The United States and the Six Day War - Term Paper Example

The United s and the Six Day War To comprehensively understand the role of the United s in theSix Day War, we need to look at the political history between the United States and Middle Eastern countries, especially Israel, in the decades leading up to the war: The U.S.-Israeli partnership is universally acknowledged as special, and for good reasons. In the economic sphere, for example, Israel has long been the recipient of the single largest endowment of American financial aid, that for a country of only 5.5 million people. Also, strangely enough, the first free-trade zone established by the United States was with Israel, a small country a distance of six thousand miles away. The special friendship also covers their cooperative military and intelligence operations. Such cooperation is not fully harmonious, but its scope is unprecedented, even compared with Americas unique common history with Great Britain (Sandler 933). When it comes to diplomacy, the United States has on several occasions vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions seen to be anti-Israel or detrimental to diplomatic processes, despite protests from the rest of the international community, which includes some major U.S. allies. But the word "special" has different meanings to different entities. To adversaries of Israel and the United States looking at this unusual arrangement from the outside, "special" has come to mean particularly evil. They see the combine as malevolent in intent and accuse them of spreading conspiracies. Even within the U.S.-Israeli relationship, for those with emotional and political stakes in the partnership "special" has often meant specially unpredictable and prone to ulcerate anyone related to it. The political systems of Israel and United States make them natural allies. Israel is the sole democracy in the Middle East and takes great pride in that fact. And the United States is willing to oblige to requests of assistance for the same reason (Ash 42). However, it should be noted that the treatment of Arabs on the Israel controlled territories are not acts worthy of admiration and the role of United States in the Middle East should be evaluated by taking this into account. “The fact that Israel and the United States never shared the same fundamental adversary explains the lack of a formal alliance between them. But true alliances arise only to fight or deter a common enemy, and in this case there was only a common interest - Israels survival - and arguments over how best to ensure it. That, then, is another way in which the U.S.-Israeli relationship has been unique: it is commonly understood as an alliance but lacks both the formal, legal aspects and the underlying rationale of an alliance.” (Tal 840) Of course, U.S.-Israeli relations have never been based solely on such political factors alone. Beyond the hard-nosed calculations of power politics and competition for global dominance are more emotional and cultural aspects of the partnership. This relationship had bound a small, vulnerable democracy of a people persecuted throughout history, to a large and secure democracy of many different peoples drawing from a common heritage. Such underlying factors have what made the U.S.-Israeli relationship a special one1. Additional emotional bonds grew as a consequence of the Holocaust and the associated inward guilt, as well as the related concern of the American majority toward Jews following World War Two, which benefited the State of Israel. During the last few decades of the 19th century, the Jews of Russia migrated to America2, as it was believed to be both safe and economically promising. Terrorism was also more prevalent in Palestine at the time, which was another reason why the Russian Jewry preferred the United States over all other states. After the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, it depended on America for food and diplomatic support; later during the six day war and the war of 1973, for weapons and economic aid. So, the U.S.-Israel relation was very strong right thru the history of the 20th century. Also, American Jews have, in the past, helped Israelis with money and lobbied for policies favoring them. Of course, the political and economic clout of American Jews had a big role to play in this (Sandler 935). Zionism, a movement promoting the founding of a Jewish state in Palestine that was conceptualized in the 1890s, immediately attracted a reasonable following. At first, Americans viewed Zionism as merely a marginal political group that only dealt with the domestic affairs of the Jews. That changed when Louis D. Brandeis emerged as the leader of American Zionism. Although Brande had resigned his post after being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, he remained a beacon of the Jewish cause in the United States. In spite of some resistance in the British and American governments, Wilson, hard-pressed by Zionist leaders Chaim Weizmann and Loius D. Brandeis, supported the British governments announcement regarding the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917). Going further back in history, the United States had been a breeding ground for the Zionist movement3. Many Zionist leaders were based in the United States and strongly lobbied for the creation of an Israeli state (Sandler 942). As a result of encouragement and support from the United States, the Zionist Organization of America rose rapidly to a membership of 200,000 immediately after Congress and President Warren G. Harding’s declaration of support for the Balfour Declaration. Though President Franklin Roosevelt did not endorse the Jewish cause, President Harry S. Truman did and endeavored in promoting the Jewish state. When the knowledge of the magnitude of the Holocaust came to light, the movement picked up further momentum and the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs