CHAPTER ELEVEN

Attrition, and the October War

The June 1967 War was fought by the countries in the Middle East for the possession of land. It was a Middle Eastern war and the Great Powers stood aside. As soon as it was over the Middle East once again became an area of Great-Power rivalry. Within eighteen months Russia had made good the military losses of the Arab states. To the United States this seemed to challenge Western interests. In the end Washington was always prepared to back Israel, but under the influence of the State Department it also tried to woo the Arabs. Moscow saw the chance to establish a permanent Russian fleet in the Mediterranean, and probably hoped that its support of the Arab cause would give Russia access to a warm-water port. Britain, though involved in the international diplomacy, was only engaged in the sidelines: British paramountcy in the area had passed two decades earlier. France, with the Algerian War over, tried to cultivate the friendship of the Arabs. Henry Kissinger, President Richard Nixon’s White House adviser, attributed the British and French position to the ‘deplorable’ American attitude during the Suez crisis of 1956: the American humiliation of its allies had shattered their confidence, and awareness of a global role had left a vacuum in the Middle East which the United States had had to fill.¹ Israel fought the June 1967 War in a favourable climate of world opinion. Its extension of Israeli sovereignty to Arab Jerusalem, and the picture of poor Arab refugees crossing from the West Bank into Jordan – even though Israel offered to have those new refugees back – soon dispelled this.²

Suddenly the Palestinian refugee question, ignored for twenty years, became an issue that concerned world statesmen. Arab propaganda shifted away from Nasser’s promotion of his Philosophy of Revolution and acquired some subtlety: The Times carried a full-page advertisement asking for a Balfour to found a home for 2 million Arabs. Yasser Arafat, despite his terrorist activities, probably achieved more for the Arab cause than Nasser had ever done. Nasser might have been idolized in Egypt – the people refused his resignation after the June 1967 War and there was national mourning after his death – but his Philosophy of Revolution destroyed any form of Arab unity and alienated the West. It was Arafat who helped to bring the plight of the Palestinian refugees to the attention of the West. Nixon told a National Security Council meeting on 10 June 1970 that the failure to deal with this question was one of the major lapses of the post-Second World War era.³ After their humiliation in June 1967, however, the Arab states were not prepared to condone even the existence of Israel. Leaders of Arab states met at Khartoum at the end of August 1967, and decided that there should be no negotiations with Israel; no peace with Israel; no recognition of Israel; and that Palestinian territory could not be subject to bargaining. In October 1968 Al-Fatah rejected all compromises that could halt the armed strife: it demanded a ‘free, open, non-sectarian, non-racist society in Palestine’.⁴ Israel had achieved more under Eshkol than during any previous premiership. On his death, Eshkol was succeeded by Golda Meir, a woman who had grown up amidst the pogroms in Russia and had helped to pioneer the Yishuv in Palestine. Through her direct approach, and feigning a disbelief in State Department strictures, she managed to convince Nixon that Russia had to know that the United States would not let Israel be destroyed. Meir managed to link Israel’s survival with that of American interests in the Middle East.

Resolution 242

At a time of waning enthusiasm for Israel’s occupation of Arab lands, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242 on 22 November 1967. This was a triumph for British diplomacy. In the early stages of discussion Britain refrained from supporting an American draft that the Arabs considered too favourable to Israel. George Brown, however, did assure Eban that Britain would only advocate Israeli withdrawal if agreed boundaries were secured to establish a permanent peace. On 18 November Eban rejected a British draft as he felt that it would give the United Nations representative the power to dictate a solution. Hussein and Mahmoud Riad, the Egyptian negotiator, however, secured from Arthur Goldberg, the American ambassador, the assurance that Johnson would guarantee the implementation of the final resolution, subject to boundary rectifications and a new status for Jerusalem. As it seemed that only the Americans could persuade Israel to withdraw from Sinai and the West Bank, Nasser and Hussein agreed to Resolution 242, despite objections from Syria, Iraq and Algeria. The Americans told the British delegation that they could only accept a resolution that had Israeli endorsement. Under this pressure Lord Caradon changed his draft to stipulate that the United Nations representative would merely have to ‘promote agreement between the states of the region’. This gave Israel the necessary assurance and, in any case, the ambiguities of the wording provided the necessary loopholes for both sides. Resolution 242 provided for a ‘just and lasting peace’ within ‘secure and recognized boundaries’; Israel was to withdraw ‘from territories occupied in the recent conflict’ and there was to be acknowledgement of all states’ ‘sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence’. The Arab states and Russia failed to have withdrawal from ‘all’ the territories occupied included. Johnson insisted the text be left as it was. Russia and India supported the resolution on the understanding that the withdrawal envisaged was from all the territories.⁵

