History - (Part II)

The Suez Crisis, 1956

On October 29, 1956, the Israeli army invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. Soon after, the forces of Great Britain and France launched air attacks against Egypt.

That crisis had its roots in two factors: friction at the armistice line, established after the 1948 war between Israel and Egypt, and control over the Suez Canal. Another factor was the withdrawal of the U.S. offer to help finance the High Aswan Dam in upper Egypt, a prized project of the country's new ruler and champion of Arab nationalism, Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Eisenhower and Dulles did not trust Nasser because he tried to steer a neutral course between the United States and the Soviet Union, and they were especially displeased with his recognition of Communist China. The administration first tried to win Nasser over, but when that failed, it tried obsessively to undermine him and worse.(68) The wish to undermine Nasser was important in forging a U.S.-Israeli "strategic relationship." The offer to finance the dam and provide arms (with conditions Nasser could not accept) were the carrots dangled before the charismatic Egyptian. When Nasser turned to the Soviets in September 1955 to purchase arms when he could not buy them from the United States without strings attached, his actions were seized on as proof that he was in the Soviet camp and thus an enemy of the United States.(69) (The events in Iran were not lost on Nasser.)

The United States also had antagonized Nasser in 1955 when it set up the Baghdad Pact (later called the Central Treaty Organization, or CENTO), an alliance of northern tier nations, including Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq (the only Arab country in the alliance). Great Britain was also a member. The United States was not a formal member but was clearly a guiding force. Nasser saw the pact as an attempt to split the Arab world and interfere with the "positive neutralism" he sought for it. Iraq at the time was friendly to the West and not disposed to the Arab nationalism that Nasser aspired to create and lead.(70) The Baghdad Pact was one of the things that had the ironic effect of bringing the Arabs and Soviets closer.

In mid-1956 the United States abruptly withdrew its offer to help finance the High Aswan Dam, just as the Egyptians had decided to accept the administration's conditions. The American reversal brought cancellations of aid for the dam from Great Britain and the World Bank as well. A week after the U.S. decision, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, which since 1869 had been owned by French nationals and the British government and operated under an Egyptian concession. The British and French governments reacted angrily; for the French, it was not irrelevant that Nasser was helping the Algerians, who were seeking independence. The U.S. reaction was calmer, as Eisenhower and Dulles distinguished between ownership and freedom of navigation. (Nevertheless, the New York Times denounced Nasser as "the Hitler on the Nile.")(71) The U.S. administration warned Great Britain and France against responding precipitously and pressed for negotiations. A conference was convened, but Nasser refused to attend or accept its pro-posals. Nevertheless, international traffic on the canal continued normally under Egyptian administration. When Great Britain and France failed to get satisfaction from the United Nations, they began making plans for war.

Israel was not able to use the canal, but the Jewish state's aims regarding Egypt went beyond that grievance. Since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Palestinian refugees had often crossed into Israel seeking to regain property and possessions expropriated by the government and to reach relatives. Some engaged in violence. Israel began responding with massive reprisal raids against entire villages in the Arab countries. Most significant was the attack on the town of Gaza in February 1955, when children as well as men were killed. That attack prompted Egypt to end direct peace talks with Israel and to turn to the Soviet Union for arms. It was only at that point that Egypt sponsored an anti-Israeli guerrilla organization whose members were known as the Fedayeen. In August Israel attacked the Gaza Strip village of Khan Yunis, killing 39 Egyptians. The attacks in the Gaza Strip, masterminded by officials loyal to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, subverted Nasser's efforts to make peace with Israel. Ben-Gurion's successor, Moshe Sharett, re-sponded positively to Nasser's overtures, but Gen. Moshe Dayan and others undermined Sharett.(72) During the winter of 1955, for example, Israeli warplanes flew over Cairo repeatedly to demonstrate Egyptian military impotence.

The Israeli government had earlier tried to prevent a warming of U.S.-Egyptian relations by having saboteurs bomb American offices in Cairo in 1954, an episode that became known as the Lavon Affair.(73) When Egypt uncovered the operation, Israel accused Nasser of fabricating the plot. Two of the 13 men arrested were hanged, and their hangings were used as a pretext for Israel's February 1955 attack on Gaza. Six years later, the Israeli government's complicity was confirmed.

Israel's bad relations with Egypt were also aggravated by the seizure of an Israeli ship, which was provocatively sent into the Suez Canal in September 1954. Both sides had seized each other's ships before, and this incident appears to have been provoked by Israel as a way to get Great Britain to compel Egypt to permit Israeli ships to use the waterway as part of a final agreement on the Suez Canal.(74)

Despite repeated provocations, Egypt, according to documents later captured by Israel, had attempted to prevent infiltration by the Fedayeen because of its fear of attack.(75) Nevertheless, in October 1956 Israel invaded Egypt, ignoring American pleas for forbearance. The United States took the matter to the UN Security Council, which called for a cease-fire and withdrawal. It also passed a resolution to create a 6,000-man UN emergency force to help restore the status quo ante.

