Brilliance.... from an unlikely source.

I am going to reprint the following article without accreditation until below the excerpt.

The author is someone fairly polarizing on the American scene (those who know me, know how I feel about him) but THIS article is absolute brilliance.

It is exactly right in every aspect.

Please note the portions in particular where I have added emphasis.

Warnings from Gaza


June 26, 2007


The Hamas victory in Gaza is a warning that World War IV (as Norman Podhoretz has called it) is going to be long and hard. It is also a warning that the West is currently losing that war.

These defeats are not a function of the courage and will of the American people. In a June poll sponsored by American Solutions, 85 percent of the American people said it was important to defend America and its allies. Only 10 percent were opposed. On an even stronger question, 75 percent said it was important to defeat America's enemies. Only 16 percent disagreed.

So the hard left in America is only 16 percent. It is outnumbered almost 5-1 by those who would defeat our enemies.

The source of failure is not to be found in the American people but in the inarticulate and unimaginative leaders all across government who now preside instead of lead.

The tragedy of the current debate in Washington is that while the inarticulateness and the failing performance of the Bush administration have led the American people to desire a new direction, the politics of the left insists that the new direction be less than President Bush. Yet the lessons of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, New Jersey, the JFK plot, the Algerian bombings, the Iranian nuclear program, the conflict in Lebanon and now the defeat in Gaza all point to the need for a war policy that is substantially bigger and more robust than Mr. Bush.

As the forces of modernity are being ground up by terrorism, our political process is not producing a Churchill or Roosevelt to rally the democracies but instead embracing advocates of surrender withdrawal and defeat. As women are being oppressed, we remain silent. Faced with the weakness, vacillation and inarticulateness of the leaders of Israel and America, the people see the violence as senseless, the bloodshed as repugnant and the current strategies as too flawed to continue to invest in them.

Gaza is the most recent example of where Western failure of imagination is being defeated by ruthlessness and determination.

Israel has had enormous power over Gaza for 40 years. The United Nations has been running refugee camps since 1949 with disastrous results that have led to massive population growth, vast unemployment, deep bitterness and a society which produces entrepreneurs of terrorism rather than entrepreneurs of wealth creation. Michael Oren has noted that since 1993 the Palestinian Authority "has garnered more international aid than any entity in modern history — more per capita than the European states under the Marshall Plan." With all these advantages the old "reasonable" terrorist organization has been destroyed in Gaza by the newer, more militant and more ferocious Hamas.

This is a signal victory for Iran and a defeat for Israel, the United States, and the so-called moderate Arab governments.

The first reactions to this defeat have been pathetic. The beleaguered American and Israeli governments have met to wring their hands and pledge funding for the old terrorists in the West Bank. This will surely prove to be a losing strategy. Hamas will consolidate its hold on Gaza and begin to extend its reach more decisively into the West Bank.

The West will sooner or later have to confront several hard realities if it is to defeat its enemies.

First, terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah will have to be rooted out and destroyed. We do not today have the strategy, the doctrine or the techniques for defeating these kinds of organizations. In Iraq, after more than four years of effort, our current doctrine for population control and for effective local policing and intelligence is pathetic. To defeat ferocious committed and enthusiastically violent organizations like al Qaeda and the Taliban will take new energy, new drive and new determination on our part.

Second, the indirect strategies of propping up corrupt dictatorships have to give way to direct people-to-people help, securing private-property rights and direct financial assistance so we can improve their families' lives and they can be empowered to defend their neighborhoods from evil men. Hernando de Soto will be vastly more effective in designing this than all the bureaucrats at AID and the United Nations combined.

Third, the U.N. camp system of socialism with unearned anti-humanitarian charity has to be replaced with a totally new system of earned income and earned property rights to restore dignity and hope to every Palestinian.

Fourth, the current system of schools under both Fatah and Hamas control have to be replaced in their entirety with a system dedicated to genuine education and to teaching human rights rather than jihad and hatred.

Lastly, mosques can no longer be allowed to preach hatred and violence. The de-Nazification that seemed obvious in Germany in 1945 will have to be matched by a dehatred campaign today. The haters have to be defeated, disarmed and detained if the forces of peace and freedom are to win.

These steps are only the beginning, but the gap between our current pathetic reaction to the Hamas victory and the requirements of victory give some indication of how far the West has to go before it starts winning. In Churchill's phrase, we are not even at the end of the beginning. However, we may be at the beginning of recognizing that this will be a real war.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

The fine art of Public Relations.... otherwise known as "All the News.."

Last week, both the NY Times and the Washington Post printed an op ed piece by the political adviser to the deposed Hamas/Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniya.

As you would expect, it was absurdly self serving, and of course, both blamed Israel and the US for the internal strife and failed to mention the atrocities committed (lining up Fatah members in front of their families and executing them in the street, handcuffing Fatah members and throwing them off buildings, looting and destroying the homes and offices of Arafat and Abbas - well OK, they did SOME good lol!).

The point here is this. I guess we should wait now for the op ed piece by al Zawahiri on behalf of AL Qaeda.

I guess if this was 1939, we would have seen an op ed by Joseph Goebbels.

The only self criticism either paper expressed was over the fact that the other had printed the same piece on the same day. Both paper's spokesmen said that if they had known that the other was printing it, they would not have.

No regret about printing the public relations statement of an organization whose public statements expressly call for the murder of an entire religion, or the destruction of a member state of the UN, not too mention constant terrorist agitation the world over, and statements about the destruction of the US?

I guess the Times and Post forgot the Hamas led celebrations, yes CELEBRATIONS, in the Gaza after 9/11 (granted ALL so called Palestinians took to the streets to celebrate the death of Americans, but Hamas was particularly vocal in its jubilance).

As I have often said, the editorial stance of all reading materials must be looked at critically.

Partners for Peace...... or murdering thugs?

Perhaps you have been following developments in Gaza and the West Bank over the last several months, and specifically the last week.

There is now two separate Palestinian entities, Gaza controlled by Hamas, the area east of Jerusalem between the Jordan River and central Israel known as the West Bank.

But this is not a civil war the way we know war.

Two stark examples of the incredible atrocities taking place in both areas.

When Hamas gunmen took over the Fatah headquarters in the Gaza strip, the handcuff the people remaining in the building, marched them up to the roof and threw them off. killing them all.

In the "West Bank" members of the Fatah armed wing, Al Aqsa martyrs brigade systematically took Hamas leaders out of their homes, lined them up in front of their families and executed them on the spot.

Of course, while this is happening, the UN's newly reconstituted commission on human rights is finishing another session in which the ONLY report will condemn only Israel.

It simply never ceases to amaze me how so many in the West cannot grasp what we are facing. It is a fundamental difference on the value of human life.

In a wonderful, ironic twist, Hamas thugs, yesterday, stormed the former home of Yasser Arafat, their lionized ex chief murdering thug, blew up the entrance gate and looted, robbed and destroyed the house.

Karma's a bitch.

So, as we stand, there is now a bi national issue among those who call themselves Palestinians.

Funny, isn't this what Israel has been warning people about for years?

The idea of the unilateral withdrawal froM Gaza was to give the so called Palestinians a chance to rule themselves. What do they do? They elect one of the world's worst terror organizations to rule, their supposed moderate President (whose PhD dissertation is about the "myth" of the holocaust - that it didn't happen) fails to confront them.

Worse,the Saudi's intercede to put these two criminals, one a corrupt murdering thug, the other a bloodthirsty one together, and they got exactly what any sane person would expect.

And you wonder why Israel closes the border?

Funny, but that isn't what is happening. The same Gazans that elected Hamas are now pouring to the Israeli border BEGGING for Israeli protection.

How the worm has turned.

Can't get any sadder?

One of the horrendous changes over the last several years in the world of terror has been the recruitment of unconventional victims to become human bombs.

I say victims for a reason. These have principally been women. They are victims of abuse, or rape, or convicted of premarital sex, etc. They are then convinced that despite their "sins" by blowing themselves up as a means of salvation.

If you look back in my blog you will see a story about a Saudi woman convicted of pre marital sex, despite the fact that it was rape. She was lashed for the sin of being alone in a car with a man.

I thought I had heard the worst, until today.

Israel's internal security agency, Shin Bet (The Israeli FBI ) announced the arrest of two women who had planned to blow themselves up in Tel Aviv in late May.

A few points. Initially, the PLO claimed that suicide bombers were only operating in the territories, or areas taht were disputed and over the "Green Line".