was the main force behind it (Sandler 936). There are deep rooted cultural similarities between the United States and Israel. So much so, that many places in Israel look and feel just like America. Also, the American model of democracy does not uphold ethnicity and religious affiliations. Thus, it is the model of a melting pot of different cultures. This is true of the Israeli society as well, though its democratic polity resembles European than American. Humanism and Universalism, the two core American ideals have had a profound appeal to the secular Israelis. In fact, if most countries would adopt the Israel-U.S style of democracy, there would be much less geopolitical tension than what it is. (Atherton 1205) The ramifications of the Cold War soon spread into the Middle East. The West did not want the oil-rich region to fall to communism and to negate Soviet influence over the region; the United States increased its foothold in the Middle East. The big prize for the West would be Palestine. Although the area of land comprising Palestine was relatively small, it nevertheless was strategically located stretching along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and located between the Middle East and Northern Africa. Hence, the U.S. intervention in Middle Eastern affairs has a big element of self-interest in it. (McGeary 39) The Jewish migration to Palestine saw a sharp increase in the decades after world war one. The population increased from 65,000 in 1919 to 650,000 by 1947. This deluge of humanity usurped lands traditionally belonging to the Palestinians, which angered the latter. In the mean time, President Truman accepted the stipulations put forward by the Peel Royal War Commission Report4 in the year 1937. However, due to the perceived unjustness of the partition, it was not implemented (Sandler 948).. In 1947, Great Britain, still reeling under the aftermath of World War Two, decided to transfer its control of Palestine to the United Nations. The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) made a few recommendations. One of it is to partition Palestine. This was later adopted under UN Resolution 181, which also included a plan to allocate Greater Jerusalem as a common international area. This was never acceptable to the Palestinians and it resulted in a war shortly afterwards. (Tal 828) “During the conflict, Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary defense organization, seized several territories, allowing Zionists to claim a clear victory. On May 14, 1948, the provisional government issued its Declaration of Independence. That same day, the Truman administration recognized the State of Israel. This action provoked the ire of Arab states which denounced the U.S. for perpetuating the systematic dispossession of Palestinians of their lands. With a massive immigration of European Jews that followed the war, Palestinian Arabs were evicted from their homeland, causing an international refugee crisis.” (Fernandez) The period between 1949 and 1956 saw tensions escalate in the region as Jordan, Egypt and Syria endeavored to protect their respective borders from an Israeli invasion. In spite of negotiations by the UN to prevent armed conflict, in February 1955, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip in Egypt. The then Egyptian President Nasser, alarmed at his army’s incompetence approached the West for assistance, which they promptly refused. This left Egypt with no other option than to turn to the Soviet Union for military support (Tal 830). Since the relationship between U.S.S.R. and Egypt posed a threat to American strategic interests, Britain and France partnered Israel in invading Egypt in the October of 1956, which resulted in the Suez Crisis. Although Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza strip, President Eisenhower pressurized that it retract its troops from these lands. Eventually, Israel acquiesced to the demands. This was a singular event when Israel succumbed to diplomatic pressure from America. (McGeary 40) The volatile situation escalated into a war a few years later. In the month of June, 1967, the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank were invaded by Israel. This set-off the six day war. The defenses of the Arab countries were less advanced compared to the state-of-the-art Israeli artillery and transport. So, the Arab States were thoroughly defeated within the span of six days. With it, the geopolitical stakes of the United States in the Middle East changed. (McGeary 38) The United Nations adopted Resolution 242 to ease Arab-Israeli tensions in November 1967. It called for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories of recent conflict … a just settlement of the refugee problem”. The United States’ indifference to UN Resolution 242, further demonstrates its principle of providing Israel unconditional support (Ash 41). Also, the ambiguity of certain clauses in the resolution led to opposing parties interpreting the meaning as they saw fit to their cause. As could be expected, the resolution failed to bring a lasting solution to the region, leaving Arabs and Israelis in a perennial state of hostility. In the meantime, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), formed in 1964 with the backing of the Arab nations, started its insurgency operations against Israel so as to establish a separate Palestinian state. (Fernandez) “After the June 1967 and October 1973 wars, even these secondary calculations - how the United States could blunt and best the Soviet Union in the Middle East, how Israel could enhance its military advantages over the Arabs and wear down their political nihilism - began to take on a new form. The two competitions were complicated by ameliorative diplomacies and especially by their intersections: detente to the one side and the peace process to the other.” (Ash 44) Richard Nixon