Yet, for all his uncertainty, Eshkol continued to counsel prudence. He asked his ministers to refrain from making public statements on Israel’s rights to free passage, and his diplomats to avoid a Security Council debate that, at best, would produce no results or, worse, call those rights into question. Whether it was restoring the status quo in Sinai or affirming Israel’s right to self-defense, Israel’s reaction to the crisis was to be low-key and focused on the most influential factor, the United States.32
But was American thinking on the crisis totally in line with that of Israel? In a meeting with Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow on May 17, Ambassador Harman for the first time heard that Israel “will not stand alone,” provided that it did not act alone militarily. The U.S. was willing to talk to the Russians, but its ability to influence the Egyptians was limited. After all, Rostow pointed out, Nasser was within his rights in placing troops on his own sovereign territory. A preemptive strike by Israel would, therefore, be “a very serious mistake.”
Rostow’s words had a disquieting resonance for any Israeli who remembered the Suez crisis, evoking threats of economic sanctions and relentless American pressure on Israel. That sense of déjà vu was reinforced later that afternoon by a personal letter Eshkol received from Johnson. While recognizing that Israel’s patience had been “tried to the limits” by border attacks, the president expressly ruled out preemptive action. “I want to emphasize strongly that you have to abstain from every step that would increase tension and violence in the area,” Johnson warned. “You will probably understand that the United States cannot accept any responsibility for situations that are liable to occur as a result of actions in which we were not consulted.”33
The Israelis were willing to oblige, informing Washington that the call-up of reserves was for defensive purposes only, and asking it to convey that assurance to Cairo and Damascus. “There are no automatic switches open,” Eban told Ambassador Barbour; no offensive action was planned as long as the Straits remained passable. But as a quid pro quo for its temperance, Israel also had a demand: American guarantees for its security. Israel, Eban explained, could “either shoot or shout, but it is politically impossible for it to be quiet about terrorism. If the United States believed that a tranquil Israel is worth preserving it should take steps to see that its commitment was believed.”
The request was reflected in Eshkol’s reply to Johnson. “I understand that you do not wish to be committed without consultation,” the prime minister wrote. “But with a massive build-up on our southern frontier linked with a terrorist campaign from the north and Soviet support for the governments responsible for the tension, there is surely an urgent need to reaffirm the American commitment to Israel’s security with a view to its implementation should the need arise.” Israel had other requests as well, for jets and tanks and the dispatch of a U.S. destroyer for a port-of-call visit to Eilat.
None of these entreaties were met. While American officials promised to consider an aid package “that substantially meets Israel’s requests,” no arms were in fact cleared for delivery. “A propaganda horse for the Arabs to ride” was how Secretary of State Dean Rusk dismissed the port-of-call idea; “a red flag to Egypt.” Barbour was even instructed to avoid direct discussions with Eshkol, for fear of creating the impression of collusion. Harman wrote of yet worse possibilities—that the U.S. would pressure Israel to accept UNEF on its territory and recognize the new status quo in Sinai. “These policies are fundamentally flawed and potentially disastrous,” the ambassador emphasized to Eban. “A large share of the responsibility for the current crisis falls on the U.S. government. Only a bold, unilateral move by Washington will now bring results satisfactory to us both.”34
Gravely disappointed in Johnson’s response, Eshkol turned to De Gaulle. “An open expression of French support for Israel’s security and integrity and for the preservation of peace in the Middle East will be a most important diplomatic and psychological asset in the delicate situation we now find ourselves in,” the prime minister implored. A similar appeal was sent to the British government of Harold Wilson, though neither of Israel’s erstwhile allies from 1956 was willing to make such a statement. Meanwhile, Soviet Ambassador Chuvakhin was again summoned to the Foreign Ministry and again assured by Eban of Israel’s interest in peace. He replied by defending Egypt’s right to evict UNEF and to denounce Israeli aggression, verbal and military, against Syria. Chuvakhin denied Syrian involvement in the terrorist attacks, which he ascribed to American agents. “You have been warned,” he lectured Eban, “You are responsible. You are responding to provocation by the CIA.”35
Israel sought assurances futilely, and the Egyptian buildup continued. A full six divisions had by May 20 taken up positions in Sinai, “from which they can deliver massive retaliation against Israeli aggression,” reported ‘Amer. An armada of Egyptian warships was rumored to have entered the Red Sea, en route to Eilat, and Egypt’s ministry of religious affairs declared a state of holy war to liberate Palestine. The PLO’s Shuqayri predicted Israel’s “complete destruction” in the coming war, while in Damascus, Hafez al-Assad said it “was high time…to take the initiative in destroying the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland.” Arab military delegations were suddenly on the move—Iraqis to Syria and Syrians to Egypt. “Our two brotherly countries have turned into one mobilized force,” declared Syrian Foreign Minister Makhous upon returning from Cairo. “The withdrawal of the UN forces…means ‘make way, our forces are on their way to battle.’”