However, one of the worst homicide bombers blew themselves up, with dozens of teens at a discotheque in the Tel Aviv club known as the "Dophinarium" because it sat right on the Meditteranean on the beach in Tel Aviv.

One of Israel's goals is to always go right back after a bombing. The scene is cleaned and business and life resumes again as soon as possible. In fact, I make it my business to go to whatever business has been a victim when I travel there.

Another famous bombing in Tel Aviv was at Mike's Cafe which is famous in the city as a blues club, but is populated by the Arab population of Jaffa as well as many tourists - it sits on the beach as well right near all the Tel Aviv hotels.

These incidents simply highlite the lie about the dispute being about territory.

Getting back to the women in question:

One was a 39 year old MOTHER OF 8, in her NINTH MONTH OF PREGNANCY!! The other was a MOTHER OF 4.

Worse, this mother of 8 had been the representing Islamic Jihad, one of the worst of the terror groups, affiliated with Fatah the party of President Mahmoud Abbas, in the Gaza women's office. Her job was to serve as a go between for women who wanted to act as homicide bombers.

The true sick thing is that they were used because Islamic Jihad knows the Israeli humanitarian policies regarding persons seeking medical care. They are always allowed to cross.

You can only imagine what might have happened to these women to cause this.

It also points out something in the Orwellian world of Israeli double standards. Imagine if we were at war with Canada.

What would happen when you crossed the border? You would be ID'ed, perhaps frisked, etc. Certainly profiled.

Yet when Israel does this, they are accused of "humiliating" so called Palestinians. HUH??

The Six Day War and the world today: Part 4(Days 4-6 and the new world order)

Picking up where we left off:

As the battle for Jerusalem was ending, the war now took on a different tone.

It was no longer lone, little Israel trying to find a way to avoid annihilation by the surrounding Arab states, but rather a cleaning up of the actions in the Jordan valley and in the Sinai.

As day 4 came and went, The IDF, despite common myths to the contrary, had little success stopping the retreat of the Egyptians. There was an attempt to do an end run, which was only partially successful.

In any case, the policy had been, because of the overwhelming number of POW's, to hold only officers and release the common soldiers.

Israel began to consolidate hold on the Sinai, and then made the move down to free the Straits of Tiran to reopen their port that had been closed by the Egyptians.

They also seized the Sinai and the Suez Canal. While the canal would be returned immediately, it was not reopened by the international community for several years as the distrust of the Egyptian purposes remained.

The Sinai, of course, would be the key to the 1978 Camp David Accords (more about that later).

More importantly, the route of Egypt led to the eventual resignation of Nasser - he actually resigned immediately but after demonstrations, pledged to remain in office until dignity could be restored.

More on this later as well, but Sadat, now firmly in control of the Egyptian army, and very familiar with the Israeli's engineered the turnaround that allowed the Egyptians, however briefly, to gain the upper hand in 1972's Yom Kippur war. Despite the Israeli triumph, this war is celebrated in Egypt as a victory (imagine my surprise on my first trip to Cairo to be toured around the monument in downtown celebrating the Arab victory!).

On June 7th, Sharm el Sheikh was taken and the next day, the 8th, the capture of the Sinai was complete.

In the West Bank, there was some talk of proceeding through the Jordan River and proceeding to Amman, but the Americans put an end to this idea.

In the United States, what would become resolution 242 (which should be read as it's requirements are not solely on the Israeli's and do NOT require full return of captured territory) was already formed in Lyndon Johnson's head.

Suddenly the Israeli's were not just one of a handful of potential allies in the region, but rather viewed as a regional power that would benefit the US by allying with.

In the north, the Syrians had been partially drawn in by the false reports that General Amer had been broadcasting of the rapid advance of Egyptian troops into Israel. The capture of Tel Aviv seemed inevitable.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Assad even took "credit" for starting the war.

But, as it had done only a few months earlier, the IAF easily wiped out the Syrian air force and their contingent of Soviet equipment.

The Syrians are content to sit on the Golan heights and shell Israeli positions. The Golan Heights are so named for a good reason. As the terrain rises from the Sea of Galilee, you must climb upward to reach the plateau that to this day contains a UN outpost separating the Syrian and Israeli border.

There is a famous story of perhaps the most successful spy of the 20th century, Eli Cohen. A Jew born in Cairo, he was recruited by the Israeli Intelligence services to infiltrate the Syrian government.

He did this to such affect that at the time of his capture and public hanging, he was the third in charge, behind only Hafez Assad.

It is said that he suggested to the Syrians to plant eucalyptus trees around the Syrian bunkers in the Golan in order to disguise them.

The Syrians failed to consider that the eucalyptus was not native to the region, and the IDF and IAF saw these plantings and knew where to focus their attacks.

The IAF created a situation where 4 Israeli brigades were able to create a pincer move up the heights and to surround the Syrians. However, the Syrians withdrew so quickly that most of the forces were able to escape. However the Heights were taken.

Finally, on June 10th at the UN a ceasefire was signed and agreed to. Hostilities to stop the next day. Those 24 hours gave the Israelis the opportunity principally to consolidate their gains in the North.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, two critical facts emerged, both of which are overlooked in today's common knowledge.

First was the Israeli's maintaining, in the case of Muslim sites, and establishing, in the case of Christian sites, control by the respective religions of their own holy sites.

The second, was the declaration on June 19th, one week after the end of the war, by the Israeli Knesset (legislature) to return most territories (Gaza was not addressed as no one wanted it).

The Knesset required only demilitarization of the Golan, and the Sinai.

Of course, the West Bank was offered to Jordan, which had controlled it since 1948. Important to note that there had NEVER been any Palestinian claims to this land before.

Finally, the Arab league met in Khartoum Sudan, in September. It was then that they issued their famous 3 "NO's"
1) No recognition of Israel
2) No Peace with Israel
3) No negotiations with Israel

It has been the guiding force in Arab policy since.

In the latter stages of the war, the US had actually turned an aircraft carrier around to head toward the area. This was done in case hostilities spread, in case the Soviets became involved (which they threatened internally to both the Syrians and Egyptians at different points) and to support the Israeli's if necessary.

The ship never went there and it ended up causing, what Defense Secretary Robert McNamara declared teh worst crisis in Soviet US relations since the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis.

Of course, the Sinai WAS returned, in the 1978 Camp David accords with Egypt.

In the aftermath of the war, the Egyptians realized that their dependence on the Soviet Union had been ill placed. Sadat systematically began removing Egypt from the Soviet sphere. THe signing of the accords guaranteed Egypt almost dollar for dollar aid with Israel from the US and made them the US titular ally.

This money, in Egypt has been used exclusively for military purposes, and it is my opinion, that it is this, and not even Iran, that poses the greatest threat to the US and Israel in the region.

Relationships have never progressed where it was envisioned and have systematically worsened as Hosni Mubarak has battled fundamentalism in his country.

The Egyptians have now violated Camp David, both re militarizing it, and training specifically to fight another war with the Israeli's.

The difference this time is that they will both be fighting with American equipment.

As to the Soviets.

Recent documents released indicate that their role in fomenting the crisis may have been greater than earlier believed. Strangely, that they hoped to hightlite the close West German Israeli relationship to drive certain countries from democracy.

Of course, it also served as the first real full scale test of Soviet military might versus a Western (although not US) nation.

The total annihilation of Soviet equipment began the process of revealing the relative inadequacy of the Soviet Union's military might.

Perhaps most importantly, and with the greatest significance, was the total humiliation of the Arab political culture.

The secular states would be no more. Politics in the Middle East quickly bacame a breeding ground for radicalism, terror and religious fundamentalism.

The single event which opened the flood gates to this was perhaps the assassination of Anwar Sadat by the Muslim Brotherhood.

But never again, would there be Pan Arabism in a secular way. The ties that bind are now religious.

The Six Day War and the world today Part 3: ( Everything, Nothing; The Battle for Jerusalem)

For those with a cinematic bent, yes, the above references a line in the underrated movie from a few years ago, "Kingdom of Heaven" a fictional account of Salehedin's recapture of Jerusalem from the English Crusaders.

Asked what Jerusalem meant by the Orlando Bloom Character, Salahedin turns and replies "NOthing.... EVERYthing." Truer words have never been uttered.

To review:

The Israeli's, because of previous negotiations with King Hussein (as a reference, Hussein's Grandfather Abdullah, had been assassinated by Arab extremists because of his overtures to the Israelis' ) had begged Hussein to keep Jordan out of the war.

