The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #85850 Message #1605335
Posted By: CarolC
15-Nov-05 - 05:22 AM
Thread Name: BS: Muslim Violence
Subject: RE: BS: Muslim Violence
5.
A major thrust of Oren's account suggests that Israel launched its preemptive strike in the face of an imminent and overwhelming Arab attack. Basing himself on a few self-serving postwar Egyptian memoirs, Oren gives over many pages to "Operation Dawn," a preemptive strike allegedly planned for near the end of May by Nasser's powerful defense minister, `Amer, and said to be abruptly aborted by Nasser. Yet, even mainstream American and Israeli historians crediting Operation Dawn typically consign it to a footnote or a phrase, whereas Oren, citing the same Egyptian memoirs, turns this ephemeral and inconsequential alleged episode into a centerpiece of his history, thereby magnifying the threat Egypt posed. Fabricating a mammoth speculative edifice on an already flimsy evidentiary foundation, Oren professes to divine Nasser's subtle calculations for supporting Operation Dawn (SDW: pp. 95, 120), even after acknowledging that it is unclear whether "Nasser even knew about the plan" (SDW: 92). Oren further observes that the "Egyptian first strike" posed a "potentially greater threat" to Jordan than an Israeli attack because an unsuccessful Egyptian offensive would be blamed on Jordan, undermining Hashemite rule, while a successful Egyptian offensive might "continue onward to Amman." "The predicament, as defined by royal confidant Zayd al-Rifai," Oren continues, "was mind-boggling: `Even if Jordan did not participate in a war.it would be blamed for the loss of the war and our turn would be next'" (SDW: p. 128; the ellipsis is Oren's). Turning to the source Oren cites, we read that King Hussein feared an Israeli attack in the event of a regional war "no matter what Jordan did." To document Jordan's worry, the source quotes al-Rifai: "Even if Jordan did not participate directly in a war that was started by Israel it would not only be destroyed by the Arab world and even blamed for the loss of the war but our turn would be next" (my italics). It would seem that the "predicament" posed by an "Egyptian first strike" to Jordan wouldn't have been quite so "mind-boggling" if Oren hadn't excised the phrase "that was started by Israel."
At one point in his chapter on the "countdown" to the June war Oren implies that Nasser had resolved not to attack on the eve of Israel's preemptive strike (SDW: p. 158). This acknowledgment easily gets lost, however, amid a barrage of alleged contrary indications. For example, he solemnly quotes the 4 June Israeli Cabinet decision to "launch a military strike aimed at.preventing the impending assault by the United Arab Command" and, citing the UNEF commander that Egyptian troops stood poised for an "offensive" as well as the renewed hopes of `Amer "to launch an air and ground offensive in the Negev," he closes the chapter by invoking Eshkol's plea on 5 June that "all Israel strove for was an end to the immediate threat" (SDW: pp. 158, 167, 160, 169; cf. p. 99). In fact, there almost certainly wasn't an impending Egyptian assault. "The Egyptian buildup in Sinai lacked a clear offensive plan," Avraham Sela, a colleague of Oren's at the Shalem Center, reports, "and Nasser's defensive instructions explicitly assumed an Israeli first strike." Oren doesn't adduce any evidence refuting this standard view. Even Menachem Begin, a member of the Israeli cabinet in June 1967, publicly admitted: "The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." Oren omits any mention of Begin's remarkable testimony.
Citing mostly public statements and tendentious memoirs, Oren suggests that Israel's security was rapidly deteriorating and, on the eve of the preemptive strike, Arab armies posed an "existential threat" (his phrase): "It is now a question of our national survival, of to be or not to be" and "The noose is closing around our necks" (Yitzhak Rabin, IDF chief of staff), "Eshkol now understood that time was not on Israel's side.," "The news in the interim was frightful. Egypt's 4th division had completed its deployment in Sinai.," "[T]he general staff determined that `every day is a gamble with Israel's survival,'" "Should Egypt attack first, `Israel has had it'" (Avraham Harman, Israel's ambassador to Washington), "[Israel's] one chance for winning this war is in taking the initiative and fighting according to our own designs..God help us though if they hit us first" (Dayan), "`This is Egypt's greatest hour,'.the combined Arab armies could push Israel back to the UN partition lines, or further" (Aharon Yariv, chief of military intelligence), and so forth (SDW: pp. 153, 86, 87, 90, 97, 147, 149, 150-1; cf. pp. 100, 106, 156, 157, 164, 168, 210).
Yet, these avowals are flatly contradicted by what intelligence agencies and officials were privately reporting: Israel's security situation was in fact steadily improving and it would win a quick and easy victory regardless of which side initiated hostilities. Indeed, Oren cites portions of this confident internal record in the very same passages that he uncritically reports the panicky pretenses. U.S. intelligence predicted that "the IDF would win a war in two weeks even if attacked on three fronts simultaneously - one week if Israel shot first," and, according to Oren, U.S. and Israeli intelligence estimates "agreed entirely." The U.S. ambassador to Israel reported back to Washington that "[the Israelis] feel they can finish Nasser off." Labor Minister Yigal Allon expressed to the Cabinet "total faith in the IDF's ability to beat the Egyptians," Chief of the Central Front, Uzi Narkiss, dismissed the Arab forces as a "soap bubble - one pin will burst them," and Divisional Commander Ariel Sharon declared that "The army is ready as never before to repel an Egyptian attack.to wipe out the Egyptian army." Mossad chief Meir Amit assured Eshkol that "If [Nasser] strikes first, he's finished" and he also told U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that "the war would be over in two days." In this regard it also bears notice that Oren cites the premonition of Quartermaster General Mattityahu Peled that "the Egyptian threat had to be eliminated at once if Israel were to survive" but not Peled's subsequent admission that this posture had been a "bluff," and he quotes statements by IDF chief of operations Ezer Weizman that "We must strike now and swiftly.we must deal the enemy a serious blow, for if we won't other forces will soon join him," and "All the signs indicate that the Egyptians are ready to strike. We have no option but to attack at once," but not Weizman's later acknowledgment that actually "there was no threat of destruction" and the Egyptians would have "suffered a complete defeat" even if they "attacked first." (SDW: pp. 110, 139, 146, 147, 122, 133-4, 151, 87, 99; cf. pp. 104, 152, 159, 165, 172) Far from panicking on the eve of the June war, the "IDF under Rabin" was - in the words of Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld - "at the peak of its preparedness," "confident in its power" and "spoiling for a fight and willing to go to considerable lengths to provoke it."