DOW 300 POINTS COLLAPSE: PAULSON'S US$100 BILLION BANK CONSORTIUM RESCUE EFFORTS TO SAVE BANKS REVEALS TOTAL BANKRUPTCY OF FINANCIAL POLICIES

Recap of Past Events

The recent temporary rally of the Dow (as forecasted by me - continued ups and downs,but overall trend down as stated in previous Red Alerts) to an all time high (exceedingJuly 14,000 points) last week, had many people confused, especially the greedy ones andthose in state of denial.Some people went plunging into the stock market, to catch the rally and got burnt again.These people never learn and they deserve the trashing and I have no, absolutely no pityfor such fools. It is like playing a poker game with the cards stacked against thestooge. The game at the global casinos was rigged from the word go.If these people had examined critically, even for five minutes, the current state ofaffairs, it would have been apparent to them, that Bernanke's sell out to Wall Streetwas a stop gap measure to calm the markets and create a state of illusion. But it didnot work for the simple reason that one cannot simply revive, on a permanent basis, ahopelessly terminally ill patient, when all its organs are failing rapidly, save theventilator maintaining the last few breaths.The final clue that the global banking collapse is speeding down the one way streetwithout any driver in control was the announcement by Paulson, the Treasury Secretaryand the three big banks, JP Morgan Chase, CITI Group and Bank of America to set up aUS$100 billion fund to mop up the toilet paper commercial paper market (i.e. to buy thestructured vehicles' toilet paper assets).The global security fraud is now beyond redemption - what this means is that "investors"are not buying these commercial papers supposedly backed by securities, as their valuesare dubious. To avoid pubic auction of these toilet paper assets and then finding nobuyers (i.e. finally being exposed that they are totally worthless), Paulson and thesebig banks are trying to buy these papers to avoid such a public exposure and in the hopethat when things have "settled and there is no more panic" to unload them again to someother idiots. After all a fool is born every other day!But their very act of setting the fund, have shown their scheme for what it is. Thewhole world is shouting. "The Emperor has no clothes!" I was shouting and shouting. Fewheard my screams and saved their life savings.This is the critical implication. Hence, the dramatic collapse of the Dow.The End is NearThe rate cut of a hefty 50 basis points on 18th September 2007 by the Fed was adiversionary tactic and to buy time for the Banks to come up with another fraudulentscheme to hoodwink the self deluding public that all was well. It worked for barelythree weeks and then lost all steam!The dollar has plunged again - a massive 300 points. Gold has soared. Crude is headingfor the US100 target by year end. Foreign funds (especially Sovereign Funds) areditching US dollar assets. Long term bond yields are rising in tandem.Literally, blood will flow in the streets in major cities of USA and UK in the not toodistant future, when the full impact of the collapse hits every aspect of the economyand Joe six packs finally realises that Bush, Cheney, the neo-cons and the bastardscontrolling the City of London have taken them for a ride and robbed them of theirpensions and future.The policy of control chaos will be implemented and we will witness in major cities ofthe USA, UK and Europe of street battles, orchestrated by the Intelligence Services,between the white folks and the immigrant population. In the USA, it will be against theLatinos and then the blacks (after they realised that the Jewish community has abandonedthem). In the UK and in Europe, it will be against mainly immigrants from Turkey, theNorthern Mediterranean states and Pakistan and they are essentially Muslims. There istherefore, the added fuel of Islamic radicalism, which in the first place, was thecreation of the Western intelligence services.These immigrants (cannon folders for the continuing war on terrorism) will be blamed forthe woes that afflict the white population. The big banks and the 1% rich have alldisappeared with their mistresses and bunnies in some island resort and have engagedmercenaries like Blackwater to guard whatever real estate that need to be protected fromthe marauding crowds. The Katrina rehearsals have prepared such private armies to dotheir dirty work. They have their work cut out for them.It will be ugly.In the Middle East, the Western intelligence Services will ensure Muslims will slaughterfellow Muslims, as otherwise, only the West will be suffering from the consequences ofthe financial tsunami.The Inevitable WarThe G7 countries will give their consent and support Cheney's mad adventure in theMiddle East as their only solution to the mess which they have created.I see no other scenario. How I wish I am wrong. But I doubt it. Events following everyprevious Red ALERTS have come to pass.I am no soothsayer. But applying common sense, we must be realists and prepare ourpeople and our family for the coming wars and prepare to take part in the GlobalResistance, in whatever way and means at our disposal.Take care and God bless you all.MATTHIAS CHANGKUALA LUMPUR20TH OCTOBER 2007Matthias Chang, a Barrister, was Political Adviser to Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad,former Prime Minister of Malaysia, who succesfully defended the Malaysian currency inthe late 1990s against attacks by City of London-controlled central banks.

U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War Il and the Folly of Intervention

"Ancient History": U.S. Conduct in the Middle East
Since World War Il and the Folly Of Intervention


by Sheldon L. Richman


Executive Summary

When Iranian revolutionaries entered the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and seized 52
Americans, President Jimmy Carter dismissed reminders of America's long intervention in
Iran as "ancient history." Carter's point was not merely that previous U.S. policy could
not excuse the hostage taking. His adjective also implied that there was nothing of
value to be learned from that history. In his view, dredging up old matters was more
than unhelpful; it was also dangerous, presumably because it could only serve the
interests of America's adversaries. Thus, to raise historical issues was at least
unpatriotic and maybe worse.(1)

As the United States finds itself in the aftermath of another crisis in the Middle East,
it is worth the risk of opprobrium to ask why there should be hostility toward America
in that region. Some insight can be gained by surveying official U.S. conduct in the
Middle East since the end of World War II. Acknowledged herein is a fundamental, yet
deplorably overlooked, distinction between understanding and excusing. The purpose of
this survey is not to pardon acts of violence against innocent people but to understand
the reasons that drive people to violent political acts.(2) The stubborn and often
self-serving notion that the historical record is irrelevant because political violence
is inexcusable ensures that Americans will be caught in crises in the Middle East and
elsewhere for many years to come.

After 70 years of broken Western promises regarding Arab independence, it should not be
surprising that the West is viewed with suspicion and hostility by the populations (as
opposed to some of the political regimes) of the Middle East.(3) The United States, as
the heir to British imperialism in the region, has been a frequent object of suspicion.
Since the end of World War II, the United States, like the European colonial powers
before it, has been unable to resist becoming entangled in the region's political
conflicts. Driven by a desire to keep the vast oil reserves in hands friendly to the
United States, a wish to keep out potential rivals (such as the Soviet Union),
opposition to neutrality in the cold war, and domestic political considerations, the
United States has compiled a record of tragedy in the Middle East. The most recent part
of that record, which includes U.S. alliances with Iraq to counter Iran and then with
Iran and Syria to counter Iraq, illustrates a theme that has been played in Washington
for the last 45 years.

