The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict

by Mitchell G. Bard, Ph. D.

  * * *

  Tut Tut!

  After it was announced that Israel would receive 16 Phantom jets in late 1969 and another 34 in 1970, the Soviet Union reportedly began delivering 200 MiG 23s to Egypt. The MiGs were capable of carrying nuclear weapons and were more maneuverable than Phantoms. With this decision, the United States found itself enmeshed in the Middle East arms race.

  * * *

  Almost immediately, the Egyptians and Russians began to violate the cease-fire agreement, particularly by moving missiles ever closer to the Suez Canal. Israel protested in vain, and the only satisfaction was that Nixon agreed to increase its supply of arms to counter the Soviet weapons in Egypt.

  The Unfriendly Skies

  Another consequence of the 1967 war was an escalation in terrorist activities by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which often provoked Israeli reprisals. The Syrian government became one of the principal sponsors of the Palestinian radicals, allowing many groups to set up their headquarters in Damascus, and even creating its own faction called Saiqa.

  Instead of attacking Israel from Syria, the terrorist groups usually mounted their operations from Jordan or Lebanon. Both of those countries had new influxes of refugees after the 1967 war. They joined Palestinians who had already spent nearly two decades in camps, where hostility toward Israel had festered.

  After 1967, the scale of terrorism intensified, with the PLO increasingly choosing to attack Israeli targets, or simply Jews, outside the Middle East. This was the height of hijacking and other heinous activities. By far, the most serious threat that the PLO posed was not to Israel, but to the regime of King Hussein.

  Black September

  During their years in the refugee camps in Jordan, the Palestinians became increasingly militant and powerful. By the late 1960s, they controlled the camps, openly brandished their weapons, and had a strong enough army to threaten King Hussein’s regime.

  The king concluded an agreement in July 1970 with the PLO’s new leader, Yasser Arafat, but the ink was hardly dry when Palestinians hijacked three civilian airliners and landed them at the airport in Amman. After the passengers were released, the terrorists blew up the planes.

  The incident escalated the tension between the Palestinian radicals and Hussein, and armed clashes soon began to break out between the king’s troops and the PLO. On September 19, Syrian tanks crossed the Jordanian border to support the Palestinians.

  The Israelis were naturally alarmed by a conflict not far from their borders and were worried that a PLO takeover of Jordan would pose a grave threat to their security. The United States was also concerned by the developments because King Hussein was viewed as a pro-Western moderate in the region, whereas the Syrians were backed by the aggressive Soviets.

  King Hussein requested that the United States launch air strikes to support his forces. Nixon, however, preferred to have Israel intervene. The Israelis were prepared to do so, with Hussein’s acquiescence, but Hussein’s troops rallied and drove the invaders out before it became necessary for Israel to join the fight.

  After Hussein’s forces repulsed the Syrians, they turned on the PLO, killing and wounding thousands of Palestinians and forcing the leadership along with thousands of refugees into Syria and Lebanon. The incident came to be known among Palestinians as Black September.

  The brief threat to Hussein had a number of significant repercussions:

  Israel’s willingness to come to the king’s aid, albeit out of its own self-interest, created warmer relations between Hussein and the Israeli leadership, which facilitated periodic secret meetings to try to make peace. Jordan has never again been involved in military action against Israel.

  Israel’s willingness and ability to defend a U.S. ally was also its first demonstration of its strategic value to the United States.

  The flood of new Palestinians later critically destabilized Lebanon, and the PLO leadership eventually re-created its own state within a state there.

  The head of Syria’s air force, Hafez Assad, decided not to enter the war in Jordan, thereby dooming the Syrian invasion. The humiliating defeat paved the way for Assad to seize power.

  The crisis in Jordan had prompted Nasser to call a meeting in Cairo of the Arab heads of state. During the talks, Nasser died of a heart attack and was replaced by his little-known vice president, Colonel Anwar Sadat.

  * * *

  Ask the Sphinx

  Though Arab nations would continue to become allies and sometimes briefly unite, Nasser’s death on September 28, 1970, hastened the decline of pan-Arabism. The members of the Arab League would continue to pay lip service to common goals—primarily the destruction of Israel—but they increasingly pursued their individual interests without trying to create a single Arab nation.

  * * *

  The Year of Decision

  The death of Nasser presented American officials with a new opportunity to push for an Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement. In 1971, Henry Kissinger effectively pushed Secretary of State Rogers aside and became the primary Middle East policymaker. Kissinger sought to undercut Rogers by developing his own secret channels with the parties and was ultimately successful in doing so. The United States also pushed aside the United Nations as the principal mediator of the Arab-Israeli conflict so that it could take over the role.

  Egyptian president Anwar Sadat called 1971 “the year of decision” and warned that he might go to war if an agreement was not reached. The United States floated proposals that always required the bulk of concessions to be made by the Israelis and were therefore unwelcome in Jerusalem. The Israelis also argued that if they were to make sacrifices for peace, they would need more arms and economic aid. The majority of members of Congress supported these requests, but the state department opposed them.

