History - (Part VI)
Submitted by Templar Titan on Sat, 04/17/2004 - 04:28.
For details on classical liberalism's class analysis, see Leonard P. Liggio, "Charles Dunoyer and French Classical Liberalism," and Ralph Raico, "Classical Liberal Exploitation Theory: A Comment on Professor Liggio's Paper, n Journal of Libertarian Studies 1, no. 3 (Summer 1977): 153-78, 179-83.
That class analysis was carried forward in 20th-century America by the critics of state power known as the Old Right, especially by such publicists as Albert Jay Nock, Felix Morley, John T. Flynn, and Frank Chodorov. For a sampling of that group's skeptical views on U.S. intervention, see Ronald Radosh, Prophets on the Right (New York: Free Life Editions, 1975). Especially significant is John T. Flynn, As We Go Marchina (1944; New York: Free Life Editions, 1973), wherein Flynn sounds much like Bright: "Thus militarism is the one great glamorous public-works project upon which a variety of elements in the community can be brought into agreement" (p. 207). See also Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy. the State (1935; New York: Free Life Editions, 1977); Garet Garrett, "The Rise of Empire," in The People's Pottage (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1965), pp. 171-74. For an extension of the liberal class analysis, see Walter E. Grinder and John Hagel III, "Toward a Theory of State Capitalism: Ultimate Decision-Making and Class Structure," Journal of Libertarian Studies 1, no. 1 (Winter 1977): 59-79.
In addition to oil, U.S. interests in the Middle East have included the large export markets and the market for construction services and arms. The repatriation of petrodollars has had much to do with the U.S. government's attitude toward rises in the price of oil. In 1976 Forbes published an article that pointed out that, regarding OPEC, American policymakers "were quite prepared to have U.S. motorists and businessmen--and those of the rest of the world--pay a bit more for oil in order to help the shah of Iran and the Saudis. . . . The State Department realized full well that they could not persuade Congress to tax Americans for that purpose. So they did it by the back door." "Don't Blame the Oil Companies; Blame the State Department: How the West Was Won," Forbes, April 15, 1976; quoted in Jonathan Kwitny, Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendlv World (New York: Congdon & Weed, 1984), p. 194. Kwitny reported that the higher oil prices of the 1970s enabled America's gulf allies to increase military spending from $800 million a year to $4 billion a year by 1975 (p. 195).
13. Quoted in Michael B. Bishku, "The 1958 American Intervention in Lebanon: A Historical Assessment," American-Arab Affairs 31 (Winter 1989-90): 116-17.
14. Quoted in Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Oriqins of the Cold War and the National Securitv State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), p. 180.
15. The government's earliest interest in Middle Eastern oil began after World War I, when it pressured Great Britain to include American oil companies and urged the unenthusiastic American companies to, in the words of a Gulf Oil representative, "go out and get it." Sampson, p. 66. See generally, Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Ouest for Oil. Monev and Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991). On the Iranian concession, see Yergin, Shattered Peace, p. 181. The companies were Standard Vacuum Oil (Stanvac), an independent subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Socony-Vacuum. Standard Oil of New Jersey had been denied an Iranian concession in 1940. Sinclair Oil later joined the effort. See Stoff, pp. 101, 103.
16. Quoted in Yergin, Shattered Peace, p. 181.
17. Stoff, p. 62ff. The degree of Thornburg's continuing intimacy with Socal and Texaco was apparently not known at first; when it came to light in 1943, though, he was asked to resign. Nevertheless, the government and the oil companies continued to work closely together. Thornburg was not the only Socal official in the government. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes's assistant was Ralph Davies, a former Socal senior vice president. Ickes refused Davies's offer to cut all ties with Socal, believing that oil company men should not be penalized for going into the government. A third Socal executive, James Terry Duce, served with the Petroleum Administration for War. Stoff, p. 18ff. The presence of Standard Oil or Rockefeller family associates in the State Department over the years is worth noting. They have included four former secretaries of state, Charles Evans Hughes, John Foster Dulles (both Standard Oil attorneys), Dean Rusk (president of the Rockefeller Foundation), and Henry Kissinger. Nelson Rockefeller held a State Department post during the war. See Peter Collier and David Horowitz, The Rockefellers: An American Dvnastv (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976).
18. Stoff, p. 76ff. The sale was favored by Secretary of the Interior Ickes but frowned on by his frequent rival, Secretary of State Hull. Socal and Texaco did not like the idea either, believing it injected the government too deeply into "private enterprise." During the negotiations, Ickes suspended consideration of the companies' request for government financing of an Arabian oil refinery in an effort to put pressure on them. The companies' devotion to private enterprise had its limits. The Petroleum Reserves Corporation tried to get into the oil pipeline business, but broad-based opposition forced it to retreat. The corporation faded away after the war.
19. Stoff, p. 86. Ickes, a Bull Moose Progressive in the Theodore Roosevelt mold and an advocate of centralization, regarded oil as his domain, having administered the Oil Code early in the New Deal and served as petroleum coordinator for national defense beginning in May 1941. He became known as the Oil Czar.
20. Quoted in Noam Chomsky, Towards a New Cold War (New York: Pantheon, 1982), p. 311.
21. George Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East (Durham, N.C.: Duke Universitv Press, 1990), p. 8.
22. Quoted in Gabriel Rolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreian Policv, 1943-1945 (1968; New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), p. 311.
23. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 10; Lenczowski, The Middle East in World Affairs, p. 195.
