The Political Process Leading to the Third Arab-Israeli War and the United States' “Involvement”

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  • 第三次中東戦争に至る政治過程と米国の「関与」
  • 第3次中東戦争に至る政治過程と米国の「関与」
  • ダイ 3ジ チュウトウ センソウ ニ イタル セイジ カテイ ト ベイコク ノ

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The third Arab-Israeli war of 1967 quickly ended in an overwhelming victory for Israel, in what is called the “Six-day war” by her. At that time, the Arab countries claimed that the United States had participated in the war on the Israeli side, and severed diplomatic relationship with her. Because the U. S. -Egyptian relationship had already been bad before the war, and the Israeli aerial attack was far more efficient than Egyptians had expected, they suspected U. S. -Israeli complicity. In fact, the Johnson administration had repeatedly warned Israel not to initiate hostility, while trying to organize an international fleet to deter Egypt from the use of force. The Arab side, however, continued to maintain that the United States had encouraged Israel to attack Egypt in order to weaken the revolutionary Nasser regime. The then unofficial spokesman of Nasser, Mohamed Heikal, still does so in his recent thick book “1967 al-Infijal (outbreak)” (Cairo, 1990), which is based on declassified documents of the United States and Egypt.<br>According to him, when Egypt demanded the United Nations Emergency Force (which had been stationed in Sinai Peninsular since the 1956 Suez War) to leave from the Israeli border area, United Nations Under-Secretary Ralph Bunche, an American, advised Secretary-General U Thant not to accept partial withdrawal, thus provoking Egypt to demand total withdrawal and to occupy Sharm el-Sheikh and then close the Strait of Tiran for Israel. It was an American plot to give Israel a casus belli. After that the United States warned Egypt, in cooperation with the Soviet Union, not to initiate hostility while hinting to Israel that she would not, unlike on the occasion of the Suez War, support any United Nations move to sanction Israel if she attacked Egypt.<br>On the American side, serious studies based on declassified documents as well as interviews with then policy-makers have been accumulated, some of which expressly try to refute the Egyptian accusations. I have studied and compared these books and articles, checked many of the documents and interviewed some people myself, and concluded that it is not that the United States “unleashed” Israel to attack Egypt, but that the Nasser regime itself let, through a series of miscalculations, the Egyptian military provoke Israel into war. However, Israeli decision-makers were wise enough not to attack Arab forces prematurely—they gave time to the U. S. and Britain to try to organize the international fleet. When the Johnson administration found the efforts rather fruitless, it was in fact inclined to let Israel help herself. In this sense the United States was involved in the political process leading to the outbreak of the war.

Journal

  • International Relations

    International Relations 1996 (113), 135-151,L15, 1996-12-30

    JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

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