Gunnar Jarring, the Swedish ambassador to Moscow, was appointed by U Thant as the United Nations special representative. For over three years Jarring energetically flew from Arab capitals to Cyprus, where he was based, and to Israel. But little came of his diplomacy. Both sides had other interests.⁶

Nasser saw to the reconstruction of Egypt’s armed forces, securing not only the latest Russian weaponry, particularly aircraft and missiles, but Russian technical assistance and help in retraining the Egyptian officer corps. This was the period of Nasser’s maturity: he virtually abandoned promoting his Philosophy of Revolution and tried instead to further Egyptian neutralism. Nasser resisted Russian attempts to obtain a warm-water port and naval base in Egypt. He sought a rapprochement with Britain. The British withdrawal from Aden encouraged this, together with the announcement that British forces would leave the Persian Gulf. Indeed, when King Idris of Libya was overthrown by Muammar al-Qaddafi in a coup d’état in September 1969, and American and British forces withdrew from Libya, Britain no longer seemed to have any imperial presence in the area. Beeley was welcomed back as British ambassador. The Egyptian economy was partly sustained by contributions from the oil revenues of some Arab states, together with Russian contributions. Nasser, to some extent working with Hussein, tried to heal breaches in the Arab world. Indeed, the Egyptian President took up the cause of the Palestinian refugees. In 1968 Yasser Arafat accompanied him to Moscow. Nasser finally acknowledged that a failure in the Arab struggle had been the absence of a Palestinian element. The Egyptian authorities, to the annoyance of the Jordanians, started training and equipping the members of Al-Fatah. After the Syrian experience, however, Nasser resisted premature efforts to join Arab states together. This disenchanted Qaddafi, who hoped to unite Egypt and Libya. Cairo even thwarted Qaddafi’s attempt to sink the British liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, in the Mediterranean. In January 1970 Nasser secured the promise of the latest Russian missiles, SAM-3’s, technicians to man them, MiG-25 reconnaissance aircraft and eighty other Russian planes, and the appropriate number of Russian technicians to handle them.⁷

The War of Attrition

During this period Nasser led a war of attrition against Israel. By the end of 1968 there had been almost 1,000 incidents along the Jordanian frontier and approaching 200 on the Egyptian border, as well as clashes involving Syria and the Lebanon, and also in Gaza. Perhaps the Canal Zone was the worst affected. After Israeli shelling Nasser evacuated the towns of Suez and Port Tewfik. In November 1968 and April 1969 Israeli commando units attacked bridges over the Nile and electricity plants in Upper Egypt. An Israeli force captured the island of Shadwan (Green Island) off the Red Sea coast in January 1970 and destroyed radar equipment. In February there were further deep-penetration Israeli strikes against SAM missile sites. Nasser had formally announced the war of attrition on 8 March 1969. He aimed to destroy the Bar Lev line fortifications that the Israelis had constructed on the east side of the canal. By the middle of 1970 it was evident that Egypt was having to sustain considerable losses.

