"Without Malice and Without Hypocrisy": Israel's Reaction to the Death of Egyptian President Gamal Abd el-Nasser, 28 September 1970

"Without Malice and Without Hypocrisy": Israel's Reaction to the Death of Egyptian President Gamal Abd el-Nasser, 28 September 1970

45 years ago next week, at 21:50 on the evening of September 28, the voice of Vice-President Anwar Sadat told listeners to Cairo Radio of the death of President Nasser. Nasser died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Cairo, after mediating a ceasefire at the "Black September" crisis in Jordan in a summit attended by both King Hussein and Yasser Arafat. He was only 52, and the news stunned the people of Egypt and the entire Arab world. The journalist Mohamed Heikal, who was with him when he died, described the shock and disbelief of his colleagues and the people of Cairo who poured out of their homes and made their way to the broadcasting station to find out if the news was true. Millions flocked to the city for his funeral, which took place on 1 October, and turned into a mass demonstration of support for Nasser during which the authorities lost control of the crowds (see video clip).

Nasser's funeral procession, 1 October 1970
Photograph: Wikimedia

A State Department report the day before described the crowds which had gathered at Nasser’s house and in the streets as being in a state of public mourning. The armed forces, according to the press, had been placed on alert, although the government was apparently preoccupied with the immediate problems of the succession and preparations for the funeral. A long list of world leaders were expected to attend. The report noted that "although most Israelis have long held that Nasser’s departure from scene would be a boon to Israel, there is some ambivalence in initial reaction. While stressing Nasser’s hostility to Israel, many newspapers and individuals recognize he was a powerful stabilizing force whose passing opens the prospect of greater instability and uncertainty." (See Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), volume 24,no. 333).

After he nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956 and the Anglo-French attempt to topple him failed, Nasser became  an anti-colonial hero in the eyes of  the Arab world and many of the developing countries (the "Third World"). However, in the 1960s Egypt became embroiled in an unsuccessful war in Yemen and was defeated in the Six Day War of 1967. Because of his threats to destroy Israel, many Israelis saw him as a latter-day Hitler. In 1969, Nasser started the War of Attrition on the Suez Canal. Shortly before his death, he agreed to the caesefire plan of US Secretary of State William Rogers, about which we wrote here in August. 

Here we present a collection of documents in Hebrew, including two specially declassified government meetings, on the reaction to Nasser's death in the territories occupied in 1967 and among the Arab citizens of Israel and the question of succession in Egypt (see our Hebrew blog). We also describe the reaction of Israel's president Zalman Shazar, whose words of sympathy for the feelings of the Arab citizens aroused public protest, but also expressions of support.

Golda Meir and Zalman Shazar,  March 1969
Photograph: Fritz Cohen, Government Press Office

The Government Meetings on 29 September and 4 October:  Israel Should React "Without Malice or Hypocrisy" (Files A55/5, A55/6)

At the beginning of the meeting on 29 September, Army Intelligence Chief Aharon Yariv surveyed the situation in Egypt (this section has not been declassified). Afterwards, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan put the death of Nasser in the context of the ceasefire with Egypt and the crisis in Jordan. The dramatic changes in Egypt and Jordan might encourage Israel to adopt an attitude of "wait and see", but Dayan felt that it should take the initiative to ensure that the ceasefire would continue.

The ministers, already worried about the effect of "Black September" on the territories, focused on reaction there and among the Arab citizens of Israel. Minister of Police Shlomo Hillel noted the disturbances in East Jerusalem, where all the shops had been closed down and roads were blocked. However the demonstrations were dispersed without difficulty by the police. He described the public in the West Bank and Gaza as a "flock without anyone to turn to," with genuine feelings of shock and grief. There were also some minor incidents among the Israeli Arabs. Hillel was concerned about the day of Nasser's funeral, which coincided with the Jewish New Year, and possible incidents near the Western Wall.

Some of the ministers were willing to allow Arabs from the territories and Israel to go to Cairo for the funeral. Prime Minister Golda Meir favoured allowing expressions of mourning so long as they did not lead to violence, and Minister of Communications and Transport Shimon Peres said the government should show generosity. Golda reported that President Zalman Shazar wanted to make a radio statement on Nasser's death. Tourism Minister Moshe Kol said there was no reason for generosity towards Nasser: his policies were a failure and, while driving out the British and the French, he had let in the Russians. Nasser could have been a great leader but had wasted his efforts on trying to destroy Israel. However, a new ruler in Egypt might take a different line, and Kol agreed with Dayan that Israel should take the initiative. Several ministers favoured an official statement by Shazar or Golda, but Interior Minister Yosef Burg said they should approach the question "without malice and without hypocrisy." Surely the Jewish community of Shushan would not have sent a telegram of sympathy to the family of Haman (who had plotted to destroy the Jews). 

In the end, the government agreed with Golda that neither they nor Shazar should issue any announcement. On 1 October, speaking at Kibbutz Revivim, Golda said that Nasser had not brought any achievements to his people, only war, and she had never understood the claim of the Americans that Egypt could have had a worse leader.

On 4 October, Hillel and Dayan again reported on Arab reactions to the government meeting (along with a long list of other items). Hillel said that he had approved a request by the Chamber of Commerce in East Jerusalem to organize prayers and a procession on the day of the funeral, after they had promised to prevent all political demonstrations. To his surprise, they had kept their word. The Communists in Nazareth had also organized a procession which was preceded by a violent demonstration, arrests and a warning to the organizers. In Acre (a mixed town with tension between Jews and Arabs) there was a violent incident. According to Dayan, there were processions in most West Bank towns which he saw as a demonstration of strength and independence by the Palestinians.

On 8 October, the Foreign Ministry issued a summary of events between 24 September and 8 October, much of it devoted to reaction to Nasser's death in Egypt, the Arab world and Israel. It included a special supplement on Anwar Sadat, who was chosen by the ruling party, the Arab Socialist Union, as its candidate for president on 5 October. The document, which contained some factual errors, portrayed Sadat as deeply loyal to Nasser, "the button on Nasser's jacket," but also noted that some thought him an opportunist. He was described as having "a low intellectual capacity, narrow minded and lacking in independent political ideas". It claimed that Sadat smoked hashish and had two wives, he was a "hawk' on Israel and a right winger in his social views (See file A7062/5).