An examination of the details and consequences of that theme provides a startling object
lesson in the pitfalls and conceit of an interventionist foreign policy. The two major
components of the theme that are covered in this study are U.S. policy toward Iran and
the relations between Israel and the Arabs. Events in which those components
overlapped-- development of the Carter Doctrine, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Persian Gulf
War--will also be examined.

In the aftermath of the most overt and direct U.S. attempt to manage affairs in the
Middle East, the Persian Gulf War, it is more important than ever to understand how the
United States came to be involved in the region and the disastrous consequences of that
involvement. President Bush's willingness to sacrifice American lives to remove Iraqi
forces from Kuwait, to restore the "legitimate" government of that feudal monarchy, and
to create a "new world order" proceeds logically from the premises and policies of past
administrations. Indeed, there is little new in Bush's new world order, except the
Soviet Union's assistance. That may mean the new order will be far more dangerous than
the old, because it will feature an activist U.S. foreign policy without the inhibitions
that were formerly imposed by the superpower rivalry. That bodes ill for the people of
the Middle East, as well as for the long-suffering American citizens, who will see their
taxes continue to rise, their consumer economy increasingly distorted by military
spending, and their blood spilled--all in the name of U.S. leadership.

Background: Oil

If the chief natural resource of the Middle East were bananas, the region would not have
attracted the attention of U.S. policymakers as it has for decades. Americans became
interested in the oil riches of the region in the 1920s, and two U.S. companies,
Standard Oil of California and Texaco, won the first concession to explore for oil in
Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. They discovered oil there in 1938, just after Standard Oil of
California found it in Bahrain. The same year Gulf Oil (along with its British partner
Anglo-Persian Oil) found oil in Kuwait. During and after World War II, the region became
a primary object of U.S. foreign policy. It was then that policymakers realized that the
Middle East was "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest
material prizes in world history."(4)

Subsequently, as a result of cooperation between the U.S. government and several
American oil companies, the United States replaced Great Britain as the chief Western
power in the region.(5) In Iran and Saudi Arabia, American gains were British (and
French) losses.(6) Originally, the dominant American oil interests had had limited
access to Iraqi oil only (through the Iraq Petroleum Company, under the 1928 Red Line
Agreement). In 1946, however, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Mobil Oil Corp., seeing the
irresistible opportunities in Saudi Arabia, had the agreement voided.(7) When the
awakening countries of the Middle East asserted control over their oil resources, the
United States found ways to protect its access to the oil. Nearly everything the United
States has done in the Middle East can be understood as contributing to the protection
of its long-term access to Middle Eastern oil and, through that control, Washington's
claim to world leadership. The U.S. build-up of Israel and Iran as powerful gendarmeries
beholden to the United States, and U.S. aid given to "moderate," pro-Western Arab
regimes, such as those in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan, were intended to keep the
region in friendly hands. That was always the meaning of the term "regional
stability."(8)

What threatened American access to the region? Although much was made of the Soviet
threat, there is reason to believe that throughout the cold war Washington did not take
it seriously in the Middle East. The primary perceived threat was indigenous--namely,
Arab and Iranian nationalism, which appears to have been the dominant concern from 1945
on. "The most serious threats may emanate from internal changes in the gulf states," a
congressional report stated in 1977.(9) Robert W. Tucker, the foreign policy analyst who
advocated in the 1970s that the United States take over the Middle Eastern oil fields
militarily, predicted that the "more likely" threat to U.S. access to the oil would
"arise primarily from developments indigenous to the Gulf."(10) The rise of Arab
nationalism or Muslim fundamentalism, or any other force not sufficiently obeisant to
U.S. interests, would threaten American economic and worldwide political leadership (and
the profits of state-connected corporations). As Tucker wrote, "It is the Gulf that
forms the indispen-sable key to the defense of the American global position."(11) Thus,
any challenge to U.S. hegemony had to be prevented or at least contained.(12) As
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said privately during the Lebanese crisis in 1958,
the United States "must regard Arab nationalism as a flood which is running strongly. We
cannot successfully oppose it, but we could put sand bags around positions we must
protect--the first group being Israel and Lebanon and the second being the oil positions
around the Persian Gulf."(13)

The government sought foreign sources of oil during World War II because it believed
U.S. reserves were running out. Loy Henderson, who in 1945 was in charge of Near Eastern
affairs for the State Department, said, "There is a need for a stronger role for this
Government in the economics and political destinies of the Near and Middle East,
especially in view of the oil reserves."(14) During the war the U.S. government and two
American oil companies worked together to win concessions in Iran.(15) That action
brought the United States into rivalry with Great Britain and the Soviet Union, both of
which had dominated Iran in the interwar period, though Reza Shah Pahlavi had succeeded
in reducing foreign influence from its previous level. (Great Britain had its oil
concession through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.) With the Soviets and the British
occupying Iran and both favoring the decentralization of that country, the Tehran
government sought to involve American oil interests as a way of enlisting U.S. support
for Iran's security and stability. The U.S. government aided the companies, by providing
facilities for transportation and communication along with other help, and dispatched
advisers to the Iranian regime. In 1942 Wallace Murray, a State Department official
involved in Near Eastern affairs, said, "We shall soon be in the position of actually
'running' Iran through an impressive body of American advisers."(16)

The relationship between the U.S. government and large American oil companies remained
close throughout the war, despite differences over such issues as the government's part
ownership of commercial enterprises. The oil companies and the State Department
coordinated their efforts to ensure themselves a major role in the Middle East. One
indication of that coordination was the appointment in 1941 of Max Thornburg as the
State Department's petroleum adviser. The United States was a comparative latecomer to
the region, but it intended to make up for lost time. Thornburg had been an official
with the Bahrain Petroleum Company, a Middle Eastern subsidiary of Socal (Standard Oil
of Cali-fornia) and Texaco. Throughout his government tenure, he maintained ties with
the company and even collected a $29,000 annual salary from the oil company.(17)

While still in the department, Thornburg commissioned a study on foreign oil policy that
predicted dwindling domestic reserves and advised that those reserves be conserved by
ensuring U.S. access to foreign oil. As a result, Secretary of State Cordell Hull
created the Committee on International Petroleum Policy, which included Thornburg. The
committee recommended creation of the Petroleum Reserves Corporation, which would be
controlled by the State Department and would buy options on Saudi Arabian oil. Once in
operation, the corporation tried to buy all the stock of the California Arabian Standard
Oil Company, created by Socal and owned by it and Texaco, but the deal eventually fell
through.(18) Government officials had great hopes for the Petroleum Reserves
Corporation. As Interior Secretary Harold Ickes revealingly put it, "If we can really
get away with it, the Petroleum Reserves Corporation can be a big factor in world oil
affairs and have a strong influence on foreign relations generally." Ickes was thinking
of the influence that the government would have on oil prices and distribution.(19) A
similar view is found in a 1953 position paper prepared by the Departments of State,
Defense, and the Interior for the National Security Council, which stated that "American
oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy."(20)
Such was the attitude of the U.S. government and its partners in the oil industry after
World War II.