Israel and the American connection

Israel, meanwhile, pursued the American connection. In January 1968 Johnson assured Eshkol that the United States would supply Israel with Phantom jet fighters. The President anticipated that his successor would honour that agreement. Nixon conducted most of his foreign policy through the White House Office, but possibly because of the Jewish background of his special assistant, Henry Kissinger, the President left Middle Eastern affairs in the hands of William Rogers and the State Department. On 16 January 1969 France proposed four-power consultation on the Middle East. Washington agreed, but also decided on simultaneous two-power talks with Moscow. The Zionist lobby objected to any substitute for direct talks between Israel and the Arabs. Celler and five other congressmen saw Kissinger and Nixon on 13 February. Eban protested in March. Washington found Nasser’s attitude intractable, and attributed it to his Pan-Arab ambitions. Hussein, dependent on American aid, seemed more amenable when he met Nixon on 8 April. Against a background of a deteriorating situation in the Middle East, and a promise by Golda Meir to repay seventeenfold any Arab attacks on Israel, the State Department attempted several unsuccessful initiatives. In September Nixon assured Golda Meir that he favoured a strong Israel, and on 9 December Rogers outlined a plan: both sides had to make concessions; the United States did not support expansionism, and boundary modifications should be confined to ‘insubstantial alternatives required for mutual security’. The Israeli Cabinet rejected these proposals. Nasser initially accused Washington of supplying planes to Israel to bomb Egyptian schools. Then on 23 July 1970 Nasser accepted Rogers’s proposal for a cease-fire: the President explained to Arafat that he needed time to finish his rocket defences, and to secure bridging equipment. Russia supported an American-sponsored cease-fire between Israel and Egypt on 8 August.⁸

The Jordanian Civil War

A few weeks later Jordan exploded. The fedayeen resented Hussein’s apparent attempts to achieve a political settlement with Israel. The King survived an assassination attempt in June, and took personal command of his army. Hussein retained the fierce loyalty of his bedouin followers. On 1 September Palestinians again attempted to assassinate Hussein, and there was fighting between the loyal army and the fedayeen. The King asked for American support and Iraq threatened to stop Hussein’s attacks on the fedayeen, but the Jordanians had the situation under control. Then, on 6 September, members of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PELP) started hijacking aircraft to Dawson Field, a strip about 30 miles (50 km) from Amman. They demanded the release of fedayeen in British, German and Swiss gaols, and said they would keep Israeli and American-Israeli passengers until guerrillas were released from Israeli gaols. Until this episode Arab terrorism had followed the sort of tactics used by Begin and the Irgun, with the connivance of Haganah, against the British in the Palestine mandate. On the whole terrorism had been directed against Israeli citizens and sympathizers. This new departure, involving Western nationals, was probably supported by a thinking which suggested Western responsibility for the Palestinian refugees: the Arabs had never been able to understand why they had been forced to give up their land to atone for Western feelings of guilt about Hitler’s pogroms. To them the West seemed morally responsible for the Palestinian refugees, and was reluctant to apply the principles of the charter of the United Nations to achieve a solution. John Frankenheimer finally made this point to American audiences in his film, Black Sunday, in 1977.

The Western reaction to Dawson Field did not win the Palestinian cause many sympathizers, but it did instil into Western consciousness an awareness of the refugee problem. On the whole Western sympathy was rather selective: the murder of Israeli Olympic team members by Palestinian terrorists in 1972, partly as a result of bungling by the West German authorities, created far more of an outcry than the hanging of the two British sergeants in 1947, or the blowing up of the King David Hotel in 1946. On 9 September 1970 Washington investigated the consequences of a protracted military engagement in Jordan, and how Russian intervention could be deterred. The West European countries were persuaded that they should not hand over their fedayeen prisoners until all the passengers were released. The Palestinians blew up the aircraft, but secured no concessions. In the middle of September Hussein decided to establish order in his country: he asked Washington to restrain Israel, and warned that he might have to ask for assistance if other Arab states intervened. On 15 September Sir Denis Greenhill, the permanent head of the British Foreign Office, warned Washington that a battle between the fedayeen and Hussein’s soldiers was likely; he asked about American intentions. Kissinger indicated that American military involvement could not be excluded. He also told the Washington Special Actions Group, the President’s advisory body, that it was essential that Hussein should stay: it should be shown that friendship with the West and a moderate foreign policy would be rewarded with American support. This was also a chance to arrest extremism in the Middle East which had been encouraged by the arrival of Russian missiles and military officials in Egypt. Nasser’s attempt to blackmail the United States with Russian threats also had to be exposed as futile. Nixon, however, involved in an election campaign, preferred unilateral American action to Israeli military moves. On 17 September Hussein ordered his army into Amman, and attacked Palestinian concentrations in the north of Jordan.