Nasser and the speaker of the National Assembly Anwar Sadat, 1964
Photograph: Wikimedia

Most observers, inside and outside Egypt, underestimated Sadat and saw him as a stop-gap candidate. For example Henry Kissinger's report to President Nixon "Why Sadat?" explained that “as a member of Nasser’s original revolutionary group, and because Nasser named him Vice President in December 1969, Sadat brings an aura of legitimacy and continuity to the succession and to the presidency. He lacks, however, Nasser’s charisma and as a perennial figurehead in the government ... he also lacks widespread respect and authority. Sadat’s greatest claim to leadership would seem to rest on his extreme nationalism, his long record of loyal, if unspectacular service to Nasser and to the apparent fact that he is acceptable to both pro-Soviet and more moderate factions. (See FRUS Vol. 24, editorial note, pp. 554-555)

Shazar's Intervention

Shazar had shown himself in the past as a humanist sensitive to the feelings of others, even ideological opponents or enemies. He wanted to show respect to the grief of the Israeli Arabs but the government had stopped him. On 20 October 1970, Shazar held the traditional reception during the Succot (Tabernacles) holiday in his Succah at the president's residence. He made a statement to a group of leaders of the Arab community which was also broadcast by Israel Radio:

"I don't know if I will be very popular if I say this: I cannot forget that a short while ago there was a very great loss in the Arab world and the Muslim world, which caused a great deal of grief to a large number of people. If I knew that my sympathy in their grief would be accepted by the Egyptian people and the Arab people with understanding, and would not be seen as something hypocritical, I would have expressed my sympathy on the day of the funeral."

Many Israelis protested against Shazar's words, among them citizens who wrote letters to the president (See File PRES 170/7). Elan Frank, then a boy of 14 ,who later became a helicopter pilot in the IAF and a producer of documentary films, was one of them. He compared Shazar's words to a statement by the Allies that they sympathized with the loss of the German people after the suicide of Hitler. Hagai Ginsburg from the religious kibbutz Kvutzat Yavne wrote of his pain at the action of the president, who had not sent him a letter of sympathy when his brother Azariah was killed by a mine in the Golan Heights in August 1970. (We thank Elan Frank and Hagai Ginsburg for permission to use their letters.)

Caricaturist "Dosh" in the Jerusalem Post newspaper showed an Arab delegation coming to the President's Office to mark the end of the period of mourning for Nasser.

Courtesy of Michael Gardosh

In Israel, the president is largely a ceremonial figure who has few official responsibilities.  The journalist Yoel Marcus argued in an article in Ha'aretznewspaper on 26 October that Shazar had exceeded his authority as defined in the "Basic Law: The Presidency." Over 4,000 Israelis had died in the wars between Egypt and Israel under Nasser's rule, and Shazar should not have expressed himself on the subject without advance permission from the government. Professor Meir Plessner, who taught Oriental Studies at the Hebrew University, sent a letter to the editor of Ha'aretz with a copy to Shazar, justifying the president and defending his right to act beyond the letter of the law.

Controversial journalist and Knesset member Uri Avnery also went out of his way to praise Shazar for his stand and regretted not supporting him for a second term as president in 1968. Avnery wrote in his HaOlam Hazeh magazine on 28 October that Shazar did not praise Nasser, but showed "understanding of the feelings of the other side, of the masses of a people which is still in a state of war with us at this moment."

In January 1971, the Israel Information Centre published a booklet on Nasser, which included an interview with Professor Shimon Shamir (later Israeli ambassador in Cairo). Shamir argued that Nasserism as a movement had reached the end of the road. Nasser's espousal of Arab nationalism and Third World activism had brought only failure to Egypt.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Military Escalation, a Presidential Message and a Political Decision: Israel Accepts the Rogers Plan, Part 2

For Hebrew documents, see the ISA's Hebrew blog.

For Part 1, see here

The fighting with the Egyptians continued alongside the diplomatic activity, and on 22 July the Soviets moved a squadron of MIG 21 pilots to al-Mansurah airfield, 70 kilometres from the Suez Canal. They began to patrol together with the Egyptian pilots at a distance of 40 kilometres from the canal.

On 23 July it became clear that this time the Arabs would not oppose the initiative to start negotiations.In his speech on the anniversary of the Free Officers’ revolution, Nasser said that Egypt would accept Rogers' proposal of 19 June. However he ignored the sentence requiring the parties to appoint representatives for negotiations, and claimed that the plan required Israeli withdrawal from “all the territories” occupied in 1967, and not “from territories” according to the Israeli interpretation of Resolution 242. Three days later Jordan too accepted the ceasefire.

Now that Egypt had taken a position, on 24 July Nixon sent Golda a messageasking Israel to reconsider the Rogers Plan and to give a positive answer. He added that Egypt would probably demand Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories and a solution to the refugee problem based on Resolution 194, allowing the refugees to return to their homes or to receive compensation. Nixon assured Golda that the US would not press Israel to accept these demands, that it believed that the borders should be fixed in negotiations between the parties and that “no Israeli soldier should be withdrawn from the occupied territories until a binding contractual peace agreement satisfactory to you” had been achieved. He reaffirmed the US commitment to Israel’s existence and security.

Sisco told Rabin that the US would veto any resolution in the Security Council demanding complete withdrawal or the return of the refugees. They were willing to declare in advance that if there was a change in the Egyptian deployment after the ceasefire, Israel would be free to use force, with the blessing and support of the US. In view of Nixon’s message, the government held a series of meetings on 26, 29, 30 and 31 July and on 4 August to decide on its reply.

At the same time the clash with the Soviets escalated. On 25 July the pilot of a MIG 21 fired a rocket at an Israeli Skyhawk returning from a mission west of the Suez Canal. The plane was hit but the pilot managed to land. The Soviet pilots continued to fly close to the canal .

In the government meeting on 29 July Eban presented the ceasefire on the Jordanian front and the question of possible terrorist attacks across the border afterwards. He explained that the Americans would allow Israeli to react, as long as the position of King Hussein was taken into account. Attacks on the Jordanian army would not be tolerated.