Iran

Iran and the Soviets, 1945-47

The first U.S. intervention in the Middle East after World War II grew directly out of
U.S. participation in that conflict. During the war, U.S. noncombatant troops were
stationed in Iran to help with the transfer of equipment and supplies to the Soviet
Union. The Red Army occupied the northern part of the country in 1941; the British were
in central and southern Iran. In the Tripartite Treaty of January 1942 (not signed by
the United States), the Soviet Union and Great Britain had said that their presence
there was not an occupation and that all troops would be withdrawn within six months of
the end of the war. At the Tehran conference in late 1943, the United States pledged,
along with Great Britain and the Soviet Union, to help rebuild and develop Iran after
the war. Those countries gave assurances of Iranian sovereignty, although that may have
been a mere courtesy to a host country that had not even been notified that a summit
would be held on its soil.(21)

The Soviet Union broke its promise about withdrawing. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin viewed
the part of Iran that bordered his country as important to Soviet security, and he was
aware of the U.S. and British designs on Iran, which had traditionally sided with the
Soviet Union's enemies. Although the Soviet Union had much oil, Stalin was concerned
about the size of its reserves and so was interested in the northern part of Iran as a
potential source of oil. But as State Department official George Kennan sized up the
situation at the time, "The basic motive of recent Soviet action in northern Iran is
probably not the need for the oil itself, but apprehension of potential foreign
penetration in that area."(22) The Soviets meddled in Iranian government affairs,
oppressed the middle class in the north, and helped revive the suppressed Iranian
Communist (Tudeh) party. When the war ended, the British and U.S. forces left Iran, but
the Soviet troops moved southward. They by then had established two separatist regimes
headed by Soviet-picked leaders (the Autonomous People's Republic of Azerbaijan and the
Kurdish People's Republic) and kept the Iranians from putting down separatist uprisings.
(The Azerbaijanis and Kurds, members of large ethnic groups that live in several
countries, had long hated the rulers in Tehran.) Negotiations between the Soviets and
Iran's prime minister, Qavam as-Saltaneh, won Moscow the right to intervene on behalf of
the Azerbaijani regime, an oil concession in the north, and the appointment of three
Communists to the Iranian cabinet.(23)

That Soviet conduct irritated President Harry S Truman. He said he feared for Turkey's
security and criticized "Russia's callous disregard of the rights of a small nation and
of her own solemn promises."(24) The United States formally protested to Stalin and then
to the UN Security Council. Those actions succeeded in getting the Soviets to leave,
although Truman may also have threatened to send forces into Iran if Stalin did not
withdraw his troops.(25) In late 1946 the Truman administration encouraged Mohammed Reza
Shah Pahlavi, who succeeded his father in 1941, to forcibly dismantle the separatist
regimes the Soviets had left behind.(26) In 1947 the administration objected to the use
of intimidation (by others) to win commercial concessions in Iran and promised to
support the Iranians on issues related to national resources. As a result, the Iranian
government refused to ratify the agreement with the Soviets on the oil concession in the
north.

Truman's high-profile use of the United Nations and his bluster against the Soviets were
the beginning of U.S. post-war involvement in the Middle East. In 1947 Truman issued his
Truman Doctrine, pledging to "assist free people to work out their own destinies in
their own way," ostensibly to thwart the Soviets in Greece and Turkey. In reality, it
marked the formal succession of the United States to the position of influence that
Great Britain had previously held in the Middle East.(27)

Mossadegh and the Shah, 1953

When Dwight D. Eisenhower became president in 1953, his administration had one
overriding foreign policy objective: to keep the Soviet Union from gaining influence and
possibly drawing countries away from the U.S. orbit. To that end, Eisenhower's secretary
of state, John Foster Dulles, crafted a policy the primary principle of which was the
impossibility of neutrality in the cold war. In the Dulles world view, there was no such
thing as an independent course; a country was either with the United States or against
it. That principle helps explain much of the Eisenhower administration's conduct in the
Middle East, for if there was one region in which the United States strove to prevent
what it called Soviet penetration, it was the Middle East.

The earliest direct U.S. involvement occurred in Iran. Even before Eisenhower took
office, political turbulence in that country was on the rise, prompted by discontent
over Iran's oil royalty arrangement with the British-owned AngloIranian Oil Company.(28)
A highly nationalist faction (the National Front) of the Majlis, or parliament, led by
Moham med Mossadegh, nationalized the oil industry. (Nationalization was considered a
symbol of freedom from foreign influence.) Mossadegh, whom the shah reluctantly made
prime minister after the nationalization, opposed all foreign aid, including U.S.
assistance to the army. He also refused to negotiate with the British about oil, and in
late 1952 he broke off relations with Great Britain. The turmoil associated with
nationalization stimulated activity by Iranian Communists and the outlawed Tudeh party.
At a rally attended by 30,000 people, the Communists hoisted anti-Western, pro-Soviet
signs, including ones that accused Mossadegh of being an American puppet.(29)

In the United States, officials feared that loss of Iranian oil would harm the European
Recovery Program and concluded that the communist activity in Iran was a bad omen,
although the Soviets did not intervene beyond giving moral support.(30) The Mossadegh
government hoped that the United States would continue to deal with Iran and prevent
economic collapse, but the Truman administration put its relations with Great Britain
first and participated in an international boycott of Iranian oil--although Washington
did give Tehran a small amount of aid. U.S.-Iranian relations deteriorated, as did the
Iranian economy. Under that pressure, Mossadegh resorted to undemocratic methods to
forestall the election of anti-government deputies to the Majlis. When he tried to
control the Ministry of Defense, he was forced to resign, but he soon returned to power
when his successor's policies triggered virulent criticism from Mossadegh's supporters.
Mossadegh came through the crisis with increased, and in some ways authoritarian,
powers.(31) On August 10, 1953, the shah, unable to dominate Mossadegh, left Tehran for
a long "vacation" on the Caspian Sea and then in Baghdad. But he did not leave until he
knew that a U.S. operation was under way to save him.