24. Harry S Truman, Memoirs of Harrv S Truman, vol. 2: Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1956), p. 95.
25. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 13. Lenczowski wrote that, after Truman's memoirs were published, Truman said he had made the threat. But some scholars are doubtful. See Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 298, n. 10. See also George Lenczowski, Russia and the West in Iran 1918-1948 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968).
26. He had been installed on the Peacock Throne by the British in 1941 when his father, who was neutral and on good terms with Germany during the war, had been forced to abdicate.
27. Joyce Kolko and Gabriel Rolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreian Policv 1945-1954 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); for a revisionist view of the Truman Doctrine, see Stephen E. Ambrose, The Rise to Globalism: American Foreiqn Policv, 1938-1980 (New York: Penguin Books, 1980); and Yergin, Shattered Peace. For the text of the doctrine see Ralph H. Magnus, ed., Documents on the Middle East (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1969), pp. 66-67.
28. A 60-year concession was granted to British interests in 1901 by a previous ruler, Mozaffar ed-Din Shah; it excluded the northern provinces of Iran, traditionally under Russian influence. A new concession was granted by Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1933. Lenczowski, Russia and the West in Iran, pp. 77, 80. Anglo-Iranian Oil feared the entry of independent oil companies. See Kwitny, p. 162.
29. Lenczowski, The Middle East in World Affairs, p. 205ff.
30. Actually, the cutoff of Iranian oil, caused by Iran's inability to produce it without Great Britain, was quickly made up by increased production from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. For details on how the Marshall Plan benefited the U.S. oil industry, see Tyler Cowen, "The Marshal Plan: Myths and Realities, n in Doug Bandow, ed., U.S. Aid to the Developing World: A Free Market Aaenda (Washington: Heritage Foundation, 1985), p. 72. On Soviet nonintervention, see Lenczowski, The Middle East in World Affairs, p. 209.
31. James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 72. Also see Barry Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience in Iran (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 76ff. Rubin pointed out that the left wing of the National Front rejected an alliance with the Tudeh party. The CIA was concerned about increasing Soviet influence over the Tudeh and Mossadegh. That could have been expected once the United States joined the boycott. For a first-hand account, see Xermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), p. 119. It should be noted that Stalin died in March 1953.
32. Bill, p. 86.
33. C. M. "Monty" Woodhouse, primary British operative, quoted in Bill, p. 86.
34. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was later renamed British Petroleum; holders of its stock, besides the British government, included Shell Oil. It had exclusive marketing agreements with Standard Oil of New Jersey and Mobil. Kwitny, p. 162.
35. Kermit Roosevelt was a grandson of Theodore Roosevelt.
36. Schwarzkopf had organized the Iranian national police in 1941-48 and "was kept busy protecting the government against its enemies." Andrew Tully, The CIA (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1962), p. 94. During the Mossadegh crisis, Schwarzkopf reportedly arrived in Tehran with a bag containing "millions of dollars." Roosevelt, p. 147. He "took over as unofficial paymaster for the Mossadegh-Must-Go clique . . . and the word later was that in a period of a few days Schwarzkopf supervised the careful spending of more than ten million of CIA dollars. Mossadegh suddenly lost a great many supporters." Tully, p. 95. The United States also provided weapons. Schwarzkopf's son commanded the U.S. forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
37. Kwitny, p. 171. See Kwitny, pp. 152-77, for the text of a secret report written for the CIA detailing U.S. involvement in Mossadegh's overthrow. The report stresses that Mossadegh was an anti-communist who, instead of being opposed to the shah, simply wanted him to be a constitutional monarch.
38. Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Chanae, 1953-1956 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1963), p. 163; Bill, P- 93.
39. Kwitny, p. 161.
40. Quoted in Roosevelt, p. 148.
41. Tully, p. 98. Tully put Mossadegh's age at 79, but Mossadegh reportedly was born in 1880, making him 81 in 1961. Kwitny, p. 168.
42. The United States sought, as the State Department put it in 1944, "the preservation of the absolute position presently obtaining, and therefore vigilant protection of existing concessions in United States hands coupled with insistence upon the Open Door principle of equal opportunity for United States companies in new areas." Quoted in Kolko, p. 303.
43. Shortly before the beginning of the shah's downfall, President Carter visited Tehran and praised Iran as "an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world." See Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, pp. 184-203.
44. Magnus, pp. 27, 40.
45. Jewish immigration had long been worrisome to Arabs because Zionist leaders had displayed a callous and presumptuous attitude toward the indigenous population. Theodore Herzl had written in his diary of "gently" expropriating Arab property and "try[ing] to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. . . . Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." The Complete Diaries of Theodore Herzl (New York: Herzl Press and Thomas Yoseloff, 1960), vol. 1, p. 88; quoted in David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), p. 18. A contemporary of Herzl's had spoken of a "land without a people, waiting for a people without a land." Israel Zangwill, "The Return to Palestine," New Liberal Review II, December 1901, p. 627; quoted in Hirst, p. 19. When a disciple of Herzl's, Max Nordau, went to Palestine and found Arabs there, he told Herzl, "I didn't know that--but then we are committing an injustice." Quoted in Hirst, p. 19. Although Chaim Weizmann, a leading Zionist, could tell the Arabs that their "legitimate rights" would not be violated, he could also tell a non-Arab audience in 1919: We said we desired to create in Palestine such conditions, political, economic and administrative, that as the country is developed, we can pour in considerable numbers of immigrants, and finally establish such a society in Palestine that Palestine shall be as Jewish as England is English or America is American. . . . I hope that the Jewish frontiers of Palestine will be as great as Jewish energy for getting Palestine. Chaim Weizmann: Excerpts from His Historic Statements Writings and Addresses (New York: Jewish Agency for Palestine, 1952), p. 48; quoted in Hirst, p. 40.