Washington kept in close touch with London, and assured Hussein that it sympathized with his efforts. American forces were rapidly deployed in the Mediterranean, and Nixon leaked to the press that he would make the Russians pay for their missiles along the Suez Canal. Golda Meir visited the President on 18 September, and said that Israel would inform the United Sates before it did anything. Moscow hoped for American prudence. On 20 September Syrian tanks invaded Jordan. Kissinger decided that Moscow and the Arab radicals should not have the initiative. Washington asked Moscow to impress upon Syria the need to withdraw its forces from Jordan, and to desist from further intervention there. An American brigade in Germany was prepared for an air drop. That evening Nixon became resolute. Greenhill passed on Hussein’s request for immediate air strikes. Washington did not have the intelligence or target information: an Israeli move seemed essential. Israel was asked to make reconnaissance flights. Israel mobilized, and on 21 September two brigades moved towards the Golan Heights. After this there were hints of Russian pressure on Syria. Hussein, encouraged by American backing, attacked the Syrian tanks; they started to withdraw from Jordan.

The Middle East had once again become an area of Great-Power confrontation. The hijack hostages were freed, some by Hussein’s soldiers. Arab heads of state met in Cairo on 22 September, and on 25 September it was announced that an agreement had been reached between Hussein and the captured Palestinian leaders. Arafat, however, denounced this. Syrian reverses led to an effective change of government there: on 19 October the Defence Minister, Hafiz al-Asad, seized power. He refused to allow Palestinian activities in Syria as these could involve the Syrian army in clashes with Israel. In January 1971 Asad visited Moscow and obtained financial assistance and military aid, including substantial numbers of aircraft and technical advisers to rebuild the Syrian army. Early that same year Dr George Habash, the leader of the PFLP, founded the Free Jordan Movement with the aim of overthrowing Hussein. Arafat denounced Habash, but Hussein decided that no agreement was possible with the Palestinian guerrillas. In July 1971 he attacked their camps, and the guerrillas were moved to the Lebanon.⁹

Sadat and Arab preparations for war

On 28 September 1970 Nasser died. He was succeeded by Anwar el-Sadat, another of the free army officers who had overthrown Farouk in 1952. On 1 March 1971 Sadat went to Moscow. He wanted to ensure Egyptian equality with Israel on arms. On 8 March Sadat asked Arafat what resistance Al-Fatah could provide in the event of a new war. The President advised against any provocation of Hussein. The next month the unity of Egypt, Syria and Libya was agreed. Sadat surmounted a threatened coup by pro-Russian elements and then on 27 May 1971 signed a friendship treaty with Moscow, possibly to pacify Russian suspicions over the anti-Soviet purge. Sadat secured further aircraft and arms from Russia, while at the same time opening channels to Washington. Local tensions developed over the Russian presence in Egypt and on 12 April 1972 Sadat told Leonid Brezhnev that the Russians had not supported their friends as actively as the United States had Israel. The Egyptian President complained about the flow of Russian Jews to Israel: many were intellectuals and scientists helping to build up the Zionist state. Sadat became disillusioned with Moscow: it delayed arms supplies; and five years after the June 1967 War the Russian connection had not provided any solution to the Israeli problem. He informed Brezhnev that Egypt could not become a trusteeship territory of Russia. On 18 July Sadat announced that the 15,000 Russian military advisers and experts were to leave Egypt within a week; the equipment and installations established in Egypt after 1967 were to become Egyptian property. Possibly Sadat was worried that Nixon and Brezhnev had just agreed at their summit conference that there should be no war in the Middle East.¹⁰