As author James A. Bill has written: "The American intervention of August 1953 was a
momentous event in the history of Iranian-American relations. [It] left a running wound
that bled for twenty-five years and contaminated relations with the Islamic Republic of
Iran following the revolution of 1978-79."(32) London had first suggested a covert
operation to Washington about a year earlier. The British were mainly concerned about
their loss of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, but in appealing to the United States, they
emphasized the communist threat, "not wishing to be accused of trying to use the
Americans to pull British chestnuts out of the fire."(33)

The British need not have invoked the Soviet threat to win over John Foster Dulles or
his brother Allen Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency; both were former
members of the Wall Street law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.(34) Besides, there was ample evidence that Mossadegh was
neither a Communist nor a communist sympathizer. Nevertheless, Operation Ajax was
hatched--the brainchild of the CIA's Middle East chief, Kermit Roosevelt, who directed
it from Tehran.(35) Also sent there was Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, whose job was to
recruit anti-Mossadegh forces with CIA money.(36) The objective of Operation Ajax was to
help the shah get rid of Mossadegh and replace him with the shah's choice for prime
minister, Gen. Fazlollas Zahedi, who had been jailed by the British during World War II
for pro-Nazi activities.(37)

The covert operation began, appropriately enough, with assurances to Mossadegh from the
U.S. ambassador, Loy Henderson, that the United States did not plan to intervene in
Iran's internal affairs. The operation then filled the streets of Tehran with mobs of
people--many of them thugs-- who were loyal to the shah or who had been recipients of
CIA largess. In the ensuing turmoil, which included fighting in the streets that killed
300 Iranians, Mossadegh fled and was arrested. On August 22, 12 days after he had fled,
the shah returned to Tehran. Mossadegh was sentenced to three years in prison and then
house arrest on his country estate.

Later, in his memoirs, Eisenhower claimed that Mossadegh had been moving toward the
Communists and that the Tudeh party supported him over the shah. Yet a January 1953
State Department intelligence report said that the prime minister was not a Communist or
communist sympathizer and that the Tudeh party sought his overthrow.(38) Indeed,
Mossadegh had opposed the Soviet occupation after the war.(39) Author Leonard Mosely has
written that "the masses were with him, even if the army, police, and landowners were
not."(40) Eight years after his overthrow, Mossadegh, about 80 years of age, appeared
before a throng of 80,000 supporters shouting his name.(41)

Once restored to power, the shah entered into an agreement with an international
consortium, 40 percent of which was held by American oil companies, for the purchase of
Iranian oil. It was symptomatic of the postwar displacement of British by U.S. interests
that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was not restored to its previous dominance.(42) In
succeeding years the United States regarded the shah as a key ally in the Middle East
and provided his repressive and corrupt government with billions of dollars in aid and
arms.

The restoration of the shah to the Peacock Throne engendered immense hostility toward
the United States and had cataclysmic consequences. The revolutionary torrent that built
up was ultimately too much for even the United States to handle. By the late 1970s the
shah and his poor record on human rights had become so repugnant to the State Department
under Cyrus Vance that almost any alternative was deemed preferable to the shah's rule.
But the shah had his defenders at the Pentagon and on the National Security Council who
still thought he was important to regional stability and who favored his taking decisive
action to restore order. President Carter at first was ambivalent. U.S. policy evolved
from a suggestion that the shah gradually relinquish power to a call for him to leave
the country. On January 16, 1979, the shah, as he had in 1953, took leave of his
country--this time for good.(43)

When the monarchy was finally overthrown in the 1978-79 revolution, which was inspired
by Islamic fundamentalism and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranians held Americans
hostage for over a year at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and the United States suffered a
humiliating repudiation of its foreign policy in the Middle East. Iran and Israel had
been built up over the years into the chief U.S. security agents in the region. Now Iran
would no longer perform that function, and more of the burden had to be shifted to
Israel.

European Zionsts and the Arabs?

The Creation of Israel

In the aftermath of World War I, Great Britain was granted a mandate over Palestine by
the League of Nations. By 1947, however, the violence directed at British officers by
Jews and Arabs, and the financial drain on the declining imperial power after World War
II, moved Great Britain to turn to the United Nations for help. In April 1947 the Arab
nations proposed at the United Nations that Palestine be declared an independent state,
but that measure was defeated and instead, at Washington's suggestion, a UN commission
was set up to study the problem.

The defeat of the Arab proposal is important to an understanding of subsequent events.
During World War I the British sought Arab support against the Ottoman Turks, who ruled
much of the Arab world. In return for their support, the British promised the Arabs
their long-sought independence. The British, however, also made promises about the same
territory to the Zionists who sought to establish a Jewish state on the site of Biblical
Israel. The Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2, 1917, stated that "His Majesty's
Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the
Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this
object. . . ." Significantly, however, the sentence ended with the words, "it being
clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and
religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and
political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." (The U.S. Congress endorsed the
Balfour Declaration, using similar language, in 1922.)(44) Toward the end of World War
I, however, the Bolsheviks exposed a secret Anglo-French agreement to divide the Ottoman
Empire between Great Britain and France. Arab independence had never been seriously
intended. Meanwhile, Great Britain was preparing to allow Jewish immigration into
Palestine.(45)

Violence among Jews, Arabs, and British officials in Palestine before and after World
War II led London to ask the United Nations in 1947 for a recommendation on how to deal
with the problem.(46) The murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis and the deplorable
state of the Holocaust survivors had stimulated the international effort to establish a
sovereign Jewish state in Palestine, and American Zionists had declared in 1942 (in the
Biltmore Program) "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in
the structure of the new democratic world."(47)

In November 1947 the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to recommend partition of
Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. The two states were to be joined in an economic
union, and Jerusalem would be administered by the United Nations. The Arabs would get 43
percent of the land, the Jews 57 percent. The proposed apportionment should be assessed
in light of the following facts: The Jewish portion was better land; by the end of 1947
the percentage of Palestine purchased by Jews was less than 7 percent; Jewish land
purchases accounted for only 10 percent of the proposed Jewish state; and Jews made up
less than one-third of the population of Palestine.(48) Moreover, the Jewish state was
to include 497,000 Arabs, who would constitute just under 50 percent of the new state's
population.

The United States not only accepted the UN plan, it aggressively promoted it among the
other members of the United Nations. Truman had been personally moved by the tragedy of
the Jews and by the condition of the refugees. That response and his earlier studies of
the Bible made him open to the argument that emigration to Palestine was the proper
remedy for the surviving Jews of Europe. Yet he acknowledged later, in his memoirs, that
he was "fully aware of the Arabs' hostility to Jewish settlement in Palestine."(49) He,
like his predecessor, had promised he would take no action without fully consulting the
Arabs, and he reneged.

Truman's decision to support establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine was made
against the advice of most of the State Department and other foreign policy experts, who
were concerned about U.S. relations with the Arabs and possible Soviet penetration of
the region. Secretary James Forrestal of the Defense Department and Loy Henderson, at
that time the State Department's chief of Near Eastern affairs, pressed those points
most vigorously. Henderson warned that partition would not only create anti-Americanism
but would also require U.S. troops to enforce it, and he stated his belief that
partition violated both U.S. and UN principles of self-determination.(50)

But Truman was concerned about the domestic political implications as well as the
foreign policy implications of the partition issue. As he himself put it during a
meeting with U.S. ambassadors to the Middle East, according to William A. Eddy, the
ambassador to Saudi Arabia, "I'm sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of
thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism: I do not have hundreds of
thousands of Arabs among my constituents."(51) Later, in a 1953 article in the American
Zionist, Emmanuel Neumann, president of the Zionist Organization of America, conceded
that Truman would not have worked so hard for the creation of Israel but for "the
prospect of wholesale defections from the Democratic Party."(52) Truman's decision to
support the Zionist cause was also influenced by Samuel I. Rosenman, David K. Niles, and
Clark Clifford, all members of his staff, and Eddie Jacobson, his close friend and
former business partner. Truman later wrote:

The White House, too, was subjected to a constant barrage. I do not think I ever had as
much pressure and propaganda aimed at the White House as I had in this instance. The
persistence of a few of the extreme Zionist leaders--actuated by political motives and
engaging in political threats--disturbed and annoyed me.(53)

Pressure on Truman also came from non-Jewish fundamentalists and politicians.