46. See Nadav Safran, Israel: The Embattled Allv (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1981), p. 23ff.; Hirst, p. 37ff. Paul Johnson called the Zionist (Irgun) attack on the Xing David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 "the prototype terrorist outrage for the decades to come. The first to imitate the new technigues were, naturally, the Arab terrorists: the future Palestine Liberation Organization was an illegitimate child of the Irgun." Paul Johnson, Modern Times (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 483.
47. Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, eds., The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary HistorY of the Middle East Conflict (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 79. Until the Biltmore Program, the precise objective of the Zionist movement was vague. The "national home for the Jewish people" specified in the Balfour Declaration was not necessarily to be a state. It is apparently not what the British had in mind, and some Zionists did not favor a Jewish state but rather a binational democracy. For example, in opposing the Biltmore Program, Judah Magnes, the first president of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said, "The slogan Jewish state or commonwealth is equivalent, in effect, to a declaration of war by the Jews on the Arabs." Quoted in Arthur A. Goren, ed., Dissenter in Zion (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 46. Some Jews opposed Zionism in all forms. See Thomas A. Kolsky, Jews against Zionism: The American Council for Judaism. 1942-1948 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990). Theodore Herzl's book The Jewish State (1896) called for "restoration of the Jewish State," although not necessarily in Palestine. See Evan M. Wilson, Decision on Palestine: How the U.S. Came to Recoanize Israel (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1979), p. 171. A former Israeli chief of military intelligence, Yehoshofat Harkabi, said in 1973 that "the Jews always considered that the land belonged to them, but in fact it belonged to the Arabs. I would go further: I would say the original source of this conflict lies with Israel, with the Jews--and you can quote me. The big problem, then, is not to start at the beginning, but [to] find out 'Where do we go from here?' n Quoted in Irene L. Gendzier's foreword to Noam Chomsky, Peace in the Middle East? (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), p. xvi.
48. Most of the land was bought by the Jewish National Fund to be held in "trust for the Jewish people," which included the Diaspora. Arabs were barred from using the land. See Edward W. Said, The Ouestion of Palestine (New York: Vintage, 1980), pp. 97-98. See also Abraham Granott, The Land System in Palestine (London: Eyre and Spottiswodde, 1952), p. 277; cited in Stephen P. Halbrook, "The Alienation of a Homeland: How Palestine Became Israel," Journal of Libertarian Studies 5, no. 4 (Fall 1981): 365. See also Hirst, p. 132. Many of the purchases were from absentee feudual landlords and thus are questionable by classical liberal standards for homesteading.
49. Truman, p. 133. Elsewhere, he wrote that "one of our main problems was that Palestine was not ours to dispose of" (p. 144).
50. Kolsky, p. 168.
51. Quoted in Wilson, p. 58. Actually, there were 500,000 Arab-Americans at the time.
52. Emmanuel Neumann, "Abba Hillel Silver, History Maker," American Zionist, February 5, 1953; quoted in Wilson, p. 58.
53. Truman, p. 158.
54. See Kolsky, p. 152. On January 1, 1939, on the eve of World War II, H. L. Mencken, for example, devoted his Baltimore Sun column to the plight of the Jews and the hypocrisy of those who expressed sympathy but never did anything. He stated his support for bringing the German Jews to the United States "by the first available ships." See Sheldon L. Richman, "Mr. Mencken and the Jews," American Scholar (Summer 1990): 407-11.
55. Wilson, p. 124. A small strip of the Negev was assigned to the Arabs .
56. Wilson, p. 125.
57. Sumner Welles, We Need Not Fail (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), p. 63; quoted in Bernard Reich, Ouest for Peace: United States-Israel Relations and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1977), p. 51. Among the UN members pressured were Haiti, the Philippines, Liberia, France, Ethiopia, Paraguay, and Luxembourg. Only Greece withstood U.S. pressure and voted no on the partition resolution.
58. Wilson, p. 126. Truman in his memoirs denied there was official pressure.
59. Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Mvths and Realities (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), p. 123.
60. The Zionist leaders were overjoyed with the official recognition of their aspirations, although they were not happy with the allocation of land. They declined to specify the borders of the new state. Menachem Begin's minority party refused to accept the partition. See Wilson, pp. 115, 116; Hirst, p. 132ff; Flapan, p. 31ff. The Arabs favored a single state in which Jews would enjoy civil guarantees and municipal and cultural autonomy. See Safran, p. 40.
61. Stephen Green, Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel (Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books, 1988), pp. 56-57.
62. Hirst, p. 124ff. The attack on Deir Yassin (which occurred even though the village had a peace treaty with its Jewish neighbors) was only the worst such action by Zionist forces including the mainstream Haganah and Palmach. Reports of the massacre panicked many Palestinian Arabs into fleeing from their homes. David Ben-Gurion was reported to have said that "without Deir Yassin there would be no Israel." Wilson, p. 140. The violence continued after Israel's declaration of independence. In September 1948 the Stern Gang, headed by the current Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, assassinated UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte in a Jewish-occupied part of Jerusalem. The Israeli government arrested members of the Stern Gang, but all were either released or granted amnesty. The U.S. government believed that the Israeli government had had a role in the assassination. Green, Takinq Sides, pp. 38-41.
