The Jewish Story: Six Day War, part II: The Point of No Return

war is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things says Don Stewart mill the decayed integrated state of morale and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse now I hear his point I'd like to imagine that there's a third option for our future cuz I'm Roth Mike Boyer and this is the Jewish story episode 28 six-day war part 2 the point of no return the last episode we spoke about the relative futility of looking for the pebble that launches an avalanche and I warned you then that such a quest will likely teach you more about me than about the events themselves nevertheless as we all know it does make for good storytelling so on April 29th 1967 Weston half a year after the disastrous Israeli raid on sama that we spoke about last episode Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament Anwar Sadat left Cairo on a diplomatic tour now I say less than half a year after sandwiches to give you context because the reality is that person dot his mission had nothing to do with the israeli-arab conflict or so he thought the speaker was off to Mongolia and North Korea and his goal was to bring the greeting of the Arab world's foremost progressive regime to these bastions of progress in communism and of course that being the task his itinerary had in returning by way of Moscow the American diplomats in Cairo assured their superiors in the State Department that this trip was all about diplomatic courtesy and nothing more maybe they failed to read the cards right maybe they didn't appreciate that beyond being Speaker of the Parliament so that was an original member of the 1952 revolution and his ideological purity was beyond question and these had made him a trusted confidant of President Nasser in addition so that was a well-known staunch opponent of any compromise with the existence of Israel which in this case made in the perfect man to carry what the Soviets saw to be a critical message arrived in Moscow a May 13th and cidade immediately began around the meetings with the highest levels of leadership the premier the president foreign minister Andrei Gromyko and the message he received from them all was quite clear and anything but diplomatic courtesy the Soviets informed him in no uncertain terms that Israel was planning to invade Syria between the 16th and the 22nd of May and they claimed that their intelligence agencies had identified between 10 and 12 brigades of Israeli troops already massing on the northern border that meant 40,000 men hundreds of tanks all poised to strike as proof they pointed to Israel's recent decision to exclude heavy Armour from its upcoming May 15 Independence Day Parade an unprecedented exclusion for an event whose primary purpose was generally seen to be a public flexing of military muscle you must not be taken by surprise said President Polk goring the coming days will be faithful and what followed the Soviet warning is basically a study in social psychology when Sadat returned to Cairo on midnight of the 14th he found President Nasser and field marshal abdel hakim Amer already discussing the Soviet report a local agent of the KGB had provided him with more details on the supposed Israeli mobilization that very morning and just before Sadat arrived the following message was received from Damascus we have learned from a dependable source that one Israel has mobilized most of its reserves and that - it has concentrated the bulk of its forces on the Syrian border 3 the Israelis are planning a large-scale attack on Syria including paratrooper drops to take place between the 15th and the 22nd of May field marshal Armour even boasted of having seen aerial photographs that confirm the disposition of Israeli forces and so it appeared that multiple pieces of telogen s' all pointed toward war and they all happened to be untrue the assessment of imminent war was certainly one part Syrian paranoia one which was far from unjustified by the way as the old saying goes just cuz I'm paranoid doesn't mean no one's out to get me because for nearly a year Israel had been making threats of retaliation against Syria over their sponsorship of terror and threats which carried a new weight in the wake of that saml raid we discussed last episode add to that territorial fear a deeply wounded pride always a dangerous mix in a totalitarian regime we've mentioned over the last several episodes bits and pieces of what historians call the war for water the sporadic battle between Syria and Israel over control of land and water resources around the Sea of Galilee and the Upper Jordan River and in many ways this struggle was just a prelude to the six-day war and it reached its culmination only three weeks before speaker Sadat left Cairo on the morning of April 7th two Israeli tractors entered the Demilitarized Zone near Tel cuts ear on the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee they were aiming to work the land many historians believe they were also sent as a deliberate attempt to provoke Syrian response in order to pave the way for a decisive Israeli action which true or not worked the Syrians opened up immediately from short-range was 37 millimeter cannon fire disabling both vehicles Israeli tanks then struck the Syrian guns in response at which point