In some cases, support for Jewish admission to and statehood in Palestine may have had
another domestic political angle. That support sidestepped the sensitive issue of U.S.
immigration quotas, which had kept European Jews out of the United States since the
1920s and had left them at the mercy of the Nazis. In other words, support for Zionism
may have been a convenient way for people who did not want Jews to come to the United
States to avoid appearing anti-Semitic. American classical liberals and others,
including the American Council for Judaism, opposed the quotas, and it is probable that
many of the refugees, given the option, would have preferred to come to the United
States.(54)

By mid-November 1947 the Truman administration was firmly in the Zionist camp. When the
State Department and the U.S. mission to the United Nations agreed that the partition
resolution should be changed to shift the Negev from the Jewish to the Palestinian
state, Truman sided with the Jewish Agency, the main Zionist organization, against
them.(55) The United States also voted against a UN resolution calling on member states
to accept Jewish refugees who could not be repatriated.(56)

As the partition plan headed toward a vote in the UN General Assembly, U.S. officials
applied pressure to--and even threatened to withhold promised aid from--countries
inclined to vote against the resolution. As former under-secretary of state Sumner
Welles put it:

By direct order of the White House every form of pressure, direct and indirect, was
brought to bear by American officials upon those countries outside of the Moslem world
that were known to be either uncertain or opposed to partition. Representatives or
intermediaries were employed by the White House to make sure that the necessary majority
would at length be secured.(57)

Eddie Jacobson recorded in his diary that Truman told him that "he [Truman] and he
alone, was responsible for swinging the vote of several delegations."(58)

While the plan was being debated, the Arabs desperately tried to find an alternative
solution. Syria proposed that the matter be turned over to the International Court of
Justice in The Hague; the proposal was defeated. The Arab League asked that all
countries accept Jewish refugees "in proportion to their area and economic resources and
other relevant factors"; the league's request was denied in a 16-16 tie, with 25
abstentions.(59)

On November 29 the General Assembly recommended the partition plan by a vote of 33 to
13. The Soviet Union voted in favor of the resolution, reversing its earlier position on
Zionism; many interpreted the vote as a move to perpetuate unrest and give Moscow
opportunities for influence in the neighboring region.

The period after the UN partition vote was critical. The Zionists accepted the partition
reluctantly, hoping to someday expand the Jewish state to the whole of Palestine, but
the Arabs did not.(60) Violence between Jews and Arabs escalated. The obvious
difficulties in carrying out the partition created second thoughts among U.S.
policymakers as early as December 1947. The State Department's policy planning staff
issued a paper in January 1948 suggesting that the United States propose that the entire
matter be returned to the General Assembly for more study. Secretary Forrestal argued
that the United States might have to enforce the partition with troops. (The United
States had an arms embargo on the region at the time, although arms were being sent
illegally by American Zionists, giving the Jews in Palestine military superiority, at
least in some respects, over the Arabs.)(61)

On February 24, 1948, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Warren Austin, made a
speech to the Security Council hinting at such second thoughts. His proposal to have the
five permanent council members discuss what should be done was approved, but they could
not agree on a new strategy. The United States, China, and France reported to the full
council that partition would not occur peacefully. The apparent weakening of U.S.
support for partition prompted the Zionist organizations to place enormous pressure on
Truman, who said he still favored partition. However, the next day at the United
Nations, Austin called for a special session of the General Assembly to consider a
temporary UN trusteeship for Palestine.

On April 16 the United States formally proposed the temporary trusteeship. The Arabs
accepted it conditionally; the Jews rejected it. The General Assembly was
unenthusiastic. Meanwhile, the Zionists proceeded with their plans to set up a state.
Civil order in Palestine had almost totally broken down. For example, in mid-April, the
Irgun and LEHI (the Stern Gang), two Zionist terrorist organizations, attacked the
poorly armed Arab village of Deir Yassin, near Jerusalem, and killed 250 men, women, and
children. The Arabs retaliated by killing many Jews the next day.(62) Before the British
left in May, the Jews had occupied much additional land, including cities that were to
be in the Palestinian state.

Something else was working in favor of continued support for the emerging Jewish state:
U.S. domestic politics. The year 1948 was an election year and, according to memoranda
in the Harry S Truman Library and Museum, Jacobson, Clifford, and Niles expressed fear
that the Republicans were making an issue of their support for the Jewish state and that
the Democrats risked losing Jewish support. Clifford proposed early recognition of the
Jewish state.(63)

His position had been strongly influenced by a special congres-sional election in a
heavily Jewish district in the Bronx, New York, on February 17, 1948. The regular
Democratic candidate, Karl Propper, was upset by the American Labor party candidate, Leo
Isacson, who had taken a militantly pro-Zionist position in the campaign. Even though
Propper was also pro-Zionist, former vice president Henry Wallace had campaigned for
Isacson by criticizing Truman for not supporting partition, asserting that Truman "still
talks Jewish but acts Arab."(64) The loss meant that New York's 47 electoral votes would
be at risk in the November presidential election, and the Democrats of the state
appealed to Truman to propose a UN police force to implement the partition, as Isacson
and Wallace had advocated.

The administration's trusteeship idea soon became academic. On May 14 the last British
officials left Palestine, and that evening the Jewish state was proclaimed. Eleven
minutes later, to the surprise of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, the United
States announced its de facto recognition.(65)

The significance to the Arabs of the U.S. role in constructing what they regard as
another Western colonial obstacle to self-determination cannot be overstated. Dean Rusk,
who at the time was a State Department official and would later become secretary of
state, admitted that Washington's role permitted the partition to be "construed as an
American plan," depriving it of moral force.(66) As Evan M. Wilson, then assistant chief
of the State Department's Division of Near Eastern Affairs, later summarized matters,
Truman, motivated largely by domestic political concerns, solved one refugee problem by
creating another. Wilson wrote:

It is no exaggeration to say that our relations with the entire Arab world have never
recovered from the events of 1947-48 when we sided with the Jews against the Arabs and
advocated a solution in Palestine which went contrary to self-determination as far as
the majority population of the country was concerned.(67)

The Suez Crisis, 1956

On October 29, 1956, the Israeli army invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza
Strip. Soon after, the forces of Great Britain and France launched air attacks against
Egypt.