63. Wilson, p. 142.
64. Quoted in John Snetsinger, Truman, the Jewish Vote and the Creation of Israel (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1974), pp. 78-81.
65. Evan Wilson pointed out that though Israel cited the partition resolution as authority, in reality it required a 60-day period between the end of the mandate and the birth of the state. Wilson, p. 143. After the declaration, forces of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon reluctantly entered the Arab part of Palestine. When the fighting ended in 1949, and armistices were signed, Israel had enlarged its territory by 40 percent, including half of Jerusalem. Palestinian refugees numbering some 726,000 had fled their homes. The Israeli government expropriated the land and belongings of the Palestinians, who were arbitrarily defined as "absentees." For details on the deep divisions among the Arab countries and the Palestinians and their reluctance to make war on Israel, Transjordan's designs on the Arab part of Palestine, and the secret talks between Israeli and Arab leaders, see Flapan, pp. 121-52; and Avi Shlaim, Collusion across the Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). On the refugees, see Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis (New York: Free Press, 1986), pp. 68-91; and Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refuaee Problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). In the succeeding years, Israel pressed forward on all fronts, attacking Arab villages, encroaching on demilitarized zones, making plans to divert precious water resources, and building settlements in disputed territory. Various laws were passed to deny so-called absentee Arab landowners their property. The old British emergency regulations, once denounced by Jews as Nazi-style laws, were enforced. Collective punishment was inflicted. Arab homes were blown up as punishment for the suspected acts of individuals. Arab residents of Israel were under military rule until 1966, and even after that they remained (and are today) second-class citizens in the Jewish state. See Said, particularly chap. 2, "Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims, n pp. 56-114. Any Jew, regardless of other citizenship, may emigrate to Israel and become a citizen. Arabs, however, are virtually barred from 92 percent of the land of Israel, which is held for the Jewish people (including those in the Diaspora) in perpetuity. For other details on that apartheid-type system, see Sheldon L. Richman, "Who is a 'Jew' Matters in Israel," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1990, p. 10.
66. Quoted in Alfred M. Lilienthal, What Price Israel? (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953), p. 67.
67. Wilson, pp. 148, 154.
68. Eisenhower "frequently discussed with the CIA and others possible ways of getting rid of the Egyptian leader." Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1984), vol. 2, p. 462. Kermit Roosevelt was assigned by John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles to "work with the British to bring down Nasser." Eveland, p. 248.
69. The United States sold arms to Israel, and U.S. financial aid had also facilitated Israeli purchases from France and other countries. Cheryl A. Rubenberg, Israel and the American National Interest: A Critical Examination (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), pp. 61-62. Because arms sales are controlled by the government, they have long been a factor in foreign relations. One can only speculate what U.S. foreign policy might have been like had the government allowed the principle of free trade to govern those sales.
70. Rubenberg, p. 53. Israel also did not like the pact because it strengthened Iraq. As compensation, Israel asked for membership in NATO and a defensive arrangement with the United States, both of which were denied.
71. Quoted in Eveland, p. 214.
72. Rubenberg, pp. 48-59. For the story of one such peace effort initiated by Nasser, see Elmore Jackson, Middle East Mission: The Storv of a Maior Bid for Peace in the Time of Nasser and Ben-Gurion (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983). Sharett continued his efforts to reach an accommodation with Egypt as foreign minister when Ben-Gurion returned as prime minister. Ben-Gurion was so opposed to peace with Egypt that in June 1956 he replaced Sharett with Golda Meir. When the Suez War began, Sharett wrote in his diary, "We are the aggressors!" Eveland, p. 239n, also pp. 155-61. Eveland, a CIA operative who long worked in the Middle East, commented, "No comparable opportunity to bring peace to the Middle East has since occurred" (p. 161). For details on Sharett's time in the government, see Livia Rokach, Israel's Sacred Terrorism: A Studv Based on Moshe Sharett's Personal Diary and Other Documents (Belmont, Mass.: Association of Arab-American University Graduates, 1986).
73. See Green, Takina Sides, pp. 107-14. Shimon Peres, the former prime minister who today leads the Labor party, was a principal in the affair. See also Safran, p. 351; Eveland, pp. 135-36.
74. Rubenberg, pp. 59-60.
75. Egypt's attempt was revealed by Israeli Arabist Ehud Ya'ari in Egypt and Fedaveen (Israel: Givat Haviva, 1975).
76. The United States and Britain had different and, in some respects, diametrically opposed objectives in the Middle East. See Eveland; Donald Neff, Warriors at Suez: Eisenhower Takes America into the Middle East in 1956 (Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books, 1988), passim.
77. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 44.
78. Rubenberg, p. 73. Eisenhower's threat, coming before an election, was extraordinary. The only time aid was certainly cut off was in 1953, when Israel refused to suspend a hydroelectric project on the Jordan River in the demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria. Rubenberg, p. 64.
79. Rubenberg, pp. 79, 82.
80. See, generally, Neff, Warriors at Suez. Early in 1956, Israel tried, unsuccessfully, to stop an American sale of 18 light tanks to Saudi Arabia. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 49. That was not the only U.S. activity in the region at the time; the CIA was financing an attempted coup in Syria. See Eveland, passim. The coup failed, and Syria turned to the Soviets for arms. For a first-hand sense of the hectic activity of U.S. operatives in the Middle East, see Miles Copeland, The Game of Nations (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969).
