“There are two clocks ticking, one in Washington . . . and one in Israel . . . neither of them in sync.”
On the face of it, these words appear as if they were lifted from any report over the past year characterizing the discord over American and Israeli efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program. But in fact they were spoken forty-five years ago by Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban on the eve of the Six Day War.
Eban had just returned to Jerusalem from Washington, where he was anxiously pressing the Lyndon Johnson administration to provide U.S. guarantees for Israel’s security in the event that Egypt attacked. Previously confident that America would have Israel’s back in the event of renewed warfare, Eban was now despondent at the likelihood that Israel would be forced to face the combined Arab armies alone, again.
For two weeks, Gamal Abdel Nasser had been building up his forces in the Sinai Peninsula to the point where they posed a credible threat to the young Jewish state’s existence. Now, Nasser had dismissed UN peacekeepers from the Egyptian-Israeli border and closed the Straits of Tiran, cutting off Israel’s vital access to the Red Sea, through which it imported a majority of its energy supplies. Nasser had provided Israel with casus belli and then proclaimed that “if war comes it will be total and the objective will be Israel’s destruction.”
Two weeks earlier, President Johnson promised to deliver a consignment of military hardware, food, economic aid and loans to Israel totaling nearly $70 million to demonstrate American support and tide Israel over. The U.S. administration also vowed not to let Nasser close the Straits of Tiran. But as Nasser continued his military buildup, as the Soviet Union egged on Egypt and Syria to war and as the Arab World worked itself into a frenzy over the eminent demise of the “Zionist entity,” the commitments that Washington provided to Jerusalem were not met.
In addition to the backtracking, Johnson poignantly warned Israel against initiating hostilities. “Israel will not be alone unless it decides to go it alone,” Johnson wrote to Eban. “We cannot imagine that it will make this decision.”
The wavering of Israel’s only ally in the face of what the Israeli security establishment genuinely felt could be an eminent holocaust had the opposite effect of what Johnson intended. Rather than rely on the noncommittal American administration to provide aid in the event of a combined Arab attack, the Israeli cabinet and army felt they had no choice but to attack first and on their own terms, lest they cede the initiative to Nasser and risk being overwhelmed by Arab forces on three fronts.
That Israeli leaders decided to attack in 1967 should have come as no surprise to anyone who understands the Israeli mentality, which remains largely unchanged.
In the political-security realm, the Israeli psyche is governed by one overriding emotion: fear. This fear is a byproduct not just of the Holocaust, which is still a vivid memory there, but of the wars every generation of Israelis has fought. On a collective level, Israel is a society in a perpetual state of post-traumatic stress. But unlike American veterans who return from war to a "safe" environment, the fear of attack remains a rational constant for Israelis.
Even before Israel's establishment, collective fear derived from the often tragic Jewish history produced the prime tenant within Zionism that Jews should always be strong enough to defend themselves. With the birth of Israel, this belief was translated into the policy that the Jewish state must never rely on another country for its defense.
During its sixty-four-year history, one partial exception has been made to that rule. Since the end of the Six Day War, Israel has allowed itself to be somewhat dependent on the United States because for forty-five years American leaders, strongly supported by the American people, have stood by Israel's right to exist as a secure Jewish state.
It is this unique trust and semidependency that convinced Golda Meir to refrain from launching a preemptive attack on Egypt in 1973. It was the security and financial guarantees offered by President Carter that persuaded Menachem Begin to sign a peace treaty with Egypt in 1978, despite Begin's deep reservations to relinquishing land. And it was similar promises made by the George H. W. Bush administration that kept Israel out of the 1991 Gulf War while Scud missiles rained down on Tel Aviv. By contrast, it was a lack of trust Israel had in the Johnson administration in 1967 that produced an aggressive Israeli action.
Forty-five years after the Six Day War, the names have changed, but a remarkably similar scenario is unfolding. Once again, Israel is threatened by an enemy that is developing a military capability that poses an existential threat to the Jewish state. Once again, that enemy’s leaders speak frequently of seeking Israel’s destruction. Once again, Jerusalem is seeking assurances from Washington that the United States will not allow blatant aggression to stand. And once again, an American administration appears, publicly at least, to be wavering on the commitments it made to Israel at the very moment when the stakes are the highest.
In the wake of IAEA reports that Iran has made substantial progress toward enriching uranium and even on preparations to build a nuclear weapon, the Obama administration continues to be ambiguous as to what milestones Iran would have to reach before it decided to act militarily against the Islamic Republic.
