The Six-Day War left the Arabs humiliated and the Israelis vauntingly triumphant. It was the Israeli sense of invincibility that left the country vulnerable in 1973. On October 6, as Jews were preparing for their holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria launched attacks intended to regain the territories lost in 1967. The Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal and established positions it would not lose. Two cease-fires were arranged, only to be violated by Israel. Finally, 18 days after the war began, a third and final cease-fire went into effect.
The war was launched to regain not only Arab territory but Arab pride as well. That explanation, which is true as far as it goes, gives a distorted picture. Often overlooked are the Arab leaders' efforts to make peace with Israel before 1973. In November 1967 King Hussein offered to recognize Israel's right to exist in peace and security in return for the lands taken from Jordan in the Six-Day War. (Israel had de facto annexed the old city of Jerusalem shortly after that war.) In February 1970 Nasser said, "It will be possible to institute a durable peace between Israel and the Arab states, not excluding economic and diplomatic relations, if Israel evacuates the occupied territories and accepts a settlement of the problem of the Palestinian refugees." (Israel had allowed only 14,000 of 200,000 refugees from the Six-Day War to return.) Then, in February 1971, Anwar Sadat, who had succeeded to the Egyptian presidency on Nasser's death in 1970, proposed a full peace treaty, including security guarantees and a return to the pre-1967 borders. That was not all. Also in 1971 Jordan again proposed to recognize Israel if it would return to its prewar borders. Egypt and Jordan accepted
UN Resolution 242, passed in November 1967, that called for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories in return for peace and security. Both Arab states also accepted the land-for-peace plan of Secretary of State William Rogers and the efforts of UN representative Gunnar Jarring to find a solution.
Israel turned a deaf ear to each proposal for peace, rejected the Rogers plan, snubbed Jarring, and equivocated on Resolution 242. At that time Israel and Egypt were engaged in a war of attrition across the Suez Canal. Israel flew air raids deep into Egypt and bombed civilians near Cairo. Soviet pilots and missiles participated in the defense of Egypt.
The Rogers plan represented only one side of the Middle East policy of the Nixon administration, which came into office in 1969, and it was the weak side at that. The strong side was represented by national security adviser (and later secretary of state) Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was busy with the Vietnam War and the diplomatic opening to Communist China during Nixon's initial years in office, so the Middle East was one of the few areas left to Rogers. Yet Kissinger could not resist getting involved. Thus, a battle occurred between two forms of intervention: Rogers's efforts to broker a solution and Kissinger's efforts to thwart one. The State Department believed that the key problem was Israeli intransigence. Kissinger, who saw the Middle East as another arena for the superpower rivalry, believed the Israeli victory in 1967 was a glorious defeat of the Soviets, and he actively opposed progress toward peace. Referring to 1969 he explained in his memoirs:
The bureaucracy wanted to embark on substantive talks as rapidly as possible because it feared that a deteriorating situation would increase Soviet influence. I thought delay was on the whole in our interest because it enabled us to demonstrate even to radical Arabs that we were indispensable to any progress and that it could not be extorted from us
by Soviet pressure. . . . I wanted to frustrate the radicals-- who were hostile to us in any event--by demonstrating that in the Middle East friendship with the United States was the precondition to diplomatic progress. When I told [Joseph] Sisco in mid-February that we did not want a quick success in the Four-- Power consultations at the United Nations in New York, I was speaking a language that ran counter to all the convictions of his Department. . . . By the end of 1971, the divisions within our government . . . had produced the stalemate for which I had striven by design.
That policy was consistent with the Nixon Doctrine, articulated by the president in July 1969. Under that doctrine the United States would rely on local powers to keep internal regional order and furnish "military and economic assistance when requested and appropriate." The United States would continue to provide a nuclear umbrella to deter Soviet intervention. In other words, client states such as Israel and Iran would police their regions to prevent upheavals by forces inimical to U.S. interests.
As the 1972 election approached, Kissinger assumed more control over Middle Eastern policy. He later recalled that Nixon "was afraid that the State Department's bent for abstract theories might lead it to propose plans that would arouse opposition from all sides. My principal assignment was to make sure that no explosion occurred to complicate
the 1972 election--which meant in effect that I was to stall." Since Kissinger was able to undermine Rogers's peace efforts, his was a "policy" the Israelis could embrace.