was elected to the office of President in 1968. The then Secretary of State William P. Rogers, acknowledged UN Resolution 242 and pressurized Israel to adhere to the UN recommendations. The National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger was skeptical and worried about a greater Soviet influence in the region and advised to drop the plan. This encouraged Israel and increased its determination not to yield to the dictates of the UN. The Arab states, however, would exploit the cold-war rivalry to change the geopolitical landscape of their region. Kissinger’s diplomacy was not effective enough to prevent the war of 1973, although it restored peace temporarily in the region. The brokering by United States in the following decades, which led to the Camp David accord and Oslo accord, would still not result in a lasting peace to the region due to the same political compulsions and conflicts of interests of the involved parties. (McGeary 38) Years later, while American diplomacy served as a stumbling block for the peaceful settlement of the conflict, Palestinians began to engage in widespread demonstrations and civil disobedience to voice their resistance to Israels continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (Ash 44). The First Intifada (1987-93) became an important political mechanism to force Israel to abandon the occupied territories and to gain support from the world at large for the predicament of the Palestinians. During the early 1990s, the First Intifada forced Israel to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the lawful political representative of the Palestinian people and to try to settle Palestinian-Israeli differences with that entity. The 1993 Oslo5 accord, however, was undermined from the same shortcomings as the Camp David accords, leading Palestinians and Arab states to again charge that Washington had betrayed the Middle East peace process. (Atherton 1203) Israel has relied on military aggression as the primary tool in responding to demands from the Palestinians. The United States too had tacitly supported Israel the last few decades due to its strategic importance in the Middle East. This had further angered the Arabs and escalated tension between Israel and Palestine. As a matter of fact, the United States had been and continues to be the chief broker of peace in the region and owes that responsibility (Garfinkle 562). Of course, the U.S.-Israeli relationship was always dynamic. The most basic of the bilateral agreements was that Israel should survive and grow strong, but that has always been a more or less abstract issue. Only for a few days in late 1973, since the War for Independence began, did the Israeli military suffer defeat. Otherwise, Israels self-defense capability was sufficiently advanced and effective that secondary matters took pride of place in the geo-political strategies of both sides, and here too, there was an overlap but not a coincidence of interest. (Fernandez) The escalation of U.S. mediator ship in the Middle East coincided with the gradual withdrawal of British forces. It also coincided with the escalating cold war tensions between the superpowers. The U.S. increased its financial support to Israel to negate the Soviet supply of ammunition to Arab states. Thus it gained substantial clout in the region. (Garfinkle 560) The irony is that, Jews, who were the victims of discrimination and violence as a result of anti-Semitic sentiment and the holocaust have now seemed to perpetrate the same vices. Apart from the Middle-East, there are reports of Jews’ increasing hostile attitudes towards African-Americans in the U.S.A. Unfortunately, this trend seems to have pervaded all across the Jewish Diaspora, debasing the humanitarian values that the Israelis were once attributed with. (Atherton 1201) Events, of late, had profoundly changed the nature of the Israeli-American partnership. Previously, American support in Arab-Israeli conflicts was Israel’s primary interest. For America, it was the advantage it could gain in its global cold war with U.S.S.R. was the chief motive. Israeli culture and political setup resonated with that of the United States’. So, all these made Israel a desirable ally, the collapse of the U.S.S.R. had changed the equations drastically and the United States no longer has the same incentive to stick its neck out for its friend. In this new scenario, the United States should consider the issue of Palestinian statehood independently of other parties and should implement it roadmap to peace initiative with the interests of the Palestinians in mind. The solutions are to be found in UN Resolutions 194 and 242. In the long run, a peaceful and stable Middle East would serve America more than anyone else, especially in the contemporary world where Islamic fundamentalism and international terrorism are on the rise. (Fernandez) Works Cited: Ash, Toby. "Rewriting the script of Middle East peace." MEED Middle East Economic Digest 40.n24 (June 14, 1996): 2(2).  Atherton, L. Alfred Jr. “Arabs, Israeli’s and Americans: A reconsideration.” Foreign Affairs. P.1194-1209 Fernandez, Erwin S. “The United States and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Forging Future Peace.”, International Social Science Review, 02782308, 2005, Vol. 80, Issue ½ Garfinkle, Adam. "U.S.-Israeli relations after the Cold War."  ORBIS 40.n4 (Fall 1996): 557(19).  McGeary, Johanna. "This land is whose land? With parades and misgivings, Israel recalls the Six-Day War." Time 129 (June 8, 1987): 38(2). Sandler, Shmuel. "Israeli Arabs and the Jewish state: the activation of a community in suspended animation.(Special Issue: Israel)." Middle Eastern Studies 31.n4 (Oct 1995): 932(21). Tal, David. "The American-Israeli security treaty: sequel or means to the relief of Israeli-Arab tensions, 1954-55.(Special Issue: Israel)." Middle Eastern Studies 31.n4 (Oct 1995): 828(21). Read More