81. Quoted in Magnus, pp. 87, 91.
82. Bishku, p. 108; Eveland, p. 250.
83. Eveland, p. 240.
84. Eveland, p. 242.
85. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 54. The king was a recipient of CIA money from 1957 to 1977. Donald Neff, Warriors for Jerusalem: The Six Days That Changed the Middle East in 1967 (Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books, 1988), p. 43.
86. Ambrose, Eisenhower, p. 463. Pan-Arabism refers to the Arab nationalist movement that transcended national borders.
87. For details on the confessional system, see Sheldon L. Richman, "The United States in Lebanon: A Case for Disengagement," Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 35, April 3, 1984.
88. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 59; Bishku, p. 107; Eveland, p. 247ff.
89. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 59. Chamoun also had enemies among his fellow Maronites. Bishku, p. 100.
90. In 1961 Qassem claimed the entire territory of Kuwait. It had been a British protectorate until that year and had granted oil concessions to both British Petroleum and Gulf Oil.
91. Quoted in Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 60.
92. O'Connor, p. 312; Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 63. The Iraq Petroleum Company was owned by Standard of New Jersey, Socony, British Petroleum, Royal Dutch/Shell, Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, and the C. S. Gulbenkian estate.
93. Meanwhile, Great Britain was dispatching paratroopers to Jordan.
94. Eisenhower wrote that Nasser's conditions for a settlement, offered before the troops arrived, "were not wholly unreasonable." They included completion of Chamoun's term and amnesty for the rebels. Chamoun turned down that chance for a settlement. Eisenhower, White House Years, vol. 2: Waaina Peace 1956-1961 (New York: Doubleday, 1965), p. 268.
95. Eveland, p. 304; Bishku, p. 106. Chamoun loyalists, led by the right-wing Maronite Phalange, objected to the Karami cabinet, and the conflict was not defused until a new cabinet was formed on October 14. It included Pierre Gemayel, leader of the Phalange. That change helped protect an important aspect of the status quo and sowed the seeds of a later crisis.
96. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 63. Lenczowski and others nevertheless have defended the intervention on the grounds that Nasser's policies "often ran parallel to Soviet policies in the Middle East" (p. 63).
97. NSC 5820/1; quoted in Bishku, p. 119.
98. For that interpretation, see Safran, pp. 224-39, wherein he refers to "the radical nature of its [Israel's] enemies, their vastly superior resources, and its extremely vulnerable geostrategic position" (p. 226).
99. Kennett Love, Suez: The Twice-Fouqht War (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), p. 677. Quoted in Hirst, p. 206.
100. When Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait was compared with Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, the standard response was that Israel obtained the territories in a defensive war. See John Law, "A New Improved War Myth, n Middle East International, July 12, 1991, pp. 19-20.
101. Rubenberg, p. 98; much of this discussion of the prelude to the 1967 war is based on her account. Guerrilla operations from Syria were conducted by al-Fatah, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement organized in 1957-58 and led by Yasser Arafat. (Al-Fatah later joined the Palestine Liberation Organization.) Like Egypt, Syria wished to have influence over the Palestinians. For details on how the Israelis encroached on the demilitarized zone, expelling Palestinians and destroying villages, see Hirst, p. 212. He has pointed out that UN observers believed the Syrians would not have shelled the Israelis from the Golan Heights had it not been for those provocations. As it was, between January and June 1967, no one was killed by the shelling. Only one Israeli was killed by al-Fatah. Hirst, pp. 214-15.
102. In October 1966 Israelis were killed in two guerrilla raids across the Syrian border. Israel appealed to the UN Security Council, but when the Soviet Union vetoed a resolution condemning the raids, Israel launched military operations against three West Bank towns. Because those towns were in Jordan, the operations were clearly unprovoked. Eighteen Jordanians were killed, 54 were wounded, and 140 homes and other structures, including a mosque, were destroyed. (The Security Council voted unanimously to condemn the Israeli raids.)
103. Nasser supported the Republicans in Yemen's civil war. President Johnson, fearing a threat to Saudi Arabia, aided the Royalists, a further source of friction between Egypt and the United States.
104. Alan Hart, Arafat: A Political Bioaraphv (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), p. 160ff.
105. Quoted in Hirst, p. 216.
106. Ibid.
107. Quoted in Ot (Israeli weekly), June 1, 1972; quoted in Hirst, p. 215. On the lack of a threat to Israel, see Rubenberg, p. 106; Neff, Warriors for Jerusalem, p. 63.
108. Rubenberg, p. 108-9.
109. Quoted in Rubenberg, p. 109.
110. Quoted in Le Monde, February 29, 1968; quoted in Hirst, p. 211.
111. Quoted in Yitzhak Rabin, The Rabin Memoirs (Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1979), p. 75; quoted in Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 291, n. 32.
112. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 107. Hirst has written that Field Marshal Abdul Hakim Amer "apparently instructed his troops not to interfere with any Israeli ships, or any naval vessels or ships escorted by naval vessels" (p. 208).
113. Nasser was willing to submit the dispute to arbitration, but the atmosphere militated against a peaceful solution. Nasser took his action knowing that Israel had already indicated that it would be grounds for war. Neff, Warriors for Jerusalem, p. 87. Nasser accepted UN Secretary General U Thant's May 25 proposals regarding the waterway. Rubenberg, p. 110.
114. Neff, Warriors for Jerusalem, p. 205. Barbour is quoted in Green, Taking Sides, p. 219.
115. The request was made by Brody to Johnson staff members Larry Levinson and Ben Wattenberg. Green, Takina Sides, p. 219.