Comments
Frankel seems to base his "facts" on the Purimspil: "in every generation they rise up against us" to declare that in every generation Israel has faced "existential threats." Pre-emptive wars and failure to get along nicely with the neighbors tend to make the neighbors cranky, but the so-called "existential threats" are largely a figment of Likud story-telling. Let's not forget that, as early as the Fifties with the Suez crisis, Israel was playing alongside the old colonial powers, opposed to former Soviet Union -- all by itself? Hardly. Many of the problems with Israel stem certainly from the still-unresolved Palestinian conflict, but much of the world's hostility to the little nation comes from its association with colonialism and imperialism. A cozy US military relationship, along with the astounding $130 billion the US has lavished on it since its founding, identify it as *the* proxy for the United States, not only in the region but in *any* region. So if Frankel thinks Israel is about to go it alone, he should stop reading the Book of Esther and start reading more history. As far as the US and Israel are concerned, the Cold War has never ended. The US, even under a Democrat, is not about to waste all that investment of time, money, and armaments.
It's a very very funny thing nowadays seeing Israeli partisans—and indeed Israel officials too—talking oh-so-matter-of-factly about how Israel allegedly had no choice but to launch the '67 war. Indeed, beyond being funny it is perhaps just about the acme of an example of rhetorical gymnastics. Why? Well because, it will be remembered, at the time Israel didn't say that. What Israel said—officially, to the world and the U.N.—was essentially the *exact* opposite: That *it* had been first attacked by Egypt. And what did a number of official Israeli sources say after the war? That no, they had no fear of any imminent attack by Egypt. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_relating_to_the_Six-Day_War) And what did Israeli cabinet minister Mordechai Bentov—who had attended the closed cabinet meeting deciding for war—say about the later claim after it was admitted the Israel started the thing that it was fear of extermination that drove the Israeli decision to attack first? It was, he said
And what did the head of the Mossad say at the time but
And if the closing of the Straits of Tiran were so important, how come then Israel attacked just *days* before Egypt's vice-president was due in Washington on talks designed to get Egypt to back down from same? Seems more like Israel was concerned that such talks *would* succeed, and it's claim of need for war would be shown as hollow. And then there's Menachem Begin's famous quote about the whole thing:
[Emphasis supplied.] So how are we to take all the rest of what Mr. Frankel says here? How come, for instance, in all his talk about Israel's alleged existential fear there is not a word about what seems the perfect solution to same which Israel has adamantely and totally refused to talk about which is it joining Iran's already existing agreement to sign a rigorously verifiable Nuke-Free Mideast Accord? Could it be because Israel isn't really in existential fear of not being able to contain an Iranian nuke and instead just wants to be the only nuke annihilator possible in the Mideast? But of this of course, Mr. Frankel says nothing. Not a word.
This is an invalid comparison: You are comparing apples and oranges and, as a George Town professor you should know better. The difference between the six day war and the war on Iran is: Nasser was amassing forces and preparing for an attack thus, Israel’s attack was perfectly legitimate and lawful. The Israeli attack in 1967 was a preemptive one and, preemptive attacks are legal. Preemptive attacks are defined as: “The initiation of military action because it perceives an imminent attack and identifies the clear advantages of striking first.” The criteria to preemptive attacks are: “necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” William H. Taft IV, who was thelegal advisor to the Department of State, further explained “within the traditional framework of self-defense, a preemptive use of proportional force is justified only out of necessity. The concept of necessity includes both a credible, imminent threat and the exhaustion of peaceful remedies.”As for the case of attacking Iran, there are no forces positioned to attack Israel and, Iran has not acquired a nuclear bomb, not yet. Therefore, attacking Iran is Preventive self-defense which, “involves the immediate use of force in order to avoid the risk of war later under less favorable circumstances … a strategic response to a long-term threat or one that has yet to develop… prevention to halt the creation of new assets … preventer is the gradual deterioration of the relative military power and the strategic risk of a more costly war.” This is illegal and illegitimate.According to Michael Walzer, states are entitled to the right of self-defense before they suffer an injury as a result of an attack, on the conditions that, there is “a manifest intent to injure, a degree of active preparation that makes that intent a positive danger, and a general situation in which waiting, or doing anything other than fighting, greatly magnifies the risk.”