Six Days of War

by Michael B. Oren

  In a meeting that afternoon with the UNEF Advisory Committee, while Western ambassadors argued strenuously for postponing a final decision, U That sided with the Pakistani and Indian delegates in upholding Egypt’s right to dismiss the force unilaterally. “It was generally supposed [in 1957] that UNEF would be stationed there for only a few months,” he told the committee, claiming that the “good-faith” agreement related only to removal of forces from Sinai—a goal long since achieved. “If the consent of the UAR ceases to exist, then UNEF has to be withdrawn; there is no alternative,” he insisted. Similar reasoning would inform the aide-mémoire sent to Nasser that evening, in which the secretary-general reiterated his recognition of Egyptian rights, and a note reminding Rikhye that his troops were in Sinai at Egypt’s discretion.21

  Egypt had an unassailable right to evict UNEF, though by doing so it risked igniting regional, if not global, war—that was the paradoxical position of the man charged with maintaining world peace. “Emotionless and moon-faced…rather simple-minded,” in the view of one of his closest advisers, the fifty-eight-year-old U Thant was a former high school headmaster turned journalist and government press secretary who, in 1957, became Burma’s permanent representative to the UN. Notwithstanding a penchant for schoolboy jokes, he was a tense and quiet man—“a Buddhist in every sense of the word,” said George Tomeh, “it was very difficult to anticipate his reactions”—and, apart from cheroots and spicy Burmese food, viceless. Four years later, after Hammarskjold’s death in a plane crash in the Congo, U Thant, then chairman of the UN’s Congo Conciliation Commission, was chosen to complete the late secretary-general’s term of office. Reappointed by the Security Council in December 1966, he earned a reputation as a patient, if parochial, statesman.

  “He had strong views of right and wrong,” Brian Urquhart, a UN undersecretary, remembered, “[his] moral sense overrode his political sense and caused him to do what he believed right, even if it was politically disadvantageous to him.” What he thought right, however, was often seen by American officials as anti-Western and, perforce, pro-Soviet. Thus, according to H. Eugenie Moore Anderson, an American UN representative, “he had…inherited the psychology of the Asian…and had sort of a built-in reaction against the white man.”22

  Though not ill disposed toward Zionism—Israel had supported the extension of his tenure as secretary-general—U Thant nevertheless exhibited ambivalent feelings toward the Jewish state, which did not quite fit in with the dichotomy of East and West, Asian or Caucasian. Egypt, on the other hand, did, though its opposition to UNEF was clearly worrisome. The consequent confusion wrought in U Thant’s mind was apparent when, in a personal letter to U.S. Ambassador Goldberg, he reasoned, “Obviously it cannot be urged that because the Force has contributed so much to the maintenance of quiet in the arena for so long, which has been possible because of UAR cooperation, that Government should now be told that it cannot unilaterally seek the removal of the Force and thus be penalized for its long cooperation with the international community in the interest of peace.” In other words, Egypt’s past contributions to peace entitled it to threaten that peace in the future.23

  Yet a simple solution to the UNEF conundrum existed, U Thant believed, and he presented it the next morning, May 18, to the Israeli ambassador. The UN force would cross the frontier and redeploy on Israeli territory. The idea was hardly new; Hammarskjold had tabled it at the time of UNEF’s inception, with the United States’s support. Israel had opposed it then on the grounds that Egypt, not Israel, had maintained a state of war, had sent guerrillas from Gaza and blockaded the Straits of Tiran. Incorporating contingents from countries hardly sympathetic to Israel, UNEF would be less likely to stop Egyptian aggression than to limit Israel’s responses to it.