The government also decided to take action agaist the Soviet pilots, and on 30 July this decision was carried out in Operation Rimon (Pomegranate) 20. The Israel Air Force sent four Mirages on a photographic reconnaissance mission over the Gulf of Suez, accompanied by two Phantoms, and two more staged an attack south of Suez City. On Dayan’s instructions, they were not to penetrate deep into Egypt. Nevertheless, the Soviets sent more than 20 MIGs to intercept them. Then eight Israeli Mirages came out of hiding and joined the battle. An IDF electronic warfare unit managed to jam the communications systems of the Soviet pilots and even to confuse them with false orders. It was estimated that between four and five MIGs were shot down and three Soviet pilots were killed.

Soviet MIG21 with Egyptian Air Force markings
Photograph: Wikimedia

An hour later the Soviets transferred their squadron from Al-Mansurah to an airfield inside Egypt. But they also prepared nightly ambushes of SA2 batteries dug in close to the canal. These batteries were used against Israeli planes attacking visible missile batteries, some of them decoys. In this way they succeeded in shooting down a Phantom on 3 August. Another was hit, but the pilot managed to land. In total, the IAF had lost five Phantoms since the Soviets had joined the air war. This development threatened Israel’s air superiority. Attacking the batteries was likely to bring heavy losses and to endanger its ability to act if the Egyptians tried to cross the canal.  Without US backing and replacement of damaged planes and spare parts, Israel would find it difficult to continue the fight.

Air battle during the War of Attrition - video clip

There was satisfaction in the government at the results of the battle. In the meeting on the same day, Bar-Lev said that the Russians were in battle for the first time “and their lack of experience was certainly felt. We concentrated our top pilots here."  Eban mentioned the decision not to publish the fact that the pilots were Russian. Begin was sceptical, and Golda said that the Army censor would try to prevent publication but news might leak out to the press: “There are masses of journalists here, and near this building stands an army of all the TV journalists in the world….I assume they will find a way of passing on the news. It cannot remain secret.” And indeed, although Israel did not publish the results of the battle, a report appeared in the British “Daily Express” newspaper.

COGS Bar-Lev and Secretary Rogers on a flight over Sharm el-Sheikh, 7 May 1971
Photograph: Moshe Milner, Governemt Press Office

Nevertheless, the government was moving towards a decision to accept the ceasefire. Golda shared her misgivings with her colleagues: “My question is: my God, with whom are we waging battles here? I must admit that I am taking this step with an aching heart, and not with joy of any kind, certainly not….With whom have they not allied and with what devil are they not willing to join? All this against the small group of the Jewish people in the state of Israel. It is not a great joy to me to accept it but God did not promise me that I would have only joys in this country.” She added that when she first heard about the air battle she was happy, but afterwards she began to ask questions: “Will this be the end of it? Will this be the last battle?” Shlomo Hillel answered her: "At the moment the situation is that the Russians have agreed to this proposal, the Egyptians have agreed, the Jordanians have agreed and we cannot change it now. We are in an uncomfortable strategic position.”

Israel accepts the ceasefire and Gahal leaves the government

When the debate resumed the next day, 31 July, the leader of the National Religious party, Josef Burg, read out the NRP's decision to accept the American proposal and called on Gahal not to leave the government. Yisrael Galili presented a draft for a decision to accept Nixon’s proposal of 24 July (and not that of Rogers) while continuing to maintain the government’s existing policy guidelines. A representative would be sent to the Jarring talks on the basis of Resolution 242. He proposed to agree to a temporary ceasefire and to set up a committee to draft the reply. His proposal was accepted by a majority of 17. A clause was added specifically rejecting the previous Rogers plans and his proposals of 17 June. Begin’s alternative proposal to reject the plan received six votes. As a result, he initiated a decision by the governing body of Gahal to resign from the government.

On 4 August, while the battles in the south continued, the decisive meeting was held. The six Gahal ministers announced their resignation. Begin explained their decision and praised Golda’s leadership and the friendly atmosphere in their meetings. He said: “We have gone through a considerable period together in mutual trust…We know that no-one around this [table] is happy about our leaving.  I know that all the members of the government, even those who while they were sitting here thought it might be better for Israel if Gahal left, are sorry about it today. We certainly did not wish  it. But the matter was inevitable in my opinion…. I at all events will always view these three years as one of the best chapters of my life. We will go into opposition. It is not a new task for us.” Yosef Sapir noted that Gahal had joined the National Unity government in June 1967 unconditionally to save the state from danger. In 1970 the situation was different, although he saw new dangers and no prospect of peace. Ezer Weizman, the ex-commander of the air force, emphasized that only an air attack could destroy the missile batteries. The advance of the missiles towards the canal had created a new situation.

Golda Meir and the National Unity goverment with President Zalman Shazar, December 1969
Photograph: Moshe Milner, Government Press Office

Golda did not argue with Begin and the Gahal ministers. She too said that they had worked well together in mutual confidence despite their differences of opinion and regretted their premature departure. At this point the ministers left the meeting. Golda said that “the Americans must know that we are going to this [ceasefire] with difficulty, with doubts and debates.” They had rejected the previous Rogers plans, but who knows what plan Rogers might yet come up with, worse than the previous ones, when he started to talk. They could rely to some extent on its relations with the president, “but much as I like him, I do not want to make him responsible for Israel’s fate.” The government adopted the decision proposed by the committee unanimously. They emphasized that Israel’s withdrawal from the territories must be to secure, recognized and agreed borders.When Rabin presented the decision to Kissinger, he emphasized the decisive role played by the president’s letter. Israel was taking on itself major political and military risks. The government  was sceptical about the success of the initiative and would not accept Soviet missiles along the length of the canal. If they were deployed there, Israel would break the ceasefire.

On August 4 Golda presented the government’s stand to the Knesset. Gahal Knesset member Esther Raziel-Naor tried to embarrass the government with a proposal to continue to seek a negotiated peace according to its own guidelines. Her proposal was rejected by 63 votes to 30, and the government’s policy was approved by a majority of 66, with 28 against and 9 abstentions.

On 8 August the ceasefire came into effect and the guns fell silent. But under its cover the Egyptians brought more missiles up to the canal, a move which had serious implications for the future. Meanwhile the Israeli soldiers were able to come out of their bunkers and look around, as we see in this videoclip.