Nasser’s deeds had whipped the Arab “street” into a fervor unequaled since the heady 1950s. Conservative Arab leaders had no choice but to join that procession, even as Syria and Egypt continued to plot their overthrow. Thus, on May 21, after Syria expelled two Saudi diplomats for consorting with “reactionaries” and Egyptian planes again gassed Saudi bases, Riyadh called on all Arabs to unite around Cairo and Damascus. That same day, a Syrian car bomb exploded in the Jordanian border town of Ramtha, killing twenty-one. “We no longer knew who was less trustworthy: Israel, or our Arab allies!” wrote Hussein as he sent the Syrian ambassador packing, but his palace nevertheless declared its “readiness to stand by its sister Arab states against the common enemy with determination.” An editorial in the moderate Lebanese newspaper al-Zaman summarized the situation best: “We are in the forefront of those who wish to see the Marxist-atheistic regime in Damascus collapse. But if bringing it down is to be by Israel’s hands, then our wish is to see it become immortal.”36
The intensity of this tumult could no longer be hidden from the Israeli public, nor could the call-up of what now amounted to 80,000 reservists. The price of the mobilization was staggering, and public opinion was gradually turning critical of the government’s inability to take more definitive action. Ben-Gurion was quick to seize on this trend. He castigated Eshkol for his failure to obtain international guarantees for Israel’s defense, as well as for his belligerent statements which, Ben-Gurion alleged, had merely antagonized the Soviets. So intense was the pressure on Eshkol that Lior began to fear that the prime minister would suffer either an emotional or a physical breakdown—or both.
Yet an even heavier strain was weighing on Rabin. By advancing into Sinai, the Egyptian army had snatched the initiative from Israel, and initiative was the cornerstone of Rabin’s policy, essential for keeping the Arabs off-balance. By not meeting Nasser’s challenge at once, Israel had sacrificed much of its deterrence power, Rabin feared. And though the enemy’s deployment remained defensive, the situation was so volatile that a single sniper bullet could set off a full-scale war.
“It will be a terribly hard war with many casualties, but we can beat the Egyptian army,” Rabin confided to Eshkol during a visit to Israeli troops in the south. The prime minister did not disagree, yet when Rabin inquired as to what steps Israel should take next, his only reply was, “We pursue our diplomatic options to the end.”
Though used to working in tandem with Eshkol, Rabin had b
egun to sense a lack of leadership at the top, particularly with regard to preparing the army for war. Increasingly he felt he was being asked to formulate policy, rather than carry out the government’s orders. “It’s about time we realized that nobody is going to come to our rescue,” the chief of staff told his generals on May 19, referring to Israel’s isolation, both diplomatic and military. “The politicians are convinced that they can solve the problems through diplomacy. We have to enable them to exhaust every alternative to war, even though I see no way of returning things to the way they were. If the Egyptians blockade the Straits—there’ll be no alternative to war. And if there’s war—we’ll have to fight on two fronts.” He noted that Israel had no effective means of guarding its densely populated coast or of defending itself against chemical weapons.