The King was, to some degree, stuck. He risked alienating the Arab world if he stayed out, but he risked being wiped out if he entered...

Millions of words have been written on the subject, but I believe the psychological underpinnings may ultimately have come down to Hussein's belief, as a Hashemite, a sect that views themselves as the direct descendants of the prophet Muhammed, that his duty was to protect Harm al Sharif, or the Temple Mount.

Among Jews, there is a joke, Three Jews, four opinions. In no case was this more true than in the idea of what to do with regard to Jerusalem.

From the small (yes very small at the time) orthodox community that believed that there could be no Israel without Jerusalem, to Moshe Dayan, who, as quoted in yesterday's post said he would never want to be saddled with that "Vatican".

In fact, Dayan felt that all efforts should be to secure the new city; bypass the old city; head into what is known as the Qidron valley, and head to the West Bank to secure the lands lost in 1948 and proceed to the natural geologic boundary between Israel and Jordan. The Jordan River.

It was the river, after all that had been the source of so much conflict over the proceeding years. With control over the water supply, Dayan reasoned, Israel's non war time position would be greatly strengthened.

Note: with their world leading de salination technology, and the geometric increase in water usage since 1967, Israel, does still largely control the water situation, providing water to Gaza, and the West Bank.

Oh, didn't know that huh? Yes, read that again, Israel supplies civil services to those areas that provide the rockets and human bombs that are killing their citizens.

Won't read that in the NY Times, huh?

But I digress.

In large measure, the decision about Jerusalem was made for the Israelis.

The Jordanians had destroyed virtually all of the Jewish relics in the Old City after 1948 and during their 20 years of control.

In addition, bombardments were being launched by the Jordanian units stationed there.

So, at 2:21 in the morning when Hussein changes his mind, and, driving through the Jordan valley, decides to resume fighting, his fate is sealed.

In NY, diplomacy is frantic. The Soviet Union and the US are flabbergasted at Nasser's refusal to accept a ceasefire, so new plans are being drawn up.

In the North, Iraqi's and Syrians are increasing their bombardment from the Golan, so Abba Eban is given a directive to delay for a few days, if possible at the UN.

Levi Eshkol, the Israeli prime minister would ultimately convince the Cabinet to approve the conquest of the old city. Dayan, the dashing, eye patched General, secular and a true career soldier, was enough of a politician to not resist.

It is important to understand the conflicts, or divisions in Israel at the time.

In 1948 and before, Jerusalem had been an international city, Run by the British. At the declaration of the state of Israel, there were, as there are now, 4 "quarters" to the old city.

Muslim, Jewish, Armenian, and Christian. And these divisions were not cosmetic, but real.

The Jewish and Armenian sections lie in the West of the city, the Christian and Muslim, East.

As discussed in the section on Israel, the population of the country consisted in the '40's of the Sabra's or original residents, the Holocaust survivors, and the refugees from Arab lands that were ejected in 1948.

But, particularly since the Suez crisis, there had been immigration. And the much of the immigration was now religiously inspired, or at least considered.

At the end of the week, I will print a story about a general who fought in the battle of Jerusalem in 1948, but suffice to say, the guilt felt by that first generation of Israelis was overwhelming.

What had been an open, international city, was now closed to Jews and Christians alike.

The Israelis had desperately (thanks to an American colonel, Mickey Marcus) fought to overcome the Arab siege of Jerusalem in 1948 so that the UN would not declare the armistice when Israel had no access to the city.

They managed to do this, but retained access only to the "new city".

FYI, the new vs. old city. The old city is the walled city. The walls were originally built in Biblical times and were extended out over the centuries, finally principally settling on their current position during the crusader period and in some cases the Ottomans.

It was only in the 1800's that any real settlement outside the walls occurred. Before that, the area around was a wilderness (hard to believe if you go there now. It would be like NY in pre revolutionary days). Rocky and unforgiving, if you were stuck outside the gates at night, you most likely would not survive due to raiders, Bedouins thieves, etc.

Many immigrants at that time came because of the Jewish belief that one resident of their town, should be "delivering" their prayers to the temple. Same as biblical times.

Finally in the 1800's the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem declared that living outside the old city still satisfied the requirement of coming to Jerusalem and neighborhoods immediately began to spring up. First among these was Talpiot, in the southwest corner of the city.

1n 1844 Jews were once again the majority of the population, after 1800 years.

So, the loss of the old city in 1948 was a devastating blow to that generation. It created an emotional scar that could not be healed.

As in all things military, 20 years is more than a full generation. Many of the soldiers fighting on the streets of Jerusalem had never known an open Jerusalem. Even their officers were young children the last time Jews had been in the old city.

But, by 7:27 that morning, June 7th, a small unit of paratroopers stood poised at Herod's Gate, armed with 3 archaeologists, ready to once again reenter.

Now, the walls of the old city are broken by gates, as in all biblical cities. The gates were the only way in and out, and of course were not built to allow tanks to pass. If you have ever seen an ancient walled city, you know the gates have immediate turns, as a defensive measure.

The gate nearest the Temple Mount is rather unfortunately known as the "Dung" gate and yes, that is why. In biblical times, ding would be carted out this way. On the Northern side of the Temple Mount is what is known as Lion's Gate. Southwest of the Dung gate is Zion Gate. Further West is the Jaffa Gate. This is the principal entrance to the Armenian quarter and the gate most commonly seen as you ascend the hill from the New City's downtown.

Most photographs that you see today of the "golden dome" are taken from the area just inside the Dung gate.

The Temple Mount runs the entire Eastern length of the old city.

It looked then, very different than it does today. In fact, it is changing every day as excavations reveal more and more of Herod's Temple Mount.

It was the excavation of the tunnels running the full length of the Mount that caused a violent uprising in the 1990's leading to dozens of deaths with Palestinians bombarding the visitors to the Western wall below.

As the night progressed into morning, Hussein again had a change of heart. He contacted the Americans practically begging for a cease fire. The Americans forwarded some of these requests, but it was largely considered futile as he had apparently no control over his troops to fulfill a ceasefire (communications had been lost in the battle between Amman and Jerusalem). In addition, the Israeli's now felt the need to continue.

A tentative cease fire was agreed to, but Jordanian positions in the old city kept firing at the Israelis. Eshkol told the Americans that if Hussein could tell them exactly when firing would stop, he would stop the advance into the old city.

This was impossible, because, as mentioned above, communication had been lost. Dayan gave the order to approach and retake the Jewish holy sites as quickly as possible. It was also ordered that under no circumstances were any of the Muslim or Christian holy sites to be hit by an artillery or heavy arms fire.

The paratroopers who had been poised at Herod's Gate were ordered to approach the Lion's gate, closer to the Western Wall. They began fighting their way facing Jordanian sniper fire.

At 9:45 Sherman tanks fired into the Lions Gate which was blockaded by a bus. Simultaneously attacks were made at all of the gates. The soldier who led the attack at the Lions' gate was Capt. Yoram Zammush, a religious Jew who had been promised to be the first to reach the Western wall.

At the same time, the small paratrooper unit had reached the plaza on top of the Temple Mount. After suppressing Jordanian sniper fire, Mordechai "Motta" Gur radioed his general, Uzi Narkiss, and uttered the words that Jews and Israelis the world over know by heart.

"Har ha-Bayit be Yadenu" The Temple Mount is in our hands. (literally "the house on the hill is in our hands" )

At this moment, the essential nature of Israel changed.

The young, secular soldiers who had known only a secular Israel, with no access to the biblical sites, were overcome with emotion.

Tears replaced gunfire everywhere and as the rest of the Israeli units fought their way through the streets to the Western Wall, they all became observant Jews.

The pictures of soldiers standing in the tiny alley that was left (it is now an open plaza) praying at the wall, most not even knowing the traditional Jewish prayer, the "Shema" touched the stones that had been built 2000 years before.

Soon, Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin and Narkiss would be photographed in what is now the iconic picture of the war, striding through the Lion's gate, into the old city.

And at that moment, Israel was forever changed. Everyone knew it, even Dayan.

The humiliation of 1948 was gone, and the connection to antiquity was palpable to everyone.

Israeli's from all over immediately began flocking to Jerusalem. Just to see it, to touch it.

It is still a similar experience for Jews today who have never been there, the first time they gaze upon the stones, pray at the wall and meditate.

