A Dubious Defense:

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A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Legal Justifications for the Six-Day War (Excerpted)

On June 5th, 1967, Israeli forces swept across the Egyptian border, delivering an immediate and mortal blow to their enemy’s land and air armies. Less than a week later, the military of the United Arab Republic (Egypt) was all but wiped out, earning the victor’s feat the aptly named moniker of “The Six-Day War.” Initially claiming to have been the victims of an invasion themselves, the attackers’ story quickly changed to one of preventative war; that had Israel not taken the initiative and struck first, their Arab adversaries would have invaded and annihilated them, bringing with them their belligerent anti-Semitism and desire to destroy the Jewish State. Further justification for the attack was offered in the form of the United Arab Republic (UAR)’s closure of the Straits of Tiran, the artery of Israel’s oil supply. These rationalizations persist within the dominant narrative amongst Western intellectuals, which views the Egyptian actions leading up to the outbreak of the conflict as grounds for an Israeli-initiated preventative war. NPR journalist Michael Shuster’s 2002 statement that “[m]ost historians now agree that although Israel struck first, this preemptive strike was defensive in nature” remains true today. However, with closer examinations of historical documents and international law, the claimed grounds for war lose much of their authority. A thorough and objective search through the best evidence available sheds light on a very different story than that often told. Such close analysis offers effective refutation of the two Israeli justifications for the invasion that still hold weight today: first, that it was acting in self-defense, and second, that the closure of the Straits of Tiran was a sound casus belli. As a whole, it conclusively proves that Israel lacked a legal base for invading Egypt in the Six-Day War.

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Leading up to the war, much noise from the Israeli government had been made about Egypt’s seemingly provocative actions. On May 16th, the UAR had moved a sizeable portion of its army forces to the Sinai Peninsula (a body of land straddling Israel), bringing their total manpower in the area up to 50,000, according to the CIA. This action, which appeared to indicate preparation for invasion, raised great alarm among Israeli circles. Director General of the Foreign Ministry Aryieh Levavi entreated the United States to support Israel both politically and militarily in light of the fact that an “attack by Egypt and Syria appeared imminent.” In his view, Egypt was actively preparing to launch a “full scale attack against Israeli existence.” To give at least some credence to the Israeli claims, President Nasser was not lacking in belligerent rhetoric. In a fiery May 26th speech to Arab trade-unionists, the Egyptian leader stated: “If Israel embarks on, an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle against Israel will be a general one and not confined to one spot on the Syrian or Egyptian borders. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.” However, as then-US Secretary of State Dean Rusk replied to Israeli Foreign Minister Aba Eban’s invocation of the Egyptian assertions, “[T]here is some difference between what is said and what is actually done.”

As for “what is actually done”, The United States’s best intelligence reports suggested that the claim of imminent attack, brought about by the aforementioned UAR troop movements, was simply false. Three separate Washington committees arrived at the same conclusion; that the Egyptian maneuvers had been defensive in character. The first to deliver their dissent regarding the Israeli contention was the CIA. In a May 25th memo to President Johnson, the intelligence organization stated that “Nasser… estimates that he does not have — even with the support of the other Arabs — the capability to destroy Israel by a military attack.” It contended that the Egyptian military actions “[did] not prove that the Arabs intend an all-out attack on Israel.” The Watch Committee, an organization set up “to assess international situations that might result in hostilities” was the second US organization to report their findings. On May 26th, the Committee disclosed its official opinion on the Arab-Israeli tensions: “On the basis of our review of all available intelligence, we do not believe the Israeli claim that Egypt is preparing to launch an attack against Israel.” The final authoritative American source on the matter was General Earle Wheeler, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who also delivered his report on May 26th. Wheeler confirmed the previous two accounts by stating that “the UAR’s dispositions are defensive” and that “there were no indications that the Egyptians would attack.” In fact, some prominent Israeli politicians did not buy their government’s pleas. When implored by Israeli cabinet members to state whether an Egyptian attack was truly imminent, Yitzhak Rabin, head of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) General Staff, replied that he could not confirm the claims that were being made. In a June 2nd meeting, fellow General Staff member Moshe Dayan communicated that the Egyptian deployments in the Sinai Peninsula were in anticipation of an expected Israeli invasion. General Amit, head of the Mossad (Israel’s intelligence agency), detailed Egyptian defensive positions and capabilities in his analysis of the troop movements without even mentioning any sort of offensive potential, implying that he believed there simply was none.

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Israel failed to meet the requirements it was bound to in responding to Egypt’s shipping restrictions [on the Straits of Tiran]. Its use of military force was specifically prohibited [by the United Nations Charter], at no time did it seek active negotiations to reopen the Straits of Tiran, and to call its invasion of Egypt “disproportionate” would be a vast understatement. In fact, the Israeli invasion came just several days after Egyptian Vice President Zakaria Mohiedden had agreed to meet Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House to find a possible resolution to the tensions over Tiran, clearly indicating that Israel and the international community had not yet exhausted all measures of diplomacy and negotiation, both necessary components of introducing “countermeasures.” Though Egypt may well have been in violation of UN and ILC provisions, their actions at no time permitted Israel to launch a full-scale invasion to resolve the much less significant crime of shipping restrictions. The same legal statures and provisions that high ranking officials like Eshkol claimed as grounds for an invasion explicitly prohibited Israel’s June 5th actions, rendering the Straits of Tiran argument valueless.

To assume that critically analyzing Israel’s justification of war is simply a trifling matter of blame would be a grave mistake. The events of the Six-Day War may have occurred more than half of a century ago, but their aftereffects stretch into the modern day. The point of determining the legal legitimacy of the 1967 invasion of Egypt is not to provide a cheap argument for one side in the tense Arab-Israeli conflict to use as part of their partisan agenda, but rather to eliminate needless misunderstandings that seep into doctrines of international law. Too often have bellicose nations cited the Six-Day War as a flawless precedent by which to base their foreign policy; the United States has used the idea of “anticipatory self-defense” created by the conflict to provide legitimacy for both its bombing of Libya and the 2002 “Bush Doctrine,” as well as using it to open up the possibility for an attack on the Soviet Union during the Cold War era. Whatever legal justifications these policies may be sheathed in, the Six-Day War should not be one of them. As long as the Israeli invasion remains a popular justification for preventative war, the truth and legitimacy of its claims must be rigorously examined and criticized. No longer should the Israeli invasion be taken as an irrefutable fact of self-defense in legal analyses and the upper echelons of national governments. No longer should the notion that the actions of 1967 grant others eternal permission for the usage of preemptive strikes persist. If the integrity of international law is to be maintained, its scholars must come to grips with the increasingly obvious fact that the Israeli invasion of Egypt in the Six-Day War was without legal justification.

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Illuminating Global Connections - Nathaniel M Blog

Current Junior at Polytechnic High School, class of 2023. Avid enthusiast of geography, world history, and international relations. See “About” for more info.