  These arguments were well known to Gideon Rafael, Israel’s UN ambassador. Though only recently appointed, the German-born Rafael, fifty-four, had been one of the founders of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, and was present at the UN Partition Plan vote and at the marathon debates surrounding the Suez crisis. Now, under orders to prevent UNEF’s eviction at all costs, he rejected the notion of peacekeepers on Israeli soil, and criticized the UN’s passivity in the face of Egyptian troops—“Before shooting at them at least you could have shouted at them,” he scolded U Thant. Rafael reminded the secretary-general of the pledges Israel had received from his predecessor, that any request to dismiss UNEF would first be brought to the General Assembly. U Thant professed ignorance of these promises—“bewildered…perplexed,” Rafael described him—and assured the Israelis that he would soon make a compelling appeal to Nasser.24

  Events in Sinai, meanwhile, were rapidly outpacing those in New York. UNEF aircraft were no longer allowed to land at al-‘Arish airport, leaving food to rot in the fuselages and UN troops to languish without supplies. The Egyptians had entirely taken over the observation posts at al-Sabha and Kuntilla, and had fired artillery shells perilously close to those at al-Qusayma. In Sharm al-Sheikh, helicopter-borne paratroopers, supported by two gunboats offshore, had demanded the immediate evacuation of the thirty-one-man Yugoslav garrison. Yet the friction did not emanate from Egypt alone. The Caribou aircraft Gen. Rikhye was flying in close to the border was chased away, with warning shots, by Israeli Mystères.25 Though Rabin later apologized for the incident, it reinforced Rikhye’s sense that a crisis was close.

  The vicissitudes of the day climaxed in a cable from Foreign Minister Riad to U Thant. This was the letter that the secretary-general had demanded of El Kony, and now he had it:

  The Government of the United Arab Republic has the honour to inform Your Excellency that it has decided to terminate the presence of the United Nations Emergency Forces from the territory of the United Arab Republic and Gaza Strip. Therefore, I request that the necessary steps be taken for the withdrawal of the force as soon as possible.

  The text indicated a decisive shift in official Egyptian thinking. Throughout the previous two days, since Rikhye was first informed of Egypt’s intentions, confusion had surrounded the question of whether UNEF was being ordered to leave certain areas in Sinai or leave the Middle East entirely. Gen. Fawzi’s original letter could have been interpreted as a request to remove UNEF from along the border only, in accordance with Nasser’s wishes. But it was ‘Amer’s wishes that appeared to be carried out by Gen. Mukhtar in his demand for the evacuation of Sharm al-Sheikh, and by the landing there of Egyptian troops. Now Riad had stated categorically: all of UNEF must go.

  Bunche, Nasser suspected, had tried to trick him, threatening to dissolve UNEF if Egypt removed it from the border. Now the Egyptian president claimed that he had called that bluff and ousted the peacekeepers entirely. Though a debate would later arise over whether Nasser had truly sought to retain UNEF in Gaza and Sharm al-Sheikh—Bunche vigorously denied it—the distinction was irrelevant to U Thant. For him, a request for any change in the force’s disposition was tantamount to a demand for total withdrawal. Believing that he had avoided Bunche’s trap, Nasser had set one for himself.26

  Fawzi’s letter was received with resignation, if not regret, by the secretary-general. “I am proceeding to issue instructions without delay for the…orderly withdrawal of the force,” he replied dryly, adding that, “I have serious misgivings that this…withdrawal may have grave implications for peace.” He considered wiring a more personal appeal to Nasser, and asked Brian Urquhart to formulate a draft. El Kony, too, was inclined to advise prudence, certain that a General Assembly debate on UNEF could not be avoided. But Nasser would have none of it. His response, sent through Riad, was terse: “Advise him [U Thant] not to send any appeal regarding the emergency forces in order to avoid its being rejected by Cairo which would lead to an embarrassment for him, something we do not want at all.” The secretary-general needed no more prodding. The appeal was never sent.27

  Copies of the correspondence between Riad and U Thant reached Gen. Rikhye at 4:30 on the morning of May 19. He was bitterly disappointed—the UN c
ould have tried any number of delaying tactics, he believed, such as sending a fact-finding mission to the region—but not surprised. “I stood and told my boys, pick it up, it’s time to go,” he remembered. One by one over the course of the afternoon the observation points were taken over by Egyptians. The safety of UNEF personnel in the area could no longer be guaranteed, they said. At 5:00 P.M., units of the Palestinian Liberation Army manned the Erez checkpoint, separating Gaza from Israel. Rikhye described the scene: “The guard of honour presented arms, the band played a salute, and the United Nations flag was lowered by a young Swedish soldier who folded and handed it over the lieutenant, who in turn presented it to his commander. Colonel Lindskog walked up to me heavily and with sadness written over his face, handed the flag to me.”