Eisenhower's opposition to the conduct of Israel, Great Britain, and France--an anomaly in light of later U.S. policy--is explained by his opposition to old-style colonialism. The administration wanted to win the friendship of the newly independent countries of Africa and Asia and to keep them out of the Soviet orbit. That could not be accomplished if the United States were perceived to be on the side of Great Britain and France in so flagrant an act of imperialism as an attack on Egypt. Also important to the administration's calculus was its wish that London not challenge Washington's more subtle dominance in the Middle East. British and French irritation with American anti-colonialism was a source of problems among the leaders of the three nations.(76)

When the UN call for a cease-fire failed to contain the conflict, the Soviet Union threatened to intervene, and Premier Nicolai Bulganin even proposed to Eisenhower that their two countries take joint military action to end the war. Eisenhower rejected the proposal and warned the Soviets not to get involved.(77)

The fighting ended on November 7, when Britain and France bowed to the United Nations and agreed to withdraw. Israel, however, refused to withdraw from the Sinai until its conditions were met. Israel was especially adamant that Egypt not regain the Gaza Strip, which was to have been part of the Palestinian state under the UN partition. Eisenhower responded to Israel's position by threatening to cut off aid, although he apparently never did so.(78) By March 1957 Israel had withdrawn from all the occupied areas, but not before the United States had given assurances that UN troops would be stationed on Egyptian territory to ensure free passage of Israeli and Israel-bound ships through the Strait of Tiran and to prevent Fedayeen activity. The United States, in an aide-mÇmoire by John Foster Dulles, also acknowledged that the Gulf of Aqaba was international waters and "that no nation has the right to prevent free and innocent passage in the Gulf and through the Straits." The key to the final settlement was a French proposal that Israel be allowed to act in self-defense under the UN charter if its ships were attacked in the Gulf of Aqaba.(79)

Thus, the United States again became directly involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict and made what would later be construed as guarantees to Israel. Although Israel chafed under the frank rhetoric and surprising (in light of the U.S. election season) evenhandedness of Eisenhower and Dulles, it got essentially what it wanted from the Suez campaign.(80)

The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Lebanon Invasion, 1958

The United States was determined to not let its preeminence in the Middle East be challenged--by anyone--again. Early in 1957 Eisenhower delivered a message to Congress in which he referred to the instability in the region being "heightened and, at times, manipulated by International Communism"--that is, the Soviet Union, he added obligatorily. Accordingly, he proposed a program of economic aid, military assistance, and cooperation and the use of U.S. troops, when requested, "against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by International Communism."(81) That was the Eisenhower Doctrine, which Congress ultimately approved and for which it authorized the spending of up to $200 million. Twelve of 15 Middle Eastern states approached by the administration accepted the doctrine. Initially hesitant, Israel also accepted it. However, only Lebanon formally endorsed the Eisenhower Doctrine, in return for promises of military and economic aid.(82)

Not everyone in the U.S. government understood the logic of the doctrine. Wilber Crane Eveland of the CIA later recounted his reaction:

I was shocked. Who, I wondered, had reached this determination of what the Arabs considered a danger? Israel's army had just invaded Egypt and still occupied all of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. And, had it not been for Russia's threat to intervene on behalf of the Egyptians, the British, French, and Israeli forces might now be sitting in Cairo, celebrating Nasser's ignominious fall from power.(83)

Eveland's reaction was not unusual. Many people believed that the Arabs did not rank the Soviet Union as their number-one threat. According to Eveland, when Eisenhower dispatched an envoy to sound out the Arab countries, Egypt, Syria, and some North African states said they saw no danger from international communism.(84)

In April 1957, when King Hussein of Jordan faced a Pan-Arabist challenge from socialist-nationalists and the Communist party, the U.S. government moved the Sixth Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean and provided $10 million in economic aid to his country, the first installment of a regular annual subsidy.(85) And when Syria appeared to be moving closer to Nasser and the Soviets, the Eisenhower administration, egged on by Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan, put area forces on alert and issued warnings against outside interference. The crisis subsided without direct intervention. Although the president talked much of the internal communist threat to the Arab countries, Eisenhower's biographer Stephen Ambrose writes that "what Eisenhower really feared was radical Arab nationalism" and its threat to the feudal monarchies.(86)

A full-blown intervention under the Eisenhower Doctrine finally took place in Lebanon in 1958. Rising Pan-Arabism, which worried several Arab regimes, surged on February 1 when Egypt and Syria joined to become the United Arab Republic. In re sponse, King Hussein entered a unity agreement of his own with his fellow Hashemite ruler in Iraq. And King Saud of Saudi Arabia was also so concerned that he tried to have Nasser assassinated.

In Lebanon the development was viewed as especially upsetting. The fragile Lebanese confessional system, in which religious groups have representation in the government in ratios fixed by the constitution, made the country particularly susceptible to disturbances.(87) Lebanon's large Sunni Muslim population was sympathetic to Pan-Arabism, as were its Druzes (a Muslim sect). Camille Chamoun, the country's Maronite Catholic president, feared Nasser and his ideology and favored a close relationship with the United States.