Kissinger's obstructionism came at the worst possible time. The 1967 Arab defeat and the ensuing bilateral peace offers persuaded many Palestinians that the Arab states were willing to sacrifice the Palestinians. It was a period of heightened violence from Yasser Arafat's nonideological al-Fatah, a major element of the Palestine Liberation
Organization; the Black September faction of al-Fatah; and George Habash's radical, Marxist-oriented Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The break between the Palestinians and the Arab states created problems for Jordan. The PLO had become a virtual state within a state there, and in 1970 the PFLP hijacked several airliners to
Jordan. As a result, in September 1970 King Hussein gave the military the go-ahead to root out the guerrilla infrastructure. Syria, in a show of support for the Palestinians, sent tanks into Jordan. At Kissinger's urging, Israel mobilized in support of Jordan, but before it could enter the country, the Syrian force was repulsed. The month known
as "Black September" cost the Palestinians 5,000 to 20,000 lives. Although Israeli troops did not see action, their mobilization helped cement Israel's image as a strategic asset of the United States in the region. Any evenhandedness that had marked earlier Nixon administration policy was now gone.
Less than a year later, Jordanian forces massacred Palestinians in several incidents before expelling the PLO from Jordan. The PLO then moved to Lebanon, having previously won that country's formal recognition of the right to operate autonomously. Harassment of the Palestinians by the Israeli-backed Lebanese Christians and guerrilla activity directed at Israel from Lebanon preceded massive Israeli raids and the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.
U.S. military and economic aid to Israel took a major jump. Just before the Jordanian crisis, Nixon approved a $500 million military aid package and sped up delivery of F-4 Phantom jets to Israel. Israel had indicated that, before it could start talks with the Arabs, it would need arms to ensure its security. Nixon had stalled, believing that Israel was already militarily superior. But under pressure from 78 U.S. senators, Nixon initiated a major transfer of technology (including the sale of jet engines for an Israeli warplane) that would enable Israel to make many of its own weapons. A second deal was struck for 42 Phantoms and 90 A-4 Skyhawk warplanes. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev countered the U.S. action by promising to supply arms and bombers to the Arabs, although not in the quantities that the United States supplied them to Israel.
In mid-1972 Sadat, whom Kissinger did not take seriously as a political leader, expelled the 15,000 Soviet advisers in his country. Sadat's reasons included continued wrangling about military aid, the emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, Soviet opposition to another war in the region, and general cultural differences. Although the United States was taken by surprise, Kissinger took credit for the development and, after the election, began secret negotiations with Egypt and the Soviets. However, his proposal for a settlement, which included Israeli military posts in the Sinai, was rejected by Sadat. Meanwhile, Nixon agreed to provide Israel with 84 new warplanes. Sadat summed up his reaction in a statement quoted in Newsweek: "Every door I have opened has been slammed in my face by Israel--with American blessings. . . . The Americans have left us no way out."
Peace proposals by Jordan, communicated to Kissinger around that same time, were rejected by Israel, which was not interested in relinquishing the West Bank. The Israeli rejection had at least tacit U.S. approval. On September 25, 1973, two weeks before war broke out, Kissinger became secretary of state and, with Nixon mired in Watergate, had
complete control over foreign policy.
During the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger ordered four ships of the Sixth Fleet to within 500 miles of Israel and initiated a UN strategy aimed at tying up the Soviets and delaying a cease-fire resolution. As he later put it, "We wanted to avoid this [cease-fire] while the attacking side was gaining territory, because it would reinforce the tendency to use the United Nations to ratify the gains of surprise attack." The Israelis asked for arms, but Kissinger was reluctant to comply, believing that Israel was well armed already, that the war would be short, and therefore that a resupply would unnecessarily anger the Arabs. But Kissinger did not want to appear to desert Israel, which he thought might harden its position, so he had arms sent secretly, a policy publicly ratified by Nixon on October 9. While the airlift of equipment was still covert, U.S. planes flew directly to the Israeli troops in the occupied Sinai, a violation of Egypt's territory.
Kissinger had another reason to accede to Israel's demand for an airlift. Although no one believed that Israel's survival was at risk, the surprisingly strong Arab showing panicked some Israelis. The Israeli ambassador to Washington warned that if the request for the airlift was denied, "we will have to draw very serious conclusions from all this." According to a historian sympathetic to Israel, "Kissinger. . . had long known that Israel possessed a very short nuclear option which it held as a weapon of last resort. . . . Suddenly . . . the scenario of an Israel feeling on the verge of destruction resorting in despair to nuclear weapons. . . assumed a grim actuality." Other reasons for the change in U.S. policy included domestic political considerations (the Israel lobby had become a powerful force) and a modest Soviet airlift to Syria. The multi-billion-dollar U.S. airlift was approved.