all hell broke loose the Syrian heavy artillery batteries entrenched in the Golan Heights began to rain down fire for hours on the settlements of the Eastern Galilee according to the UN observers by 1:30 p.m. 247 shells had struck kibbutz gadot alone and buildings in many of the villages of the north were on fire the UN tried to broker a ceasefire but the Syrians demanded that it be contingent on Israel stopping all work in the demilitarized zone for good terms which were unacceptable to Prime Minister Levitas goal from the outset chief of staff the atacama beam had been advocated for an activation of the Air Force in his eyes only an aerial assault could possibly silence those guns on the Golan and by mid-afternoon with half the Galilee stuck in bomb shelters the Prime Minister gave in to the requests that tour bombers were immediately launched escorted by Mirage fighter jets now when Syrian MiG's scrambled to intercept it seem that a full-scale war might just erupt the dogfight began over the chief : town of etre and the Israelis down the first two Syrian jets to arrive frankly the rest kind of turned tail and fled but in the heat of battle the Israeli pilots pursued the enemy all the way back to Damascus and there the entire populace was treated to an air show the likes of which they've never seen before as many as a hundred and thirty planes joined the flight and the Israelis shot down four more MiG's before indulging in a victory lap over the Syrian capital and cruising home the Balthus regime would later claim that their heroic fighters had down five Israeli Jets but the truth had already been seen Israel had struck and won and no one in the Arab world had even lifted a finger to help which leads us the next factor in how it is that soviet misinformation is about the light fire to the entire Middle East Egypt's relationship with Syria now of course President Nasser himself did not lack for paranoia on the domestic front he was very fuel full a field marshal amorous popularity within the army you need to know that the Egyptian army had been bogged down in a bloody and fruitless war in Yemen since 1962 and if you read the papers it's kind of repeating itself right now not with the Egyptians but same idea because in 62 it was a battle between Royalists forces backed by Saudi Arabia Jordan and even Britain from afar and Republican forces backed by the Egyptian army and armed by the Soviets this is not the time or place for an analysis of how Nasser's attempts to topple the conservative regimes of the Arab world in the name of his pan-arab is progressivism intersected with Soviet expansionism what you do need to know our story is that field marshal Omer was the people's hero of the war in Yemen and that he had used that conflict to consolidate his grip on the army now popularity and military power and arrival are nothing that a dictator likes to see and here the field marshal was pushing for a first strike against Israel claiming that his battle-hardened troops would achieve a swift and total victory and pointing to the Soviet evidence that such a thing was in imminent necessity Nasser's assessment of Egyptian franc was not so sanguine he knew that Armour prized personal loyalty over competence and he also knew that the war in Yemen had sapped the military of both hardware and manpower but the last thing Nasser knew was that Armour was the only man in Egypt with the status to challenge him he couldn't afford to look weak in the face of his call to war the problem was basically the same on the international front the Syrians of the Jordanians had mocked Nasser for his failure to respond to the samu rate half a year before and once again for his paralysis in response to the defeat of the Syrian air force in April despite the existence of a mutual defense pact between Egypt and Syria and now if the Soviets were actually telling the truth what would happen to Nasser status as leader of the Arab world if he failed to act in the face of blatant Israeli aggression on such a scale a display of solidarity with Syria seemed to be Nasser's only choice both to outflank his rival at home and to shore up his status abroad whether the Soviet intelligence was a cracked or not the only question was how should he do it sending troops into the Sinai was a tried-and-true method but it's relatively low-risk meant a comparably low reward no one would be all that impressed by a bunch of tanks spreading out over the sand he could order out the UN emergency forces that were stationed in Gaza and along the Sinai they've been placed there as part of the separation of forces agreement in the wake of the Suez war back in 56 and the removal of foreign troops from Arab soil would please militants all across the region removing the so called disgrace of 56 with certainly elevate Nasser status at home and abroad more than just re militarized in the Sinai but it would also remove any buffer between Israeli and Egyptian troops and thus was a significant act of brinksmanship and then there was his ultimate weapon he could have vicked the UN from Sharm el-sheikh at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping as they had been closed before 56 now that was a dramatic move one that we gained the attention the world and placed Nasser once again at the forefront of struggle