Zach Bornheimer's History Portfolio

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October 1956 – March 1957

-Suez Crisis

March 8, 1965

-Nasser threatens Israel

Feb 22, 1967

-President of Syria threatens Israel

May 13, 1967

-Russia knowingly gives false information to Egypt regarding an invasion in Syria

May 14, 1967

-Israel learns that Egypt’s troops are on high alert

-Egypt issued an alert of war (troops will go to war)

May 15, 1967

-Levi Eshkol (Israeli Prime Minister) sends troops to the Sinai Desert and sends a message to Egypt saying that it has no aggression towards any Arab country.

May 16, 1967

-Egypt moves forces towards the Sinai Desert and Israeli border

-More extinction threats towards Israel

May 18, 1967

-Egypt ejected the U.N. Troops from Gaza and the United Arab Republic

May 19, 1967

-The terrorist group, El Fatah, was attacking Israel

-Eshkol said to the President of France that Israel wouldn’t initiate hostilities unless Egypt infringed upon its free navigation through Straights of Tiran

-Eshkol said “Israel would stop at nothing to cancel the blockade. It is essential that President Nasser should not have any illusions.”

May 20, 1967

-Syria’s Secretary of Defense threatens Israel and calls for annihilation of Israel

-People begin to believe that war was inevitable (the peacekeepers, the U.N. Troops, that have been standing between the two countries are leaving after 10 years)

May 21, 1967

-New York Times report missing soldiers in the Sinai

May 22, 1967

-Nasser declares that Israeli ships are no longer allowed in the Gulf of Aquaba

-Syria wants a full fledged war against Israel

-An internal U.S. Memo states that Israel needs gas masks because of a possible chemical war

May 23, 1967

-Egypt closes the Straights of Tiran (Gulf of Aquaba)

-Israel prepared for war

-The U.S. condemned the blockade

May 24, 1967

-Britain joined in efforts to reverse the blockade

May 25, 1967

-More threats towards Israel were made against Israel

May 26, 1967

-Nasser says that the primary objective of war will be to annihilate Israel

-Israel prepared for war

May 27, 1967

-Nasser cancelled a strike planned for May 28, 1967, Operation Fajr (Dawn), because it became apparent that Israel knew about it

May 28, 1967

-Nasser says that they have been in a war with Israel since 1948

May 30, 1967

-Jordanian troops now are under the control of Nasser due to a military alliance

May 31, 1967

-The President of Iraq says that Israel needs to be wiped off the map

June 1, 1967

-Germany decides to send 20,000 gas masks to Israel because of a threat of biological warfare

June 2, 1967

-Britain starts a blood drive for blood banks in Israel

June 3, 1967

-Israelis are ordered by the defense minister not to “entangle Israel with the Jordanians”

June 4, 1967

-Jordan threatens Britain and U.S. saying that they will loose no longer have an alliance in the Arab world if they support Zionism.

SOURCES: Hyperlinked Sources, sixdaywar.co.uk

NOTE: Threats towards Israel refer to annihilation threats towards Israel

Day 1- first day of fighting. Israel destroys most of Egyptian air force, Jordan, Syria and Iraq attack Israel. Egyptian Air force Destroyed Picture

8:15 Am: Israel destroys Egyptian Air Force- fearing thousands of civilian losses by the Egyptian Air force, Israel preemptively strikes and destroys 311 Egyptian planes, most on the ground. Thirteen bases are rendered inoperable.

8:30 am: Israel sends message to Jordan, pledging no attack, if Jordan stays out of war, Israel passes message via Chief UN Observer Odd Bull to Jordan’s King Hussein. Israel promises not to attack if Jordan stays out of the war, but warns that Israel would respond forcefully otherwise.

9:30 am: Hussein informs his people that the “Hour of revenge has come”

10:00 Am: Jordan Attacks Israel. Nasser tells Hussein Egypt has inflicted staggering damage on Israel. Over 6000 shells hit Jewish Jerusalem, 900 buildings are damaged, including Hadassah Hospital. Twenty civilians die, over 1000 injured. “ Very heavy machine and mortar fire, probably cannon, continuous in Jerusalem’ British consul-general at around 11:30.

12:30 pm: Israel strikes Jordanian airfields in Mafraq and Amman. In response to Jordan’s attack, Israel seeks to destroy Jordanian air capabilities.

Day 2: Fighting continues of all fronts

2:00 Am and throughout the day Massive Syrian artillery barrage on Galilee communities. Over 250 guns shoot an estimated 45 tons of ammunition per minute on the towns.

5:50 AM: Due to mass destruction and wide spread fear and panic, massive Egyptian retreat begins

Afternoon: Lebanon attacks Israel with planes in the Galilee

4:30 PM: Israel and Jordan accept terms of UN cease fire, but Egypt and Syria do not.

11:30 PM: King Hussein of Jordan orders his troops to retreat, then reverses himself.