  The situation was further complicated by Sadat’s ambivalent attitude toward the Soviets. On one hand, he signed a treaty of friendship and received promises of more arms, but, on the other, he was growing disillusioned with the Soviets’ tendency not to fulfill all their agreements.

  Sadat’s “year of decision” came and went, but negotiations continued into 1972. Nixon was distracted by a host of other issues, notably Vietnam, relations with the Soviet Union, and the upcoming presidential election. Then suddenly, in July 1972, Sadat expelled the Soviet military advisers from Egypt and created a dramatic new opportunity for American policymakers to build their long-sought relationship with the Arab world’s most important nation.

  The Least You Need to Know

  Even after their defeat in 1967, the Arabs declared that they would not make peace, negotiate, or recognize Israel.

  UN Resolution 242 provided a road map for Arab-Israeli peace talks, but the parties couldn’t agree on what it meant.

  In the two-year War of Attrition, Israel and Egypt fought across the Suez Canal.

  Fearing that the PLO was attempting to take over Jordan, King Hussein sent his troops to expel the Palestinians.

  Chapter 16

  Israel’s Day of Infamy

  In This Chapter

  Israel’s Pearl Harbor

  The oil weapon is unsheathed

  Superpowers play God in the desert

  The gun and the olive branch

  After the exhilaration of the victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, Israelis became increasingly dispirited. The growing level of terrorism, combined with increasingly ominous threats from Egypt, made peace seem further away than ever.

  Israel’s patron was having its own problems. Richard Nixon was consumed with Vietnam and his reelection. Even after his landslide victory over George McGovern in 1972, the president could not focus his attention on the Middle East because of the continuing effort to end the war in Southeast Asia, concerns with China and the Soviet Union, and the beginning of the Watergate scandal.

  Meanwhile, rather than reconciling themselves to Israel’s existence, the Arab states looked for a way to avenge the humiliation of their defeat. The Soviet Union was do
ing its share to stoke the flames of war by pouring arms into the region. And the Arab states in the Persian Gulf were beginning to take greater control of their oil resources and use the revenues to flex their political muscle.

  Sadat Cries Wolf

  In 1971, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat raised the possibility of signing an agreement with Israel, provided that all the territories captured by the Israelis were returned. For all the talk of peace, though, it was still violence that grabbed the headlines. During the summer of 1972, Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Munich Olympics and murdered 11 Israeli athletes (see Chapter 28).

  With no progress toward peace, Sadat began to say that war was inevitable and that he was prepared to sacrifice one million soldiers in the showdown with Israel. Throughout 1972 and for much of 1973, Sadat threatened war unless the United States forced Israel to accept his interpretation of Resolution 242—total Israeli withdrawal from territories taken in 1967 (see Chapter 15).

  Simultaneously, Sadat carried on diplomatic talks with European and African states to win support for his cause. He appealed to the Soviets to bring pressure on the United States and to provide Egypt with more offensive weapons. The Soviet Union was more interested in maintaining the appearance of détente with the United States than a confrontation in the Middle East; therefore, it rejected Sadat’s demands. Sadat’s response was to abruptly expel approximately 20,000 Soviet advisers from Egypt.

  In an April 1973 interview, Sadat again warned that he would renew the war with Israel. But it was the same threat he had made in 1971 and 1972, and most observers remained skeptical. In fact, almost up to the start of the shooting, no one expected a war. Had U.S. intelligence realized at the beginning of October 1973 that the Arabs were about to attack, Nixon might have been able to prevent the war through diplomacy or threats.

  * * *

  Sage Sayings

  The news of the imminent attack on Israel took us completely by surprise. As recently as the day before, the CIA had reported that war in the Middle East was unlikely.

  —Richard Nixon

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  Golda’s Fateful Decision

  Despite the conventional wisdom that Israel was surprised by the attack that did eventually come, the truth is the Israelis began to prepare for battle on October 5 and were convinced war was imminent the following morning. But like U.S. intelligence officials, Israeli analysts were skeptical about the threat of war.

  At 5 A.M., General David Elazar, the chief of staff, first recommended a full, immediate mobilization of forces and a preemptive air strike. He was overruled. A few hours later, a partial call-up of reserves was approved, but Prime Minister Golda Meir still refused to authorize Elazar to take military action. She advised the U.S. ambassador of the situation and asked him to pass on the message that the Arabs should be restrained. Henry Kissinger, who now was secretary of state, subsequently appealed to Sadat and Syrian president Hafez Assad not to do anything precipitously. He also cautioned Meir not to shoot first. Meir found herself in a nearly impossible position. The intelligence community had not given her sufficient warning of the impending attack to adequately prepare the nation for war. Still, Israel’s chances for victory and minimizing casualties could be greatly enhanced by a preemptive strike and the rapid mobilization of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). However, she feared that striking first, as Israel had done in 1967, might so anger the United States that Nixon would not support Israel’s prosecution of the war or policies afterward. And, unlike 1967, she did not feel Israel could afford to go it alone.

