Deleuze
27-03-2005, 23:26
The War of 1967 is the war most commonly cited by anti-Israeli pundits as making it responsible for the current crisis, as Israel took the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights then. However, this view ignore several historical realities. I'm going to point out a few problems in the common arguments that I got from here: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:d1VOc-HnuRsJ:www.alternativeinsight.com/israel_history-Part_2.html+prevent+1967+war+%22should+have%22&hl=en&client=firefox-a
* The media didn't accurately portray the hostilities that preceded the war. Reporter, Rami Tal quoted Moishe Dayan as stating:
... "at least 80 percent of two decades of border clashes were initiated by Israel. We would send a tractor to plow some (disputed) area...and we knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was."
This is perhaps the most common argument - the war was Israel's fault. However, it ignores a few historical realities: 1. The Arab troops weren't normally there. Syria and Egypt had recently signed a historic alliance against Israel and as a result of meetings discovered by Israeli intelligence, moved troops in for an imminent invasion. Because Israel had advance warning, they attacked directly before an attack was about to occur. So perhaps Israel initiated the border clashes. But if they didn't, the war would have started inevtiably, and Israel simply could not have defended itself.
* As early as 1964, Israel had diverted the headwaters of the Jordan River from the Sea of Galilee to Israel's South. Syria responded by building its own diversions in the Golan. The Israel forces attacked these facilities on several occasions.
The water diversions in the south discussed above were necessary to Israel getting its own, independent water supply. If it didn't make those diversions, Arab countries could simply have held Israel hostage to its thirst, essentially destroying it due to lack of water. Thus, these "provocations" were steps necessary to ensure national survival, and the Syrian diversions were part of a strategy to thirst Israel out existing before the Israeli diversions.
* On April 26, 1967, two months before the start of the 6-day war, Israeli jets shot down 6 Syrian planes over Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. Later that day Israeli jets flew over Damascus.
Those Syrian planes were on their way to scouting Israeli targets as part of intelligence work desigend to facilitate joint Syrian-Egyptian war on Israel two months later.
* Israel bombed all Egyptian airfields before any declaration of war. No Egyptian planes bombed Israeli targets.
Had the United States known that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked (disregarding conspiracy theories that they did in fact know and just wanted a pretense to go to war), it would have shot down the Japanese planes before they could have killed American soldiers and civilians. Same thing here with Israel, only in this case, a successful Egyptian airstrike would have crippled Israel's airforce which was essential to protecting its territorial integrity and thus national survival.
* Although Israel accused Egypt of preparing for an immediate attack, no Egyptian soldier set foot on Israeli territory.
No, really! That was the whole point. The reason they didn't get a chance to get onto Israeli territory was because Israel didn't give them a chance as it had better intelligence. If France had stopped Germany in either of the WW's before it advanced onto French territory, would people have said the Germans weren't the aggressors? I doubt it.
* Israel captured and occupied the entire Sinai.
I'm sorry, but if you're planning to invade a nation, and then they kick the crap out of you and take some of your territory, don't whine about losing. You started it. Additionally, Israel returned ALL of the Sinai in return for a peace treaty with Anwar Sadat, Egypt's president later assasinated by Arab radicals for wishing for peace.
* Israel continued attacks in the Golan after a preliminary truce had been declared and did not stop the attacks until the entire Golan had been captured.
That's because of something peculiar about the Golan Heights. Whoever controls it can shell almost all of Israel's major population centers, and gives them a perfect route into the heart of Israel. If Israel didn't control the Heights, a future invasion or, at the very least, continued unprovoked murder of civilians would occur with no way for Israel to stop it.
* Israel occupied the entire West Bank and all of Jerusalem and,contrary to international law, transferred an additional 100,000 Palestinians from captured territory.
Again, the thing about losing territory in wars you provoked. Jordan, who controlled the region at the time, attacked Israel before it attacked Jordan as Egyptian soldiers, fearful of the wrath of their superios, lied about their fortunes, causing Jordan to invade, hoping for a piece of Israel. Israel has also offered ALL OF THAT TERRITORY BACK IN EXCHANGE FOR A PEACE TREATY, in 2000. Yasser Arafat rejected the offer, and then the current Intifada began, causing the Israeli right to take power. As for the second charge, at the least those numbers are inflated - many citizens of those regions fled, and then weren't permitted into Jordan. I also believe that this claim is entirely unsubstantiated - if there were a serious desire to remove Palestinians by force, it would have happened en masse, and none would have remained. My guess is that those who ran from Israeli forces were percieved as being expelled or were told to say that they were expelled, in hope of galvanizing international support to their side.
* Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. The obituary of William McGonagle, Captain of USS Liberty, who died on March 3, 1999, described this aggressive act.
Israel attacked the American naval vessel with planes, three torpedo boats and helicopters. They bombed, dropped napalm and shelled the Liberty. Of 294 men aboard the Liberty, 34 were killed, and 171 were wounded.They claimed they mistook the ship for an Egyptian ship. Since they made no attempt to identify the ship, intelligence observers believe they bombed the ship to prevent it from gathering intelligence on Israel's attempts to capture the Golan Heights from Syria.
This is perhaps the most laughable. The United States has always been one of Israel's staunchest supporters. That the US would object to Israeli war successes that were necessary to its national survival seems wildly implausible. Additionally, where does the information in this "obituary" come from, and why does it discuss geopolitical events rather than the person's life, as obituaries generally do? I'm not actually sure the thing cited is an obituary at all. It in fact is very plausible that it was an accident. How can one verify if Israel had tried to make contact with the ship? Additionally, one person on the plane may have miscalculated - not something you can blame the government for.