The War of Attrition was accompanied by political protest and criticism of the government in Israel. Two posts on aspects of this protest, the letter by a group of twelfth graders to Golda and the antiwar satire by Hanoch Levin, “Queen of the Bathtub’ can be seen on our Hebrew blog.

"Stop Shooting and Start Talking": From Opposition to Acceptance of the Rogers Plan, June-August 1970, Part 1

45 years after Israeli acceptance of the Rogers Plan to end the War of Attrition with Egypt, the ISA reveals for the first time the government discussions leading to the decision.

On 8 August 1970, the ceasefire  between Israel and Egypt came into effect, bringing to an end the war on the Suez Canal. This conflict, now largely forgotten, had continued intermittently since March 1969 and claimed the lives of hundreds of Israeli soldiers, while thousands were wounded.  Egypt too paid a high price in human life and economic damage.

The "War of Attrition" campaign ribbon
 Photograph: Wikipedia

45 years after the guns fell silent, the ISA has declassified and published a series of dramatic government meetings held in June-August 1970 on Israel's reply to the initiative of US Secretary of State William Rogers to end the fighting and start talks between the Arabs and Israel. At the time a National Unity government was in power, headed by Golda Meir and including the right wing Gahal party led by Menachem Begin. At first, the ministers rejected the plan, but under heavy pressure from US President Richard Nixon, they eventually agreed to accept a slightly different version. The Gahal ministers  opposed this decision and resigned.

The publication includes nine stenographic records of government meetings, giving a first-hand view of the full and authentic record of events. These records are in Hebrew and are shown on our Hebrew blog, but they contain large sections in English, including exchanges with the US. They are supplemented by documents from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and other English documents from the ISA and by photographs and video clips on the War of Attrition from our holdings.

Israeli troops returning from the Shadwan Island operation, 23 January 1970
Photograph: Moshe Milner, Government Press Office

The publication is in two parts: the first on the discussions until 19 July and the second ending with the government meeting of 4 August and Golda’s parting words to the Gahal ministers: “I confess that when I took on this position I didn’t really believe in it, but I wanted us all to see the day when peace will come. And if not – then at least to succeed as [her predecessor] the late Eshkol did, to preserve this partnership. I am sorry that we have not reached peace. I am very sorry that it was my lot to head a government which lost a group of its members.”

Background: The War of Attrition and UN and US Peace Initiatives

As a result of the Six Day War Israel and Egypt faced each other across the Suez Canal. At first the situation was calm, and a film clip made in December 1967shows unarmed Egyptian soldiers fishing in the canal opposite  IDF soldiers on the other side. But at the beginning of March 1969 President Gamal Abd-el Nasser announced that Egypt was no longer bound by the ceasefire of June 1967. Soon afterwards a war of attrition began along the canal. There were repeated and lengthy shooting incidents, as well as border incidents with Jordan and Syria. In the clashes with Egypt, Israel lost over 300 soldiers and the Egyptians some 10,000.The cities near the canal, damaged after the sinking of the Israeli destroyer “Elath” in October 1967, were completely destroyed.

To restore the ceasefire two diplomatic initiatives were made: the first by UN mediator Gunnar Jarring and the second by US Secretary of State William Rogers. In December 1969 he proposed a plan based on UN Security Council Resolution 242and demanded that Israel return to the international boundary with Egypt. The government rejected the plan and  stood by its decision of 31 October 1968, demanding a land corridor to Sharm el-Sheikh. The Egyptians also rejected the plan and the USSR said it was one-sided. In June 1970 Rogers proposed a second plan and this time he was successful.

The US Proposal and Israel’s Response

After Israel carried out deep penetration bombing raids into Egypt, in January 1970 Nasser went to Moscow to demand surface to air missiles, which needed Soviet crews to operate them.  In March 1970 Soviet missiles were deployed near Cairo and Alexandria.

A CIA report on missile sites in Egypt as of May 1970
Source: Wikimedia

Realizing that the war involved a danger of confrontation with the USSR, on 19 June 1970 the Administration proposed a plan for negotiations between Israel and Egypt, with a ceasefire as the first step. It was presented to Golda Meir and Foreign Minister Abba Eban by US Ambassador Walworth Barbour, and by Rogers to Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin in Washington. On 20 June it was presented to Egypt and Jordan and also passed on to the USSR.

On 21 June Golda told the government of an" important development in relations with the US".  Eban reported on the paper they had received from Barbour, which expressed US concern that the war of attrition would cause Egypt and Jordan to abandon Resolution 242, with dangerous implications for moderate Arab states such as Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. As Israel had asked, the US had protested to the Soviets about their actions which endangered Israel's security and survival. But it proposed a diplomatic initiative, as well as a military one, to counter the Soviet threat. The commitments of the parties should be tested: Egypt to the principle of peaceful coexistence with Israel and Israel to the principle of withdrawal as expressed in Resolution 242. In order to allow resumption of the Jarring mission, the US proposed a ceasefire from 1 July until 1 October. The agreement would include provisions on preservation of the status quo on the canal front and preventing shooting and incursions.

The Americans asked Israel not to reply publicly until Egypt's reply had been received. If the Arabs rejected it, the onus would be on them. But if Egypt responded positively, Israel would have to do the same and to accept a proposal for peace "substantially within its 1949–1967 borders."

The talk with Barbour was also a reply to Israel's request for more planes. The plan specified that US supply of arms to Israel would continue but the supply of planes would be limited while "efforts to get the parties to stop shooting and start talking" continued. The Americans agreed to give Israel three Phantoms in July and three in August. The planned order for six Phantoms in 1971 would not be affected. They also agreed to earmark 18 Phantoms and 16 Skyhawks in the future in order to make up for expected losses.  They expected Israel to continue to refrain from deep-penetration bombing. (At the time the US needed war planes for its own forces in Vietnam.)

According to Eban, Golda had said that she was deeply disturbed by the linkage between arms supply and political demands. She would have to inform the government of this capitulation to Nasser.  She both rejected a temporary ceasefire or the prospect of opening negotiations before the firing had ended, while Soviet arms flowed to Egypt but arms to Israel were held up.  She warned that she would recommend to the government to reject the proposal. After a long discussion the ministers decided unanimously to adopt Golda’s negative reply to Barbour, but not to publish its reply until after a statement by the Administration.

