The 6 day war

[Eli]

Pekka : The Indepe... Liberation War.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Andemagne

UAR = United Arab Republic?

Yep, but it wasn´t only Egypt, it consisted of Egypt and Syria (and Iraq for some time). Nasser thought it could be the root for a united Arab socialist state, but the UAR held only some years because of differences between the leaders of Egypt and Syria.

[Lancer]

Pekka, iirc, the Brits pulled out and Isreal declared itself, and the arabs launched their attacks. All of them I think. Egypt, Syria, Jordan...others too. Iraq I believe.

They were all waiting for the Brits to pull out to start going at it. Remember that was 3 years after WW2. Imagine what was on their minds. I bet those brave Jews were ready for a fight, get some payback somewhere, and a place to be free of frigging nazis.

Eli, 1%, I didn't know that. I wonder how that compares to France in WW1 or Germany in WW2...

[Pekka]

Nice one

I wonder what it's like to arrive from ship, get a gun in your hand and someone points direction 'there, fight or die!'.. man.. that's gotta be something else. I was born too late.

[Eli]

It wasnt exactly like that... I think.

It's not like Stalingrad or something like that, the war was long, it ebbed and flowed and large scale actions were only seen at the end of it.

[Lancer]

I see. Well, it's the war I know least about. I'm interested to hear what you guys on the scene know.

[Eli]

I dont know much. It was a boring, slow war.

[Pekka]

There is no such thing as boring war.

[Eli]

Lancer :

Do you have links for descriptions of other battles, on the same level of detail(or greater) like the Barak one?

[Ned]

The '47 - '49 war of independence seems to be the exact opposite of the last war the Jews fought prior to that, in 131-135. Then they fought the Romans and were annihilated. But the Romans also suffered a huge amount of casualites. I believe they kept 8 legions in virtually constant guerilla war combat for four years. They stripped legions of manpower across the empire and still had to resort to conscription. The Romans were very proud of their victories and had triumps and commemorations and the like. However, they had neither at the close of this war. Roman historians wrote very little or nothing about the war, testifying to its brutality and lack of glory.

The Arabs were trying to repeat the Roman victory. They were not successful.

The Brits were on the side of the Arabs in this one. One of their generals was in command of the Jordanian army.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Ned
The '47 - '49 war of independence seems to be the exact opposite of the last war the Jews fought prior to that, in 131-135. Then they fought the Romans and were annihilated. But the Romans also suffered a huge amount of casualites. I believe they kept 8 legions in virtually constant guerilla war combat for four years. They stripped legions of manpower across the empire and still had to resort to conscription. The Romans were very proud of their victories and had triumps and commemorations and the like. However, they had neither at the close of this war. Roman historians wrote very little or nothing about the war, testifying to its brutality and lack of glory.

The Arabs were trying to repeat the Roman victory. They were not successful.

The Brits were on the side of the Arabs in this one. One of their generals was in command of the Jordanian army.

That one was brutal. Half a million dead Jews, many more died from disease and hunger.
In the Hebron market the price of a Jewish slave was lower than the price of a day's ration of horse food.

[Edan]

Originally posted by BeBro


Yep, but it wasn´t only Egypt, it consisted of Egypt and Syria (and Iraq for some time). Nasser thought it could be the root for a united Arab socialist state, but the UAR held only some years because of differences between the leaders of Egypt and Syria.

Actually, AFAIK, Iraq was never in the UAR. Yemen was. However, Syria and Yemen had left it in the early 60s. Egypt still kept it as it's name until the early 70s.