116. Rubenberg, pp. 121, 123. For the second time in 19 years, Palestinians, this time numbering 200,000 (one-fifth the population of the West Bank), were turned into refugees moving to Jordan. Even before the war ended, the Israelis began clearing Arab land on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. The Moghrabi Quarter, Beit Nuba, Imwas, and Yalu were among the neighborhoods and villages razed by Israeli bulldozers. Hirst, p. 225.
117. Green, Takinq Sides, pp. 148-79.
118. At various times the Israeli government said that the Dimona facility was a textile or desalination plant. The nuclear program was launched without the knowledge of the Israeli Knesset, and the existence of the reactor was not acknowledged until 1960. Mark Gaffney, Dimona: The Third Temple? The Story behind the Vanunu Revelation (Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books, 1989), p. 53.
119. Eveland, p. 325; Green, Takinq Sides, pp. 148-79. In general, see Gaffney's story of Mordechai Vanunu, the Dimona technician who told a British newspaper of Israel's nuclear capability. He later was abducted in Rome by Israeli agents, tried, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. See also Anthony Pearson, Conspiracy of Silence (London: Quartet Books, 1978). Pearson wrote that elements in the CIA led by James Angleton had given the Israelis technicians and probably even material to set up their own nuclear plants and projects. This had been done . . . to facilitate a very necessary liaison between the rapidly developing Israeli intelligence service and the CIA. The liaison was based on an agreement . . . that Mossad would handle all CIA operations in the Middle East. (p. 27) Green pointed out that the U.S. Defense Department, beginning in the late 1940s, provided money for defense projects to the Weizmann Institute, where research related to nuclear weapons was performed. He also spelled out the intimate relationship between NUMEC and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Although he wrote that a conclusive case demonstrating NUMEC's diversion of enriched uranium to Israel had not been made,"the circumstantial evidence" that the AEC played a direct role in the diversion "already is flat and overwhelming" (p. 179).
120. Quoted in London Sundav Times, October 12, 1986; quoted in Gaffney, p. 145.
121. Gaffney, p. 69.
122. Seymour M. Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinaer in the Nixon White House (New York: Summit Books, 1983), p. 214n. Israel is said today to have 100 to 200 nuclear warheads. In general, see Hisham H. Ahmed, "Israel's Nuclear Option: Domestic, Regional and Global Implications," American-Arab Affairs 31 (Winter 1989-90): 70-86.
123. Rubenberg, p. 113. The first major U.S. arms agreement with Israel occurred in 1966. It involved A-4 Skyhawk planes and Sherman tanks, and it cost more than all other U.S. arms supplied since 1948. Green, Taking Sides, p. 175.
124. Rubenberg, p. 123. The United States argued that, if Israeli forces had to leave the Sinai, all forces, including the Egyptian, should have to leave. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 109.
125. Green, Takinq Sides, pp. 204-11. Green's principal source claims to have participated in the operation.
126. Quoted in William B. Quandt, Decades of Decision: American PolicY toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1967-1976 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 56-57.
127. Abba Eban, An Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 385. Quoted in Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 291, n. 42.
128. On the connections among American Jews, Israel, and South Vietnam, see Neff, Warriors for Jerusalem, pp. 80, 85. In Neff's words: As the Vietnam war heated up and Johnson's popularity cooled, the Jewish American-Israeli connection became increasingly important to him. Administration officials spent considerable amounts of time trying to enlist Jewish American support for the war--which many Jews violently opposed-- by extending support to Israel. (p. 80)
129. There was a cost in American lives too from Israel's prolonged and brutal air and sea assault on June 8 on the USS Liberty, a virtually unarmed intelligence ship in the Mediterranean. Despite the ship's having clear markings and a flag flying, the Israelis claimed they did not know it was an American ship. Thirty-four crewmen were killed and more than 100 were injured. Even life rafts were shot up as sailors tried to leave the ship. The best explanation for the attack is that the ship would have picked up plans for an Israeli attack on Syria after the cease-fire and that the United States might pressure Israel to abandon the plans for fear of a Soviet response. Eveland has written that the Liberty had intercepted messages that "made it clear that Israel had never intended to limit its attack to Egypt" (p. 325). The United States, though, minimized the episode. And Israel warned the United States not to press the issue or it would expose details of CIA-Israeli cooperation. See James M. Ennes, Jr., Assault on the Libertv (New York: Random House, 1979); James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Aqencv (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982), pp. 217-29; Neff, Warriors for Jerusalem, passim; Green, Takinq Sides, pp. 212-42. According to Green, the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew of the attack before it occurred but delayed sending the Libertv an order to move. For an explanation of the episode sympathetic to the Israelis, see Hirsh Goodman and Ze'ev Schiff, "The Attack on Liberty," Atlantic, September 1984, pp. 78-84. Also see letters to the editor by Ennes, Green, and others in the December 1984 issue of the Atlantic. Three authors have written that the LibertY was attacked because it had learned that Israel was "cooking" Egyptian transmissions to Jordan, changing them from reports of Israeli successes to Israeli losses and thereby encouraging King Hussein to get into the war. See Eveland, p. 325; Pearson, pp. 13-53; Richard Deacon, The Israeli Secret Service (New York: Taplinger, 1978), pp. 166-85.
130. Quoted in Rubenberg, p. 125.
131. Thomas G. Paterson, Meeting the Communist Threat: Truman to Reagan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 228.