That crisis had its roots in two factors: friction at the armistice line, established
after the 1948 war between Israel and Egypt, and control over the Suez Canal. Another
factor was the withdrawal of the U.S. offer to help finance the High Aswan Dam in upper
Egypt, a prized project of the country's new ruler and champion of Arab nationalism,
Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Eisenhower and Dulles did not trust Nasser because he tried to steer a neutral course
between the United States and the Soviet Union, and they were especially displeased with
his recognition of Communist China. The administration first tried to win Nasser over,
but when that failed, it tried obsessively to undermine him and worse.(68) The wish to
undermine Nasser was important in forging a U.S.-Israeli "strategic relationship." The
offer to finance the dam and provide arms (with conditions Nasser could not accept) were
the carrots dangled before the charismatic Egyptian. When Nasser turned to the Soviets
in September 1955 to purchase arms when he could not buy them from the United States
without strings attached, his actions were seized on as proof that he was in the Soviet
camp and thus an enemy of the United States.(69) (The events in Iran were not lost on
Nasser.)

The United States also had antagonized Nasser in 1955 when it set up the Baghdad Pact
(later called the Central Treaty Organization, or CENTO), an alliance of northern tier
nations, including Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq (the only Arab country in the
alliance). Great Britain was also a member. The United States was not a formal member
but was clearly a guiding force. Nasser saw the pact as an attempt to split the Arab
world and interfere with the "positive neutralism" he sought for it. Iraq at the time
was friendly to the West and not disposed to the Arab nationalism that Nasser aspired to
create and lead.(70) The Baghdad Pact was one of the things that had the ironic effect
of bringing the Arabs and Soviets closer.

In mid-1956 the United States abruptly withdrew its offer to help finance the High Aswan
Dam, just as the Egyptians had decided to accept the administration's conditions. The
American reversal brought cancellations of aid for the dam from Great Britain and the
World Bank as well. A week after the U.S. decision, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal
Company, which since 1869 had been owned by French nationals and the British government
and operated under an Egyptian concession. The British and French governments reacted
angrily; for the French, it was not irrelevant that Nasser was helping the Algerians,
who were seeking independence. The U.S. reaction was calmer, as Eisenhower and Dulles
distinguished between ownership and freedom of navigation. (Nevertheless, the New York
Times denounced Nasser as "the Hitler on the Nile.")(71) The U.S. administration warned
Great Britain and France against responding precipitously and pressed for negotiations.
A conference was convened, but Nasser refused to attend or accept its pro-posals.
Nevertheless, international traffic on the canal continued normally under Egyptian
administration. When Great Britain and France failed to get satisfaction from the United
Nations, they began making plans for war.

Israel was not able to use the canal, but the Jewish state's aims regarding Egypt went
beyond that grievance. Since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Palestinian refugees had often
crossed into Israel seeking to regain property and possessions expropriated by the
government and to reach relatives. Some engaged in violence. Israel began responding
with massive reprisal raids against entire villages in the Arab countries. Most
significant was the attack on the town of Gaza in February 1955, when children as well
as men were killed. That attack prompted Egypt to end direct peace talks with Israel and
to turn to the Soviet Union for arms. It was only at that point that Egypt sponsored an
anti-Israeli guerrilla organization whose members were known as the Fedayeen. In August
Israel attacked the Gaza Strip village of Khan Yunis, killing 39 Egyptians. The attacks
in the Gaza Strip, masterminded by officials loyal to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion,
subverted Nasser's efforts to make peace with Israel. Ben-Gurion's successor, Moshe
Sharett, re-sponded positively to Nasser's overtures, but Gen. Moshe Dayan and others
undermined Sharett.(72) During the winter of 1955, for example, Israeli warplanes flew
over Cairo repeatedly to demonstrate Egyptian military impotence.

The Israeli government had earlier tried to prevent a warming of U.S.-Egyptian relations
by having saboteurs bomb American offices in Cairo in 1954, an episode that became known
as the Lavon Affair.(73) When Egypt uncovered the operation, Israel accused Nasser of
fabricating the plot. Two of the 13 men arrested were hanged, and their hangings were
used as a pretext for Israel's February 1955 attack on Gaza. Six years later, the
Israeli government's complicity was confirmed.

Israel's bad relations with Egypt were also aggravated by the seizure of an Israeli
ship, which was provocatively sent into the Suez Canal in September 1954. Both sides had
seized each other's ships before, and this incident appears to have been provoked by
Israel as a way to get Great Britain to compel Egypt to permit Israeli ships to use the
waterway as part of a final agreement on the Suez Canal.(74)

Despite repeated provocations, Egypt, according to documents later captured by Israel,
had attempted to prevent infiltration by the Fedayeen because of its fear of attack.(75)
Nevertheless, in October 1956 Israel invaded Egypt, ignoring American pleas for
forbearance. The United States took the matter to the UN Security Council, which called
for a cease-fire and withdrawal. It also passed a resolution to create a 6,000-man UN
emergency force to help restore the status quo ante.

Eisenhower's opposition to the conduct of Israel, Great Britain, and France--an anomaly
in light of later U.S. policy--is explained by his opposition to old-style colonialism.
The administration wanted to win the friendship of the newly independent countries of
Africa and Asia and to keep them out of the Soviet orbit. That could not be accomplished
if the United States were perceived to be on the side of Great Britain and France in so
flagrant an act of imperialism as an attack on Egypt. Also important to the
administration's calculus was its wish that London not challenge Washington's more
subtle dominance in the Middle East. British and French irritation with American
anti-colonialism was a source of problems among the leaders of the three nations.(76)

When the UN call for a cease-fire failed to contain the conflict, the Soviet Union
threatened to intervene, and Premier Nicolai Bulganin even proposed to Eisenhower that
their two countries take joint military action to end the war. Eisenhower rejected the
proposal and warned the Soviets not to get involved.(77)

The fighting ended on November 7, when Britain and France bowed to the United Nations
and agreed to withdraw. Israel, however, refused to withdraw from the Sinai until its
conditions were met. Israel was especially adamant that Egypt not regain the Gaza Strip,
which was to have been part of the Palestinian state under the UN partition. Eisenhower
responded to Israel's position by threatening to cut off aid, although he apparently
never did so.(78) By March 1957 Israel had withdrawn from all the occupied areas, but
not before the United States had given assurances that UN troops would be stationed on
Egyptian territory to ensure free passage of Israeli and Israel-bound ships through the
Strait of Tiran and to prevent Fedayeen activity. The United States, in an aide-mÇmoire
by John Foster Dulles, also acknowledged that the Gulf of Aqaba was international waters
and "that no nation has the right to prevent free and innocent passage in the Gulf and
through the Straits." The key to the final settlement was a French proposal that Israel
be allowed to act in self-defense under the UN charter if its ships were attacked in the
Gulf of Aqaba.(79)