[Edan]

Here are some of the causes of the six day war:

1. An escalation of the shelling of Israeli Kibbutzim by Syria (using the Golan Heights). Israel reacts to these threats by firing on the guns that were doing the shelling. This escalats into months of heavy increased shelling. Israel decides to do something to deter the attacks (after getting approval by the US, although Israel was fearful of Syria's relationship with Russia). Israel puts a tractor out as bait, knowing the Syrians would attack it. When the Syrians did, the Israelis bombed the artillery battery, at which point Syrian planes entered the fight and entered Israeli Air space. with a dogfight over the kibbutz. When the Syrian planes started to reteat, the Israeli planes got permition to follow them into Syrian air-space, downing six of the Migs.
2. In Jordan, although the government was more moderate than Syria and didn't want war with Israel, it wasn't able to put a stop to the terror groups that were carrying out attacks against Israel (and it's here not Gaza that Arafat was operating from). In the first few months of 67, there were hundreds of attempts to carry out attacks against Israel.
3. There was plenty of one-upmanships between Egypt and Syria (and to sme extent Jordan) which caused plenty of threats and bellicose words, particularily from Egypt, promising to wipe out Israel.
4. As the war approached, Egypt signed a military pact with Syria. Later, Jordan signed a military pact with Egypt too (though more out of a feeling of pressure from the other countries than wanting it) - that pact put Jordanian troops under the direct control of Egypt.
5. The Soviet Union gave the Egyptians (and their own diplomats, too, apparently) false intelligence reports that Israel had been massing troops on the Syrian border, preparing to attack.Nasser sent one of his advisors to to check the report. He didn't see any troop buildup from the plane or from Syria - despite Syrians pointing and saying "look, there is a troop build up". There was no troop build up. But that didn't deter Nasser - he proceeded as if there was a build up despite the evidence to the contrary. And when a Russian ambassador went to the Prime Minister of Israel with the same report, the PM offered several times to show him the border and show him there was no build up. The advisor backed off at that point and said he didn't want to see them. There are many (probably) reasons why Russia wanted this - at least some of those in power wanted an Arab-Israeli war.
6. Egypt throws out the UN peace keepers in the Sinai and visibly increases their troop presence in the area. This forces Israel to call up it's reserves
7. Egypt announces a blockade of the straits of Tiran. Ships bound for Israel start heading toward their ports of Origin. Israel's main supplier of oil, Iran, can no longer send oil to Israel. This action also created the cassus belli for war - in effect, Egypt had taken an act of war by violating
this

4. There shall be no suspension of the innocent passage of foreign ships through straits which are used for international navigation between one part of the high seas and another part of the high seas or the territorial sea of a foreign State

8. During this time, Israel does not immediately go to war. It uses diplomacy by talking to the UN, the French, the British and the US. The UN leadership is sympathetic, but powerless to stop Egypt from kicking out the peace keeping force. The French, with their new Arab allies, doesn't want to be seen supporting Israel and recommeneds that Israel waits until it is physically attacked before retaliating - despite that such an attack could leave Israel vulnerable to being split in two. France had also put an embargo on all middle eastern weapon sales - meaning that Israels main supply of weapons was gone. The British are sympathetic, and support an Israel response, but are unwilling to get personally involved. And the US is willing to work at a resolution by bringing in an american ship to run the blockade - effectively making any attack on the boat an attack on America, and bring in America into such a war. If Israel responded before such a blockade, America couldn't become involved - although it did go so far as to bluff and hint at possible US involvement to Russia. The problem with this solution was that it would take too long. And the Israeli economy was already under attack by the lack of it's oil source and being forced to maintain it's reserves. It couldn't wait for months. Even if it wasn't being attacked with bullets, it's survival became at stake all the same.
9 - Operation Dawn. A planned offensive to capture the Negev by Egypt. Nasser cancelled this offensive at, literally the last hour (as Egyptian planes were preparing to take off), because Russia had contacted Nasser after they recieved the American bluff of involvement - they told him to stand down his operation and make sure that Israel be the one to attack first to prevent the Americans from joining the attack. However, this cancellation wasn't before several of the officers planning for this operation were captured on the Israeli side of the border, and knowledge of this plan was known.

[Az]

...and then in the belief that they could do it again, the Israelies essentially annexed the conquered territories and ignored the inital peace feelers put forward by Sadat.

ahh! so that's what the Khartoum declaration was all about!

[Ned]

Edan, why do you believe the USSR tried to provoke a war?