132. Safran, p. 372; Rubenberg, pp. 91-92.
133. Safran, p. 576 (emphasis added).
134. Clyde R. Mark, "Israel-U.S. Foreign Assistance Facts," reprinted in the Conqressional Record, May 1, 1990, pp. 5420-5423; Israel: U.S. Foreian Assistance Facts, Congressional Research Service Issue Brief, undated.
135. Mark, p. 55422.
136. Ibid.
137. "Israel Retracts Pledge to U.S. on East Jerusalem Housing," New York Times, October 19, 1990.
138. Tom Bethell, "Getting Off the Dole," American Spectator, July 1990, pp. 9, 11.
139. For a detailed picture of the war and its prelude, see Donald Neff, Warriors aqainst Israel: How Israel Won the Battle to Become America's Allv (1973; Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books, 1988).
140. Quoted in Rubenberg, p. 134. As noted above, that position was not a new one for Nasser.
141. Rubenberg, pp. 133-34. The PLO at that time rejected Resolution 242 because it did not acknowledge Palestinian self-determination and referred only to "refugees." Rubenberg, p. 146.
142. Rubenberg, p. 148; Neff, Warriors aqainst Israel, p. 59.
143. Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), pp. 354, 1289 (emphasis in original). Kissinger also said that he was reluctant to press Israel because "brutally" demonstrating its dependence on the United States would have broken "Israel's back psychologically and destroy[ed] the essence of state." Quoted in Neff, Warriors against Israel, p. 307. Kissinger also felt constrained by the pro-Israeli lobby, or, as he put it, "the prevailing domestic situation." Quoted in Rubenberg, p. 174. Nixon at times was more perceptive than Kissinger. In a memorandum to Kissinger, Nixon said that, because of the 1967 war, the Soviets "became the Arabs' friend and the U.S. their enemy. Long range this is what serves their [the Soviets'] interest." Quoted in Neff, Warriors aqainst Israel, p. 31. Joseph Sisco, undersecretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, was involved in discussions with the Soviets about achieving a separate Israeli-Egyptian peace.
144. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, pp. 116-19. See also Earl C. Ravenal, Large-Scale Foreiqn Policv Change: The Nixon Doctrine as Historv and Portent (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of International Studies, 1989).
145. Henry A. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), p. 196.
146. Neff, Warriors against Israel, p. 73ff.
147. Ibid., p. 35ff.; Rubenberg, pp. 136-37. Contrary to what Nixon and Kissinger seemed to believe, the Soviets were urging restraint on Syria and others. Hersh, p. 241.
148. Rubenberg, p. 155; Neff, Warriors aqainst Israel, pp. 69-70, 72.
149. Quoted in Rubenberg, . 157.
150. Rissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 471.
151. Stephen Green, Living by the Sword: America and Israel in the Middle East (Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books, 1988), p. 97.
152. Safran, p. 483. See also Rubenberg, pp. 163-65. Journalist Jack Anderson reported in 1980 that a Pentagon document confirmed that Israel discussed using nuclear weapons with the United States when it was within hours of running out of conventional arms and the United States furnished the weapons to prevent that. Washinqton Post, March 10, 1980. The subject is also discussed in Robert E. Harkavy, The Spectre of a Middle East Holocaust: The Strategic and Diplomatic Implications of the Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program, Monograph Series in World Affairs, vol. 14, book 4 (University of Denver, 1977).
153. "In Israel, to gain their support, I had indicated that I would understand if there was a few hours of 'slippage' in the cease-fire deadline," Kissinger wrote in Years of UPheaval (p. 569). Safran has written that "the secretary's remarks in their [the Israeli military leaders'] presence and in that context could only be taken by them as an invitation to disregard the cease-fire and go on to try to destroy the Egyptian forces." Safran, p. 492. Israeli officials were angry at the cease-fire agreement with the Soviets also because it reaffirmed UN Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 war, which Israel opposed. Safran, p. 491.
154. Rubenberg, p. 170.
155. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 579.
156. Kissinger and other administration officials made the decision about the worldwide alert without the knowledge of Nixon, who was distraught from the impending impeachment and asleep. Neff, Warriors aqainst Israel, p. 284. "We had just run the risk of war with the Soviet Union," Kissinger wrote. Kissinger, Years of UPheaval, p. 602; quoted in Rubenberg, p. 172. The consequences for detente were obvious. See Neff, Warriors against Israel, pp. 282-89.
157. Rubenberg, pp. 172-73. 158. Rubenberg, p. 158.
159. Sampson, p. 302, and Yergin, The Prize, passim.
160. Quoted in Rubenberg, p. 173.
161. Quoted in Neff, Warriors against Israel, p. 306.
162. Arafat, perhaps seeing the handwriting on the wall, communicated This willingness to enter the peace process but was barred by Kissinger. It was at that time that some Palestinians in al-Fatah began talking of a two-state solution, with a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. They were rebuffed by Israel and the United States and then denounced by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine for capitulating. The move toward adoption of a two-state solution began at the Palestine National Council meeting in June 1974 and was formalized into a program in 1977. In 1976 the UN Security Council considered a resolution, supported by the Arabs and formulated by the PLO, that called for a two-state solution based on the pre-June 1967 borders. It included international guarantees for the "territorial integrity" of all states in the region. Israel opposed the resolution, and the United States vetoed it. The exclusion of the Palestinians and al-Fatah's turn to diplomacy stimulated renewed guerrilla activity against Israel by radical groups. Israel retaliated with attacks in Lebanon. It is important to note that Jordan also was willing to sacrifice the Palestinians. In discussing his desire for settlement, King Hussein told Kissinger that he feared a Palestinian state on the West Bank. Rubenberg, pp. 183-84. On December 21, 1973, after great difficulty, the United States and the Soviet Union convened a conference in Geneva, under UN auspices, with Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. Syria refused to attend, and the Palestinians, at Israel's insistence, were not permitted to attend. After opening statements, the conference was recessed indefinitely. Rubenberg, pp. 177-80.