In the next government meeting on 25 June Golda said: “I know what I have to hold onto with regard to public opinion: this is [stoppage] of arms supply, this is a ceasefire which is a death trap.” However she postponed her reply to a message from Nixon and proposed to call Rabin home for consultations. On 29 June she would make a political statement in the Knesset. On the same day Rogers told a press conference about the initiative for a ceasefire and for talks under Jarring's auspices. However he refused to give details or to discuss publically military assistance for Israel.  

Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin, 2 October 1969
Photograph: Moshe Milner, Government Press Office

On 28 June the government renewed its discussion, together with Rabin. He warned against a negative answer to the president and a possible crisis in relations with the US. Nixon already knew from Barbour and Rogers's reports that Israel’s stand was negative. Begin fiercely opposed the American initiative and claimed that it would return Israel to the borders of 4 June 1967, quoting Eban’s well- known saying that "this map represented Auschwitz". Minister Yisrael Galili proposed conveying Israel’s reply to Nixon secretly. Moshe Dayan’s main concern was the fear that the plan would lead to the return of the refugees. Golda repeated her opposition to any plan based on complete withdrawal to the 1967 borders. Although the Americans kept begging Israel not to publish its stand and to let Egypt take responsibility for the plan's failure, the head of military intelligence Aharon Yariv warned that this time Egypt and the Soviets would not reject the initiative as they had the first Rogers plan.

On 29 June Golda told the Knesset that Israel was in continuous dialogue with the US Administration, but she would not give details until the US had published its plan. She argued that Nasser had no intention of reaching a true ceasefire or peace negotiations, citing his speech in Benghazi on 25 June  "fanning the flames of hostility and giving the conflict a pan-Arab character". He demanded full Israeli withdrawal and rights for the Palestinians.

On July 1 Golda wrote to Nixon repeating her negative stand. She added that over the last two days the Soviets had started to deploy SA2 and 3 missile batteries to cover the area up to the Canal Zone. These batteries could be used to protect a Canal crossing, and Israel had no choice but to destroy them. In these circumstances it needed increased supplies of planes.  The letter was given to Joseph Sisco, the assistant secretary for Middle East affairs, by Rabin and reported to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. This report noted that the US was deeply concerned over the new developments and that it was clear that the Israeli government was strongly opposed to the US proposals.

Golda also called Barbour to her office in Tel Aviv on half an hour's notice. Accompanied by the Chief of the General Staff, Haim Bar-Lev, she briefed him about the deployment of the SAMs near the Canal. Each battery was manned by a few Soviet troops. The air force had lost two Phantoms within an hour from attacks on the batteries, and a Soviet major had been severely wounded.  Barbour reported to Rogers that Israel was urgently requesting planes and new electronic equipment. Nixon decided to give the electronic equipment at once and to speed up the supply of planes.

One of the greatest fears in the Prime Minister's Bureau was of a confrontation with the USSR, which would use its full force against Israel.  The Israeli decision makers knew that the IDF was designed to fight Arab armies, but it could not take on the Soviets.  They wanted to know how the US would react in such a case. The head of the bureau, Simcha Dinitz, sent a message to Rabin asking Kissinger to arrange a personal meeting between Golda and Nixon. She wanted his help in deterring the Soviets before they had strengthened their hold in Egypt. Dinitz added that "the prime minister is not afraid personally to start a campaign which she has no reasonable hope of winning. Our view of the situation is so serious….that considerations of prestige or effort are not a factor." Rabin met Kissinger but his impression was that there was little enthusiasm. A visit in September would be approved, on condition it was not to be devoted only to arms requests.

On 12 July in another government meeting, Yosef Sapir of the Liberal party said that as Nasser had gone to Moscow for help,  Golda should go to Washington to see Nixon. Golda warned that she could not propose a visit unless she was sure the US would agree. Eban described the increased arms supply from the US and added that there was only one explanation: the Americans wanted Israel to succeed in the current battle. "In order to sit on the eastern bank of the Canal and do nothing, there is no need for all the equipment they are rushing to us."

On 15 July Nixon sent Golda a reassuring message through Arthur Burns, head of the Federal Reserve Bank who was visiting Israel. In her reply she thanked him for his concern but warned that Israel was facing increasing Soviet involvement. "It is natural that this should deepen our anxiety and strengthen our resolve. Both your words and deeds are crucial for us." In the government meeting Eban reported no new developments. It was unlikely that the Soviets would reject the American initiative outright. There were signs that Egypt would accept a limited ceasefire, and Israel would be in a delicate position. World opinion did not care about the semantics of a ceasefire resolution, but it was worried about an international clash. He concluded: "We have differences with the United States. But if there is one point of agreement, it is that we must stay on the Canal line until [there is[ peace….in order to preserve what they call superiority."

Abba Eban receives Rogers at Lod airport, May 1971
Photograph: Fritz Cohen, Government Press Office

Monday, February 11, 2013

Seizure of Private Property in East Jerusalem

Let's not beat around the bush. In May 1967 there were no Jews in the Jordanian sections of Jerusalem. Today there are more than 200,000 Jews living in the parts of town that Israel took from Jordan in the Six Day War. Most of them live on what were once empty hilltops, as those of us old enough to remember can attest even without any archives. Yet even barren rocky hilltops may have been owned, at least in some cases, by individuals. And some of those Jews moved into places such as the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, where the ruined buildings were owned by someone, or the decrepit buildings were inhabited. Which means that at some point, in 1967 or 1970 or 1972, Israel's government expropriated Arab property, or used Eminent Domain, whatever legal terminology you wish to use to describe the action of transferring ownership of property from some individuals, for the purpose of executing policy.

Today's file (גל-13927/17) comes from the Advisor for Arab Affairs, whom we introduced here (and also here). It doesn't describe Israel's policy of seizure of property, which was done in another agency (the Land Administration Agency), but rather the complaints about the policy which were directed towards the Prime Minister's Office, i.e. the Advisor for Arab Affairs in the PMO.

Most of the file is sealed. Not because there are any dark security secrets in it, but because by Israeli law, an individual who passes private information to an authority has the expectation of his (or her) privacy being respected. Once 70 years have passed we may assume the individuals are no longer alive and the files can be opened, but the letters in this file are from 40-45 years ago. Still, by way of giving a taste of what was in them, see pages 7 and 8.