While the United States was furthering relations with Egypt, Israel was building up its forces with American weapons. In January 1970 Nixon had threatened to delay the supply of Phantom jets to Israel in retaliation for Zionist demonstrations against French President Georges Pompidou in Chicago. France had agreed to supply Libya with aircraft which the Zionists felt could be used against Israel. Nixon also hoped, by this gesture, to further diplomatic relations with Egypt and Syria. By the end of September, however, the Phantoms had started arriving in Israel. Nixon believed in a strong Israel. After Sadat broke the friendship treaty with Russia, Israel concentrated on anti-terrorist activities as Palestinian hijackings and murders spread across the world. But at the beginning of 1973 Israel felt that American support and military aid, the decline in international pressure following the Munich Olympic massacre and Egypt’s weakening links with Russia all made an Arab attack unlikely. The Arabs in the occupied territories seemed acquiescent. Dayan mentioned abandoning the remote prospects of peace, and instead drawing up a new map of Israel: he wanted to resettle Judea and Samaria. On 14 May 1973, on BBC television, Dayan spoke of Israel remaining till the end of time on the West Bank: if the Palestinian Arabs did not like that they could go to another Arab country. He told Time magazine on 30 July that Palestine was finished. In April he had referred to his vision of a new state of Israel stretching from the Jordan River to the Suez Canal. Dayan’s statements were not necessarily official Israeli policy, but they projected an image. Sadat was particularly exercised by Dayan’s designs for a new port of Yamit at Rafah which would isolate Egypt from the Gaza Strip. There was also a degree of military euphoria in Israel: on 4 June 1973 Allon said that Egypt had no military option at all. Israel’s dramatic anti-terrorist activities helped: in April 1973 Israel even searched for terrorist leaders in the streets of Beirut. On 10 August Israeli jets forced a Lebanese airliner back to Beirut on the pretext that a Palestinian terrorist leader could be on board. Even American public opinion resented this sort of high-handed action, but it projected an image of Israeli power.¹¹

Sadat was moving, and being moved, towards war. It was evident that Egypt had not achieved, and was not likely to reach, tactical military parity with Israel in the near future. Israel had adopted a status quo stance: for over five years there had been no concessions over the territories occupied during the June 1967 War. It was evident that only pressure from Russia or the United States would secure serious Israeli negotiations on the basis of Resolution 242. Given the reality that Egypt’s military preparedness was not likely to improve, the evidence of Israeli designs for permanent control over the occupied territories and in particular Dayan’s scheme for the port of Yamit, it probably seemed to Sadat that the only way of achieving a Middle East settlement was another war that might force the Great Powers and the United Nations to take more interest in the Arab predicament. Of course Sadat was principally worried about Egypt. The Egyptian economy was straining: there was the cost of the Aswan dam; the war in the Yemen; industrial development; and most of all the $8–9m it had cost to re-equip the defence forces between 1968 and 1973. Egyptians could not be expected to suffer austerity indefinitely. The army was showing the strains of almost five years of total mobilization and some of the conscripts had been in full-time service for the whole period. Egypt, particularly after Nasser’s death, had enjoyed more international support for its cause, and some sympathizers felt that it was doing little to utilize this. Even the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, put on Arab clothes and rode a camel while on a goodwill visit to Egypt. But Egypt’s sympathizers increasingly felt that Cairo was not taking advantage of this new mood. The emerging detente between Russia and the United States could also mean that Egypt would not have another chance. The superpowers could accept the status quo or impose a humiliating settlement in their own interests. A war, even if only partly successful, could lead to the opening of the Suez Canal and a source of revenue for Egypt. It could also restore Egypt’s flagging position in the Arab world. Sadat had noted 30 November 1972 as the day he decided to go to war.¹²

