It has been a month since my last post and I apologize. It isn't that I haven't wanted to post on many of the events that have currently graced the front pages of newspapers and magazines, but I have been working on papers for school. My original plan was to post my most recent paper on the War of 1967 (Six-Day War) between Israel and the UAR (Egypt), but after looking into copyright laws, I realized that it could possibly become an issue to post my paper here without consent from all the authors whom I cited in my work. So I have decided to do the next best thing--I am posting my introduction and conclusion, which provide the general content of the paper.
The territorial gains (the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights) made by Israel during this war have been the greatest points of conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis. This paper does not look at the results of the war and the impact they have had on the region, but rather it is an investigation of why the war occurred in the first place and the possibilities that existed to avoid war altogether.
The territorial gains (the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights) made by Israel during this war have been the greatest points of conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis. This paper does not look at the results of the war and the impact they have had on the region, but rather it is an investigation of why the war occurred in the first place and the possibilities that existed to avoid war altogether.
Introduction
The Six-Day War of 1967 between Israel and the United Arab Republic (Jordan and Syria were also involved) is an example of a war that occurred due to rhetoric, manipulation, and miscalculation.[1] Both sides had built-up sizeable militaries and were adequately armed in preparation for future conflicts, but the war that erupted between Israel and the UAR in June of 1967 was not inevitable. This by no means suggests that the potential for conflict did not exist. There were many contributing factors that led to the eventual Israeli attack on the UAR, but from these there are a few that played a major role in initiating the course of events that resulted in war. Prior to the outbreak of war, the Soviet Union provided Syria and the UAR with false information about the concentration of Israeli troops on the border with Syria. This led Gamal ‘Abdel Nasser, president of the UAR, to build-up troops in the Sinai Peninsula as a deterrent to Israel, which ultimately resulted in Nasser’s expulsion of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) from the UAR and began a quick chain of events that culminated in a swift Israeli victory over he UAR, Jordan, and Syria.
Israel’s defeat of the UAR and its allies was a harsh blow to the Arab world and its designs to remove Israel from its place as a Middle Eastern state. These plans were partly responsible for the resulting war in 1967, in as much as they put pressure on Nasser to come out from the shadow of the UNEF and reestablish himself and the UAR as a strong Arab nation. This paper will examine two primary factors that escalated the situation between Israel and the UAR to war—the Soviet propaganda of Israeli troop build-up along the Syrian border and the removal of the UNEF from the UAR replaced by UAR troops in the Sinai. The first section of this paper provides the context, by which the events of May and June 1967 were influenced. The following section will analyze the Soviet propaganda and discuss the possible motivations for supplying its Middle Eastern clients with false information. The final section will address the issue of Nasser’s decision to remove UNEF troops from the Sinai Peninsula, which was partially influenced by the “intelligence” provided by the Soviets. Through a close look at these elements, one will be able to have a more thorough understanding not only of the elements that ignited the Six-Day War, but also of those things that possibly could have prevented war in the late spring of 1967.
Conclusion
The situation in the Middle East in 1967 was certainly unstable, but there was a multitude of influences that made an unstable situation, a situation of war. The Soviet Union hoped to capitalize on the Middle East’s waning affiliation with the United States by securing its own Arab clients. Because of this goal, it became increasingly involved in the affairs of Egypt and Syria. Continuing a policy that had previously worked, the Soviets initiated a propaganda campaign to strengthen the bonds between its two main Arabs clients, the UAR and Syria, and to discourage any Israeli designs to attack Syria and threaten the neo-Ba‘thist government. This propaganda was miscalculated as well as the internal situations of both Syria and the UAR. Syria welcomed a new external war in the hopes to halt a conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood. Nasser was not willing to be a pawn on the Middle Eastern chessboard, but wanted to be the king. This miscalculation of the situation allowed the Soviet Union to spark the fuse that would ignite a new Arab-Israeli war.
The blame does not fall solely on the Soviet Union of course. Although one might question if there ever would have been a war if the Soviets didn’t instigate a crisis, it is very difficult to determine this. It is, however, much easier to determine possible outcomes had other agents reacted differently to the initial crisis. The mobilization of UAR troops into the Sinai was not a move beyond the point of no return. The UAR and Israel had averted a military conflict seven years earlier under almost the same circumstances. The problem with this situation was Nasser’s need to quiet the comments of his fellow Arab leaders, which were delegitimizing his claims as leader of the Arab world. An inaccurate assessment of the situation by the UN Secretary General U Thant further complicated the situation. Had he applied pressure on the UAR and refused to remove the UNEF from UAR territory, it is quite likely a replay of the stand off in 1960 would have been the only consequence. However, U Thant’s compliance with the UAR’s request, although correct according to policy concerning the UNEF, forced Nasser to continue the course of action he began.
Nasser, who did not meet the opposition he expected, had to decide whether he wanted to avoid a war and lose his prestige among the Arab world or continue with actions that would commit the UAR to another war with Israel, but would further legitimize his status in the Arab world. He chose the latter path because that was his whole purpose in playing the game the Soviets had set before him. The superpowers and the UN failed to recognize the importance the Israelis placed on naval access to the Straits of Tiran and didn’t work hard enough to convince Nasser to open the straits. The risk assessment became too great for Israel and it finally attacked and defeated the UAR, Jordan and Syria.
The possibility for a different outcome existed in 1967, but there were too many conflicting aspirations that resulted in the events that have been recorded in the annals of history. Although the “what if” game could be played forever, what is clear from this analysis is that there is not one sole person or entity that is responsible for the chain of events that escalated into the Six-Day War. Instead, the propaganda, manipulation, rhetoric, and miscalculations of a number of agents determined the course of events that led to war in 1967 and has affected the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict ever since.