Dayan had with him Chief Rabbi of the IDF, Rabbi Schlomo Goren, who told him to immediately blow up Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock.

Dayan refused. It had been decided by Prime Minister Eshkol during the night, that the governing authorities of the different religion's holy sites would remain and be consulted.

The Waqf, or Muslim Committee that oversaw The Dome of the Rock and AL Aqsa were consulted as was the Vatican. The IDF was ordered to do nothing to the mosques on the Temple mount.

For those that don't know, you can go back in my blog and see a history of the Temple Mount.

It is built on Mt. Moriah. The peak of the point is a huge boulder. Jews believe that this is the boulder to which G*d ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Muslims believe this is the rock from which Mohammed ascended to heaven.

That is why the temple was built there by Solomon. It is why the Romans replaced the Jewish Temple with their own temple of Jupiter and of course why it is called the Dome of the Rock.

If you are able to go in today, you can still see the rock.

Later in the week I will discuss my feelings about Dayan's decision, but it was also tied to the difficulty of the various Jewish religious opinions.

In biblical times, only certain Jews, the high priests, were allowed into the temple. Orthodox Jes consider it a sacrilege to walk onto the top of the Temple Mount because while we have a pretty good idea of where the temple was, we don't know exactly.

So, the orthodox say you cannot walk there, and excavations cannot take place with in the Temple Mount (something the Waqf has continuously, consistently violated and the cause of current danger of the collapse of the entire structure).

At the exact moment that the Western Wall was liberated, an Israeli tank division had reached Jericho. Shortly, that city would be liberated and the road to Hebron was clear.

Jordan's strength had been reduced by 80% as the Israeli's found abandoned tanks and the population began to evacuate.

Hussein appeared to his advisers a broken man. He was the only Arab leader who had gotten anywhere near the fighting. He knew that he had made the critical mistake of listening to Nasser and then overriding him.

He was now given the "permission" by Nasser to engage in conversations with the "West" (US). This was strange in light of the fact that additional ceasefires had been proposed in the Security counsel all day, agreed to by Abba Eban for the Israeli's but rejected over and over again by the Egyptians.

Now, however, Hussein's agreeing to a ceasefire, alerted the Israeli's that the war was nearing an end.

The need to deal with the Iraqi's and Syrians in the north was now a time critical situation. The final push to reopen the Strait of Tiran was also ahead.

Finally, Hussein began mounting defenses for what he believed would be the Israeli's push over the Jordan, onto the east bank and to Amman.

All over the Arab world, the leaders were scrambling to avoid what now seemed an inevitable Israeli control of Egypt, Jordan, and in a matter of hours Syria.

But still, it was nothing... everything. Jerusalem was free and for the bulk of Israeli's nothing else mattered.

In the words of Yithak Rabin, the tough little soldier who started his career in the underground, became a general and then signed the Oslo agreements with Yasser Arafat, his bitterest enemy. Who would be assassinated for that peace overture and at his funeral be called "My brother" by King Hussein, Rabin had been born in Jerusalem and had led the fighting there in 1948.

"This was the peak of my life. For years I had secretly harbored the dream that I might play a role...in restoring the Western Wall to the Jewish people... Now that dream had come true, and suddenly I wondered why I, of all men, should be so privileged."

That day he said "The sacrifices of our comrades have not been in vain... The countless generations of Jews Murdered, martyred and massacred for the sake of Jerusalem say to you, 'Comfort yet, our people; console the mothers and fathers whose sacrifices have brought about redemption'".

The world was now a different place.

NOthing....EVERYthing.

The Six Day War and the world today Part 3: ( Syria; Jordan and Day Two)

Much of the information about Syria and Jordan has been mentioned in the first two posts.

The situation with the two nations could not have been more different.

Syria was fully a client state of the Soviet Union and considered itself to be in full competition with Egypt for primacy in the Arab world.

Jordan, and its' leader King Hussein suffered from something of an identity crisis.

Let's begin here.

While not a psychologist, I believe much of Jordan's and Hussein's identity crisis probably had to do with his ascendancy to the throne.

Hussein I bin Talal traveled to Jerusalem in 1951 with his Grandfather King Abdullah. Abdullah was assassinated on the steps of AL Aqsa mosque by a henchman of the former governor of Palestine (an Arab).

Young Hussein was also shot but survived. Hussein's father Talal was declared King but was removed within a year because of his alleged schizophrenia.

The young Hussein was not old enough to be King so his coronation was delayed for a year until he was 17. This obviously coincides with the period we had been discussing (1952 his coronation) and his ascendancy and early rule occurred during the days of the Suez Crisis.

Hussein's reign included brutal suppression of the Sunni Arabs now known as Palestinians, the famous Black September. But it also included rapid and impressive gains for Jordanians in most conventional measures of a nations progress: literacy rates, calorie consumption, natal survival rates, etc.

During the time we are discussing he led in what could be called, a schizophrenic fashion. He was the only Arab leader in regular contact with the Israelis, conducting secret negotiations regarding water rights. This was done at the same time that he was trying to outflank Nasser in his anti Israeli credentials.

As discussed in the earlier posts, the Samu incident (the village in which the Israelis entered after the land mine was detonated) and the constant struggle over the water use of the Jordan river.

Worse for the region was his need to prove to the other Arab states that he was equal to their hatred of the Israelis and his maneuvering to prove this.

He was, for lack of a better description, almost macho'd into the full scale mobilization in November of 1966, essentially creating a state of war with Israel.

At the same time, Jordanian military records now available for reading reveal plans for what was known as "Operation Tariq". This was the plan for the military conquest of West Jerusalem (the new city) and the execution of the entire Jewish population.

The plan was promulgated in 1967.

Nevertheless, as the war approached, Israeli leaders practically begged Hussein not to enter should hostilities break out with Egypt.

Israel appeared to be concerned only with their Southern border and reopening the Straits of Tiran and had no interest in confronting Jordan in what is now known as the West Bank or certainly Jerusalem. As discussed in the earlier post, Israel was highly secular (or so they thought) at the time, so the idea of street fighting in Jerusalem was too much to consider.

Hussein, however, put in with Nasser. This was a recurring theme in his reign. Not dissimilar to his being the only Arab nation to side with Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait.

After the Samu incident and the water disputes of the previous year, Hussein was, apparently, not of a mind to listen to Israeli entreaties to remain out of the Hostilities.

Syria history in the years prior to the war was much more fractured. A French protectorate before WWII, Syria declared its' independence in 1941 but because of the war did not achieve it until 1944.

There were 20 different governments between 1946 and 1956 although Syria actively participated in the 1948 war against Israel.

The Syrians engaged in numerous actions against their Arab neighbors (again, similar to today) including involvement in the Iraqi coup and constant forays into Jordan to run terrorist raids into Israel.

After the 1956 war, Syria again fell under marshal law and the control of the French and British. In November of that year a pact was signed with the Soviet Union, which is what led to the modernization of the Syrian Armed Forces and the use of the newest Russian technology.

However, it also led to the creation of the United Arab Republic with Egypt. For approximately 3 years (February 1958-1961) Egypt and Syria effectively operated as one political unit with Nasser in charge. In 1961 Syria withdrew and after a period of instability, the Baath party, the socialist party that had begun to dominate middle east politics took over. Efforts at both a tripartite pact with Egypt and Iraq and a bilateral pact with Iraq failed after the Baath party was overthrown in Iraq.

Ultimately, in 1966 another coup took place and a new version of the Baathists took over. The significance here is that Hafez Assad became Defense Minister. He would become President in a bloodless coup in 1970.

The alignment with the Soviets is the critical issue here. Soviet pressure first led to Egyptian control of the Syrian army, but would ultimately lead, at the end of the war to the most significant cold war showdown since the Bay of Pigs.

For some time the Syrians and the Egyptians had engaged in anti Israeli one upmanship ultimately leading to the confrontation with Israel described in yesterdays post.

The Syrians simply felt that they had not been ready and had not learned their lesson with Israeli Mirage's flying over Damascus only two months earlier.

As mentioned previously, Syria had stated that it would only agree to a ceasefire if the Israeli agriculture stopped. As this is bar and away the richest (at the time perhaps the only) farmland in Israel, this was not realistic, but also sim;y not appropriate (you can't dictate another countries farming activity!).

So, here we are again, at the brink of war.


Day One, (cont' ) and Day two.