Chamoun aggravated the Pan-Arabist distrust of him by seeking a second six-year term as president, contrary to the Lebanese constitution. To achieve that ambition, he used dubious methods (possibly rigging the election) to elect a parliamentary majority that would change the constitution. The CIA funneled money to selected candidates.(88) When a pro-Nasser newspaper editor was killed, a rebellion ignited: a coalition of Sunni, Druze, and other opponents of Chamoun demanded his resignation and called for radical reform. The rebels controlled parts of Beirut and rural areas and accepted armed assistance from Syria.(89)

Chamoun appealed to Eisenhower for help on May 13. Initially, the United States was reluctant to intervene, but on July 14 a coup d'Çtat took place in Iraq, home of the Baghdad Pact, and the monarchy was replaced by a government led by Gen. Abdul Karim Qassem, a reputed Nasserite.(90) When the new Iraqi government allied itself with the United Arab Republic, fear of spreading instability in the region led Eisenhower to send troops to Lebanon. He warned that "this somber turn of events could, without vigorous response on our part, well result in a complete elimination of Western influence in the Middle East."(91) But the Eisenhower administration decided not to intervene in Iraq when Qassem announced that the Iraq Petroleum Company, in which American oil firms held shares, would not be disturbed; in fact, the United States recognized the new government on July 30.(92)

On July 15 the first of 14,357 U.S. troops landed in Lebanon.(93) Meanwhile, Eisenhower's special emissary, Robert Murphy, worked out a solution: Gen. Fuad Chehab, a compromise Christian candidate acceptable to Eisenhower, Nasser, and most Lebanese, would become president; Chamoun would complete his original term; and Washington would provide $10 million in aid.(94) One of Chamoun's opponents, Rashid Karami, became prime minister, however, and promptly announced that recognition of the Eisenhower Doctrine would be withdrawn and that Lebanon would shift to nonaligned status. Washington accepted that policy shift and withdrew all of its troops by October 25. Fortunately, no Lebanese or American was killed in the U.S. military intervention.(95)

The U.S. government counted the operation a success, but that one and only application of the Eisenhower Doctrine was actually a misapplication. The doctrine was ostensibly formulated to deter armed aggression by nations controlled by "International Communism," but neither Syria nor Egypt was controlled by the Soviet Union; they were not even independent communist regimes. "He [Nasser] curbed and suppressed native Communists both in Egypt and Syria," wrote historian George Len-czowski, "and, despite heavy dependence on Soviet arms and economic aid, jealously maintained his country's sovereignty."(96)

Two lessons National Security Council officials learned from the Lebanon intervention apparently were not heeded by subsequent policymakers. A November 1958 NSC document warned that "to be cast in the role of Nasser's opponent would be to leave the Soviets as his champion." The document also counseled against "becoming too closely identified with individual factions in Lebanese politics."(97) The first lesson would be ignored in 1967, the second in 1983.

The Six-Day War, 1967

In six days during June 1967, the Israeli military devastated the air and ground forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and occupied the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the West Bank (an area west of the Jordan River), including East Jerusalem. The Six-Day War established Israel as the premier military power in the Middle East. Israel's might was a product of American money and French armaments, in addition to dedicated personnel. The war also established the idea of Israel as a U.S. strategic asset in the region.

Before discussing the U.S. role in the war, it is nec essary to briefly explain how and why the war was fought. Its start is generally treated as a preemptive, defensive strike by Israel, necessitated by mortal threats from its neighbors.(98) The facts show otherwise. Kennett Love, a former New York Times correspondent and a scholar of the Suez crisis, wrote that Israel drew up "plans for the new war . . . immediately after the old. . . . The 1956 war served as a rehearsal for 1967."(99) That is important because it bears on the Arab reaction to the U.S. role, a reaction that has shaped subsequent developments in the region.(100)

After the 1956 Sinai campaign, the Israeli-Egyptian border was quiet, partly because of the presence of the UN Emergency Force. But that was not true of the border between Israel and Syria. The specific causes of friction between the two countries were disputes about fishing rights in Lake Tiberias, Israeli settlement activity in the demilitarized zone established after the 1948 war, guerrilla incursions into Israel, and Israeli development of a water project involving the Jordan River.(101)

Israel retaliated against the guerrilla activity with massive raids into Syria and sometimes into Jordan.(102) Syria, which had left the United Arab Republic in 1961, underwent a left-wing Ba'athist coup in 1966 and had good relations with the Soviet Union. Syria pointed to the quiet Israeli-Egyptian border and the lack of Egyptian response to the attacks on Syria as evidence that Nasser was not up to leading the Arabs. Nasser was accused of hiding behind the UN forces. Actually, Egypt was absorbed in civil wars in Yemen and the British Crown Colony of Aden (soon to be South Yemen) at the southern end of the Arabian peninsula. Intra- Arab rivalries were assuming greater importance in the mid- 1960s, with Nasser frequently bearing the brunt of Arab criticism.(103)

The Syrian-Israeli friction continued throughout early 1967. Then, in April, Israel said it would cultivate the entire demilitarized zone between the countries, including land that Syria contended was the property of Arab farmers. When the Israelis moved a tractor onto the land on April 7, the Syrians fired on them. To retaliate, 70 Israeli fighters flew over Syria and shot down 6 Syrian war planes near Damascus. There was no response from the United Arab Command, an essentially paper military undertaking organized by Nasser at an Arab summit in 1964. (At the same meeting, the Palestine Liberation Organization had been set up--ironically, as a means of reining in Palestinian nationalism.)(104)