Rabin was already thinking in terms of preemptive action, specifically a massive attack to destroy Egypt’s air force. The IAF had been perfecting such a plan, code-named Focus (Moked), for several years, and Rabin was confident that it would work. Far less certainty surrounded the ground campaign, however. Queried by Rabin as to how long Israel would be able to fight before the Security Council stepped in and imposed a cease-fire, Eban estimated between twenty-four and seventy-two hours—not long enough to drive the Egyptian army from Sinai. “Give me time, time, time. We need time,” Rabin implored. The state could not ask its citizens to die, he felt, for an objective it already knew was unobtainable.37
Not yet a week into the crisis, Rabin was smoking heavily and subsisting on black coffee. Reporters who interviewed him on May 21 found him stammering, almost incoherent, and visibly close to the edge. “Rabin’s in a daze,” Eban confided to Barbour. That day, the chief of staff was summoned to Ben-Gurion’s bungalow at Sde Boker. There, Israel’s founding father, 81 years old now and embittered, held court for his loyalists and plotted Eshkol’s downfall. “When Ben-Gurion calls you, you go,” Rabin later explained to Miriam Eshkol, and he went, but without informing Eshkol. He was hoping to receive Ben-Gurion’s support and blessing; what he received instead was a tongue-lashing.
“We have been forced into a very difficult situation,” Ben-Gurion assailed Rabin as soon as he walked in the door, “I very much doubt whether Nasser wanted to go to war, and now we are in serious trouble.” He proceeded to take Rabin to task for his provocative statements to the press, for the massive call-up of reserves—all of which increased the chances of war while Israel remained utterly isolated. “You, or whoever gave you permission to mobilize so many reservists, made a mistake,” he charged. Tackling Nasser without at least one Great Power ally would be ruinous at best for Israel, jeopardizing all its security accomplishments of the past twenty years, and possibly suicidal. Eshkol, of course, received special excoriation: “The prime minister and the Cabinet should take responsibility for deciding whether or not to go to war. That’s not a matter for the army to decide. The government is not discharging its proper duties. This is no way to function.”
The accusations, for Rabin, were devastating. Though disappointed by Ben-Gurion’s failure to grasp the modern might of the IDF or the fact that Israel no longer needed the protection of a Britain or a France, he was deeply stung by the criticism from his former mentor. “You have led the state into a grave situation. We must not go to war. We are isolated. You bear the responsibility”—the words would ring in his ears long after he exited the bungalow with, according to one witness, “head down and shoulders drooped, a cigarette dangling from his lips.”38
“The higher you climb, the higher the wall,” an aide quoted Rabin as muttering as he drove from Sde Boker. Yet the IDF chief was en route to higher walls yet. He next met with Moshe Dayan.
Since resigning as agriculture minister in 1964, at the time of Ben-Gurion’s final break with Mapai, the former chief of staff had been a steady critic of the Eshkol government, particularly in its policy toward the northern border. Thus, in October 1966, he told the Knesset that “there is no major wave of infiltration today. Just because several dozen bandits from al-Fatah cross the border, Israel does not have to get caught up in a frenzy of escalation. Arab states will join Syria in its political struggle, but they won’t get involved in any military adventure it might initiate.” He criticized the Samu’ raid, the April 7 air battle with Syria, and Rabin’s threats of retaliation. “This will end in war,” he predicted, adding, “He who sends up smoke signals has to understand that the other side might think there’s really a fire.” The government’s bungling, he claimed on May 17, would enable Nasser to win a bloodless political victory, to bomb Dimona or to close the Straits of Tiran.
What sort of support, then, could Rabin expect from Dayan? Ostensibly, the chief of staff wanted his predecessor’s feedback on a new plan he had developed in the event that Nasser blockaded the Straits. Instead of merely defending the border, the IDF would conquer Gaza and trade it for renewed free passage. Rabin presented his idea, code-named Atzmon, to Dayan that evening, only to have it rebuffed. There were too many refugees in Gaza, Dayan averred, and Nasser would happily unload them on Israel. There was no territorial reply to closure, only military and psychological. Egypt’s army would have to be destroyed and Nasser utterly humiliated.