against the Zionist invaders but it might also actually mean war you know just a couple weeks ago here in Israel we celebrated Independence Day and due to the corona crisis it was unlike any other I've seen in my 18 years as a citizen but this year's change in the festivities was really just a shift in scale from public to private the substance remained the same music dancing barbecues allel that's not how this day looked 50-plus years ago from the very first in 1948 the State of Israel chose to mark Independence Day with military parades every year marching soldiers rolling tanks and all manner of weapons would pass through the streets of a chosen city with fighter planes flying overhead as heads of states look on and spectators lined the street in the first two years after independence the parades were held in tel-aviv and then they moved to Haifa Bair Sheva Ramallah but rotating the location of this Display of power Israel was basically demonstrating its sovereignty over the entire country I mean after all like the great sociologist Max Weber says sovereignty is a monopoly over the legitimate use of force to maintain order and this was a lot of force on display in 1967 the decision was taken to hold the parade in Jerusalem for the very first time now this was not a simple choice the border with Jordan at this point was in a state of extreme tension since the Somme arrayed the threat of Syrian sponsored terror was constant especially since their Air Force had been publicly shamed many politicians in most of the General Staff felt the question of war was no longer if but rather when furthermore the 1949 ceasefire agreement which had split Jerusalem between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan declared the city and its surrounding areas demilitarized neither state was permitted to introduce heavy weapons or fly military aircraft over its skies but despite all this the government felt that it was a critic at this point emphasize Israel's hold over the divided city in an attempt to minimize tension the parade was designed to be a limited show of force there will be foot soldiers jeeps artilleries anti-aircraft and of course marching bands but no tanks or aircraft nonetheless as would be expected protests erupted as soon as the plan was announced first came the United Nations despite Prime Minister Eshkol assurances to the UN troop supervision organization that the UN TSO there would be no heavy weapons and thus no violation of the ceasefire they warned that such a parade would quote intensify the already dangerous situation you can see that nothing has changed from the UN in those 50 years lieutenant general oddball yes that is actually his name odd bull he was the chief of staff of the UN in the region was not expected to attend the nations of the world protested individually as well UN resolution 181 also known as the partition plan had declared Jerusalem an international City and though been grin had ignored this element of the resolution from the outset declaring Jerusalem the capital already in the end of 1949 nonetheless there were many nations out there who had not given up on the hope of gaining peace by internationally internationalizing the holy city and thus even countries which maintained good relations with israel decided to boycott the celebration Great Britain France West Germany and the United States all sent their regrets the Soviets needless to say would also not be intended and as a final blow the Prime Minister s Cole's plan show sovereignty a week before the parade former Prime Minister David ben-gurion announced that he wouldn't be a no-show as well the old man was certainly not opposed to flexing Jewish muscle in Jerusalem on the contrary his opposition was on account of Israel's refusal to display heavy weapons according to Ben Gurion Jordans refusal to allow free access to Jewish holy places within the old city not to mention their wanton destruction of the Jewish quarter in 1949 had undermined the provisions of the ceasefire from day one therefore Israel was under no obligation to honor such a provision and to do so was nothing but the display of weakness or the a weakness in Prime Minister Eshkol which he continued to delight in pointing out but in the end it wasn't the limited guest list which spoiled the party for the Prime Minister only two days before the parade in a strange display of political theater Soviet ambassador chuvakin presented himself to the prime minister and declared his knowledge of the Israeli intention to invade Syria now that may sound severe but the Ambassador had made such claims before and so Prime Minister Eshkol was not particularly worried or even surprised he denied the claim and simply invited to Vulcan to inspect the northern front for himself after all it would be hard to hide tens of thousands of men in tanks but chuvakin reply was downright chilling he said that his job was to communicate Soviet truths not to test them and so it was with a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop that the Prime Minister reviewed the IDF troops marching through the streets of Jerusalem now you may recall from the last episode that since taking office a school had devoted significant time and energy to strengthening and modernizing the army he now saw before him and it's worth saying