  Rikhye saw a different expression—“grinning from ear to ear”—on the face of the Palestinian soldier now guarding the gate. The general saluted him, thinking, “It is all yours now,” and feeling sorry for him. He proceeded through the barriers to the IDF liaison office, there to report that UNEF’s evacuation of Gaza was complete. By midnight, the Egyptians had informed the UN that “the UAR has taken over all sovereign rights in Sinai. No UN personnel will be allowed in Sinai until further notice.” Nasser proposed decorating UNEF for its services and for consenting to evacuate peaceably, but Rikhye politely declined. The force’s task had never been fulfilled, he believed, as was already evident that evening, with the first exchange of rifle fire across the border.28

  Reports on the UNEF decision were circulated to the General Assembly and the Security Council on May 19. In these, U Thant sought to justify his acquiescence to Nasser’s dictates while expressing regret for the dangers those dictates produced. He summarized the background to the current controversy—the struggle over the northern DZ’s, al-Fatah attacks, and the unsubstantiated reports of concentrated Israeli forces. He was particularly critical of Israel for the “inflammatory” statements of its officials and its refusal to recognize the Mixed Armistice Commission in Gaza which might, he suggested, be a partial substitute for UNEF. Of singular concern to the secretary-general was the fact that UNEF’s ouster was unrelated to its performance, which had been carried out “with remarkable effectiveness and great distinction.”

  This was to be UNEF’s epitaph. Critics of U Thant hastened to point out that he had acted with regrettable—indeed, unprecedented—speed in acceding to, and exceeding, Egypt’s demands. Prior to making his decision, he never consulted formally with the countries contributing troops to the force, certainly not with Israel, and never sent an appeal to Nasser. His action would be widely denounced in the West—by Newsweek columnist Joseph Alsop as “poltroonery” and by New York Times editor C.L. Sulzberger as having “the objectivity of a spurned lover and the dynamism of a noodle.” Yet nothing more was done about it. Fearing Afro-Asian unity and the Soviet veto, the Western nations refrained from taking the issue to either the General Assembly or the Security Council. Nearly a month later, on June 17, when the last UN soldier left Sinai, the event was scarcely reported. But by then, Sinai, and indeed the entire Middle East, was a very different place.

  For U Thant, the question now was not how to revive UNEF but rather how to prevent the outbreak of war. Abba Eban had proposed that the secretary-general, together with Urquhart and Bunche, embark on an immediate mediation mission to Cairo, Damascus, and Jerusalem. The proposal appealed to U Thant, but only in part. He would stop only in Cairo on what would be billed as “a regularly scheduled visit,” and would not take Bunche or Urquhart, both of whom were unpalatable to the Egyptians. Nor would he leave at once, but wait another three days, when his horoscope said it was propitious for him to travel.29

  Israel Waits

  “Ha-Hamtana,” Israelis came to call it: “the waiting.” It described the period beginning on May 14, with the first reports of Egyptian troops entering Sinai, and the almost maddening ascent of tensions thereafter. These began on May 17, when a “top secret source” informed the Israelis of U Thant’s decision on UNEF. “It is still unclear what diplomatic consideration or defect of character brought him to make this disastrous move,” the Foreign Ministry cabled its representative in Rangoon. “If you can record any explanations that might shed light on his motivations, wire them immediately.” Beyond its disappointment with the secretary-general, Israel had to grapple with the loss of its most concrete achievement from 1956, assuring free passage through Tiran and a quiet southern border. Suddenly, the decade of security afforded by UNEF had ended, supplanted by the specter of war and the question: What will Nasser do next?

  The answer seemed to be furnished by the Egyptian air force which, at 4:00 on the afternoon of May 17, carried out the first-ever reconnaissance of the Dimona nuclear reactor. Two MiG-21 jets cut through Jordanian airspace, entered Israel from the east, and swooped low over the top-secret site. They were over the border and into Sinai before the IAF had even begun to react.