163. Rubenberg, pp. 182, 206-9; Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, pp. 148-52.
164. Rubenberg, p. 187.
165. In 1969 Laborite prime minister Golda Meir said there was no such thing as the Palestinian people, and her successor, Yitzhak Rabin, said Israel would not negotiate "with any Palestinian element." Quoted in Rubenberg, p. 199.
166. Lenczowski has written that Carter did threaten to cut off military aid when Israel entered Lebanon in September 1977; Begin then withdrew Israeli forces. Lenczowski, American Presidents in the Middle East, p. 168.
167. Hirst, p. 335.
168. Rubenberg, pp. 201-2, 212. American supporters of Israel severely criticized the joint proposal as, in the words of one Jewish organization, "an abandonment of America's historic commitment to the security and survival of Israel." Rubenberg, p. 212. Jewish Democrats boycotted a fund-raising dinner featuring the president.
169. Rubenberg, p. 204. On PLO observance of the cease-fire, see Shulamit Har Even, "A War Based on Lies," Ha'aretz, June 30, 1982; reprinted in Palestine/Israel Bulletin, September 1982.
170. Rubenberg, pp. 211-13. See also Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, pp. 158-70.
171. Ibid., pp. 165-66.
172. Rubenberg, pp. 234-35.
173. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, pp. 176-77.
174. Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection II: What Price Peace? (Brunswick, N.J.: North American, 1982), pp. 714-15. In general, see William B. Quandt, Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics tWashington: Brookings Institution, 1986).
175. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, pp. 180-81.
176. Robin Wright, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Fundamentalism (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 180.
177. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 183.
178. Sandra Mackey, Lebanon: Death of a Nation (New York: Congdon & Weed, 1989), p. 174ff.; Jonathan C. Randal, Goinq All the Way: Christian Warlords. Israeli Adventurers and the War in Lebanon (New York: Vintage Books, 1984). Israel remains in southern Lebanon to this day. See "Israel to Retain 'Security Zone' in Lebanon," New York Times, November 9, 1990.
179. See Sheldon L. Richman, "The United States in Lebanon."
180. The air strikes made use of building-penetrating bombs and phosphorus bombs, which caused horrible burns. By late June the Lebanese police estimated that 10,000 people had been killed; the Lebanese daily An-Nahar said the toll was almost 18,000, 90 percent of whom were civilians. But the worst bombing was yet to come. Neither hospitals nor orphanages were spared. Food, water, and fuel were denied the half-million city residents. By August 31, over 19,000 people were believed killed, over 30,000 wounded--mostly civilians--although those figures are almost certainly underestimates. Israel said it lost 446 soldiers. See Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 218.
181. Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Caveat: Realism Reaaan, and Foreian Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1984), pp. 326, 327.
182. Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), pp. 73-74.
183. Ibid., pp. 74-76.
184. The United States has usually voted with Israel in the United Nations and has used its veto many times, even against resolutions regarding Israel's handling of the intifada. The vote in October 1990 to condemn Israel for the massacre of Palestinians at the Temple Mount was the first U.S. vote against Israel in nine years.
185. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, pp. 221-22.
186. The Phalange party is a paramilitary organization founded in thep 1930s, with some fascist inspiration, by Bashir and Amin Gemayel's father, Pierre. It is a defender of established Christian power in Lebanon.
187. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 222. The Israelis had brutally bombed the camps before this episode. Lenczowski, pp. 222-23. Those facts came out of Israel's Kahan Commission report, although the commission, despite strong evidence, did not accept the view that Israelis at a high level had planned and helped commit the massacre .
188. Rubenberg, p. 314.
189. A former agent of the Israeli Mossad (intelligence agency) has written that the agency withheld important information from the United States that might have prevented the attack. See Victor Ostrovsky, Bv Wav of Deception: The Makina and Unmakina of a Mossad Officer (New York: St. Martin' 5 Press , 1990 ) .
190. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 224.
191. Quoted in Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, pp. 254-55.
192. Ibid.
193. Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA. 1981-1987 (New York: Simon & Schuster), pp. 160-61. Joseph E. Persico, in Casev: From the OSS to the CIA (New York: Viking, 1990), has reported that the United States traded the intelligence about Osirak in return for Israeli acquiescence in the sale of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia. The cooperation between Israel and the United States was not close enough for Jonathan Jay Polland, who was convicted for giving Israel classified infomation. See Wolf Blitzer, Territorv of Lies (New York: Harper & Row, 1989). For details on Israeli cooperation in the Iran-Contra operation, see Jonathan Marshall et al., The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reaaan Era (Boston: South End Press, 1987), pp. 167-86.
194. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 261.
195. In November 1990 Shamir reiterated that Israel would not give up the occupied territories because they were needed for Jewish immigrants. See "Shamir Wants Immigrants to Fill Occupied Territories," Washinqton Times, November 19, 1990. Most of those immigrants are coming from the Soviet Union, thanks to a deal between Israel and the United States that severely restricted the number of Soviet Jews who could emigrate to the United States.
196. Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 275.
197. Ibid.