  Unholy War

  On October 6, 1973—Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar (and during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan)—Egypt and Syria opened a coordinated surprise attack against Israel. The equivalent of the total forces of NATO in Europe was mobilized on Israel’s borders. On the Golan Heights, approximately 180 Israeli tanks faced an onslaught of 1,400 Syrian tanks. Along the Suez Canal, fewer than 500 Israeli defenders with only 3 tanks were attacked by 600,000 Egyptian soldiers, backed by 2,000 tanks and 550 aircraft.

  Troops Gear Up

  At least nine Arab states, including four non–Middle Eastern nations (Libya, Sudan, Algeria, and Morocco), actively aided the Egyptian-Syrian war effort. A few months before the attack, Iraq transferred a squadron of Hunter jets to Egypt. During the war, an Iraqi division of some 18,000 men and several hundred tanks was deployed in the central Golan and participated in the October 16 attack against Israeli positions. Iraqi MiGs began operating over the Golan Heights as early as October 8—the third day of the war.

  * * *

  Ask the Sphinx

  In the United States, the October 1973 war is typically referred to as the Yom Kippur War. Because the war was fought during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Arabs and Muslims refer to it as the Ramadan War.

  * * *

  Besides serving as financial underwriters, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait committed men to battle. A Saudi brigade of approximately 3,000 troops was dispatched to Syria, where it participated in fighting along the approaches to Damascus. Also violating Paris’s ban on the transfer of French-made weapons, Libya sent Mirage fighters to Egypt. (From 1971 to 1973, Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi gave Cairo more than $1 billion in aid to re-arm Egypt and to pay the Soviets for weapons delivered.)

  Other North African countries responded to Arab and Soviet calls to aid the front-line states. Algeria sent three aircraft squadrons of fighters and bombers, an armored brigade, and 150 tanks. Approximately 1,000 to 2,000 Tunisian soldiers were positioned in the Nile Delta. Sudan stationed 3,500 troops in southern Egypt, and Morocco sent three brigades to the front lines, including 2,500 men to Syria.

  Lebanese radar units were used by Syrian air defense forces. Lebanon also allowed Palestinian terrorists to shell Israeli civilian settlements from its territory. Palestinians fought on the Southern Front with the Egyptians and Kuwaitis.

  Hussein Doesn’t Repeat His Mistake

  Jordan’s King Hussein, who apparently hadn’t been informed of Egyptian and Syrian war plans, chose not to fight this round, correctly calculating that his forces were vastly inferior to the Israelis’. Hussein’s decision was crucial to Israel’s defense because it freed up forces that would otherwise have had to fight on a third front.

  Still, Arab brotherhood required that Hussein contribute to the cause, so he sent two of his best units to Syria. This force took positions in the southern sector, defending the main Amman-Damascus route and attacking Israeli positions along the Kuneitra-Sassa road on October 16. Three Jordanian artillery batteries also participated in the assault, carried out by nearly 100 tanks.

  Oil Becomes a Weapon

  During the October war, the Arab oil-producing states imposed an embargo on oil exports to the United States, Portugal, and Holland because of their support for Israel. The impact was to cause a shortage of petroleum in the United States and a quadrupling of gas prices. Americans soon had to contend with long lines at gas stations.

  * * *

  Mysteries of the Desert

  OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) was formed at the Baghdad Conference in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela to serve as a platform for oil producers to achieve their economic objectives. The five founding members were later joined by Qatar, Indonesia, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, and Nigeria. OPEC dictated oil prices by turning the petroleum spigot on and off. Divisions within the organization over price and production quotas, conservation measures, and the discovery of new oil supplies (particularly outside the Middle East), however, contributed to the weakening of OPEC. By the early 1980s, the economic and political influence of OPEC had been blunted.

  * * *

  Several U.S. oil companies that got most of their petroleum supplies from the Middle East and depended on the goodwill of the Arab states to maintain their business relations in the region collaborated in the embargo against their own nation. Oil company executives
lobbied the Nixon administration to offer more support to the Arabs and less to Israel. They, along with state department Arabists, hoped to convince the public that Israel was to blame for the United States’s economic hardships and that it was far more important for the United States to ally itself with the Arab states than with Israel.

  The oil embargo was lifted in March 1974, but the United States and other Western nations continued to feel its effects for years to come.

  The IDF Stages a Comeback

  Thrown onto the defensive during the first two days of fighting, Israel mobilized its reserves and began to counterattack. In the south, Israeli forces were having little success in stopping the Egyptian onslaught. Still, the Sinai Desert offered a large buffer zone between the fighting and the heart of Israel.

  The situation was different in the north, where the Syrians had swept across the Golan and could, in short order, threaten Israel’s population centers. Consequently, most reserves meant for the Egyptian front were shifted to the Golan. The replenished Israeli forces stopped the Syrian advance, forced a retreat, and began their own march forward toward Damascus.

  Superpower Chess

  The Soviets gave their wholehearted political support to the Arab invasion. Starting as early as October 9, they also began a massive airlift of weapons, which ultimately totaled 8,000 tons of materiel. The United States had given Israel some ammunition and spare parts, but it resisted Israeli requests for greater assistance.