In November 1972 General Ahmed Ismail Ali became commander-in-chief of the Egyptian armed forces, and Minister of War. With both British and Russian training, Ismail understood the relationship between war and politics, and developed a strategy based on the principle that the superpowers would prevent a complete military victory by either side. Egypt had to contend with both Israeli air, technological and tactical superiority. This had to be matched by exploiting Israeli weakness in manpower, and fighting a two-front war with Syrian assistance. Ismail also worked on the principle that Israel suffered more from the loss of its fighting men than territory or material. Surprise was to be the essential element. On 31 January 1973 the armed forces of Syria and Egypt were put under a unified command. Qaddafi was excluded from the planning because of his ideas as to how the attack should be launched. Libya, however, made a substantial contribution to the cost of the weapons. Sadat warned Arafat to be ready to fight, but the Palestinian leader did not take much notice. The Egyptian President also tried to achieve a semblance of Arab unity. He worked closely with King Feisal of Saudi Arabia and President Boumedienne of Algeria. By doing this Sadat hoped for the support of both the conservative and radical elements in the Arab world. In May 1973, in Cairo, Sadat told Feisal that he was confident that the Egyptian army could cross the Suez Canal and advance into Sinai; at the same time Syria could cope with the Israeli forces on the Golan Heights. Feisal agreed to provide money and restrict oil production and to see that the Gulf states co-operated in this. President Asad of Syria secured a promise of Russian support in the United Nations in the event of a possible war with Israel. Feisal made arrangements with Boumedienne to control the radical oil producers. Diplomatically, the Arabs scored another victory in May: most members of the Organization of African Unity meeting in Addis Ababa agreed to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. Egyptian and Saudi Arabian diplomats also travelled the world arguing the Arab case and suggesting that the prevailing situation could not continue. This helped to secure support in the United Nations. That same month, on the day that Israel celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, Arab oil producers stopped production for one hour to mark the anniversary of ‘the usurpation of Palestine’. Feisal hoped, in vain, that this demonstration would stir Washington. Instead the King became increasingly disturbed over Washington’s support for the Shah of Iran, whose growing armed forces were challenging Saudi Arabian paramountcy in the Gulf. Riyadh moved towards Cairo. Syria also sacrificed several aircraft and pilots on 3 September to prevent Israeli reconnaissance planes from discovering the new SAM batteries around the port of Tartous. Syrian military intelligence also planned the raid by Palestinian commandos on the train taking Jews from Russia to Vienna which led to the closure of the transit camp at Schoenau Castle in Austria, to divert attention from the Arab military preparations. The Syrian plan worked: Golda Meir personally went to see the Austrian Chancellor, himself a Jew, in an effort to persuade him to reopen the transit camp. Israel and the United States attributed Syrian military moves to defensive preparations in case Israel retaliated for the closure of the camp. A conference between Sadat, Asad and Hussein in Cairo led to the resumption of diplomatic relations between Egypt and Jordan. Egypt was preparing a united Arab front for the war.¹³

Between 22 and 28 August 1973 eight Egyptians and six Syrian officers meeting in Alexandria finalized the plan for a simultaneous attack on Israeli forces in Sinai and the Golan Heights. The general operation had been agreed in April. They left with the day and the hour of the attack still to be decided. Signals came out of Cairo that war was not imminent: a contract for a pipeline was awarded to an American firm; it was announced that officers would be given special leave to go to Mecca. There were disagreements with the Syrians over the precise timing of the attack, but by the middle of September Asad consented to 2 p.m. on 6 October: weather conditions, moonrise and tides would be favourable then for the crossing of the canal. It was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, but this was not a primary consideration, if one at all. In the event the attack on that day only facilitated the call-up of Israeli reservists: they were either at home or in the synagogue and the roads were not congested. It was also Ramadan, the month of the Muslim fast – this did not help soldiers’ fitness. On 1 October Sadat warned the Russian ambassador, Vladimir Vinogradov, that a breach of the cease-fire was likely. No precise dates were mentioned to him, or to his counterpart in Damascus. Hussein was only informed on the eve of battle, and then Sadat advised him not to commit his forces at that time. It was decided that the pretext for the battle would be an announcement that the Israelis had attacked Zafarana on the Red Sea.¹⁴

On 6 October 1973 Israel was almost taken by surprise. Dayan was told at 4 a.m. that Syria and Egypt were going to attack later that day. Reserves were mobilized immediately, and a pre-emptive strike by the air force was considered. On 3 October Dayan had advised Golda Meir, just back from her mission to Vienna, of Syrian and possibly Egyptian weapon reinforcements. Intelligence, however, thought that the Egyptians were just on annual manoeuvres. On 5 October the general staff ordered ‘C’ alert, the highest alert, for the army, and also a full alert for the air force. That was all that could be done short of mobilizing the reserves. Golda Meir gave her authority for the reserves to be mobilized on Yom Kippur if this was thought necessary. Preparations were also made to convene the full Cabinet.¹⁵