Day 3: Jerusalem taken, Blockade of Straits of Tiran broken

10:00 Am: “The Temple Mount is in our hands” – Israeli troops gain control over eastern Jerusalem, including the Olds City, home of the Jewish Quarter and the holiest site in Judaism, the Temple Mount. Jews had been denied access to these sites during the nineteen years Jordan had occupied eastern Jerusalem despite stipulations of the 1948 Jordan-Israel armistice agreement. Israel leaves the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque, Muslim holy sites in the Old City, under the administration of Muslim religious authorities.

12:15 pm: Israel breaks Straits of Tiran blockade: Israeli forces take control of Sharm al-Sheikh from Egypt. Israel opens the Straits of Tiran to all ships.

Throughout the day: Syria continues shelling Israel’s northern communities.

Day 4: Israel consolidates hold on West Bank

Israel Defense Forces take control of Hebron and other West Bank towns

Syria continues shelling northern Israeli communities

According to American ambassador Barbour, “Syrian shelling of kibbutzim and settlements in Israel has been continuous and incessant…Some kibbutzim have been completely leveled above ground.” This is because they agricultural based communities, which is also why the water supply was attacked.

Day 5: Israel and Syria in heavy fighting on the Golan

After first avoiding a ground war with Syria, Israel reverses course due to the incessant shelling and the realization that Israelis living in the north would never be safe if Syria controlled the Gollan Heights. While other Arab armies retreated, then Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad demanded his troops hunker down and “ Strike the enemy’s settlements, turn them into dust, page the Arab roads with the skulls of Jews. Strike them without mercy.”

Day 6:  Israel gains control of the Golan Heights. Cease fire agreed to by all parties. Golan Heights Boundaries

Results of the Six Day War

In Depth Timeline

June 19 1967

• Israeli Cabinet offers Syria and Egypt back the territories they gained in return for peace.

September 1 1967

• At an Arab Summit in Khartoum they created the Khartoum Resolution which stated that they will not negotiate or make peace with Israel. Khartoum Resolution

November 22 1967

• UN Security Council created resolution 242 which calls Israel to withdraw and for the establishment for peace. UN Resolution 242

Gamal Abdel Nasser’s approach to politics can be interpreted as naive or genius. One of his main approaches to politics was to have the superpowers fight each other. This could be considered naive, because the attempt would be too transparent, or genius, because it would distract the superpowers from seeing what was going on under their nose. For example, by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company, Nasser put the British, French, and Israelis on the offensive. Because of the invasion of the British, French, and Israelis, the United Nations passed resolutions to protect Egypt from the forces and to have the three nations withdraw. Later, the United States supported these resolutions, which could be considered a successful result of his plan. Nasser would later claim that he defeated the France, Britain, and Israel by himself, an attempt to anger the three nations, so they would attack each other, verbally, through sanctions, or with forces. Nasser was trying to implement his original strategy, but after discovering that it was not resulting in his desired outcome, he haulted communication with the United States, which Nasser was in communication with because they supported (did not oppose) Egypt, and, according to Said K. Aburish’s book Nasser, the Last Arab, Nasser’s policy of “playing the superpowers against each other came to an end.”

I disagree with the idea that Nasser’s polices were naive, but rather that he had a plan to bring down the superpowers.  Whether or not Nasser’s policies are naive, his decisions can be considered the major cause of the 1956 Suez Crisis.

My Research Links from the Suez Crisis Scavenger Hunt

• 09996_2005_003_a.jpg 720×931 pixels / eisenhower’s diary suezcrisis pg3

  The U.S. refused to help Egypt build the Aswan Dam

• 09996_2006_002_a.jpg 720×923 pixels / eisenhower’s diary suezcrisis pg2

  The U.S. refused to help Egypt build the Aswan Dam

• 09996_2006_001_a.jpg 720×929 pixels / eisenhower’s diary suezcrisis pg1

  The U.S. refused to help Egypt build the Aswan Dam

• eLibrary Results / suezcrisis
• The Art of Strategic Counterintelligence — Central Intelligence Agency
• Modern History Sourcebook: / suezcrisis
• S/RES/95 (1951)-S/2322 of 1 September 1951 / suezcrisis
• BBC – History – The Suez Crisis / suezcrisis
• Nasser speaking to crowd / suezcrisis
• Suez Crisis timeline / suezcrisis
• Nasser’s biography
• Suez Crisis, 1956 / suezcrisis Office of the Historian
• BBC NEWS | UK | Audio slideshow: Suez crisis / suezcrisis audioslideshow derek oakley
• WAFFEN-2.jpg 530×385 pixels / British paratroopers portsaid suezcrisis
• _41910888_strategic_import_map416.gif 416×319 pixels / suezcrisis map
• _41916320_troop_move_map416.gif 416×319 pixels / suezcrisis map
• 1956suezcrisis.jpg 825×602 pixels / suezcrisis map
• the-suez-canal1.gif 272×300 pixels / suezcrisis map