* The media didn't accurately portray the hostilities that preceded the war. Reporter, Rami Tal quoted Moishe Dayan as stating:
... "at least 80 percent of two decades of border clashes were initiated by Israel. We would send a tractor to plow some (disputed) area...and we knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was."
This is perhaps the most common argument - the war was Israel's fault. However, it ignores a few historical realities: 1. The Arab troops weren't normally there. Syria and Egypt had recently signed a historic alliance against Israel and as a result of meetings discovered by Israeli intelligence, moved troops in for an imminent invasion. Because Israel had advance warning, they attacked directly before an attack was about to occur. So perhaps Israel initiated the border clashes. But if they didn't, the war would have started inevtiably, and Israel simply could not have defended itself.
* As early as 1964, Israel had diverted the headwaters of the Jordan River from the Sea of Galilee to Israel's South. Syria responded by building its own diversions in the Golan. The Israel forces attacked these facilities on several occasions.
The water diversions in the south discussed above were necessary to Israel getting its own, independent water supply. If it didn't make those diversions, Arab countries could simply have held Israel hostage to its thirst, essentially destroying it due to lack of water. Thus, these "provocations" were steps necessary to ensure national survival, and the Syrian diversions were part of a strategy to thirst Israel out existing before the Israeli diversions.
* On April 26, 1967, two months before the start of the 6-day war, Israeli jets shot down 6 Syrian planes over Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. Later that day Israeli jets flew over Damascus.
Those Syrian planes were on their way to scouting Israeli targets as part of intelligence work desigend to facilitate joint Syrian-Egyptian war on Israel two months later.
* Israel bombed all Egyptian airfields before any declaration of war. No Egyptian planes bombed Israeli targets.
Had the United States known that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked (disregarding conspiracy theories that they did in fact know and just wanted a pretense to go to war), it would have shot down the Japanese planes before they could have killed American soldiers and civilians. Same thing here with Israel, only in this case, a successful Egyptian airstrike would have crippled Israel's airforce which was essential to protecting its territorial integrity and thus national survival.
* Although Israel accused Egypt of preparing for an immediate attack, no Egyptian soldier set foot on Israeli territory.
No, really! That was the whole point. The reason they didn't get a chance to get onto Israeli territory was because Israel didn't give them a chance as it had better intelligence. If France had stopped Germany in either of the WW's before it advanced onto French territory, would people have said the Germans weren't the aggressors? I doubt it.
* Israel captured and occupied the entire Sinai.
I'm sorry, but if you're planning to invade a nation, and then they kick the crap out of you and take some of your territory, don't whine about losing. You started it. Additionally, Israel returned ALL of the Sinai in return for a peace treaty with Anwar Sadat, Egypt's president later assasinated by Arab radicals for wishing for peace.
* Israel continued attacks in the Golan after a preliminary truce had been declared and did not stop the attacks until the entire Golan had been captured.
That's because of something peculiar about the Golan Heights. Whoever controls it can shell almost all of Israel's major population centers, and gives them a perfect route into the heart of Israel. If Israel didn't control the Heights, a future invasion or, at the very least, continued unprovoked murder of civilians would occur with no way for Israel to stop it.
* Israel occupied the entire West Bank and all of Jerusalem and,contrary to international law, transferred an additional 100,000 Palestinians from captured territory.
Again, the thing about losing territory in wars you provoked. Jordan, who controlled the region at the time, attacked Israel before it attacked Jordan as Egyptian soldiers, fearful of the wrath of their superios, lied about their fortunes, causing Jordan to invade, hoping for a piece of Israel. Israel has also offered ALL OF THAT TERRITORY BACK IN EXCHANGE FOR A PEACE TREATY, in 2000. Yasser Arafat rejected the offer, and then the current Intifada began, causing the Israeli right to take power. As for the second charge, at the least those numbers are inflated - many citizens of those regions fled, and then weren't permitted into Jordan. I also believe that this claim is entirely unsubstantiated - if there were a serious desire to remove Palestinians by force, it would have happened en masse, and none would have remained. My guess is that those who ran from Israeli forces were percieved as being expelled or were told to say that they were expelled, in hope of galvanizing international support to their side.
* Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. The obituary of William McGonagle, Captain of USS Liberty, who died on March 3, 1999, described this aggressive act.
Israel attacked the American naval vessel with planes, three torpedo boats and helicopters. They bombed, dropped napalm and shelled the Liberty. Of 294 men aboard the Liberty, 34 were killed, and 171 were wounded.They claimed they mistook the ship for an Egyptian ship. Since they made no attempt to identify the ship, intelligence observers believe they bombed the ship to prevent it from gathering intelligence on Israel's attempts to capture the Golan Heights from Syria.
This is perhaps the most laughable. The United States has always been one of Israel's staunchest supporters. That the US would object to Israeli war successes that were necessary to its national survival seems wildly implausible. Additionally, where does the information in this "obituary" come from, and why does it discuss geopolitical events rather than the person's life, as obituaries generally do? I'm not actually sure the thing cited is an obituary at all. It in fact is very plausible that it was an accident. How can one verify if Israel had tried to make contact with the ship? Additionally, one person on the plane may have miscalculated - not something you can blame the government for.