Over the next several weeks, Israel threatened Syria. Gen. Yitzhak Rabin said in an Israeli radio broadcast on May 11 that "the moment is coming when we will march on Damascus to overthrow the Syrian Government, because it seems that only military operations can discourage the plans for a people's war with which they threaten us."(105) The Israeli director of military intelligence, Aharon Yariv, added that Nasser would not intervene.(106) The Jewish state also directed massive military action against al-Fatah to stop infiltrations. Meanwhile, Israeli leaders did all they could to have their country appear in mortal danger.

The situation worsened when the Soviet Union told the Egyptians that Israel had massed forces on the Syrian border in preparation for a mid-May attack. The United Nations found no evidence of such preparation, but on May 14 Nasser moved troops into the Sinai. Yet U.S. and Israeli intelligence agreed that the action was, in Foreign Minister Abba Eban's words, "no immediate military threat," and several years later, in 1972, Gen. Ezer Weizmann admitted that "we did move tanks to the north after the downing of the aircraft."(107) Israel quickly and fully mobilized, prompting the Egyptians to ask the UN Emergency Force to leave the Sinai. The request did not mention the two most sensitive locations of the UN force, Sharm el-Sheikh (where it protected Israeli shipping) and the Gaza Strip, but the UN secretary general, U Thant, surprised everyone by replying that a partial withdrawal was impossible. Faced with a choice between the status quo and a complete UN withdrawal, Nasser chose the latter. When the United Nations offered to station its forces on Israel's side of the border, the Jewish state refused (as it had in the past). President Lyndon Johnson, fearing that the Israelis would "act hastily," asked Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to inform him in advance of any Israeli action.(108) Israel replied that a blockade of the Strait of Tiran would be a casus belli.

Meanwhile, Nasser told the Egyptian press that he was "not in a position to go to war."(109) Israeli military leaders believed him. General Rabin said later, "I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it."(110) Ben-Gurion himself said he "doubt[ed] very much whether Nasser wanted to go to war."(111)

It is in that context that the following events must be inter-preted. On May 21 Nasser mobilized his reserves. On May 22, with the UN forces gone and under the taunting of Syria and Israel, Nasser blocked--verbally not physically-- the Strait of Tiran, which leads from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba and the Israeli port city of Elath.(112) The strait's importance to the Israelis was more symbolic than practical; no Israeli flag ship had used it in nearly two years, although Iranian oil was shipped to Israel through it.(113) Nevertheless, the closure was a worrisome precedent for the Israelis.

Despite a blizzard of diplomatic activity in and outside the United Nations, tensions rose over the next days, until, on June 5, Israel attacked Egypt--thereby launching what came to be known as the Six-Day War. (The Israeli government told the UN Truce Supervision Organization that its planes had intercepted Egyptian planes--a patent falsehood.) In short order, Israel destroyed the air forces of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. Israel prepared a letter to President Johnson assuring him that Israel, in the shorthand of U.S. ambassador Walworth Barbour, "has no, repeat no, intention [of] taking advantage of [the] situation to enlarge its territory, [and] hopes peace can be restored within present boundaries."(114) But that soon changed, as signaled by a request from David Brody, director of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, that Johnson not mention "territorial integrity" in his public statements about the war.(115)

On June 8, Egypt, having lost the Sinai to Israel, accepted the cease-fire called for by the United Nations. The next day Syria also accepted it, but Israel launched additional offensive operations. By June 10 Israel controlled the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, Sharm el-Sheikh, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and its capital city of Quneitra.(116) With the road to Damascus open, the Soviets threatened intervention if Israel did not stop. The Johnson administration signaled its readiness to confront the Soviets by turning the Sixth Fleet toward Syria. That was to be the first of two near-confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union in Arab-Israeli wars. Then, according to Johnson, the U.S. government began to use "every diplomatic resource" to persuade Israel to conclude a cease-fire with Syria, which it did on June 10.(117)

The unseen side of the Six-Day War was Israel's nuclear capability. Although Prime Minister Eshkol promised in 1966 that Israel would not be the first nation to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, it had been developing a nuclear capability almost since its founding. The locus of the program was the Dimona reactor in the Negev near Beershea.(118) Israel apparently received help over the years from the American firm NUMEC, the French, and the U.S. government, including the CIA.(119) It probably had operational nuclear weapons in 1967. According to Francis Perrin, the former French high commissioner for atomic energy who had led the team that helped Israel to build Dimona, Israel wanted nuclear weapons so it could say to the United States, "If you don't want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs."(120)

Israel never signed the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has not allowed inspection of its nuclear facilities since the late 1960s. According to Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, the inspectors were consistently deceived in the early 1960s.(121) Israel had 12 to 16 warheads by the end of 1969, according to the Nixon administration. A CIA report concluded that Israel also tried to keep other Middle Eastern countries from developing nuclear weapons by assassinating their nuclear scientists.(122)