The fellow on page 7, for example: He lived in the Old City, and had been informed his home was about to be seized. So he wrote to the prime minister and made five points:
1. My house is right next to the holy places of Jews and Muslims, so there's no price you can give me to equal what it's worth.
2. The government says the seizure is for the public good, but I don't see any benefit.
3. As an Israeli citizen I demand to stay where I am and I'll promise to respect all the laws.
4. I reserve the right to go to the courts.
5. I'm enclosing the documents which prove my ownership.

Or page 8: Yosef Dan-Gor writing to his boss, Shmuel Toledano, the Advisor for Arab Affairs himself, in the matter of two familes who own homes in the Sheikh Jarrakh area where the government intents to construct a number of ministries. The two familes are obstinate not to leave. Ovad Yakir of the Land Administration Authority, he writes, has suggested I meet them and make a seriously generous offer, before we turn to legal action. I think he's right, but I need your permission. [Intriguingly, they may not have been moved. If you go to the government compound in Sheikh Jarrah you can see that a number of older, Arab, homes are still there.]

Pages 2-5 are a letter from a voluntary welfare organization near the Mount of Olives. In January 196,8 they had been informed that they were to be moved elsewhere because the government was seizing their building, and they strenously obejcted. In addition to describing all the important things their organization did, they also pointed out that the building belonged to the Waqf and thus couldn't be expropriated, and also warned that such an action would cause public unrest and was against peace.

The letter on page 6 is also from Dan-Gor to his boss Toledano, in August 1960: there are five Arab families on French Hill who since January 1968 have been refusing all offers we've made. My impression is that they're not going to change their minds. [Here also: go to this area today and you'll see more than five Arab homes which have been there since before 1967. Are they the same families? Did Israel eventually back down?]

Page 9 is yet another letter from Dan-Gor: regarding the area where the Jordanian army had a military position south of the UN headquarters ("The Sausage"): Colonel Halamish informs us that the IDF is willing to vacate the hilltop to facilitate the construction of the Armon Hanaziv neighborhood.

And finally, most interestingly, the letter on page 10, Dan-Gor to his boss in May 1970: We're trying to seize an area in Wadi Joz so as to build a neighborhood for the [Arab] families which are being evicted from the Jewish Quarter in the Old City. The construction will be done by the [Arab] contractor Kalik Jad'On. The snag is that some of the owners of plots in that area are refusing to go along with the agreement we've already made with most of their neighbours, and now they've turned to the High Court of Justice (Bagatz).

May 29th - The Terrorist Attack on Lod Airport

Last year, we published on the Archives site, in our 'Electronic Publications' section,3 documents concerning the Lod Massacre, in which 24 people were murdered by 3 Japanese terrorists, members of the Japanese "Red Army" and operating under the orders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The documents include a telegram of sympathy sent by King Hussein of Jordan to Prime Minister Golda Meir, Golda Meir's reply to Hussein and a debate by the government on whether to demand the death penalty for the captured terrorist. 

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

1972: Strengthening Israel's Control of East Jerusalem

It has been a while since we've posted about East Jerusalem. Today's document is interesting because it's not clear what its significance might be. It's a six-page handwritten draft, on the back of discarded official correspondence, signed by Uri Mor and addressed to his boss, Shmuel Toledano, the Advisor for Arab Affairs. In the top left corner, there's a squigly which looks like Toledano's initials, so he may indeed have read it. The file itself, גל-13908.2, we've already met (here), and it's from Toledano's office. The date is March 27, 1972. All in all, then, though at first glance it looks like a half-baked draft that should have ended up in the wastepaper bin, it is probably a valuable document for understanding the mindset of anonymous mid-level Israeli officials working on the unification of Jerusalem, five years after the act of unification itself. Did it inform policy? Did it create any action? Who knows?

Mor's thesis is that true unification of Jerusalem will happen when Jews and Arabs live together. Even commercial transactions, he says, aren't the goal, merely a way to create coexistence. Yet his recipe for achieving the goal are unconvincing.

The situation in the city, as Mor saw it, was that the Arabs of East Jerusalem had gotten used to Israel's control; the municipality was giving them good service; and the connections to Jordan were fraying. And yet, he mused, many of the Arabs now had needs for services which are supplied by the government, not the municipality, such as restitution for damaged property, and also, the smooth relations with local Arab leaders might perhaps not reflect the opinion of the general populace. He recommended creating an active cadre of hundreds of locals who would meet Israeli officials regularly and mediate between them and their communities. Apparently his office was to spearhead this effort, thereby increasing its importance.

Mor also noted various social trends. The Christian community is diminishing, while the Muslim population is growing. This growth is fueled by a high birthrate and also by immigration from the West Bank into Jerusalem because of the better economic conditions in town. He advocated close monitoring of the social and economic trends, though it's not clear that he had any way of influencing them. He suggested encouraging the publication of a pro-Israeli Arab newspaper, and repeated that there must be better connections with prominent Arab figures.

It's a rather odd document. The claim that the Arabs of East Jerusalem were already integrating into Israel in 1972 sounds over-optimistic. The measures he recommends veer from monitoring - which is a type of intelligence gathering - to some form of top-down encouragement. Surprisingly (or not), the document reads more as a justification of the office than a blueprint to create significant change on the ground. Full of good intentions and fine sentiments, lacking in any malice or arrogance, but strangely hollow.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

A Turf War in Jerusalem with Real Significance

On March 5, 1972, Shmuel Toledano, the Advisor on Arab Affairs to the Prime Minister, sent a letter to his boss, Golda Meir:

Two years ago, the government decided that the Arabs of East Jerusalem are to be regarded similarly as the Arab minority in Israel, and that therefore my office should be in charge of their affairs. [Meaning they are different from the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza, who were not treated as Israeli citizens.] At the time, the Minister of Police (Shlomo Hillel) agreed. Since then, the minister has been criticizing my office as if we're treading on his turf. No one is arguing against police involvement in police matters, though fortunately there are ever fewer security issues in east Jerusalem, as the populace is integrating into the west part of town. We should be encouraging this integration while working to detach the Arabs of Jerusalem from the Arabs of the West Bank - as my office is striving to do. It would be a mistake to have the minister of police involved in matters touching upon negotiations about the future of the West Bank and Jerusalem:
a. This is the opposite of detaching the two groups.
b. Most of the affairs of the Arabs of East Jerusalem are now civic and economic, not police issues. As the municipal elections approach, and there are 40,000 eligible voters in East Jerusalem, my office has the expertise to work with them correctly.
c. In the earliest years of the state there was a minister of "Police and Minorities". This caused resentment among the Arabs of Israel and it was discontinued. We should be careful not to regress.
It is a fact, as the minister notes, that some of the leaders of the Arabs of the West bank live in Jerusalem. Yet we should be working to seperate the two communities, not unite them.