right now that he deserves a tremendous credit for the salvation which lies ahead and so it was with justifiable pride that in his public address the night before he declared to the nation that Israel's quote firm and persistent stand has strengthened the awareness amongst our neighbors that they will not be able to prevail against us in open combat despite those words nonetheless and his more private address to the Mapai party leadership he issued a warning we are surrounded he said we're surrounded by a serious encirclement of hostility and that which doesn't succeed today could well succeed tomorrow or the day after and lo and behold as the Independence Day show unfolded before him in the Hebrew University Stadium Asheville received his first word that the circle of hostility was indeed drawing tighter vast numbers of Egyptian troops were reported to be moving into the Sinai the initial assessments told the Prime Minister that the was political in nature the IDF intelligence Brants was convinced that Nasser wanted nothing more than a propaganda victory a show of support for Syria which wouldn't require him to fire a shot and so his initial order to the army were do nothing which could provoke not the north and not in the south but the truth is there are some conflicts which cannot be avoided now the show must go on and so the country celebrated but as they did the crisis deepened unbeknownst to the vast majority of the populace that night the Prime Minister and the chief of staff were privileged to hear the first-ever performance of Naomi Shemer immoral song yerushalaim shel zahav Jerusalem of Gold little did they know that in a matter of weeks they would have a hand in transforming that song into an anthem of the Jewish people and school and Rabine after hearing the performance attended a reception at the home of Venezuelan millionaire mouths sure over dispatches on the situation in the Sinai continued to arrive through the night the Egyptian troops had taken up formation according to their Conqueror plan Egyptian chief of staff Mohammed Fozzy had flown to Damascus now the IDF knew the conquer plan and they also knew that they required a prior warning of 48 hours in order to repulse it and the question that bothered Eskil that night was does Israel have the time at one point in the party s Cosworth Miriam asked him why he seemed so distracted don't you realize it's going to be war he snapped at her by late that night the night of the 15th of May the situation had become critical in the eyes of Chiefs of Staff Rabine from one division the Egyptian forces in the Sinai had tripled armored artillery Katyusha rockets had all taken out position along with the infantry there were even reports of poison gas in artillery canisters a weapon that the Egyptians had used without restraint in the war on Yemen and one which no Jew would look upon lightly in 1967 the posture of their forces was still largely defensive they were digging in not massing to attack and the UN emergency force was still in place but the very scale of the build-up went beyond any Display of power Rabine knew that the presence of so many troops on Israel's southern border was itself a blow to her deterrence at what point would the scales tip and the Arab states feel that Israel had lost its nerve and they were there for free to strike the rhetoric emanating from Cairo told him that that point was not far off if Israel now tries to set the region on fire then in Israel itself will be completely destroyed in this fire and that was echoed from Damascus the war of liberation will not end except by Israel's abolition by the sixteenth Rabine knew the IDF could no longer remain static in the face of the situation he contacted the Prime Minister requesting the mobilization of the reserves now the Prime Minister felt that full mobilization was too extreme a response first of all he feared that it would make Israel look like the belligerent and therefore undermine the diplomatic efforts he was already feverishly pursuing and it would put a large percentage of the workforce into uniform adding a crippling blow at a time when Israel's economy was in deep recession therefore only two brigades eighteen thousand men were called up and quietly transferred to the south the atmosphere was tense and uncertain but to Colonel the Israeli all the Prime Minister's military aid the camp things actually seemed quite simple it was clear to all of us that we had reached the point of no return he wrote in his diary the lot had been cast and Leora's judgment was confirmed that very night one egyptian chief of staff mohammed Fozzy arrived in damascus to investigate the soviet claims of imminent israeli invasion it's unclear what he expected to find but it's absolutely certain what he did or rather did not see and that was any evidence of israeli buildup on the Syrian border Fozzy met with the Syrian chief of staff he looked over aerial photographs he even surveyed the border for himself in a private plane not only was there no sign of Israeli invasion he found that the Syrian army itself wasn't even on alert his initial dispatch to President Nasser read there is nothing there no massing of forces nothing and this assessment was bolstered by Egyptian military intelligence they had sent several Israeli Arabs on a