The Egyptian Air force was effectively wiped out in the first hours of the war on June 5th. Despite repeated entreaties from the Israelis, the Jordanians began shelling Israeli civilians in Western Jerusalem, in what is known as the "new city" i.e not ancient Jerusalem, but the modern city.

By the end of Day 2, the total decimation of Egypt's army had Ariel Sharon chasing the Egyptians through the Sinai with his tank divisions and Nasser and King Hussein beginning to discuss the misinformation campaign alleging that it was not Israel that had defeated them, but rather that the United States had secretly entered the war.

It seems that Nasser was so desperate to believe this, he even tried to sell it to his Soviet sponsors who were so disgusted that they dismissed this out of hand. It was, of course, a total fiction.

However, in the Arab world today, this myth is believed as fact.

In the North, Syrian shelling had increased and The IDF began moving to control the Golan. This would become the focus in Day 4 through 6 (really 7) of the war.

Most interestingly at this time was that Assad announced to the world that not only had the Syrian Air Force decimated the IAF, but that the Syrians, in fact, had started the war.

He told these lies to enhance the Syrian perception in the Arab world as the country responsible for the death of the "Zionist entity".

Diplomatic activity the world over was rushing to deal with the situation.

President Johnson, apparently had understood what the course of the war would be and the now famous Resolution 242 reflects almost exactly what Johnson perceived to be the desired outcome of the war, what is now known as "Land for Peace".

However, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had great fear of Soviet intervention. The infamous Hot Line to Moscow was used on the first day, and seventeen additional calls would be made during the war.

Johnson ordered the 6th fleet to remain in Crete and suspended all military shipments to all Middle East Nations.

Fighting in the Sinai proceeded as common history indicates, largely an Israeli route with the only question being would Israel continue to Cairo.

The war started with no designs by Israeli other than to repel an Egyptian attack. So, initially, this was not discussed. In fact, Defense Minister Dayan had ordered no entry into Gaza, but shelling from the area precipitated entry there as well.

However, the fighting with Jordan in the West Bank was difficult. As described in yesterdays post, the Hashemites believe they are the direct descendants of Muhammed and that they are the rightful protectors of Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock.

As such, they fought with ferocity. Stories of incredible hand to hand battles in this area are numerous.

In the north, the Israeli advance against the Syrians was also rapid, but again, there were no battle plans here. It was a defensive posture in nature and initially advances stopped well short of today's border.

As the second day ended, Israel had made significant progress toward the old city. With the almost incredible defeat of Egypt in the first 48 hours, this would become the principal focus of the war for days 2-3.

It was on the second day, that many of the famous battles for the high ground in the New City took place. Ammunition Hill, now an Israeli shrine to both the IDF and the Jordanians who fell there, took place on June 6th.

The Israelis on the second day, took control of the Nablus Road and proceeded to the rear of the old city toward the Mount of Olives and Hebrew University. This was to cut off a Jordanian retreat. They also liberated many of the neighborhood and villages in the surrounding hills.

By the end of day two, the idea of a liberation of the old city was possible.

Moshe Dayan did not want any part of it.

In fact, he was quoted at the time as saying why do we want to be saddled with that. "I want none of that Vatican." Prime Minister Eshkol was faced with another decision. His hear lay with the farmers in the North, but how could he tell Jewish soldiers, now surrounding the old city, not to try and liberate the holiest site in Judaism, as they stood just yards from it. (Note: the Southern Gates of the old city, are alternately less than 1/2 mile and literally on top of the Temple Mount.)

[B]Eshkol decided, and announced, that they would take the old city and convene the leaders of all the sites and guarantee Israel's respect for their authority over their shrines.[/B]

However, Dayan was making decisions on the ground, and he resisted the call to liberate the old city.
At this point. President Abba Eban, was dispatched on a torturous journey to the UN, through Greece (no international flights were leaving) to try and forestall UN action for a short time to allow the natural conclusion of military action.

The first attempt at UN action failed at this time as the Egyptians rejected the American - Soviet compromise. In fact, the Egyptian Ambassador repeated the "big lie" of American and British involvement. The Israeli's were overjoyed and secretly felt that Nasser was now their biggest ally.

Israel had made significant pushes throughout the West Bank. Hussein desperately called the Americans to create a cease fire. The Old City was surrounded.

The Israelis told the Americans that either Hussein was lying, or he had lost control of his troops because of the ferocity of the fighting.

It was at this point, when the Americans told Hussein to either get control of his troops or stop fighting that the infamous phone call to Nasser took place.

Nasser said to Hussein "Will we say that the US and Britain are attacking or just the US?" Hussein responded "United States and England".

Nasser ended the call, after plans were made on a joint announcement, to continue fighting.

Hussein continued to vacillate, and was ready to let Nasser decide what to do.

He waited and finally later that night, Nasser called and admitted what was already known. Hussein had driven down into the Jordan valley by himself to see his troops in full retreat. Now, with Nasser's admission of the futility of the Egyptian cause, he was given permission to retreat. The order was given.

When the Jordanians agreed to the compromise cease fire in the UN, he began to reconsider. He could continue to fight until the cease fire took effect in order to hold onto as much land as possible.

Finally, at 2:20 the next morning, June 7th, Hussein phoned Nasser to inform him of his decision to continue fighting.

The little King, so ridiculed by other Arab rulers, could now be the hero of the Arab world, holding out against the Zionist entity.

And the world held it's breath, as Jerusalem stood poised.

The Six Day War and the world today Part 2: ( Israel and Day One)

I will write this post in this weeks series with the assumption that most who read my blog have a somewhat realistic view of Israel today, as the only democracy in the region. A country that closely resembles either the US or other western style democracies (actually, as a "cafe" society Israel very much resembles Italy with it's Mediterranean lifestyle). Full rights for ALL citizens, freedom of the press, etc.

But the Israel of 1967 was very different. In fact, it can reasonably be said that Israeli history can be divided into several "eras". 1948-1956; 1956-1967; 1967-1973; 1973-1991(or 2000) and 1991 - present.

These eras principally deal with the military situation of both Israel and the surrounding Arab nations.

If you go back to the UN declaration of a two state solution in November of 1947 and Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, the world was a very different place.

When the Arab nations started the war of Independence immediately upon Israel's declaration, all of the powers that we know of today were still recovering from WWII. Europe was in shambles.

Millions of European Jews, survivors of the Holocaust were in relocation camps all over Europe.

Millions of Europeans, and Russians were struggling to find their homes, or rebuild what once was. Soldiers were returning home in droves, or struggling to exit POW camps.

So, the two sides in the war had no real outside powers to back them, or supply them.

The population of Israel then consisted of three primary groups. The Sabra's, or native born, were the majority. Next came the almost 400,000 refugees from Arab lands that had been thrown out in 1948 (of a total of approx. 450,000).

The final group consisted of those that were able to escape the Holocaust or were now coming. The total population of the country was approx. 2.9 million.

After the armistice Israel looked very different than it does today. In geography, political orientation and attitude.

As secular as it is today, it was much more so than. The early Zionists had not been driven so much by religious fervor as the desire to escape persecution.

Interestingly, this secularity also affected the view of Diaspora Jews toward the new state. (Diaspora means Jews not in Israel). There was a certain appreciation for the fact that there was now a homeland for the dispossessed, however, the "rebound effect" was being felt to a certain degree in most of the rest of the world. Principally the United States. Most American Jews were of European descent and had no physical or emotional attachment to the "Holy Land". Tourism was not part of the package at that point. Particularly with none of the holy sites being part of the new nation.

The existing residents of Palestine, were largely non religious anyway.

More importantly, Jerusalem had been lost in the war of independence. Jerusalem, under the UN partition plan, was supposed to be an open city. With access to religious sites guaranteed to all.

But the Jordanians prevented that. King Hussein of Jordan was a Hashemite. What that means is that he considered himself a direct descendant of Muhammed and as such, it was his duty to protect the shrines of Jerusalem, al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. So Jerusalem was closed.

In addition, Gaza was Egyptian, the Golan Heights were Syrian.

The maps of the day showed not borders, but armistice lines. Temporary divisions. The world attitude was basically, "we gave the Jews what they want, it will probably fail, but if it does it is not our fault."

In what may be a surprise to you today, the US and Israel were not particularly close.

Harry Truman had agreed that the US would be the first country to recognize Israel, but that was the end. There would be no intervention or real help. After all, the US had bigger issues with the new enemy, Russia.