Washington was taken by surprise when Meir warned of the imminent attack; Nixon was stunned by the failure of Israeli intelligence. The President’s immediate concern was the Russian position. The initial Arab successes excited even their own leaders. The operation had been well planned, and was executed by the Arab soldiers with tenacity, courage and skill. Sadat and Asad turned down Russian offers to arrange a cease-fire. The United States convened a meeting of the Security Council, but there was little interest in arranging a cease-fire. Britain and France, perhaps conscious of the significance of Arab oil, stood aside. But Douglas-Home told the Conservative Party at Blackpool on 12 October that the combatants would need the help of others to reach a settlement. He had ‘been certain that it would not be psychologically possible for the Arabs to go on gazing indefinitely at their own lands without the eruption of war’. The British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, embargoed spares for the Centurion tanks Britain had supplied to Israel. The Labour opposition did not think this even-handed. Nixon’s dilemma was greater: faced with the domestic turmoil of Watergate, he knew he had to sustain Israel while at the same time not permanently alienating Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries. There was also the danger of an Arab oil embargo. But four days of Israeli reverses convinced him that Washington would have to make good their losses, and he instructed Kissinger to work out the necessary logistics. He also knew that Congress did not want American involvement in a Middle Eastern war: it could be another Vietnam. On 10 October Golda Meir thanked Nixon for his offer of material: Israel, however, was confident that it would win. Nixon overrode Pentagon obstacles and insisted that Washington send everything it could fly to get the equipment to Israel. He sent an extra ten Phantom jets and mounted an operation larger than the Berlin airlift of 1948–49.

By 18 October Israeli forces were driving back the Arab armies and Moscow proposed a joint Russian–American cease-fire resolution. Nixon, however, did not like the terms: it implied pre–1967 boundaries. On 17 October the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to reduce oil production. Two days later Nixon asked Congress for $2.2bn for emergency aid for Israel. Abu Dhabi, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Kuwait embargoed oil for the United States. Kissinger flew to Moscow on 20 October, and together with Brezhnev drafted a cease-fire agreement: a cease-fire in place; a general call for the implementation of Resolution 242 after the cease-fire; negotiation to establish a just and durable peace in the Middle East. This was accepted by both sides and set for 22 October, but there were violations, and the Egyptian Third Army of 20,000 men was encircled by Israelis on the east bank of the Suez Canal. A second cease-fire was effected on 24 October. American intelligence, however, reported that seven Russian airborne divisions, 50,000 men, were on alert, and 85 Russian ships were in the Mediterranean. Sadat asked for a joint Russian–American peacekeeping force. Nixon did not like the idea: it would mean a return of Russia to the Middle East. Brezhnev continued to insist that Israel was fighting, and that the United States and Russia should immediately send military forces to the Middle East. Washington took this as a threat of unilateral Russian intervention: shock tactics were decided on and American bases throughout the world were put on nuclear alert. Brezhnev gave way. There were further threats at the end of the month over supplies to the trapped Egyptian Third Army, but nothing very substantial. Golda Meir travelled to Washington at the beginning of November to say thank you. Kissinger started his shuttle diplomacy between the Arab countries and Israel on 5 November. Egypt and the United States resumed diplomatic relations after a break of six years on 7 November 1973.¹⁶

Sadat emerged from the October War a world statesman, something Nasser had aspired to but never achieved. Relations were established between Washington and Cairo: Sadat perceived that only the United States could effectively persuade Israel to make concessions in the occupied territories. The calculation that the superpowers would prevent a victory by either side proved correct, as did the hope that another war would force the powers and the United Nations to take an interest in the Arab predicament. The October War secured serious Israeli security negotiations on the basis of Resolution 242. The Security Council Resolution 338 of 22 October called for the implementation, after the cease-fire, of Resolution 242 ‘in all of its parts’, and decided on ‘negotiations between the parties concerned under appropriate auspices, aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East’.¹⁷

References

1Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (London 1979), p. 347.

2Moshe Dayan, The Story of My Life (London 1972), pp. 311–334; Abba Eban, An Autobiography (London 1977), pp. 438–439.

3Kissinger, op. cit., p. 577.

4Eban, op. cit., p. 445; Kissinger, op. cit., p. 345.

5Eban, op. cit., pp. 426–453; Anthony Nutting, Nasser (London 1972), pp. 436–439; Kissinger, op. cit., p. 345; George Brown, In My Way (London 1972), pp. 225–227; William B. Quandt, Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1967 (Washington 1993), pp. 54–58.