The file I found this letter in (גל-13908/2) doesn't record what Golda's decision was. Whether Toledano won this particular argument or not, the fundamental issue was decided - from the Israeli perspective at least - in his favor. What history has to say about this remains to be seen.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

What does ministerial responsibility mean?

Much of the media attention given to our Munich Massacre publication last week focused on the Israeli ire at Germany - justified ire, one must say. Yet a big chunk of the publication actually dealt with Israeli discomfort with its own failings, especially when it came to protecting the Olympic delegation. The feeling that the Israeli preparations had been lacking led to the creation of the Koppel Committee, which found that the Israel Security Agency (ISA) had in fact not functioned adequately.

On the 5th of October 1972 Prime Minister Golda Meir and five of her top mnisters met in her office to discuss what should be done with the Koppel report. It was a year and a day before the 6th of October 1973. And the 6th of October 1973 was a day on which Israeli history changed, and Israeli society set out on a course which was previously unforeseen, and has proved to be unstoppable ever since. The 6th of October 1973 was Yom Kippur, and the first day of the Yom Kippur War, and that war forever smashed the willingness of Israel's mainstream citizens to assume that the government knows best.

The 5th of October 1972, however, was before the Yom Kippur War, and Golda and her top ministers were blithely unaware of the future, and probably quite sincere in their rejection of the tone of the Koppel report. Yet we, the latter-day readers of the stenogram of their discussion: we are living after the Yom Kippur War, and try as we may, it's almost impossible for us to listen to their discussion without thinking about how bad the story was going to end, a year later.

Yakov Shimshon Shapira, for example, the minister of justice, called the document "strange". What were they thinking, its author's, when they implied ministerial responsibility? 

I cannot imagine anyone claiming a minister is responsible for the actions of a security officer, for the simple reason that no minister has the qualifications to judge what the security officers do. I opened a court in East Jerusalem. So I called the security officer and said to him "listen fellow, we're opeing a branch in east Jerusalem, someone has to protect the judges from potential attack", and that's it. I've finished my job. I don't know how he'll go about doing his job?!

I suggest we deal with this report by preparing a summary and giving it to the cabinet ministers an hour before the next cabinet meeting. Then we'll repeat the excerise when we go to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee.

The report contains a statement which doesn't make any sense to me: "In spite of the German conception about guarding the Olymic village [or not guarding it], we should have found a way to guard our people from within the village and without conflicting with the German conception". For me, this is Greek. I don't understand it. It's either one or the other: The Germans were responsible, or they weren't. On what basis does the committee say that had we asked the Germans, they would have done things differently? [...]

In general, it's important not be wary of hindsight. I mean, it's essential that one gains experience for future use, but using hindsight to evaluate actions: that's a dangerous thing to do.

I'm not an expert, but I assume lots of thought was put into preventing the sort of thing that happened. The attempt by the committee to place responsibility on the security officers seems to me unfair.

Golda Meir: 

Here's how I see it. No one ever promised never to fail. Even when we have a long period of calm, it wouldn't be serious to get up and say we'll always have calm. [...]

We've had this terrible incident with 11 murdered men. No one can say that if we'd asked the Germans to guard the area differently they might not have; and no one can say that if they had, the attack wouldn't have happened. "Would have" is a slippery concept. But the fact is that we didn't ask them. In their report the Germans say that even if they had guarded the installation the result would have been the same. So they said? So what?

So what do we do now? I promised in the Knesset that the report would be published. 

Yisrael Galili: No.
Golda: No what?
Galili: Not accurate.
Golda: What's not accurate?
Galili: You said the findings would be published, not necessarily the report itself.
Golda: No matter. I'll have to make the essential findings public. That's the law.
But first, we have to assure that the ISA isn't harmed. They're doing an excellent job. True, there are failures here and there, but there are far more successes, and they don't deserve to be castigated.

Golda then went into a discussion about spheres of authority between the ISA and particular ministries, eventually moving towards the idea that the minister in charge of the ISA is responsible. She rejected the idea that

Nothing more could have been done: lots more could have been done. And somebody has to pay for important things that weren't done. The question is, how high up the ladder does the responsibility climb? In this case, it wasn't simply a matter of standard procedures. This should have reached the minister who's in charge of the agencies [the ISA... i.e, the prime minister!] A minster can inquire what's going on, or refrain from inquiring. The security officer can actively try to find out what's going on, or he can refrain from action. If  he fails, he should pay. But what are there ministers for? Not every minister needs personally to do everything in the minstry, that's ridiculous. But he must know what's going on. Certainly in matters which are this important. Therefore, if I was just an ordinary minister, I woldn't hesitate and I wouldn ask anyone. But it's bad and bitter that if I resign the entire government will fall and we'll be drawn into a political crises on this matter of 11 murdered men.

Thus far the document.

My colleague who calls herself Archivista on this blog, and who knows lots more than I about these historical events, warns me of the danger of hindsight and of reading our understanding of things into the words of people who lived in different times. She may be right. Yet I respond that it was only one single year later that the smug self satisfaction of these very same historical actors got us into much greater trouble, and perhaps these deliberations are a demonstration of how that smugness should have been recognized even then.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Munich 1972: the German Report

Given that some of the readers of this blog know German, but don't know Hebrew, we're putting online the German report about the terror attack at the Olympic games, in its original, German-language version. The Hebrew translation was one of the 45 documents we put online earlier this week.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

A Honeymoon Goes Sour: The Crisis Between the Israeli Government and Willy Brandt's West Germany after the Munich Massacre

The latest publication of the Archives on the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972 sheds an interesting light on Israeli-German relations in the 1970s.