Eisenhower played a course down the middle. He recognized the potential for Soviet domination of the region and the Eisenhower doctrine called for military intervention on ANY states behalf, Israel or Arab, that the Russians threatened.

Kennedy believed in using the carrot. So he was supplying Egypt with significant imports of grain and other supplies in order to keep them from the Soviet sphere.

Of course, by the end of the Eisenhower administration and the Kennedy and Johnson years, the US had Vietnam to worry about.

Israel of the 1948-1967 period was 8 miles wide at it's narrowest point, from the end of the territory that Jordan conquered to the Mediterranean.

There was a realistic feeling that Tel Aviv, Israel's largest city at the time, could be bombed or invaded in a matter of minutes.

More importantly, without Jerusalem, Hebron, Jericho, Bethlehem, the Galilee, etc, and with the nascent state looking only to create a country, the focus on religious issues and archeology was not what it is today.

What also has to be remembered is the violence and upheaval going on in the Arab world. Kings in Egypt, Syria and Iraq were overthrown, Jordan was formed, etc. The Arab world, which had largely sided with the Nazis during the war were suffering from their need to recover as well.

However, a state of war did exist. There were constant excursions by what were known as the Fedayeen between 1948-56 on Israel's borders. Principally in the North.

There was protection in the Sinai because of the Sinai treaty that all parties had signed and the control of the Suez by Britain.

So, Israel, while in an official state of war - remember, the Israeli's had first accepted the UN partition plan only to be attacked, and then at the armistice, offered again to accept the original UN plan, only to be rebuffed once more - was focused on other matters.

Included in this is the understandable, but shameful fact that the Arab residents were considered a "fifth column" and did not enjoy full rights. Most were vocally supportive of the state of war siding with the surrounding Arab nations and Israel did not know what to do with them. They enjoyed greater rights than their Arab neighbors, but were still required to carry ID, etc.

They had a population that was still largely skeletal from the holocaust, No real industry and perhaps most importantly, with the Jordan river in control of the Jordanians, no fresh water to speak of.

Finally, they had a dynamic leader in David Ben Gurion who, as the man who had declared independence and led them successfully (depending on your point of view) through the 1948 war; they had confidence in.

They spent these ten years trying to build an army, consolidating the various factions, such as the Palmach, the Ergun, the Stern gang, etc. What had been rogue bands of fighters with stolen, smuggled or recovered guns, was now trying to build an army.

The veterans of the 1948 war could not fill the holes in their hearts and souls however, feeling as if they had cost not just the Jews, but the world, Jerusalem (more on this in a post at the end of the week).

Remember also, that the US was still not a comfortable superpower. Prior to WWII the overwhelming majority of Americans were isolationist, and the British and French were the dominant world powers.

So, post WWII the French still perceived themselves this way.

This first period in Israel's history culminated with the Suez crisis of 1956, precipitated by Nasser's nationalization of the canal.

Nasser had been saved from the humiliation of the defeat at the hands of the nascent Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the Suez was essentially given to the Egyptians as described in the previous post.

Israel, though, was now seen as more of a legitimate country and there were developing relations in Europe, African and Asia.

France began selling arms to Israel as well as nuclear technology. (The Dimona installation, cause of so much controversy).

From 1956 to the start of the war, the issues in Israel concerned water, and dealing with the increasingly hostile manipulations of Nasser. After his failed intervention in the Yemeni civil war, Nasser needed to rebuild his reputation. He began feverishly both competing with, and trying to ally with Syria and Jordan.

Israel was aware of the military buildup supplied by the Soviets in both Syria and Egypt.

They were also dealing with an unexpected change in the leadership of the nation as Ben Gurion was now retired in Sde Boker, on the cusp of the Negev desert and the bookish Levi Eshkol was the new Prime Minister. Eshkol was a farmer and financier and was vital to the growth of Israeli agriculture but the public had little faith in his ability to deal with the constant threats from the Arabs.

But the 1956 Sinai war had given Israelis a new sense that their little country might make it after all.

Two critical issues occurred on the Israeli side.

In 1964, Israel begain withdrawing water from the Jordan for its national water carrier. Later that year the Arabs combined to build a diversion which would have resulted in a loss of approximatley 15% of Israels water supply. The diversion was to send the water away from the Galilee into the Litani in Lebanon and a dam at Mukhabi for Jordan and Syria.

The IDF attacked the diversion in March, May and August of 1965. Of course, the border incursions that they had been dealing with, only became worse. Tensions were increasing and it looked as if war might ultimately be fought over water rights.

In November of 1966 with the threat of the Egyptian and Syrian buildup hanging over their heads, an Israeli border patrol was hit with a land mine. This led to a small incursion by the IDF (about 3000, many of them engineers to try and find mine fields) into 2 border towns in Jordan.

This was critical. The general consensus was that the Israelis overreacted (being only 3 at the time I can't opine here). the real reason behind this feeling was that King Hussein of Jordan had been in secret negotiations with Israel since 1963.

This action most likely led to a seense of distrust from Hussein when during the war, the Israelis told him clearly that if he did not attack, Israel would not attack Jordan.

More immediately was the fact that Hussein ordered a nationwide mobilization of his army on November 20th.

In addition, in the North, Syria, in control of the Golan heights which is a high ground overlooking the Galil, or area around the Sea of Galilee had been steadily attacking Israeli towns with mortar rounds. Ths was in addition to attacking Israel by going through Jordan - of course leading to Israel's mistrust of King Hussein who professed to not being able to prevent them.

In addition, the Soviets had persuaded Syria to sign a military alliance with Egypt, thus ensuring Nasser's preeminence and ending, effectively Assad's attempt to be the leader of the Arab world.

This finally erupted into a full scale aerial battle over Syria on April 6th, 1967.

The Syrians lost 6 Mig-21's, the pride of the Soviet Air force. Little did anyone realize the abilities of the Israeli Air Force in their French Mirages. This was a portent of thngs to come.

Shockingly to the region was the freedom with which the Israeli's were able to fly directly over Damascus, the Syrian capital.

The Syrians unleashed terrible bombing of a Kibbutz in the Golan.

There was UN action and a ceasfire was proposed. Israel agreed, Syria said no, not unless all agricultural work in the area was stopped.

The Israeli Cabinet authorized a limited military action against Syria in May. But Yitzhak Rabin, the chief of the IDF wanted a larger action intended to end the shelling (sound familiar to today?).

Finally, in addition to the concurrent Egyptian massing in the Sinai and the speech given by Nasser quoted in the earlier post, Future Syrian President Hafez Assad (he was then defense minister having participated in the earlier Bathist coup) in May said "Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian Army, with its finger on the trigger, is united... I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation."

And again, the world sat on the brink of war... (next Syria and Jordan.)

Historically, the significance of today in the war was this. In the early hours of June 5th, 1967, the IAF (Israeli Air Force) launched preemptive strikes against the Egyptian Air Force.

What Israel had done with the French Mirage, Ouragan, and Mystere Jets while seriously outmanned, was to create such efficiency that a plane could fly a sortee, and be prepped and put back in the air within 1/2 an hour. This allowed each Israeli Jet to fly up to 4 sortees a day. This was compared to the Arab's one or two, at most, sortees. This effectively negated the manpower advantage.

By the end of the first day, virtually the entire Egyptian Air Force had been destroyed (by the end of the 6 days 300 of the Russian Mig 21's out of a total of 450 were destroyed). This gave Israel virtual unfettered control of the skies for the remainder of the war.

It also allowed the total annihilation of the Egyptian army by air as they began their retreat in the desert.

This went unknown by Nasser and the Arab armies because Nassers Chief of the Army, General Amir wired in fake reports of massive Egyptian victories and an inexorable march to meet up with the Jordanians in Jerusalem. When Nasser was given the truth he was broken.

The only Egyptian to understand before hand that Egypt was not prepared to fight? Anwar Sadat, one of only two members of the original coup left on Nasser's staff. Sadat wanted to fight Israel, but not yet.

The Six Day War and the world today (let's start with Egypt)

What has become known as the six day war, or the 1967 Arab Israeli war began tomorrow, June 5th, 40 years ago, 1967.

The strategic importance of this war cannot be overstated for our world today.

Like many other things, we have very short memories and so, most don't remember the alliances or the state of the world at that time.

Over the next week I will try and give some background, the history of the war itself, and what it has meant in the middle east and rest of the world, where, perhaps, the effects of the Israeli victory had even more resonance than in Israel and the middle east.