What was U.S. policy before and during the Six-Day War? In the tense days before the outbreak of hostilities, Johnson moved the Sixth Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean. On May 23, while declaring an embargo on arms to the area, he secretly authorized the air shipment to Israel of important spare parts, ammunition, bomb fuses, and armored personnel carriers.(123) After the war started, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for Israel to return to its prewar boundaries, and Johnson refused to criticize Israel for starting the war.(124)

Author Stephen Green has written that the United States participated in the conflict even more directly. Green contends that pilots of the U.S. Air Force's 38th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron of the 26th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing flew RF-4Cs--with white Stars of David and Israeli Air Force tail numbers painted on them--over bombed air bases in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan to take pictures for the Israelis. They flew 8 to 10 sorties a day throughout the war, and the pilots carried civilian passports so they would appear to be contract employees if caught. When the enemy air forces were destroyed, the RF-4C mission was changed to tracing Arab troop movements at night, which enabled the Israelis to bomb the troops the next morning. The pilots also flew close-in reconnaissance sorties around the Golan Heights. Apparently, none of the flights proved decisive, but they did enable Israel to achieve its objectives quickly.(125) Ironically, the Arabs accused the United States of providing tactical air support, which apparently was untrue. In re- sponse to the accusations, President Johnson said publicly that the United States provided no assistance of any kind to the Israelis.

A critical question is whether the U.S. government gave Israel a green light to go to war. Israeli officials frequently consulted with U.S. officials in the days before June 5; they were looking for support, claiming that Israel had been promised access through the Strait of Tiran in 1956. U.S. officials often told the Israelis that "Israel will only be alone if it decides to go alone"--a statement that was interpreted by some Israelis as a nod to go ahead. That impression could have been confirmed by Secretary of State Dean Rusk's reported comment to a journalist, regarding the U.S. attitude toward Israel: "I don't think it is our business to restrain anyone."(126) Finally, Foreign Minister Abba Eban later wrote in his autobiography that when he visited Washington in late May, "what I found . . . was the absence of any exhortation to us to stay our hand much longer."(127)

The Six-Day War was a diplomatic disaster for the United States. That might have been foreseen, but President Johnson had other things on his mind. He seems to have been motivated by a desire to win Jewish American support for the war in Vietnam and to advance the "strategic relationship," begun by President Kennedy, with Israel against the Soviet Union.(128)

The cost in Arab alienation was great. Johnson had assured the Arabs that Israel would not attack and that he would oppose aggression. Yet he never called on Israel to withdraw from the conquered territories or to resolve the Palestinian question. Rather, the United States gave Israel substantial help, including diplomatic support that facilitated Israel's conquest of neighboring territories by providing critical delays.(129)

In no sense did the war bring stability to the Middle East, if indeed that was a U.S. objective. Nasser summed up the consequences: "The problem now is that while the United States objective is to pressure us to minimize our dealings with the Soviet Union, it will drive us in the opposite direction altogether. The United States leaves us no choice."(130)

Nasser's prediction was borne out by events. Within three years the Soviets were shipping military equipment to the Egyptians, including surface-to-air missiles to defend Egypt against Israel's U.S.-made F-4 Phantom jets. Thousands of Soviet troops, pilots, and advisers were provided. The Soviets also moved closer to Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The United States responded by giving more weapons and planes to Israel.(131)

The Strategic Relationship and Aid to Israel

The idea of a strategic relationship between the United States and Israel emerged after the Suez crisis, when the Eisenhower administration realized that both countries had an interest in containing Nasser's influence. Because the Eisenhower administration feared that the Soviets were gaining clout in some Arab countries, such a relationship was seen as useful in containing the Soviet Union as well. When John F. Kennedy became president, he abandoned an initial preference for a balance of power between Israel and the Arabs in favor of a strategic relation ship. He was the first to provide Israel with sophisticated weapons and to commit the United States to a policy of maintaining Israel's regional military superiority. In 1962 Kennedy privately told Israeli foreign minister Golda Meir that their countries were de facto allies, and shortly before his assassination, Kennedy reportedly guaranteed Israel's territorial integrity in a letter to Prime Minister Eshkol.(132)

As the U.S.-Israeli strategic relationship matured, military and economic aid increased. But that increase does not mean the earlier aid had been insignificant. According to historian Nadav Safran: "During Israel's first nineteen years of existence, the United States awarded it nearly $1.5 billion of aid in various forms, mostly outright grants of one kind or another. On a per capita basis of recipient country, this was the highest rate of American aid given to any country."(133)

According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, between 1949 and 1965 U.S. aid to Israel averaged $63 million annually, and over 95 percent of that assistance was for economic development and food aid.(134) The first formal military lending, which was very modest, occurred in 1959. However, from 1966 through 1970 average annual aid jumped to $102 million, and the share of military loans climbed to 47 percent. In 1964 the U.S. government lent no money to Israel for military purposes. In 1965 it lent almost $13 million. In 1966, the year before the Six-Day War, it lent $90 million. In the year of the war such loans fell to $7 million, but in succeeding years the total rose, reaching $85 million in 1969 and hitting a high of $2.7 billion in 1979. More significant, military grants began in 1974; they ranged from $100 million in 1975 to $2.7 billion in 1979. In the first half of the 1980s, loans and grants ranged between $500 million and nearly $1 billion. Then, beginning in 1985, the loans stopped and all U.S. military aid was made as grants, ranging from $1.4 billion in 1985 to $1.8 billion each year from 1987 through 1989. Economic grants hit a high of nearly $2 billion in 1985, before falling to $1.2 billion in 1989. (See Appendix.)