The election of Willy Brandt as Chancellor of West Germany in October 1969 led to a steady improvement in relations with Israel. Brandt had been a member of the anti-Nazi resistance and as head of the Social Democrat party was a friend of many leaders of the governing Israeli Labor party. His good relations with the Soviets meant he could serve as a channel for messages about the issue of Jewish emigration; West Germany with its strong economy was very important in Israel's relations with the Common Market, and in particular, Israeli Prime Minister Golda wanted to strengthen her ties with Brandt and other Social Democratic leaders in Europe and to put Brandt at the head of this group. Golda was dubious as to the ability of the Great Powers to bring about a Middle East settlement and wanted Brandt and Israel's European friends to be more involved. At the same time, she wanted Germany to block proposals for a settlement unfavorable to Israel by other European countries.

Throughout 1972, the two kept up a correspondence on political issues and Golda invited Brandt to visit Israel. On September 4, a day before the Munich massacre, she sent Brandt a letter urging him not to assist initiatives which might harm new chances of progress on a settlement that had arisen after the expulsion of the Soviet military advisers from Egypt (see our earlier blogpost).

On this backdrop, the Munich disaster raised major questions about Israel's relations with Germany. The documents in the publication show that the Israeli government went through three stages. At the beginning, they made every effort to prevent anger over the botched German rescue attempt harming these relations, and to restrain expressions of anti-German feeling in Israel and among Jews abroad. General elections were about to take place in Germany, and the decision-makers in Israel had no interest in harming Brandt's chances of re-election. On September 6, the government decided to praise Germany's decision not to give in to the terrorists and to try to free the hostages by force. Golda even wrote personally to labor leader Yitzhak Ben-Aharon to prevent attacks on Germany at a trade union congress.

Upon the return of Mossad chief Zvi Zamir, who was in Munich during the rescue attempt as the representative of the government, the tone of the Israeli reaction began to change. His damning report led Golda to regret the friendly message she had sent Brandt earlier and the praises in the government statement. She sent Brandt another message demanding a speedy investigation. Furthermore, the differences between Zamir's written report and the report of the German inquiry led to a chain of reactions, accusations and counter-accusations by German and Israeli bodies involved in the affair. Nevertheless, a friendly and business-like tone was maintained.

A major crisis in West German-Israeli relations came at the end of October, after the German government surrendered to the demands of Palestinian terrorists who hijacked a Lufthansa plane and freed the three surviving terrorists from the Munich massacre. The Israeli ambassador to Bonn was recalled for "consultations", the Knesset and the government bitterly condemned the German actions and the public and Knesset members attacked Germany with "no holds barred", even bringing up that country's Nazi past.

Even so, the Prime Minister made it clear that nothing would be done to harm Israel's interests, which included relations with Germany. After intense diplomatic activity, these relations returned to their former course, reaching a peak in Chancellor Brandt's visit to Israel in the summer of 1973.

Munich 1972: Terror and its aftermath

A team of ISA staff reserachers has spent the past months examining the documentary trail of the PLO terror attack on Israel's delegation to the Olympic Games of Munich 1972 and their aftermath. Today, a week before the 40th anniverssary of the event, we're publishing the results of their efforts: an essay-length description of the events as described in previously unpublished documents, and 45 documents, many of them declassified specifically for this publication.

The publication itself is too long for a blog format: it's essentially a small book. We encourage our readers to find the half hour and read the introductory essay; dipping into the documents themselves will require more than one language though Hebrew is the main one. In the coming days we'll publish focussed looks at segments of the publication, along with short translations into English of sections of some of the Hebrew (or perhaps German) documents. (Here's the first of the followup posts)

The sections of the publication are:
The initial reports of the attack reach Israel
The decision not to halt the Olympic games
Initial Israeli attempts to dampen anti-German sentiment in Israel
Zvi Zamir, head of Mossad, reports bitterly from Munich
Hans Dietrich Genscher, Germay's foreign minster, down-plays Zamir's report
Israel investigates its own failures
Golda Meir: Perhaps I ought to resign, but the turmoil would be too great
The Knesset: go get the murderers!
Abba Eban: the German release of the surviving terrorists condemns future Israelis to death

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

40 Years Since the Expulsion of Soviet Advisers from Egypt: The Riddle of the Sphinx

The election of the new president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, has again focused attention on the future of Egypt and its relations with Israel. In the past, Mr. Morsi's party attacked the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979, but upon his election, Morsi declared that Egypt would honor all international agreements.

The uncertainty about Egypt's future course recalls the checkered history of its relations with Israel. Forty years ago, President Anwar el-Sadat made a sudden and dramatic move when he expelled 20,000 Soviet advisers from Egypt on July 18, 1972. In hindsight, this step can be seen as the beginning of Egypt's move away from the Soviet orbit and towards rapprochement with the United States of America. At the time, Israel believed that the move would weaken Egypt militarily, and this belief strengthened the view that war with Egypt was unlikely in the near future. Only a minority wondered if the step would make war more likely by untying Sadat's hands.

The Prime Minister of Israel at the time, Golda Meir, took the opportunity to call on Sadat, in a speech in the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, to adopt a new policy of peace. "I appeal to the President of Egypt as the leader of a great people, a people with an ancient heritage, whose future is ahead of it, with all the feeling of responsibility which must beat in the heart of a responsible leader. Is it not meet [sic] that we decide to halt today and to strike out on a new path, never to return to the course which has led to death, destruction and frustration, without bringing peace?"

In this speech, Meir also refers to the contacts between Egypt and Israel through the United States on a limited agreement to open the Suez Canal and other steps towards peace, contacts which so far had failed to yield broader results. In a letter to the Chancellor of West Germany, Willy Brandt--published here for the first time--Meir analyzes the situation in Egypt after the expulsion of the advisers.

She describes Israel's willingness to make concessions and asks Brandt, an anti-Nazi and fellow Socialist who had close ties with Israeli Labor party leaders, to help Israel and to prevent other European leaders from interfering in the negotiations. Finally, Meir expresses the hope that Sadat would decide on direct negotiations with Israel. This hope was to be realized only in 1977, after another round of fighting between the two nations.