By giving us a new outlook on a certain situation, analytical tools become a quintessential tool to the decrypting of the world around us.  Take for example any “crisis”.  Analytical tools can help us go from knowing the states involved and the outcome to knowing the key players in the Situation.  From this one step, we can further try to understand why the decisions were made.  Taking biographical information of key players, getting personality traits, and psychoanalysis can help put us as historians in the mindset of the decision makers.  By using these analytical tools, we begin to understand the “crisis”  and, by also applying this different situations, analytical tools help us explain the complexities of the world around us.  Also, we can start understanding the geography of the area, economical situations, and more complexities that involve the state.   We then can examine the situation on a broader level, on the world level.  What is the government (democracy? anarchy?)?  What alliances does the area have?  We can even examine the effects of the “conflict” on different nationalities, races, groups, communities, and individual.  By using these tools, we can better understand the complexities of the world.  We, by using analytical tools to understand the complexity of the world around us, can view the complexities from different angles and be able to understand, learn from, and explain all aspects behind the complexity.

The use of force may be an effective way to help finalize a dispute, but it does not ultimately determine the outcome of a dispute.  When diplomacy and appeals to norms and values fails to achieve results, force becomes a plausible option that can get the job done (in an unknown amount of time).  The old adage, you may have won the battle, but I won the war, further substantiates my point.  Force may not always be the determining factor in deputes.  The use of diplomatic sanctions, such as the refusal to conduct business with a nation, person, or peoples, can be effective as well.  In modern times, North Korea would give up their nuclear program if all nations refused to trade with it and sell it oil for the winter.  To sum up my point, the use of force, more than diplomacy or appeals to norms and values, DOES NOT ultimately determine the outcome of a dispute.

Arab leaders opposed the formation of a Jewish state.  They used the rational of a victim to justify retaliation which, in my opinion, could have been diplomatic retaliation rather than force.  To be able to give a good example of this, we need to step back and see an unrelated idea from viewpoint of the Arab.  Imagine that you live in a country called Slokaxia.  Slokaxia is a small country with great fertile land which you and your family have seeded and harvested for centuries.  Soon though, a group of people immigrate to Slokaxia and start buying land.  In thirty years they will own 10% of Slokaxian land and the native Slokaxians will own 90%.  Imagine that the immigrants start saying this is our land and we want our own country here.  A few Slokaxians don’t mind, but most do.  The immigrants and the natives start battling.  They also involve higher powers, who tend to side with them, and the United Nations, who decides to split up the Slokaxian land almost 50-50.  You would feel angry, confused about how this could happen, and violated.  If you replace the natives with Arabs, Slokaxia with Palestine, and immigrants with Jews, you will understand the rationale of the Arab’s disapproval and opposition to the emergence of a Jewish State.  The moral question involved is, “does this reason warrant the use of force?”  I don’t know.  I am too close to the issue to make an objective decision.  I do think that diplomatic actions could be taken, but that is not the question.  So, does this warrant (justify) the use of force?  I would say it does not justify the use of force, but I do understand why they would use force.

The UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee On Palestine) had the final say in history on the partitioning of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.  When looking back on what could have happened, no one nation was to ‘blame’ exactly, but it is could have been partitioned differently.  If the British did not change allies and sides so frequently, the Arabs, would have British support and get the majority of land and there would probably one Arab state with limited Jewish immigration.  Also if Ernest Bevin did not give up on Palestine, it may not have been divided and may have stayed an Arab state.  If President Roosevelt and President Truman let more refugees into the United States, there would not have been so much pressure for a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.  In the end, President Truman pushed for the partitioning of Palestine.  So, there wasn’t really one single nation to, blame for the results, but the United States and Britain greatly increased the viability that partitioning was the ideal option.

• Who: Golda Meir
• Where: Jerusalem (Before the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry
• When: March 25, 1946
• What: Golda Meir’s testimony to convince the major powers to support the development of a Jewish State
• Purpose: Golda Meir is trying to convince the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry that the Jews need a separate state
• Value: Allows us to see the original argument of Golda Meir for a Jewish state and the reasons why a Jewish State needs to be established
• Limitations: Golda Meir does not talk about the reason Palestine is the ideal place (besides that pioneers already chose it) and it is biased towards the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.  Golda Meir uses emotional appeal, so it is difficult to see the real facts behind the opionions.  There is also no outline of what Golda Meir wants for the new state.

The International Community had the responsibility of providing care, the refugee status, home, and security.  The victims of the Holocaust were denied entry to most countries because of quotas, but they needed refugee status.  The international community was responsible for helping those who were refugees and IDPs because they were not helped before (to escape the razing).  Also, the international community needed to help reconnect people with their families, which may have helped with the immigration.  The International Community had these responsibilities , along with reassuring that this will never happen again, to the survivors / living victims of the Holocaust.