Although U.S. aid has been given to Israel with the stipulation that it not be used in the territories occupied in 1967, the Congres-sional Research Service reported that "because the U.S. aid is given as budgetary support without any specific project accounting, there is no way to tell how Israel uses U.S. aid."(135) Moreover, the service wrote that, according to the executive branch, in 1978, 1979, and 1981, Israel "may have violated" its agreement not to use U.S. weapons for nondefensive purposes.(136) In 1982 the United States suspended shipments of cluster bombs after Israel allegedly violated an agreement on the use of those weapons. In 1990 Israel accepted $400 million in loan guarantees for housing on the condition that the money not be used in the occupied territories, but the promise was soon repudiated.(137)

Reporter Tom Bethell has written that of $1.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel, only about $350 million is sent by check. The rest never leaves the United States; it is spent on U.S.-made planes and weapons. Bethell also has reported that, according to the State Department, Israel returns $1.1 billion of $1.2 billion in economic aid as payment of principal and interest on old loans. It keeps the interest accrued from the time the money is received at the beginning of the year to the time it is sent back at the end of the year.(138)

The Yom Kippur War, 1973

The Six-Day War left the Arabs humiliated and the Israelis vauntingly triumphant. It was the Israeli sense of invincibility that left the country vulnerable in 1973. On October 6, as Jews were preparing for their holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria launched attacks intended to regain the territories lost in 1967. The Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal and established positions it would not lose. Two cease-fires were arranged, only to be violated by Israel. Finally, 18 days after the war began, a third and final cease-fire went into effect.(139)

The war was launched to regain not only Arab territory but Arab pride as well. That explanation, which is true as far as it goes, gives a distorted picture. Often overlooked are the Arab leaders' efforts to make peace with Israel before 1973. In November 1967 King Hussein offered to recognize Israel's right to exist in peace and security in return for the lands taken from Jordan in the Six-Day War. (Israel had de facto annexed the old city of Jerusalem shortly after that war.) In February 1970 Nasser said, "It will be possible to institute a durable peace between Israel and the Arab states, not excluding economic and diplomatic relations, if Israel evacuates the occupied territories and accepts a settlement of the problem of the Palestinian refugees."(140) (Israel had allowed only 14,000 of 200,000 refugees from the Six-Day War to return.)

Then, in February 1971, Anwar Sadat, who had succeeded to the Egyptian presidency on Nasser's death in 1970, proposed a full peace treaty, including security guarantees and a return to the pre-1967 borders. That was not all. Also in 1971 Jordan again proposed to recognize Israel if it would return to its prewar borders. Egypt and Jordan accepted UN Resolution 242, passed in November 1967, that called for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories in return for peace and security. Both Arab states also accepted the land-for-peace plan of Secretary of State William Rogers and the efforts of UN representative Gunnar Jarring to find a solution.

Israel turned a deaf ear to each proposal for peace, rejected the Rogers plan, snubbed Jarring, and equivocated on Resolution 242.(141) At that time Israel and Egypt were engaged in a war of attrition across the Suez Canal. Israel flew air raids deep into Egypt and bombed civilians near Cairo. Soviet pilots and missiles participated in the defense of Egypt.(142)

The Rogers plan represented only one side of the Middle East policy of the Nixon administration, which came into office in 1969, and it was the weak side at that. The strong side was represented by national security adviser (and later secretary of state) Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was busy with the Vietnam War and the diplomatic opening to Communist China during Nixon's initial years in office, so the Middle East was one of the few areas left to Rogers. Yet Kissinger could not resist getting involved. Thus, a battle occurred between two forms of intervention: Rogers's efforts to broker a solution and Kissinger's efforts to thwart one. The State Department believed that the key problem was Israeli intransigence. Kissinger, who saw the Middle East as another arena for the superpower rivalry, believed the Israeli victory in 1967 was a glorious defeat of the Soviets, and he actively opposed progress toward peace. Referring to 1969 he explained in his memoirs:

The bureaucracy wanted to embark on substantive talks as rapidly as possible because it feared that a deteriorating situation would increase Soviet influence. I thought delay was on the whole in our interest because it enabled us to demonstrate even to radical Arabs that we were indispensable to any progress and that it could not be extorted from us by Soviet pressure. . . . I wanted to frustrate the radicals-- who were hostile to us in any event--by demonstrating that in the Middle East friendship with the United States was the precondition to diplomatic progress. When I told [Joseph] Sisco in mid-February that we did not want a quick success in the Four-- Power consultations at the United Nations in New York, I was speaking a language that ran counter to all the convictions of his Department. . . . By the end of 1971, the divisions within our govern- ment . . . had produced the stalemate for which I had striven by design.(143)