6Eban, op. cit., pp. 452–456, 470–480; Mohammed Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (London 1975), pp. 56–59; Nutting, op. cit., pp. 438–439.

7Heikal, op. cit., pp. 46–90; Malcolm H. Kerr, The Arab Cold War. Gamal’ Abd Al-Nasir and his Rivals 1958–1970, 3rd edn (London 1971), pp. 129–156; Robert Stephens, Nasser. A Political Biography (London 1971), pp. 510–544; Nutting, op. cit., pp. 440–442.

8Dupuy, Elusive Victory: The Arab-Israeli War 1947–1974 (London 1978), pp. 343–369; Kissinger, op. cit., pp. 346–379; Eban, op. cit., pp. 460–70; Quandt, op. cit., pp. 72–104; Heikal, op. cit., pp. 90–7; Mahmoud Riad, The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East (London 1981), pp. 103–181; Richard B. Parker, The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East (Bloomington 1993), pp. 125–163; Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition 1969–1970 (New York 1980); David A. Korn, Stalemate: The War of Attrition and Great Power Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1967–1970 (Boulder 1992).

9Kissinger, op. cit., pp. 594–631; Dupuy, op. cit., pp. 378–83; Quandt, op. cit., pp. 94–115; Heikal, op. cit., pp. 95–103; John Bullock, The Making of a War. The Middle East from 1967–1973 (London 1974), pp. 49–86; Richard Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (London 1978), pp. 483–485; Black Sunday, United States, 1977, directed by John Frankenheimer; Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement 1949–1993 (Oxford 1997), pp. 282–317.

10Heikal, op. cit., pp. 114–184; Kissinger, op. cit., pp. 1276–1300; Quandt, op. cit., pp. 116–47; Riad, op. cit., pp. 183–242.

11Nixon, op. cit., pp. 479–83; Eban, op. cit., pp. 468–94; Heikal, op. cit., p. 205; Dayan, op. cit., pp. 380–1; Robert Slater, Warrior Statesman: The Life of Moshe Dayan (London 1991), p. 333.

12Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity (London 1978), p. 237; Heikal, op. cit., pp. 204–6; Dupuy, op. cit., pp. 387–8.

13Bullock, op. cit., pp. 202–9; Dupuy, op. cit., pp. 388–405; Eban, op. cit., p. 497; Heikal, op. cit., pp. 12, 20; Robert Owen Freedman, Soviet Policy towards the Middle East since 1970 (New York 1975), pp. 125–135.

14Eban, op. cit., p. 504; Heikal, op. cit., pp. 11–45; Bullock, op. cit., pp. 210–11.

15Dayan, op. cit., pp. 375–387; Dupuy, op. cit., pp. 406–10; Eban, op. cit., pp. 500–2.

16Nixon, op. cit., pp. 920–943; Harold Wilson, The Chariot of Israel. Britain, America, and the State of Israel (London 1981), pp. 362–372; Eban, op. cit., pp. 505–30; Heikal, op. cit., pp. 207–61; Dupuy, op. cit., pp. 411–622; Shlomo Aronson, Conflict and Bargaining in the Middle East. An Israeli Perspective (Baltimore 1978), pp. 168–211; Quandt, op. cit., pp. 147–82; Dayan, op. cit., pp. 388–444; David Downing and Gary Herman, War Without End, Peace Without Hope. Thirty Years of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (London 1978), pp. 221–245; Golda Meir, My Life (London 1975), pp. 358–361. Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel, America and the Bomb (London 1993), pp. 225–240 argues that successive American presidents had turned a blind eye to Israel’s manufacture of nuclear weapons and that it was Israel’s threat to use nuclear weapons, and if necessary commit ‘suicide’, the ‘Samson Option’, that led to the American airlift. Efraim Karsh and Martin Navias, ‘Israeli nuclear weapons and Middle East peace’, in Efraim Karsh (Ed.), Between War and Peace: Dilemmas of Israeli Security (London 1996), pp. 75–92 at p. 86 hesitate to endorse this case but concede that it is now widely believed.

17Walter Laqueur, Israel–Arab Reader, 3rd edn (New York 1976), p. 481.