The Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1956–1975

From Violent Conflict to a Peace Process

Moshe Gat

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351596589
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1956–1975 contains a collection of articles that examine select issues between the end of the Suez Campaign in November 1956 and the Sinai II, or Interim Agreement, signed by Israel and Egypt in September 1975.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the struggle between the three superpowers – the UK, the United States and the Soviet Union – and the effects this had on the region. It also explores the circumstances that led to the Six Day War in June 1967, such as the use of air power and the Israeli retaliatory raids. Two chapters look at the two leaders during the war: Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, leader of the Arab world – a charismatic and dominant persona – and Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, considered weak and inconspicuous. Three chapters focus on the period between the two wars – June 1967 and October 1973 – and one explores the aftermath. Emphasis is placed on Israeli policy between 1967 and 1973, which primarily focused on the use of military power and foreign policy inaction. It is argued that it was this policy that hindered all progress in the peace process, and ultimately led, among other factors, to the Yom Kippur War. The final chapter is on Kissinger and the road to the Sinai II Agreement. It discusses the huge shift in American policy – from avoiding a significant role in the prevention of an imminent war during May and June of 1967, to deep involvement in every detail of the dispute during and following the Yom Kippur War.

Providing an in-depth examination of this important period of the Arab–Israeli conflict, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Middle Eastern History and Politics, Conflict Studies and International Relations.

1

Anatomy of decline

Anglo-Soviet competition in the Middle East, 1956–1957¹

At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union found itself one of the world’s two superpowers. Eager for a global position equal to its new-found potency, it sought to extend its influence both inside and outside Europe. The British Empire, which still governed vast tracts of land in Asia and Africa, became one of the chief targets of Soviet ambitions. With an impressive number of land forces as well as air and naval bases positioned throughout the Middle East, Britain was well placed to curb Soviet expansion at least in that region. However, British power in the aftermath of the Second World War was on the wane and London had neither the military capability nor economic wherewithal to govern or even maintain a significant military presence in the Middle East. Its problems were compounded by the onset of the global decolonisation process, which gathered pace after the Suez Campaign of 1956. Under the circumstances, Britain felt that it had to adjust its regional position. It resolved to quit its Middle East dependencies and, at the same time, pare down its military forces in the area to a bare minimum. This decision, while solving some of Britain’s problems, created others, primarily how to ensure that its withdrawal did not undermine Western or British regional interests, and, above all, how to prevent the Soviet Union from pouncing on the opportunity to fill the vacuum created by Britain’s retreat from the Middle East.

London believed that, in order to safeguard its own and other Western interests, it was essential to secure, as far as possible, a stable, quiescent Middle East. Accordingly, from 1956 onwards, Britain devoted itself to the task of preserving this region’s precarious stability. It meant that the last thing Britain wanted was a war between Israel and its Arab neighbours, which would undermine its interests, while helping the Soviet Union extend and consolidate its influence over the Arab Middle East.

This chapter examines Britain’s diplomatic and military response to the Soviet Union’s ultimately successful efforts to penetrate and become a key player in the Middle East in the period prior to the Six Day War. It will consider whether, and to what extent, Britain was able to check the Soviet drive for power and influence in the Middle East.

British policy following the Suez affair

After Suez, London was forced to concede that decolonisation was not only inevitable but on the ascent. While Britain did not lose or surrender any of its Middle East possessions in the immediate aftermath of the Suez fiasco, it did accept that it was only a question of time before it would be obliged to quit the region. This being the case, it preferred to orchestrate a gradual withdrawal from the area. A carefully coordinated evacuation would safeguard its own as well as Western interests in the region.²

Britain’s vast military presence in the Middle East – some 30,000 troops, plus air and naval bases in Bahrain, Aden and other neighbouring territories – helped guarantee the steady export of Gulf oil to Europe. It also reinforced and boosted the confidence and resolve of the region’s pro-Western, oil-rich countries, such as Iran, allowing them to withstand Soviet threats and pressure.³ Indeed, this sizeable military presence was intended, primarily, to curb Soviet expansion in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, an area widely regarded as a gateway for Soviet expansion elsewhere. Britain saw the Soviet Union as its most determined and dangerous regional rival, and did its utmost to prevent it from gaining a foothold in the Middle East. Until 1945, London proved largely successful in its endeavours, but from 1945 onwards, with Moscow stepping up its efforts to penetrate the Middle East, matters proved much more difficult.⁴