reconnaissance mission to the northern Galilee quote there are no forced concentrations they reported nor is there a justification tactical or strategic for such concentrations the American Embassy in Cairo concurred as did the CIA even general odd bull no lover of Israel who had been invited to tour the border said we have no reports thus far of any Israeli buildups of course he had to add Israel does not have to concentrate her forces in any one area in order to mount an attack clearly the Soviet reports were fake news but this seemed to present Nasser with a no-lose situation if they were actually fake news and there was no buildup he could continue his own buildup in the Sinai and reap the political benefits without any real danger of war reactions throughout the Arab world the remilitarization of the Sinai had been beyond enthusiastic the first time in years perhaps since the first timings of 56 Nasser was once again being hailed as the hero of the Arab world Field Marshal amar felt much the same way about the situation he had already used the build-up to place cronies and key positions amongst the troops in Sinai and despite chief of staff Fozzie's warning that with her budget already strained and her best troops entangled in Yemen the army was in no state to fight a war are apparently was and in order to take a posture of war the Egyptian troops in Sinai needed to reoccupy two key points the Gaza Strip along the Israeli border and Sharm el-sheikh at the southern tip of the peninsula and in order to do that they would have to remove the United Nations emergency force stationed there since 1957 the force consisted of 4,500 international troops strung along the border in 41 observation posts I say observation because by 1967 it was down to only half its original size basically due to budgetary cuts which themselves were an outgrowth of a growing skepticism amongst Western countries toward the UN as an effective peacekeeping mechanism so they couldn't possibly fight to prevent a war but the very presence of international observers had helped to keep the border quiet for a decade and that was quite significant you'll recall that the Fedayeen raids from Gaza into Israel caused much death and in many ways had triggered the 1956 war well they had ceased with the presence of the international force and that force had made sure that the Straits of Tiran remained open to Israeli shipping to and from the port of a lot the problem was the legal basis for this force basically hung on a good-faith agreement as it was called in theory Israel of its own free will had agreed in 1957 to consult the UN General Assembly and the emergency force Advisory Council before making any change to the Mandate of the peacekeepers but in reality most scholars knew that there was no legal basis whatsoever for insisting that an international force remain on Egyptian soil Oh Nasser had to do was tell them to leave and that's exactly what happened now there's much debate in the documentation amongst historians about whether the details of the letter that was delivered to commander the UN ef-s you Neff basically that was delivered to General indar right he on may 16th at his post in Gaza whether it reflected President Nasser's will or that a field marshal armored but the substance remain the same either way to your information I give my instructions to all you AR Armed Forces you AR as United Arab Republic that's the technical name for Egypt this point to be ready for action against Israel the moment it might carry out any aggressive action against any Arab country due to these instructions our troops are already concentrating in Sinai along our eastern border for the sake of complete security of all UN troops I request that you give order to withdraw all of these troops immediately narrator was an old hand both at war and international politics he knew that the situation on the border was downright explosive and he fully appreciated the potential consequences of withdrawing his troops after all only weeks before he'd sent an urgent request to the UN secretary buthe on for an immediate emergency mediation mission between Egypt and Israel by the way he didn't even get a reply now he simply tried to play for time he told the Egyptian commander whose troops had already occupied his position that the removal of the untf was a political rather than military decision and that he lacked the authority to withdraw accordingly he telegraphed Nasser's letter to the UN headquarters in New York and assured the Egyptians that he would act as soon as he had orders and then he picked up the phone to give an order of his own he contacted the commanders of the battalion at Sharm el-sheikh telling them to stay at their post as long as possible and to keep the Egyptians out by any means short of using force Arthur Goldberg was the American ambassador to the United Nations in 1967 and he'll play a key role in how this story unfolds all the way through the famous UN resolution of 242 which brought a legal end to the war so I feel like even though it's a bit of an odd sequitur now is a good time at least to introduce him in many ways Goldberg is the embodiment of the American Jewish story that we told in the first few episodes of the season you can go back and do a review or if you haven't listened to it go