Thus, the United States again became directly involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict and
made what would later be construed as guarantees to Israel. Although Israel chafed under
the frank rhetoric and surprising (in light of the U.S. election season) evenhandedness
of Eisenhower and Dulles, it got essentially what it wanted from the Suez campaign.(80)

The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Lebanon Invasion, 1958

The United States was determined to not let its preeminence in the Middle East be
challenged--by anyone--again. Early in 1957 Eisenhower delivered a message to Congress
in which he referred to the instability in the region being "heightened and, at times,
manipulated by International Communism"--that is, the Soviet Union, he added
obligatorily. Accordingly, he proposed a program of economic aid, military assistance,
and cooperation and the use of U.S. troops, when requested, "against overt armed
aggression from any nation controlled by International Communism."(81) That was the
Eisenhower Doctrine, which Congress ultimately approved and for which it authorized the
spending of up to $200 million. Twelve of 15 Middle Eastern states approached by the
administration accepted the doctrine. Initially hesitant, Israel also accepted it.
However, only Lebanon formally endorsed the Eisenhower Doctrine, in return for promises
of military and economic aid.(82)

Not everyone in the U.S. government understood the logic of the doctrine. Wilber Crane
Eveland of the CIA later recounted his reaction:

I was shocked. Who, I wondered, had reached this determination of what the Arabs
considered a danger? Israel's army had just invaded Egypt and still occupied all of the
Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. And, had it not been for Russia's threat to
intervene on behalf of the Egyptians, the British, French, and Israeli forces might now
be sitting in Cairo, celebrating Nasser's ignominious fall from power.(83)

Eveland's reaction was not unusual. Many people believed that the Arabs did not rank the
Soviet Union as their number-one threat. According to Eveland, when Eisenhower
dispatched an envoy to sound out the Arab countries, Egypt, Syria, and some North
African states said they saw no danger from international communism.(84)

In April 1957, when King Hussein of Jordan faced a Pan-Arabist challenge from
socialist-nationalists and the Communist party, the U.S. government moved the Sixth
Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean and provided $10 million in economic aid to his
country, the first installment of a regular annual subsidy.(85) And when Syria appeared
to be moving closer to Nasser and the Soviets, the Eisenhower administration, egged on
by Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan, put area forces on alert and issued warnings against
outside interference. The crisis subsided without direct intervention. Although the
president talked much of the internal communist threat to the Arab countries,
Eisenhower's biographer Stephen Ambrose writes that "what Eisenhower really feared was
radical Arab nationalism" and its threat to the feudal monarchies.(86)

A full-blown intervention under the Eisenhower Doctrine finally took place in Lebanon in
1958. Rising Pan-Arabism, which worried several Arab regimes, surged on February 1 when
Egypt and Syria joined to become the United Arab Republic. In re sponse, King Hussein
entered a unity agreement of his own with his fellow Hashemite ruler in Iraq. And King
Saud of Saudi Arabia was also so concerned that he tried to have Nasser assassinated.

In Lebanon the development was viewed as especially upsetting. The fragile Lebanese
confessional system, in which religious groups have representation in the government in
ratios fixed by the constitution, made the country particularly susceptible to
disturbances.(87) Lebanon's large Sunni Muslim population was sympathetic to
Pan-Arabism, as were its Druzes (a Muslim sect). Camille Chamoun, the country's Maronite
Catholic president, feared Nasser and his ideology and favored a close relationship with
the United States.

Chamoun aggravated the Pan-Arabist distrust of him by seeking a second six-year term as
president, contrary to the Lebanese constitution. To achieve that ambition, he used
dubious methods (possibly rigging the election) to elect a parliamentary majority that
would change the constitution. The CIA funneled money to selected candidates.(88) When a
pro-Nasser newspaper editor was killed, a rebellion ignited: a coalition of Sunni,
Druze, and other opponents of Chamoun demanded his resignation and called for radical
reform. The rebels controlled parts of Beirut and rural areas and accepted armed
assistance from Syria.(89)

Chamoun appealed to Eisenhower for help on May 13. Initially, the United States was
reluctant to intervene, but on July 14 a coup d'Çtat took place in Iraq, home of the
Baghdad Pact, and the monarchy was replaced by a government led by Gen. Abdul Karim
Qassem, a reputed Nasserite.(90) When the new Iraqi government allied itself with the
United Arab Republic, fear of spreading instability in the region led Eisenhower to send
troops to Lebanon. He warned that "this somber turn of events could, without vigorous
response on our part, well result in a complete elimination of Western influence in the
Middle East."(91) But the Eisenhower administration decided not to intervene in Iraq
when Qassem announced that the Iraq Petroleum Company, in which American oil firms held
shares, would not be disturbed; in fact, the United States recognized the new government
on July 30.(92)

On July 15 the first of 14,357 U.S. troops landed in Lebanon.(93) Meanwhile,
Eisenhower's special emissary, Robert Murphy, worked out a solution: Gen. Fuad Chehab, a
compromise Christian candidate acceptable to Eisenhower, Nasser, and most Lebanese,
would become president; Chamoun would complete his original term; and Washington would
provide $10 million in aid.(94) One of Chamoun's opponents, Rashid Karami, became prime
minister, however, and promptly announced that recognition of the Eisenhower Doctrine
would be withdrawn and that Lebanon would shift to nonaligned status. Washington
accepted that policy shift and withdrew all of its troops by October 25. Fortunately, no
Lebanese or American was killed in the U.S. military intervention.(95)

The U.S. government counted the operation a success, but that one and only application
of the Eisenhower Doctrine was actually a misapplication. The doctrine was ostensibly
formulated to deter armed aggression by nations controlled by "International Communism,"
but neither Syria nor Egypt was controlled by the Soviet Union; they were not even
independent communist regimes. "He [Nasser] curbed and suppressed native Communists both
in Egypt and Syria," wrote historian George Len-czowski, "and, despite heavy dependence
on Soviet arms and economic aid, jealously maintained his country's sovereignty."(96)

Two lessons National Security Council officials learned from the Lebanon intervention
apparently were not heeded by subsequent policymakers. A November 1958 NSC document
warned that "to be cast in the role of Nasser's opponent would be to leave the Soviets
as his champion." The document also counseled against "becoming too closely identified
with individual factions in Lebanese politics."(97) The first lesson would be ignored in
1967, the second in 1983.

The Six-Day War, 1967

In six days during June 1967, the Israeli military devastated the air and ground forces
of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and occupied the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights,
the West Bank (an area west of the Jordan River), including East Jerusalem. The Six-Day
War established Israel as the premier military power in the Middle East. Israel's might
was a product of American money and French armaments, in addition to dedicated
personnel. The war also established the idea of Israel as a U.S. strategic asset in the
region.