Intent upon sapping British influence in the Middle East, the Soviet Union had in 1948–1949 supported the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.⁵ But, once Israel proved too close to and too dependent on the West, the Soviet Union quickly switched its support to the region’s non-aligned, Arab countries. As East–West polarisation deepened, the Soviet Union sponsored any state opposed to the West’s presence in the area, and siding with its Arab allies began to exploit the Arab–Israeli conflict to further increase its influence in the region. Believing that the conflict offered it an excellent opportunity to establish and cement its relationship with the Arab world, Moscow began to sell arms to the Arab states, first to Syria and then, in what became known as the Czech arms deal of September 1955, to Egypt. In 1956, at the height of the Suez Crisis, the Soviet Union backed the Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser to the hilt. And, when the United States reneged on its promise to finance the Aswan Dam, it offered to fund the project itself.⁶

During the 1960s, Moscow signed several arms deals with Egypt, with the June 1963 deal commonly considered the most important arms treaty of the period prior to the Six Day War.⁷ Nor was Egypt the only one to enjoy Soviet largesse. Syria acquired Soviet weapons, as did Iraq, although the latter also bought arms from the United States.⁸ Arms deals with Egypt were considered particularly invaluable, as Egypt was a key, if not the key, Arab state. Nor did Moscow overlook the fact that selling weapons to Egypt meant that the chances of the latter opening its Mediterranean ports to Soviet naval squadrons were now very much greater.⁹

With the Soviet Union busy wooing the Arab states, the Middle East was inexorably drawn into the Cold War vortex. Like Europe and Asia before them, the Middle East, soon to be joined by Africa, had become the object of superpower rivalry, with both East and West vying for power and influence. This being the case, London had little doubt that the Soviet Union would try to exploit any conflict in the region to further improve its position. Consequently, there was very little chance of reaching any kind of an agreement with the Soviet Union over the Middle East. Simply put, far from sharing Britain’s interest in a peaceful and stable Middle East, the Soviet Union hoped for constant ferment, tension and flux.

In an inherently turbulent, frequently explosive Middle East, British interests would be best served by maintaining a measure of regional stability. Stability also offered the best hope of preventing the currently quiescent Arab–Israeli conflict from erupting into an all-out war, a war which would provide the Soviet Union with an opportunity to tighten its grip on the region.¹⁰ Hence, as Harold Macmillan, Britain’s Prime Minister, informed the House of Commons on May 1963: ‘Her Majesty’s government are deeply interested in peace and stability in this area and are opposed to the use of force or the threat of force there as elsewhere in the world.’¹¹

In order to secure a relatively tranquil Middle East, Britain thought it essential to preserve Israel’s military power vis-à-vis the Arabs. Maintaining Israel’s relative military strength was thus considered a vital component in the region’s stability, and was why Britain agreed to sell weapons to Israel.¹² Britain was, Macmillan clarified, merely helping to preserve and consolidate the region’s stability.¹³ Like London, Washington was preoccupied by the question of the region’s stability. It, too, regarded the Middle East as one of the world’s foremost geo-strategic areas and believed that Europe could not survive for long without unrestricted access to Gulf oil. A stable Middle East was, therefore, a Western imperative. Accordingly, on 8 May 1963, President John Kennedy publicly proclaimed the United States’ total rejection of the use of force, or even the threat to use force. The United States, he warned, would ‘in the event of aggression or preparation for aggression, whether direct or indirect … support the appropriate measures in the United Nations, adopt courses of action of our own to prevent or put a stop to such aggression’.¹⁴ Hence, in October 1962, the Kennedy administration agreed to sell Israel Hawk ground-to-surface missiles, thus establishing an important precedent and signalling the onset of a revolution in American arms policy.¹⁵ At the same time, Kennedy also assured the Israelis that the United States would come to their assistance were they to fall victim to an Arab attack.¹⁶