back and give it a shot born to pour Russian immigrants in Chicago in 1908 he nonetheless graduate at the top of his class at Northwestern University's law school in 1930 he went on to become a prominent labor attorney making such achievements like arranging the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations the afl-cio during World War two he served in the Office of Strategic Services that was a precursor to the CIA organizing European resistance to the Nazis after the war he returned to practice and was a central figure in reshaping the post-war labor landscape so central in fact that in 1961 President Kennedy appointed Goldberg as Secretary of Labor in 62 Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter retired in Kennedy nominated Goldberg to fill what was then known as the Jewish seat on the court but in 65 Goldberg resigned from the bench to accept appointment by President Johnson as ambassador to the UN and that was despite the fact that Goldberg was an outspoken zaniness nonetheless Johnson wanted him to represent the United States on the world stage and perhaps these words of praise from Johnson were captured on an audiotape explain why better than I can I quote Goldberg would be able to answer the Russians very effectively he's got a bulldog face on him and I think this Jew thing would take the New York Times all this crowd that gives me hell all the time and disarmed them and still have a Johnson man I've always thought the Goldberg was the ablest man in Kennedy's cabinet and he was the best man to us Goldberg sold bananas you know he's kind of like I am he shined some shoes and his dandies sold newspapers he's had to slug it out so when General like his telegram reached booth on in New York one of his first messages was to Arthur Goldberg reassuring the American ambassador that quote there's a great deal of face and political maneuvering involved but with careful handling we might yet preserve the situation and un EFS role unfortunately careful handling is exactly what the secretary-general did not give it after consulting Goldberg booth on summon the Egyptian ambassador to the UN mohammed el connie into his office he informed al connie that President Nasser had erred in treating the withdrawal of the UN emergency force as a military rather than diplomatic matter quote when F cannot be asked to stand aside in order to enable the two sides to resume fighting he declared and then after calling the good-faith agreement of 57 several times after warning the dangers of withdrawal and stressing the lack of any evidence whatsoever of an impending Israeli invasion of Syria was that folded like a wet noodle saying if it was the intention of the government of the uar Egypt to withdraw the consent which it gave in 1956 for the stationing of the UN EF on uar territory it is of course entitled to do so it's seeing that that was indeed Nasser's intent all along it's exactly what happened in a meeting of the UNF Advisory Committee that afternoon Arthur Goldberg tried to rally the Western ambassadors to pressure the secretary-general to at least postpone a final decision whose van sided with the Pakistani and Indian delegates who insists in on Egypt's absolute right to dismiss the force unilaterally and immediately one wonders whether was a narrow-minded legalism or something else which led him to declare if the consent of the uar ceases to exist then UN EF has to be withdrawn there is no alternative no alternative other than war that is a may 17th general Reich he received orders to withdraw his forces from Gaza within 24 hours and from Sharm el-sheikh within 48 and that very day Israel's deepest fears seemed to be confirmed when two Egyptian mig-21s looped through Jordanian airspace entering Israel from the east and swooped over the Negev before the IAF could even react it was the first ever reconnaissance flight over the secret nuclear program in Dimona and it was the nightmare of the Israeli government and so Asura's were watched the political achievements of a decade dissipate overnight deep uncertainty and even a sort of paralysis gripped the government the hum Tana the waiting period had begun and it seemed the question was no longer what should we do but rather what will Nasser do I want to thank a few folks before I sign off I want to thank all the folks who give their hard-earned money to help make this show possible to keep it free and widely distributed I want to invite you to join them you can go right now to my web site that's Jewish story dot Co in the upper right hand corner you'll see a button that says be a patron you can click on that to make a little bit of her podcast support I also want encourage folks if they want to dedicate a show either in honor of someone alive today or in the memory of someone who's passed on do you mean touch with me at Roth Mike Boyer at gmail.com or you can send me a message on facebook Rob Mike foyer and I'm happy to share the details with you - do I want to thank the Land of Israel Network that's the Land of Israel calm I'm creating a platform that allows me to reach so many amazing people I want to thank the partes Institute dar es org that il for building an educational institution that gives me the privilege of teaching so many amazing Jews and I want to thank you for listening I'm Rob