SIX DAY WAR
It is well known that the 1956 Israel-Egypt war was a set-up. Israel conspired with France and Great Britain to punish Nasser for nationalizing the Suez Canal. It is also known that the 1973 Yom Kippur War was set up by Henry Kissinger and the Trilateral Commission to orchestrate an "oil shock", in order to slam the doors on Third World development. However, it appears that the Six Day War has not been well investigated. The conventional, textbook line, is that Egypt and Syria, armed by the Soviet Union, intended to destroy Israel, and drive the Jews into the sea. The days before the war are said to be the most anxious days in Israeli history. Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin is said to have collapsed under the psychological pressure. Finally, on June 5, 1967, Israel launched a preemptive attack on Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, miraculously destroyed the combined Arab enemies simultaneously, and ultimately seized the West Bank, the Gaza strip, and the Golan Heights—territories which today prove to be key in the ongoing peace process.
The tensions leading to the Six Day War began at least as early 1964 when Israel completed a project diverting water from Lake Tiberius to the Negev. Syria countered by beginning a diversion project of its own, which was promptly hit by Israeli artillery and tanks. Syrian-backed terrorists launched repeated incursions into Israeli territory, provoking tit-for-tat responses from the Israelis (or was it vise-versa?), culminating on April 6, 1967, when Israel shot down 6 Syrian MiGs. At this point, full-scale war was not inevitable, but it is proven that Lyndon LaRouche’s development perspective is the only real solution. Most of the tension between Syria and Israel boiled down to one thing: water.
As one account puts it, by May 1965, "Israel was moving tanks into the Israel-Syria demilitarized zone with impunity, and was repeatedly firing upon Syrian civilian irrigation projects, trying to goad the Syrian Army into war." Furthermore, "Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan…[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland…[Dayan stated] ‘They didn’t even try to hide their greed for the land…We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn’t possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot."
After the 6 Syrian MiGs were shot down, Syrian-backed terrorists increased their infiltrations and attacks across the Israeli border. Finally, according to the Arab account, Israel moved several divisions toward the Syrian border. Israel denied any such mobilization, but Egypt, on May 14, 1967, responded by moving a large force into the Sinai. Two days later, Egypt requested UN peacekeeping troops stationed in the Sinai to withdraw. The UN immediately complied. The UN withdrew so quickly, that Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, compared the UN peacekeepers to a "fire brigade that runs away at the first smell of smoke." Finally, on May 22, Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Israel, so the story goes, considered the blockade to be a cassus belli, and launched a preemptive, sneak attack on June 5.
Even a superficial investigation of events proves the truth is not so simple. Let us begin with Nasser's account on May 25, 1967: "In recent days Israel has been making aggressive threats and boasting. On 12 May a very impertinent statement was made. Anyone reading this statement must believe that these people are so boastful and deceitful that one simply cannot remain silent. The statement said that the Israeli commanders announced they would carry out military operations against Syria in order to occupy Damascus and overthrow the Syrian government. On the same day the Israeli Premier, Eshkol, made a very threatening statement against Syria." Two days later, Egypt moved into the Sinai. Nasser continued, "On 13 May we received accurate information that Israel was concentrating on the Syrian border huge armed forces of about 11 to 13 brigades. These forces were divided into two fronts, one south of Lake Tiberius and the other north of the Lake. The decision made by Israel at this time was to carry out an attack against Syria starting on 17 May."
Whether Israel actually moved 11 to 13 brigades to the Syrian border is unclear, and may have involved a Soviet disinformation campaign. In any event, Israel made counter-claims of its own. "Israel went to great lengths to convince the United States that the Arabs were preparing for war. In the last week of May, Mossad’s Director contacted the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv and gave him information purporting to show frightful Arab troop concentrations near Israel’s border. High-altitude aerial reconnaissance failed however, to find the concentrations, and the CIA so informed President Johnson."
The real question here, is not necessarily who moved troops, and where they moved them within their own sovereign borders, but rather, what did they intend to do with them, wherever they were. A thorough reading of Nasser’s speeches before the war shows no clear indication that Nasser intended any offensive action in the days before the war. His only offense was to blockade the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, an action that could have been merely defensive. According to Yitzhak Rabin, "I do not think Nasser wanted war, the two divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it."
In the first day of the war, June 5, the United Nations Security Council worked to pass a cease-fire resolution. On the evening of June 6, a resolution passed. "But during those first two critical days of furious bargaining on the matter, the U.S. delegation, led by Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, resisted any cease-fire resolution that would (a) brand Israel as the aggressor or (b) include a demand for a troop withdrawal to the June 4 borders. This in spite of the fact that the Johnson White House knew well that Israel had carried out a massive sneak attack that had, in the case of Egypt, destroyed 300 planes on the ground in the first 170 minutes, as Israel’s armored units swept into the Sinai." Egypt accepted the cease-fire on the June 8. The following day Israel invaded Syria and seized the Golan Heights.
Following the war, Nasser had this to say, "It became very clear from the first moment that there were other powers behind the enemy—they came to settle their accounts with the Arab national movement… American and British aircraft carriers were off the shores of the enemy helping his war effort. Also, British aircraft raided, in broad daylight, positions on the Syrian and Egyptian fronts, in addition to operations by a number of American aircraft reconnoitering some of our positions… the enemy was operating with an air force three times stronger than its normal force."
Whether British aircraft conducted raids is uncorroborated. However, years after the war, the fact that U.S. aircraft conducted extensive, crucial reconnaissance on behalf of the Israelis during the 1967 War has been corroborated.
Several questions remain. Were the Americans and the British there, as Nasser claimed, "to settle their accounts with the Arab national movement? Why did the U.S. delegation to the UN work so strenuously to get a cease-fire resolution favorable to Israel, only to have it ignored by the Israelis? Why did the UN troops in the Sinai leave post-haste when Nasser requested their withdrawal? The most immediate question, however, is what did the Israeli leadership say in their speeches before Egypt moved its forces into the Sinai?
Early in the crisis, Soviet Ambassador Chuvakim met with Foreign Minister Abba Eban. According to Eban, "He informed me that the crisis had resulted from the aggressive propaganda of the Israeli government and especially the speeches of its leader against Arab states. He referred in particular to statements made by senior Israeli military officers on May 11, and thereafter. He repeated his warning that the entire responsibility for the crisis rested on Israel." Eban himself admitted, "At Independence Day meetings, most Israeli public figures made the conventional speeches of defiance. I thought at the time, that if there had been a little more Israeli silence, the sum of human wisdom would probably have remained intact." Independence Day in Israel was May 14. There was a large parade displaying Israeli military hardware. Much of Israel’s most advanced weaponry was suspiciously absent. That was the day Egypt made its move into the Sinai.
To conclude, according to N.T. Federenko, Soviet Delegate to the UN in 1967 "It was proved that the Israeli aggression was not an accidental thing, not the result of any mistake or misunderstanding. No, it was a carefully plotted imperialist provocation, the timing of which was planned on all sides. This aggression was to secure political changes in the Middle East in the interest of imperialism, notably American imperialism, to alter the "balance of strength" in the area. Its purpose was to undermine the Arab national-liberation movement, to weaken the progressive regimes in the U.A.R., Syria and other Arab countries. Israel acted as the instrument of more powerful imperialist states, and above all the U.S." History may yet show that Federenko was not far from the truth.
Thomas Rooney