
Mixed Armistice Commission upheld Israel's complaint that Egypt was
illegally blocking the canal. UN negotiator Ralph Bunche declared:
"There should be free movement for legitimate shipping and no vestiges
of the wartime blockade should be allowed to remain, as they are
inconsistent with both the letter and the spirit of the armistice
agreements."1
On September 1, 1951, the Security Council ordered Egypt to open the
Canal to Israeli shipping. Egypt refused to comply.
The Egyptian Foreign Minister, Muhammad Salah al-Din, said early in
1954:
The Arab people will not be embarrassed to declare: We shall not be
satisfied except by the final obliteration of Israel from the map of the
Middle East.2
In 1955, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser began to import arms from
the Soviet Bloc to build his arsenal for the confrontation with Israel.
In the short-term, however, he employed a new tactic to prosecute
Egypt's war with Israel. He announced it on August 31, 1955:
Egypt has decided to dispatch her heroes, the disciples of Pharaoh and
the sons of Islam and they will cleanse the land of Palestine....There
will be no peace on Israel's border because we demand vengeance, and
vengeance is Israel's death.3
fed.jpg (19368 bytes) These "heroes" were Arab terrorists, or fedayeen,
trained and equipped by Egyptian Intelligence to engage in hostile
action on the border, and to infiltrate Israel to commit acts of
sabotage and murder. The fedayeen operated mainly from bases in Jordan,
so that Jordan would bear the brunt of Israel's retaliation, which
inevitably followed. The terrorist attacks violated the armistice
agreement provision that prohibited the initiation of hostilities by
paramilitary forces; nevertheless, it was Israel that was condemned by
the UN Security Council for its counterattacks.
The escalation continued with the Egyptian blockade of Israel's shipping
lane in the Straits of Tiran, and Nasser's nationalization of the Suez
Canal in July 1956. On October 14, Nasser made clear his intent:
I am not solely fighting against Israel itself. My task is to deliver
the Arab world from destruction through Israel's intrigue, which has its
roots abroad. Our hatred is very strong. There is no sense in talking
about peace with Israel. There is not even the smallest place for
negotiations.4
Less than two weeks later, on October 25, Egypt signed a tripartite
agreement with Syria and Jordan placing Nasser in command of all three
armies.
The continued blockade of the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli
shipping, combined with the increased fedayeen attacks and the
bellicosity of recent Arab statements, prompted Israel, with the backing
of Britain and France, to attack Egypt on October 29, 1956. The Israeli
attack on Egypt was successful, with Israeli forces capturing the Gaza
Strip, much of the Sinai and Sharm al-Sheikh. A total of 231 soldiers
died in the fighting.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Abba Eban explained the provocations to the
Security Council on October 30:
During the six years during which this belligerency has operated in
violation of the Armistice Agreement there have occurred 1,843 cases of
armed robbery and theft, 1,339 cases of armed clashes with Egyptian
armed forces, 435 cases of incursion from Egyptian controlled territory,
172 cases of sabotage perpetrated by Egyptian military units and
fedayeen in Israel. As a result of these actions of Egyptian hostility
within Israel, 364 Israelis were wounded and 101 killed. In 1956 alone,
as a result of this aspect of Egyptian aggression, 28 Israelis were
killed and 127 wounded.5
One reason these raids were so intolerable for Israel was that the
country had chosen to create a relatively small standing army and to
rely primarily on reserves in the event of war. This meant that Israel
had a small force to fight in an emergency, that threats provoking the
mobilization of reserves could virtually paralyze the country, and that
an enemy's initial thrust would have to be withstood long enough to
complete the mobilization.
MYTH
“Israel had no reason to attack Egypt; it went to war to advance the
imperialist interests of France and Great Britain.”
FACT
Eisenhower had successfully persuaded the British and French not to
attack Egypt after Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956. When
the agreement on the Canal's use proved reliable over the succeeding
weeks, it became increasingly difficult to justify military action.
Still, the French and British desperately wanted to put Nasser in his
place and recapture their strategic asset.
The French had grown increasingly close to the new Israeli government,
politically, diplomatically and militarily. In fact over the next two
decades, the French would be Israel's principal arms supplier. The
British attitude toward Israel had hardly changed from the mandatory
period. Residual bitterness over the nearly three decade long battle
fought with the Zionists, combined with the ongoing alliance with
Jordan, discouraged any shift in policy.
The French concluded, however, that they could use Israel's fear of
Egyptian aggression, and the continuing blockade, as a pretext for their
own strike against Nasser. The British couldn't pass up the chance to
join in.
The three nations subsequently agreed on a plan whereby Israel would
land paratroopers near the Canal and send its armor across the Sinai
desert. The British and French would then call for both sides to
withdraw from the canal zone, fully expecting the Egyptians to refuse.
At that point, British and French troops would be deployed to "protect"
the canal.
From Israel's perspective, the continued blockade of the Suez Canal and
Gulf of Aqaba, combined with the increased fedayeen attacks, and the
bellicosity of recent Arab statements, made the situation intolerable.
Rather than continue to fight a war of attrition with the terrorists and
wait for Nasser and his allies to build their forces up sufficiently to
wage a new war, Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion decided to launch a
preemptive strike. The backing of the British and French, he thought,
would give him cover against the opposition of the United States. He was
wrong.6
MYTH
“The United States* blind support for Israel was apparent during the
Suez War.”
FACT
President Dwight Eisenhower was upset by the fact that Israel, France
and Great Britain had secretly planned the campaign to evict Egypt from
the Suez Canal. Israel's failure to inform the United States of its
intentions, combined with ignoring American entreaties not to go to war,
sparked tensions between the countries. The United States subsequently
joined the Soviet Union (ironically, just after the Soviets invaded
Hungary) in a campaign to force Israel to withdraw. This included a
threat to discontinue all U.S. assistance, UN sanctions and expulsion
from the UN (see exchanges between Ben-Gurion and Eisenhower).
U.S. pressure resulted in an Israeli withdrawal from the areas it
conquered without obtaining any concessions from the Egyptians. This
sowed the seeds of the 1967 war.
One reason Israel did give in to Eisenhower was the assurance he gave to
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Before evacuating Sharm al-Sheikh, the
strategic point guarding the Straits of Tiran, Israel elicited a promise
that the United States would maintain the freedom of navigation in the
waterway.7 In addition, Washington sponsored a UN resolution creating
the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to supervise the territories
vacated by the Israeli forces.
The war temporarily ended the activities of the fedayeen; however, they
were renewed a few years by a loosely knit group of terrorist
organizations that became know as the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO).
Notes
1Eliezer Ereli," The Bat Galim Case Before the Security Council," Middle
Eastern Affairs, (April 1955), pp. 108-9.
2Al-Misri, (April 12, 1954).
3Middle Eastern Affairs, (December 1956), p. 461.
4Middle Eastern Affairs, (December 1956), p. 460.
5Security Council Official Records, S/3706, (October 30, 1956), p. 14.
6Mitchell Bard, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict. NY:
Alpha Books, 2003, pp. 178-181.
7Janice Gross Stein and Raymond Tanter, Rational Decision Making:
Israel*s Security Choices ,(OH: Ohio State University, 1976), p. 163.
Maps courtesy of The Pedagogic Center, The Department for Jewish Zionist
Education, The Jewish Agency for Israel, (c) 1997-2005, Director: Dr.
Motti Friedman, Webmaster: Esther Carciente.
From:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf5.html
|
|