That policy was consistent with the Nixon Doctrine, articulated by the president in July 1969. Under that doctrine the United States would rely on local powers to keep internal regional order and furnish "military and economic assistance when requested and appropriate." The United States would continue to provide a nuclear umbrella to deter Soviet intervention. In other words, client states such as Israel and Iran would police their regions to prevent upheavals by forces inimical to U.S. interests.(144)

As the 1972 election approached, Kissinger assumed more control over Middle Eastern policy. He later recalled that Nixon "was afraid that the State Department's bent for ab- stract theories might lead it to propose plans that would arouse opposition from all sides. My principal assignment was to make sure that no explosion occurred to complicate the 1972 election--which meant in effect that I was to stall."(145) Since Kissinger was able to undermine Rogers's peace efforts, his was a "policy" the Israelis could embrace.

Kissinger's obstructionism came at the worst possible time. The 1967 Arab defeat and the ensuing bilateral peace offers persuaded many Palestinians that the Arab states were willing to sacrifice the Palestinians. It was a period of heightened violence from Yasser Arafat's nonideological alFatah, a major element of the Palestine Liberation Organization; the Black September faction of al-Fatah; and George Habash's radical, Marxist-oriented Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.(146) The break between the Palestinians and the Arab states created problems for Jordan. The PLO had become a virtual state within a state there, and in 1970 the PFLP hijacked several airliners to Jordan. As a result, in September 1970 King Hussein gave the military the go-ahead to root out the guerrilla infrastructure. Syria, in a show of support for the Palestinians, sent tanks into Jordan. At Kissinger's urging, Israel mobilized in support of Jordan, but before it could enter the country, the Syrian force was repulsed. The month known as "Black September" cost the Palestinians 5,000 to 20,000 lives. Although Israeli troops did not see action, their mobilization helped cement Israel's image as a strategic asset of the United States in the region. Any evenhandedness that had marked earlier Nixon administration policy was now gone.

Less than a year later, Jordanian forces massacred Palestinians in several incidents before expelling the PLO from Jordan. The PLO then moved to Lebanon, having previously won that country's formal recognition of the right to operate autonomously. Harassment of the Palestinians by the Israeli-backed Lebanese Christians and guerrilla activity directed at Israel from Lebanon preceded massive Israeli raids and the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.(147)

U.S. military and economic aid to Israel took a major jump. Just before the Jordanian crisis, Nixon approved a $500 million military aid package and sped up delivery of F-4 Phantom jets to Israel. Israel had indicated that, before it could start talks with the Arabs, it would need arms to ensure its security. Nixon had stalled, believing that Israel was already militarily superior. But under pressure from 78 U.S. senators, Nixon initiated a major transfer of technology (including the sale of jet engines for an Israeli warplane) that would enable Israel to make many of its own weapons. A second deal was struck for 42 Phantoms and 90 A-4 Skyhawk warplanes. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev countered the U.S. action by promising to supply arms and bombers to the Arabs, although not in the quantities that the United States supplied them to Israel.(148)

In mid-1972 Sadat, whom Kissinger did not take seriously as a political leader, expelled the 15,000 Soviet advisers in his country. Sadat's reasons included continued wrangling about military aid, the emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, Soviet opposition to another war in the region, and general cultural differences. Although the United States was taken by surprise, Kissinger took credit for the development and, after the election, began secret negotiations with Egypt and the Soviets. However, his proposal for a settlement, which included Israeli military posts in the Sinai, was rejected by Sadat. Meanwhile, Nixon agreed to provide Israel with 84 new warplanes. Sadat summed up his reaction in a statement quoted in Newsweek: "Every door I have opened has been slammed in my face by Israel--with American blessings. . . . The Americans have left us no way out."(149)

Peace proposals by Jordan, communicated to Kissinger around that same time, were rejected by Israel, which was not interested in relinquishing the West Bank. The Israeli rejection had at least tacit U.S. approval. On September 25, 1973, two weeks before war broke out, Kis-singer became secretary of state and, with Nixon mired in Watergate, had complete control over foreign policy.

During the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger ordered four ships of the Sixth Fleet to within 500 miles of Israel and initiated a UN strategy aimed at tying up the Soviets and delaying a cease-fire resolution. As he later put it, "We wanted to avoid this [cease-fire] while the attacking side was gaining territory, because it would reinforce the tendency to use the United Nations to ratify the gains of surprise attack."(150)

The Israelis asked for arms, but Kissinger was reluctant to comply, believing that Israel was well armed already, that the war would be short, and therefore that a resupply would unnecessarily anger the Arabs. But Kissinger did not want to appear to desert Israel, which he thought might harden its position, so he had arms sent secretly, a policy publicly ratified by Nixon on October 9. While the airlift of equipment was still covert, U.S. planes flew directly to the Israeli troops in the occupied Sinai, a violation of Egypt's territory.(151) Kissinger had another reason to accede to Israel's demand for an airlift. Although no one believed that Israel's survival was at risk, the surprisingly strong Arab showing panicked some Israelis. The Israeli ambassador to Washington warned that if the request for the airlift was denied, "we will have to draw very serious conclusions from all this." According to a historian sympathetic to Israel, "Kissinger. . . had long known that Israel possessed a very short nuclear option which it held as a weapon of last resort. . . . Suddenly . . . the scenario of an Israel feeling on the verge of destruction resorting in despair to nuclear weapons. . . assumed a grim actuality." Other reasons for the change in U.S. policy included domestic political considerations (the Israel lobby had become a powerful force) and a modest Soviet airlift to Syria. The multi-billion-dollar U.S. airlift was approved.(152)