It was, effectively, the beginning of the end of the cold war, and the beginning of the ascendancy of NATO.

It was also the end (for now) of what was known as Pan-Arabism.

The significance of Pan-Arabism was that it was a secular Arab alliance. Emphasis on secular.

In 1967, and the years before, most of the Arab states were quite different than they are today. The leaders at that time, the fathers of todays King Hussein of Jordan, President Bashir Assad in Syria, the royal family in Saudi Arabia, and of course, Gamel Nasser in Egypt led secular states that were principally Muslim in composition, rather than ruling with the threat of Muslim radicalism over their shoulders. (Nasser had made "peace" with the Muslim Brotherhood, an uneasy peace).

Pan-Arabism was the creation of Nasser who envisioned himself as the leader of the Arab world. And in 1967, it appeared that he was.

Nasser had achieved stunning victories, both politically, and as a result of non-military, military action (the threat of, and the movement of troops without combat).

Most directly, was his nationalization of the Suez canal in 1951-6. Prior to this time, the canal, the key to trade in the area and the gateway between east and west, was in the hands of the British.

After the Nasser led coup over King Farouk, he began expressing the need for the Arab world to band together. Much of this was initially viewed as unrealistic, politically, religiously and militarily. The tribal, religious and secular disputes were ancient and constant.

Nasser unilaterally declared that the canal was Egypt's. And a war began.

Most forget the war of 1956, principally because it was such a stunning political victory for Nasser, and because it did not greatly involve the new nation of Israel, only 8 years old at the time, but rather the world's economies, and militarily the US and Britain.

Egypt's action was quickly put down militarily and Nasser "agreed" to accept UN control of the canal.

So what looked like a military and political defeat for Nasser, was in actuality a total victory.

The British imperialists, in the eyes of the Arabs, had been removed and a "non-aligned" force that could easily be controlled by Egypt, both actually, and militarily (there was no UN military presence in any real way) took it's place.

The peace keeping force, proposed by Canada (Lester B. Pearson,Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this), was the first UN peacekeeping force in history.

The proposal was put forth largely because the alliance between Britain, the US, Israel and France threatened to destroy Egypt. The US had no desire to be in a war in the area, and in fact, had been working feverishly to bring Egypt into it's sphere (more below).

The US financial pressure on Britain was the final straw to convince them to withdraw (this had actually been going on since Nasser's repudiation of the Suez treaty in 1951; declaration of intent to nationalize in 1954

This changed the Arab world's perception of Nasser and it was really at this time that he became a larger than life figure in Egypt and the Arab world.

The facts on the ground were that the Egyptians now collected the passage fees for the canal, and for all intents and purposes controlled access into and out of the Mediterranean and from Europe to Asia.

It was a stunning political victory for Nasser that gave the Arab world hope that they might soon fully complete the unshackling of residue of the British and French colonial period.

From that time, to 1967, Nasser frequently puffed his chest and made veiled threats about closing the canal, and certainly about not allowing Israeli access.

Finally, on May 16th, 1967, Nasser had his representative give the UN general a letter stating that the Egyptian Army had to be ready to fight Israel and as such, the UN forces should be withdrawn.

The letter was handed to the Secretary General, U Thant, who began feverish negotiations to stop the Egyptians. This failed, first by Yugoslavia and India withdrawing their troops from the force for fear of action against Egypt, and then when Nasser ordered that the UNEF (the name of the peacekeeping force) troops not be allowed into their camps.

On May 19th, the UNEF commander was given the order to withdraw.

Immediately, Nasser began the re-militarization of the Sinai. Moving tank brigades and large numbers of troops across the Sinai desert and poised on the Israeli border.

On May 22nd, Nasser announced the closing of the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli passage. The straits are the entrance to the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Eilat, Israeli's main port and only Southern access,principally for oil tankers. (If you go to Eilat today, you will see equal parts the "Las Vegas" of Israel, and oil and transport docks).

The real reason behind Nasser's move was simple.

During the negotiations in 1956, when Israel really had no involvement other than to preserve it's rights to navigate through the Straits and the Sinai Canal, it stated clearly that access to the straits were a "casus belli", or a cause of war in international legal terms.

Whether Nasser actually intended to stop ships intended for Israel or not is not clear, but his "tweaking" of the Israelis is clear.

Nasser was acting on his own experience. The last time he had done this, he had won control of the Suez. His claims on Tiran, that it was in Egyptian waters was undoubtedly with the same ultimate intent.

What is important here is that international law generally holds a blockade as an armed act of war.

What was also going on at this time was Nasser's maneuvering with regard to the United States and The Soviet Union.

In the 1960's, obviously, the cold war was in full bloom. Not long after the 1956 crisis, the Soviets began to seriously increase their attempts to export their authority beyond the scope of Eastern Europe. They were incubating client states in South and Central America and of course actively seeking alliances in the Middle East.

There were two principal reasons for this (a good lesson on Soviet history and the invasion of Afghanistan). Throughout Russian history has been the quest for a warm water port. The second, was of course, the constant striving against the US at this time.

More on the US later on the section on Israel, but what must be remembered here is that, contrary to today's memory, the US was NOT, I repeat, NOT a big player at this time in the region.

There was no real active alliance with Israel (it occurred AFTER the war) and so Nasser was playing the two super powers off of each other.

Ultimately, the decision was made to align with the Soviets. Of course, the Americans telling Nasser they did not trust him after his repeated violations of the various Suez agreements also played into it.

So, the Egyptian army was armed with MIG's and of greatest concern to the Israeli's 30 Tu-16 medium range bombers. The total air capacity was 450 planes.

This was by far the largest and newest of the Arab air forces all Soviet equipment and new.

The Egyptian consisted of approximately 160,000 regulars, many of whom were battle tested from intervention in the civil war in Yemen in which Egypt had interceded.

It also consisted of 950 tanks, 1,100 APCs and more than 1,000 artillery pieces.

At this point, Nasser had put more than 100,000 of these forces in the Sinai, near the Israeli border. (at the same time Jordan had approx. 55,000 regulars, Syria 75,000. In the Israel section I will discuss the Israeli forces).

His intent was clear.

The Soviets were not confident in Egypt's capability (in fact, they had not had success even in Yemen). As such, they demanded of Nasser that he allow Soviet generals to command his troops.

Of course he refused. This will become critical in the last 2 days of the war in regard to the US.

What is critical, was the view throughout the Arab world at the time of their relative strength relative to Israel, who was using used military equipment FROM FRANCE (not the US as is the case today).

Finally, at the end of May, two critical things happened. Jordan handed over control of it's armies to an Egyptian general and Nasser, in a speech declared "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ... to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not of more declarations."

The region was now poised for war.

Next up: Israel.

Karma's a bitch!!

What if Israelis had abducted BBC man?

By Charles Moore
http://tinyurl.com/265gy4
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 02/06/2007
Published in the Telegraph.co.uk

Watching the horrible video of Alan Johnston of the BBC broadcasting Palestinian propaganda under orders from his kidnappers, I found myself asking what it would have been like had he been kidnapped by Israelis, and made to do the same thing the other way round.

The first point is that it would never happen. There are no Israeli organizations - governmental or freelance - that would contemplate such a thing. That fact is itself significant.

But just suppose that some fanatical Jews had grabbed Mr. Johnston and forced him to spout their message, abusing his own country as he did so. What would the world have said?

There would have been none of the caution which has characterized the response of the BBC and of the Government since Mr Johnston was abducted on March 12. The Israeli government would immediately have been condemned for its readiness to harbour terrorists or its failure to track them down.

Loud would have been the denunciations of the extremist doctrines of Zionism which had given rise to this vile act. The world isolation of Israel, if it failed to get Mr. Johnston freed, would have been complete.

If Mr Johnston had been forced to broadcast saying, for example, that Israel was entitled to all the territories held since the Six-Day War, and calling on the release of all Israeli soldiers held by Arab powers in return for his own release, his words would have been scorned. The cause of
Israel in the world would have been irreparably damaged by thus torturing him on television. No one would have been shy of saying so.

But of course in real life it is Arabs holding Mr Johnston, and so everyone treads on tip-toe. Bridget Kendall of the BBC opined that Mr Johnston had been "asked" to say what he said in his video. Asked! If it were merely an "ask", why did he not say no?

Throughout Mr Johnston's captivity, the BBC has continually emphasised that he gave "a voice" to the Palestinian people, the implication being that he supported their cause, and should therefore be let out. One cannot imagine the equivalent being said if he had been held by Israelis.