Rabin had his response on Atzmon, but he clearly wanted more—a sympathetic ear for his complaints against the government. Incapable of making up its mind whether or not to make war, the Cabinet was forcing him to decide, placing him in an untenable position, Rabin said. He complained but his host offered nothing but silence. Rabin left that night, Dayan recalled, “unsure of himself, perplexed, nervously chain-smoking,” hardly looking like a commander preparing for battle.39
Battle indeed seemed imminent if Nasser acted in Tiran. Few Israeli-flag vessels in fact transversed the Straits, yet the narrow (seven mile) channel between Sinai and the Arabian Peninsula was nevertheless a lifeline for the Jewish state, the conduit for its quiet import of Iranian oil. Passage through the Straits also had symbolic value for Israelis, a testament to their 1956 triumph over Egypt. Having struggled to obtain international recognition of its right to act in self-defense if the Straits were ever blockaded, Israel could not now waive that right without forfeiting the last of its deterrence power.
Would Nasser close the Straits? The question divided Israeli leaders, even as Egyptian paratroopers landed at Sharm al-Sheikh. Meir Amit was positive that he would not. “Such an action would result in Nasser’s annihilation,” the Mossad chief explained, “It conflicted with all military and diplomatic logic.” IDF intelligence agreed: to blockade the Straits meant certain war, and Nasser did not want war, only kudos. But Eshkol and Rabin disagreed. Addressing the Cabinet on May 21, the prime minister speculated that “the Egyptians plan to close the Straits or to bomb the atomic reactor in Dimona. A general attack will follow.” A war would ensue in which “the first five minutes will be decisive. The question is who will attack the other’s airfields first.”
And yet, certain as he was of war, Eshkol refused to push Nasser’s hand. He turned down a proposal for sending an Israeli flagship through the Straits, and saw to it that reservists were not stationed near the southern border. Journalists were requested not to report on ships departing and docking in Eilat. Through American and British channels, Eshkol also asked King Hussein to cease calling Nasser a coward for failing to reimpose the blockade. Speaking at the opening of the Knesset’s summer session, just hours before U Thant’s departure for Cairo, Eshkol denounced Palestinian terror and its Syrian sponsors, but only mildly rebuked Nasser for “clutching at mendacious rumors.” He stressed the limited nature of Israel’s mobilization and instead called for “reciprocal respect for the sovereignty, integrity, and international rights” of all Middle East nations. If Nasser were to be warned it would only be clandestinely, in a message to be conveyed by the secretary-general: “The freedom of passage in the Strait of Tiran is of supreme national interest and right, which Israel will assert and defend, whatever the sacrifice.”40
If Nasser was displeased by the total—rather than the partial—pullout of UNEF, he never showed it. The same upsurge of Arab support that had so panicked the Israelis, now bore the once-great Egyptian leader on its crest. But while it was one thing to banish UNEF, it was dangerously another to renew the blockade of Tiran. The first had wrought a political victory; the second could lead to war. “It is here that Nasser’s character comes into play,” an Egypt expert at the British Foreign Office later commented, “you can respond to failure by cutting your loses or doubling your stakes; add to success by taking your profit, or by trying to double your winnings…Nasser has consistently been the gambler in failure and success.”41
In this particular gamble, however, the stakes were exceptionally high. Though the average Egyptian was unaware that Israeli shipping had been plying the Straits since 1956—Nasser never admitted it publicly—or even where Tiran was located, the constant taunting of Jordan and Saudi Arabia was hateful to Egyptian leaders. It reminded them of their failure to fulfill the task Egypt had taken upon itself in 1949 to “keep the Jews out of the Gulf” and preserve Aqaba as an Arab lake. That failure had led to the emergence of Eilat as a thriving port. Through its Red Sea terminus, Israel had established commercial footholds in Asia and Africa, two of Egypt’s traditional spheres of interest, and had imported oil from the Shah of Iran, Nasser’s personal rival. In the previous two years alone, some 54,000 tons of cargo had entered the port, and 207,000 had exited; over 500 ships had docked.
Retaliating for this insult, Egypt had refused to sign the 1958 Geneva Convention guaranteeing the international status of straits. The reason, Cairo argued, was that Israel had occupied Eilat illegally, after the signing of the Armistice, and had obtained free passage through a war of aggression. Israel had no right to ship war materials through Egyptian territory, nor could the UN protect Israel’s ill-gotten gains.42
Six Days of War Page 14