  The incident touched on one of Israel’s darkest concerns, that its pursuit of nuclear power would impel Egypt to launch a conventional attack while it still had the chance. Back in 1964, Nasser had warned the Americans that Israel’s development of nuclear capabilities “would be a cause for war, no matter how suicidal.” The U.S. assured Nasser that Israel was not developing strategic weapons, and he never renewed his threat, but the memory of it stuck with the Israelis. They never forgot the reactor’s proximity to the border, its vulnerability to aerial bombardment. Thus, through Nasser never once cited Dimona as a motive for his decisions in May, Israeli commanders assumed it was and concluded that they had to strike first. Israel’s fear for the reactor—rather than Egypt’s of it—was the greater catalyst for war.30

  No sooner had the MiG’s flown off when the army’s alert was elevated to the second level and the air force’s to the highest. Operation Bluebird, upgrading the protection of Israel’s airfields and other strategic sites, was implemented. All at once, IDF analysts were compelled to revise their initial assessments.

  Responsibility for this revision fell to a diminutive, delicately featured man, the chief of military intelligence, Gen. Aharon “Aharale” Yariv. At forty-seven, Yariv had held field commissions in the Haganah, the British army, and finally the IDF, before serving as Israel’s military attaché in Washington. Returning to Israel, he was appointed chief of Aman—the intelligence branch—in 1964, at the time of the Arab summits and Nasser’s plan for a phased buildup to war. While other general staff officers were charged with dealing with the almost daily flare-ups along the border, Yariv had the unenviable job of gauging when the Arab world would be in a position to wage a full multifront attack. That point, he concluded, would arrive sometime between 1967 and 1970, with the later date the likelier. But that estimation was predicted on the belief that Egypt would remain economically strapped and pinned down in Yemen—an assumption that had been suddenly and stunningly disproved. Now, as Egyptian troops and armor continued to flood Sinai, Yariv was to suggest alternative scenarios.

  “It’s unclear whether Egypt’s intention was from the start aimed at a military confrontation or at a limited gain of prestige,” Yariv briefed his senior officers on May 19. “In any event, we are prepared for a confrontation, whether as a result of an intentional or unintentional provocation.” He showed aerial photos of the Egyptian forces, now numbering 80,000 men, 550 tanks, and 1,000 guns, and surveyed their possible courses of action. The Egyptians might blockade or bomb the nuclear reactor, Yariv speculated, though his best guess had them simply building up strength in Sinai. As such, they could either keep Israel indefinitely mobilized, bleeding economically, or provoke an Israeli first-strike that the Arabs could turn into a rout.

  Later, elaborating before the general staff, Yariv opined that Nasser no longer thought that Egypt was ill matched for Israel militarily, but was ready to gamble on short, focused assaults to conquer parts of the Negev or to smash the IDF among the Sinai dunes. “They’ll strike you with something limi
ted. You’ll strike back and then they’ll bomb Dimona…Their forces in Bir Hasana and Jabal Libni are ready to maneuver.” He recommended activating most of Israel’s 140,000 reserves, and telling them frankly that their call-up was in preparation for war. Israel’s civilian population should be told the truth as well, advised Yariv.31

  The army’s analyses all assumed that Nasser operated according to a rational, quantifiable impetus—no mention was made, for example, of his turbulent relationship with ‘Amer—and yet his next moves remained a mystery. “There won’t be a fight as long as the Egyptians just sit in Sinai and don’t budge,”Eshkol assured his cabinet on the afternoon of the 19th, explaining that it was prestige Nasser wanted, not war. “When we reach that river, we’ll look for a life preserver,” he mollified Rabin when warned that Nasser would most likely close the Straits. That same night, however, the prime minister informed Mapai leaders that “things are worse than they appear,” and warned Deputy Defense Minister Zvi Dinstein, “There’s going to be a war, I’m telling you, there’s going to be a war.” Eshkol more than doubled the number of mobilized reserves, and brought the number of tanks in the south to 300. He asked that operational plans be drafted for reopening the Straits by force and for destroying Egyptian airfields if the enemy attacked Dimona.