Well, he is certainly giving a voice to the Palestinian people now. And the truth is that, although it is under horrible duress, what he says is not all that different from what the BBC says every day through the mouths of reporters
who are not kidnapped and threatened, but are merely collecting their wages.

The language is more lurid in the Johnston video, but the narrative is essentially the same as we have heard over the years from Orla Guerin and Jeremy Bowen and virtually the whole pack of them.

It is that everything that is wrong in the Middle East and the wider Muslim world is the result of aggression or "heavy-handedness" (have you noticed how all actions by American or Israeli troops are "heavy-handed", just as surely as all racism is "unacceptable"?) by America or Israel or Britain.

Alan Johnston, under terrorist orders, spoke of the "absolute despair" of the Palestinians and attributed it to 40 years of Israeli occupation, "supported by the West". That is how it is resented, night after night, by the BBC.

The other side is almost unexamined. There is little to explain the internecine strife in the Arab world, particularly in Gaza, or the cynical motivations of Arab leaders for whom Palestinian miseries are politically convenient.

You get precious little investigation of the networks and mentalities of Islamist extremism - the methods and money of Hamas or Hizbollah and comparable groups - which produce acts of pure evil like that in which Mr. Johnston is involuntarily complicit.

The spotlight is not shone on how the "militants" (the BBC does not even permit the word "terrorist" in the Middle East context) and the warlords maintain their corruption and rule of fear, persecuting, among others, the Palestinians.

Instead it shines pitilessly on Blair and Bush and on Israel.

>From the hellish to the ridiculous, the pattern is the same. Back at home, the Universities and Colleges Union has just voted for its members to "consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions".

Well, they could consider how work by scientists at the Technion in Haifa has led to the production of the drug Velcade, which treats multiple myeloma. Or they could look at the professor at Ben-Gurion University who discovered a bacteria that fights malaria and river blindness by killing
mosquitoes and black fly.

Or they could study the cperation between researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who have isolated the protein that triggers stress in order to try to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, and their equivalents at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.

The main universities of Israel are, in fact, everything that we in the West would recognise as proper universities. They have intellectual freedom. They do not require an ethnic or religious qualification for entry. They are not controlled by the government. They have world-class standards of research, often producing discoveries which benefit all humanity. In all this, they are virtually unique in the Middle East.

The silly dons are not alone. The National Union of Journalists, of which I am proud never to have been a member, has recently passed a comparable motion, brilliantly singling out the only country in the region with a free press for pariah treatment. Unison, which is a big, serious union, is being pressed to support a boycott of Israeli
goods, products of the only country in the region with a free trade union movement.

The doctrine is that Israel practises "apartheid" and that it must therefore be boycotted.

All this is moral madness. It is not mad, of course, to criticise Israeli policy. In some respects, indeed, it would be mad not to. It is not mad - though I think it is mistaken - to see the presence of Israel as the main reason for the
lack of peace in the region.

But it is mad or, perhaps one should rather say, bad to try to raid Western culture's reserves of moral indignation and expend them on a country that is part of that culture in favour of surrounding countries that aren't. How can we have
got ourselves into a situation in which we half-excuse turbaned torturers for kidnapping our fellow-citizens while trying to exclude Jewish biochemists from lecturing to our students?

Nobody yet knows the precise motivations of Mr Johnston's captors, but it is surely not a coincidence that they held him in silence until the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War approached, and only then made him speak. They wanted him to give the world their historical explanation - Israeli oppression - for their cause.

Yet that war took place because President Nasser of Egypt led his country and his allies declaring "Our basic aim will be to destroy Israel".

He failed, abjectly, and Egypt and Jordan later gave up the aspiration. But many others maintain it to this day, now with a pseudo-religious gloss added.

We keep giving sympathetic air-time to their death cult. In a way, Mr Johnston is paying the price: his captors are high on the oxygen of his corporation's publicity.

As for Israel, many sins can be laid to its charge. But it is morally serious in a way that we are not, because it has to be. Forty years after its greatest victory, it has to work out each morning how it can survive.

British Academic Boycott of Israel.

The University and College Union (UCU) of Britain, the largest academic organization in the United Kingdom, voted last Wednesday in favor of an academic boycott of Israel.

The vote was not submitted to the general membership of over 100,000 but rather to the board principally because the powers that were trying to lead the boycott knew it would fail in the general vote.

Interesting that this vote is designed to support a population in which it is actually illegal to be British (it is illegal to be a member of the Anglican church, or any other religion under Sharia, Islamic Law). At least if you're not Muslim.

Oh yes, a population that also blew up the best school in Gaza, the American International School, in April (both Hamas and Islamic Jihad took credit for that) thereby depriving their own citizens of any chance at higher education.

Of course, they could also boycott Lebanon which forbids so called Palestinians from being citizens, and severely restricts what jobs they can hold, let alone allow them to go to university.

So, boycott the university system of a country in which academic and intellectual freedom flourishes like no where else in the world. Where there are universal rights for all religions and a free press, etc.

But how's this - here's an article today from Ilan Berman, vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.


May 29, 2007, 8:00 a.m.

Iran Takes Prisoners
Nervous mullahs in action.

By Ilan Berman

A conservative, the old adage goes, is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. Today, nowhere is this saying more apt than in the case of proponents of U.S.-Iranian “dialogue,” who are getting a harsh dose of reality about the true intentions of the ayatollahs in Tehran.

Just ahead of yesterday’s planned U.S.-Iranian meeting to discuss Iraq, the Islamic Republic has launched a vicious crackdown on Iranian-American scholars and activists. The most high-profile victim of this offensive is Haleh Esfandiari, the head of the Middle East program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who was rounded up May 8 on charges of trying to foment a “soft revolution” against the Iranian regime. Ever since, she has languished in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, in spite of public entreaties for her release from prominent policymakers and senior statesmen.

Esfandiari is hardly the only casualty of the regime’s crackdown. Back in January, Parnaz Azima, a correspondent for the U.S. government’s Persian-language Radio Farda service, was stripped of her passport and placed under surveillance, accused of carrying subversive information into the Islamic Republic. Most recently, the Iranian regime’s security forces have detained two other activists: Kian Tajbakhsh, a social scientist affiliated with George Soros’s Open Society Institute, and Ali Shakeri, a peace activist working with the University of California-Irvine.

Ironically enough, Esfandiari and at least some of the others have been among the most prominent advocates of a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran. By imprisoning them, the Iranian regime has made clear that it has little interest in the type of normalization they had in mind.

Nor can this turn of events be chalked up to minority sentiment. Back in March, when Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard detained 15 British sailors in the Persian Gulf, many observers were quick to discount it as the work of a fringe group within the regime, pointing to the incident’s swift resolution and the absence of Iran’s firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, from the proceedings as proof positive that cooler clerical heads had prevailed.

The latest crackdown can’t be discounted so easily; it implicates a wide swath of the Iranian establishment, including Iran’s security forces, its judicial system, its penal authorities, and, most significantly, at least one segment of its clerical leadership. And its message is unmistakable: Iran’s ruling regime is petrified of the possibility of democratic change within its borders.

Iran’s ayatollahs have good reason to be frightened. Aging and infirm, Iran’s ruling clerical elite presides over a restive, youthful and Westward-looking population. Over the past year, officials in Tehran have watched in alarm as the Bush administration has attempted to empower these forces, authorizing some $75 million for democracy promotion efforts within the Islamic Republic. In the process, it has confronted the Iranian leadership with the possibility of a popular revolution similar to the type that took place in Georgia in 2003, in Ukraine in 2004/2005, and in Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan in 2005.

The current clampdown, therefore, represents a logical reaction on the part of the Iranian regime. By imprisoning Esfandiari and other advocates of accommodation, the regime hopes to send the message to advocates of more lasting change that working with Washington could be hazardous to their health. In the process, it hopes to chill interest in American-style democracy among the constituency most susceptible to it: the Iranian “street.”

For the moment, officials in Washington are rightly concerned over the safety of the U.S. citizens now in Iranian custody. But they should also see the regime’s overreaction as a hopeful sign. It demonstrates that the Iranian regime is stagnant, under siege, and deeply fearful of democracy. All of which should be music to the ears of an administration that has made pluralism in the Middle East a major foreign-policy priority.

So, I wonder why they're boycotting Israel? Can't find another country that suppresses academic freedom?