Kissinger was instrumental in having three cease-fire resolutions, all favorable to the Israeli army's position, passed in the UN Security Council. The first was passed on October 22, after Kissinger went to Moscow. His failure to consult them before working with the Soviets so outraged the Israelis that Kissinger felt he had to placate them by allowing some "slippage" in the deadline. "Slippage" became a major six-day offensive in which Israeli troops crossed the Suez Canal, blocked the roads from Cairo, and completed the encircling of Egypt's Third Army in the Sinai. When the offensive was over, Israel had reached the Gulf of Suez and occupied 1,600 square kilometers inside Egypt. According to Kissinger, Israel told him, untruthfully, that Egypt had launched an attack first, but he never publicly criticized his ally.
The second cease-fire, which weakly called for a return to the first cease-fire lines, passed the Security Council on October 24. Sadat accepted it, but Israel refused to pull back, which left Egypt's beleaguered Third Army at its mercy. Israel violated the cease-fire within hours and continued closing in on that army. The Nixon administration again was
silent. Sadat appealed to the Security Council for help, asking for U.S. and Soviet troops to intervene. The Soviets responded favorably to the idea, but Kissinger opposed it. "We had not worked for years to reduce the Soviet military presence in Egypt only to cooperate in reintroducing it as a result of a United Nations Resolution," Kissinger later
wrote. "Nor would we participate in a joint force with the Soviets, which would legitimize their role in the area and strengthen radical elements."
The Soviets then said they might send troops unilaterally. In response, late on October 24, the United States put its ground, sea, and air forces--conventional and nuclear--on worldwide alert. That brush with nuclear war demonstrated once again the grave danger posed by U.S. intervention in Middle Eastern affairs.
Meanwhile, Kissinger assured Israel that it would not be asked to return to the first cease-fire lines, and the airlift continued. Sadat ended the crisis by asking that a multinational force, without U.S. or Soviet troops, be sent to oversee the cease-fire. On October 25 the third UN resolution was passed, creating a peace-keeping force and again merely requesting a return to the October 22 lines.
Israel continued attacking Egyptian forces and forbidding the passage of food, water, or medicine to the trapped Third Army. Private pleas from Kissinger to Israel were rejected. The crisis ended with Sadat's offer of direct talks between the two nations' military officers about carrying out the UN resolutions. He asked for one delivery of nonmilitary supplies to the Third Army under UN and Red Cross supervision. Israel accepted, although it was bitter that the United States did not allow it to capture the Third Army and humiliate Egypt.
One consequence of the mammoth U.S. arms shipments to Israel, and particularly the U.S. deliveries in the Sinai, was the OPEC oil embargo. The dollar price of oil had been rising since 1971, when Nixon stopped redeeming foreign governments' dollars for gold. Even before the war, Saudi Arabia had talked about linking oil to an Israeli-Palestinian
settlement.
On October 20 Saudi Arabia announced that it would sell no oil to the United States because of U.S. support for Israel. Saudi Arabia's average provision of oil to the United States came to 4 percent of American daily consumption. Iraq, Abu Dhabi, Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar followed the Saudi example. Nixon's price control program turned an
inconvenience into a crisis, with long lines at gas stations and other disruptions of the economy. After the war, despite Kissinger's appeal, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia stood by his demand that Israel withdraw from all the occupied territories (including those taken in 1967) before the oil tap was turned on again. Kissinger threatened to retaliate while
also promising that the United States would support the land-for-peace UN resolutions (Resolution 338, passed during the war, reiterated Resolution 242 of 1967). In December OPEC, at the bidding not of Arab countries but of Iran and Venezuela, quadrupled the price of oil to $11.65 a barrel. But shipments to Europe, which became more critical of Israel, were increased. Finally, on March 18, 1974, after Israel, Egypt, and Syria concluded disengagement agreements, and after prodding by Sadat, the Arab states ended the oil embargo. The Arabs placed no conditions on their action; the last export restrictions were removed on July 11. After the embargo, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait ended the concession system and ostensibly nationalized their oil industries. In fact, they entered into long-term contracts with the former concession owners.
The costs to the United States of the Yom Kippur War were significant. As Kissinger calculated it, the war "cost us about $3 billion directly, about $10-15 billion indirectly. It increased our unemployment and contributed to the deepest recession we had in the postwar period." The war was another demonstration of the bankruptcy of U.S. policy in
the Middle East. Total support of Israel did not create stability; on the contrary, it further alienated the Arabs, pushed several Arab states closer to the Soviet Union, upset the U.S.-Soviet detente (indeed, came close to igniting a nuclear confrontation), and loaded the OPEC oil weapon.