Kissinger was instrumental in having three cease-fire resolutions, all favorable to the Israeli army's position, passed in the UN Security Council. The first was passed on October 22, after Kissinger went to Moscow. His failure to consult them before working with the Soviets so outraged the Israelis that Kissinger felt he had to placate them by allowing some "slippage" in the deadline.(153) "Slippage" became a major six-day offensive in which Israeli troops crossed the Suez Canal, blocked the roads from Cairo, and completed the encircling of Egypt's Third Army in the Sinai. When the offensive was over, Israel had reached the Gulf of Suez and occupied 1,600 square kilometers inside Egypt. According to Kissinger, Israel told him, untruthfully, that Egypt had launched an attack first, but he never publicly criticized his ally.(154)

The second cease-fire, which weakly called for a return to the first cease-fire lines, passed the Security Council on October 24. Sadat accepted it, but Israel refused to pull back, which left Egypt's beleaguered Third Army at its mercy. Israel violated the cease-fire within hours and continued closing in on that army. The Nixon administration again was silent. Sadat appealed to the Security Council for help, asking for U.S. and Soviet troops to intervene. The Soviets responded favorably to the idea, but Kissinger opposed it. "We had not worked for years to reduce the Soviet military presence in Egypt only to cooperate in reintroducing it as a result of a United Nations Resolution," Kissinger later wrote. "Nor would we participate in a joint force with the Soviets, which would legitimize their role in the area and strengthen radical elements."(155)

The Soviets then said they might send troops unilaterally. In response, late on October 24, the United States put its ground, sea, and air forces--conventional and nuclear--on worldwide alert. That brush with nuclear war demonstrated once again the grave danger posed by U.S. intervention in Middle Eastern affairs.(156)

Meanwhile, Kissinger assured Israel that it would not be asked to return to the first cease-fire lines, and the airlift continued. Sadat ended the crisis by asking that a multinational force, without U.S. or Soviet troops, be sent to oversee the cease-fire. On October 25 the third UN resolution was passed, creating a peace-keeping force and again merely requesting a return to the October 22 lines.

Israel continued attacking Egyptian forces and forbidding the passage of food, water, or medicine to the trapped Third Army. Private pleas from Kissinger to Israel were rejected. The crisis ended with Sadat's offer of direct talks between the two nations' military officers about carrying out the UN resolutions. He asked for one delivery of nonmilitary supplies to the Third Army under UN and Red Cross supervision. Israel accepted, although it was bitter that the United States did not allow it to capture the Third Army and humiliate Egypt.(157)

One consequence of the mammoth U.S. arms shipments to Israel, and particularly the U.S. deliveries in the Sinai, was the OPEC oil embargo. The dollar price of oil had been rising since 1971, when Nixon stopped redeeming foreign governments' dollars for gold. Even before the war, Saudi Arabia had talked about linking oil to an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.(158)

On October 20 Saudi Arabia announced that it would sell no oil to the United States because of U.S. support for Israel. Saudi Arabia's average provision of oil to the United States came to 4 percent of American daily consumption. Iraq, Abu Dhabi, Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar followed the Saudi example. Nixon's price control program turned an inconvenience into a crisis, with long lines at gas stations and other disruptions of the economy. After the war, despite Kissinger's appeal, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia stood by his demand that Israel withdraw from all the occupied territories (including those taken in 1967) before the oil tap was turned on again. Kissinger threatened to retaliate while also promising that the United States would support the land-for-peace UN resolutions (Resolution 338, passed during the war, reiterated Resolution 242 of 1967). In December OPEC, at the bidding not of Arab countries but of Iran and Venezuela, quadrupled the price of oil to $11.65 a barrel. But shipments to Europe, which became more critical of Israel, were increased. Finally, on March 18, 1974, after Israel, Egypt, and Syria concluded disengagement agreements, and after prodding by Sadat, the Arab states ended the oil embargo. The Arabs placed no conditions on their action; the last export restrictions were removed on July 11. After the embargo, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait ended the concession system and ostensibly nationalized their oil industries. In fact, they entered into long-term contracts with the former concession owners.(159)

The costs to the United States of the Yom Kippur War were significant. As Kissinger calculated it, the war "cost us about $3 billion directly, about $10-15 billion indirectly. It increased our unemployment and contributed to the deepest recession we had in the postwar period."(160) The war was another demonstration of the bankruptcy of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Total support of Israel did not create stability; on the contrary, it further alienated the Arabs, pushed several Arab states closer to the Soviet Union, upset the U.S.-Soviet dÇtente (indeed, came close to igniting a nuclear confrontation), and loaded the OPEC oil weapon.

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