Under Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, American arms policy took another decisive step forward. The Johnson administration began to equip Israel with offensive as well as defensive weapons. But at this point in time neither the United States nor Britain were as yet Israel’s principal sources of weapons. Both before and in the immediate aftermath of the Suez Campaign, France had been Israel’s sole source of offensive weapons. In 1957 the two countries concluded an agreement whereby France would supply Israel with a nuclear plant; in 1961–1962 they signed several arms deals allowing France to furnish Israel with Mirage Jets. Indeed, until 1967 the Israeli air force was mainly based on French planes.¹⁷

Britain was greatly troubled by the ever-growing number of arms pouring into the Middle East. It had little doubt that the rapidly developing arms race, with both sides feverishly accumulating an impressive array of military equipment, would almost inevitably shatter the region’s fragile stability. Thanks to the huge arms arsenals at their disposal, both Israel’s and the Arab states’ confidence and sense of security would soar, and with that their tendency to adopt increasingly confrontational policies. This would not only bring the region’s delicate balance to an end, but ultimately end in war. Yet there appeared to be no way to stop the swiftly escalating arms race, to stop or even reduce the constant flow of arms into the Middle East.

When broached on the matter, Washington was quite willing to explore ways of bringing the arms race to an end.¹⁸ Not so Moscow, which, in Britain’s opinion, was mainly responsible for the increasingly frenzied arms race. After all, bent on expansion, the Soviet Union would use any and all means at its disposal to achieve its regional objectives. And in the Middle East, supplying the Arab states with weapons, at low prices and on long-term credit, had proven an effective way, perhaps more so than anywhere else in the world, to enhance and consolidate Soviet influence. By furnishing Egypt and its fellow Arab states with arms and offering them diplomatic support, the Soviets had burrowed their way into the Arab world, while undermining Western interests in the area as well.¹⁹ Britain was also mindful of the effect of the Sino-Soviet conflict on Soviet policy, as fierce competition with the Chinese forced the Soviets into adopting ever more aggressive and uncompromising anti-imperialist policies. The Soviets, it seemed, lived in constant fear that China would exploit any hint that they were even considering the possibility of reducing the supply of arms to the Middle East, in order to accuse the Soviet Union of conspiring with the West at the expense of the developing countries, and thus move ahead in their battle over third world leadership.²⁰

The British Foreign Office concluded that the chances of reaching an agreement with the Soviet Union in the Middle East were almost nil. Moscow was not a party to the West’s hope for a peaceful and stable Middle East, and, as London was well aware, the Arab–Israeli conflict, by providing the opportunity to offer the Arabs both weapons and political support, had helped the Soviet Union realise its ambitions and consolidate its influence in the region. Having proved itself in the past, there was no reason for Moscow to suddenly agree to abandon this extraordinarily successful policy. Certainly, there was little London could do to persuade the Soviet Union to limit the sale of arms to the Arab states or curb its trouble-making activities in the region. Of course, if the West and, above all, Britain were to agree to significantly reduce and restrict their own influence in the area, the Soviet Union might consider the possibility of moderating its policies. But, even in the unlikely event that the West would somewhat perversely offer to undercut its own regional position, the Soviet Union would offer in return no more than a symbolic quid pro quo.²¹ With the Middle East countries feverishly hoarding more and more weapons, Moscow was loath to abandon its chief means of garnering power in the Arab world while the Western powers, and, above all, the United States, were equally reluctant to let Israel’s military capabilities fall behind that of the Arab states. The result was a spiralling arms race, the advent of a vicious circle in which the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Anatomy of decline: Anglo-Soviet competition in the Middle East, 1956–1957
• 2. On the use of air power and its effect on the outbreak of the Six Day War
• 3. Retaliatory raids as an accelerating factor leading to the Six Day War
• 4. Let someone else do the job: American policy on the eve of the Six Day War
• 5. Levi Eshkol: an Israeli leader in the years leading up to the Six Day War
• 6. Nasser and the Six Day War, 5 June 1967: a premeditated strategy or an inexorable drift to war?
• 7. Britain and Israel before and after the Six Day War, June 1967: from support to hostility
• 8. Military power and foreign policy inaction: Israeli policy, 1967–1973
• 9. Yitzhak Rabin, Ambassador to Washington, 1968–1973: a diplomat and policy-maker
• 10. Kissinger and the road to the Interim Agreement (Sinai II) between Israel and Egypt, September 1975
• Primary sources
• Bibliography
• Index