Before discussing the U.S. role in the war, it is nec essary to briefly explain how and
why the war was fought. Its start is generally treated as a preemptive, defensive strike
by Israel, necessitated by mortal threats from its neighbors.(98) The facts show
otherwise. Kennett Love, a former New York Times correspondent and a scholar of the Suez
crisis, wrote that Israel drew up "plans for the new war . . . immediately after the
old. . . . The 1956 war served as a rehearsal for 1967."(99) That is important because
it bears on the Arab reaction to the U.S. role, a reaction that has shaped subsequent
developments in the region.(100)

After the 1956 Sinai campaign, the Israeli-Egyptian border was quiet, partly because of
the presence of the UN Emergency Force. But that was not true of the border between
Israel and Syria. The specific causes of friction between the two countries were
disputes about fishing rights in Lake Tiberias, Israeli settlement activity in the
demilitarized zone established after the 1948 war, guerrilla incursions into Israel, and
Israeli development of a water project involving the Jordan River.(101)

Israel retaliated against the guerrilla activity with massive raids into Syria and
sometimes into Jordan.(102) Syria, which had left the United Arab Republic in 1961,
underwent a left-wing Ba'athist coup in 1966 and had good relations with the Soviet
Union. Syria pointed to the quiet Israeli-Egyptian border and the lack of Egyptian
response to the attacks on Syria as evidence that Nasser was not up to leading the
Arabs. Nasser was accused of hiding behind the UN forces. Actually, Egypt was absorbed
in civil wars in Yemen and the British Crown Colony of Aden (soon to be South Yemen) at
the southern end of the Arabian peninsula. Intra- Arab rivalries were assuming greater
importance in the mid- 1960s, with Nasser frequently bearing the brunt of Arab
criticism.(103)

The Syrian-Israeli friction continued throughout early 1967. Then, in April, Israel said
it would cultivate the entire demilitarized zone between the countries, including land
that Syria contended was the property of Arab farmers. When the Israelis moved a tractor
onto the land on April 7, the Syrians fired on them. To retaliate, 70 Israeli fighters
flew over Syria and shot down 6 Syrian war planes near Damascus. There was no response
from the United Arab Command, an essentially paper military undertaking organized by
Nasser at an Arab summit in 1964. (At the same meeting, the Palestine Liberation
Organization had been set up--ironically, as a means of reining in Palestinian
nationalism.)(104)

Over the next several weeks, Israel threatened Syria. Gen. Yitzhak Rabin said in an
Israeli radio broadcast on May 11 that "the moment is coming when we will march on
Damascus to overthrow the Syrian Government, because it seems that only military
operations can discourage the plans for a people's war with which they threaten
us."(105) The Israeli director of military intelligence, Aharon Yariv, added that Nasser
would not intervene.(106) The Jewish state also directed massive military action against
al-Fatah to stop infiltrations. Meanwhile, Israeli leaders did all they could to have
their country appear in mortal danger.

The situation worsened when the Soviet Union told the Egyptians that Israel had massed
forces on the Syrian border in preparation for a mid-May attack. The United Nations
found no evidence of such preparation, but on May 14 Nasser moved troops into the Sinai.
Yet U.S. and Israeli intelligence agreed that the action was, in Foreign Minister Abba
Eban's words, "no immediate military threat," and several years later, in 1972, Gen.
Ezer Weizmann admitted that "we did move tanks to the north after the downing of the
aircraft."(107) Israel quickly and fully mobilized, prompting the Egyptians to ask the
UN Emergency Force to leave the Sinai. The request did not mention the two most
sensitive locations of the UN force, Sharm el-Sheikh (where it protected Israeli
shipping) and the Gaza Strip, but the UN secretary general, U Thant, surprised everyone
by replying that a partial withdrawal was impossible. Faced with a choice between the
status quo and a complete UN withdrawal, Nasser chose the latter. When the United
Nations offered to station its forces on Israel's side of the border, the Jewish state
refused (as it had in the past). President Lyndon Johnson, fearing that the Israelis
would "act hastily," asked Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to inform him in advance of any
Israeli action.(108) Israel replied that a blockade of the Strait of Tiran would be a
casus belli.

Meanwhile, Nasser told the Egyptian press that he was "not in a position to go to
war."(109) Israeli military leaders believed him. General Rabin said later, "I do not
believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not
have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew
it."(110) Ben-Gurion himself said he "doubt[ed] very much whether Nasser wanted to go to
war."(111)

It is in that context that the following events must be inter-preted. On May 21 Nasser
mobilized his reserves. On May 22, with the UN forces gone and under the taunting of
Syria and Israel, Nasser blocked--verbally not physically-- the Strait of Tiran, which
leads from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba and the Israeli port city of Elath.(112) The
strait's importance to the Israelis was more symbolic than practical; no Israeli flag
ship had used it in nearly two years, although Iranian oil was shipped to Israel through
it.(113) Nevertheless, the closure was a worrisome precedent for the Israelis.

Despite a blizzard of diplomatic activity in and outside the United Nations, tensions
rose over the next days, until, on June 5, Israel attacked Egypt--thereby launching what
came to be known as the Six-Day War. (The Israeli government told the UN Truce
Supervision Organization that its planes had intercepted Egyptian planes--a patent
falsehood.) In short order, Israel destroyed the air forces of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and
Iraq. Israel prepared a letter to President Johnson assuring him that Israel, in the
shorthand of U.S. ambassador Walworth Barbour, "has no, repeat no, intention [of] taking
advantage of [the] situation to enlarge its territory, [and] hopes peace can be restored
within present boundaries."(114) But that soon changed, as signaled by a request from
David Brody, director of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, that Johnson not
mention "territorial integrity" in his public statements about the war.(115)

On June 8, Egypt, having lost the Sinai to Israel, accepted the cease-fire called for by
the United Nations. The next day Syria also accepted it, but Israel launched additional
offensive operations. By June 10 Israel controlled the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, Sharm
el-Sheikh, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and its capital city of
Quneitra.(116) With the road to Damascus open, the Soviets threatened intervention if
Israel did not stop. The Johnson administration signaled its readiness to confront the
Soviets by turning the Sixth Fleet toward Syria. That was to be the first of two
near-confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union in Arab-Israeli wars.
Then, according to Johnson, the U.S. government began to use "every diplomatic resource"
to persuade Israel to conclude a cease-fire with Syria, which it did on June 10.(117)

The unseen side of the Six-Day War was Israel's nuclear capability. Although Prime
Minister Eshkol promised in 1966 that Israel would not be the first nation to introduce
nuclear weapons into the Middle East, it had been developing a nuclear capability almost
since its founding. The locus of the program was the Dimona reactor in the Negev near
Beershea.(118) Israel apparently received help over the years from the American firm
NUMEC, the French, and the U.S. government, including the CIA.(119) It probably had
operational nuclear weapons in 1967. According to Francis Perrin, the former French high
commissioner for atomic energy who had led the team that helped Israel to build Dimona,
Israel wanted nuclear weapons so it could say to the United States, "If you don't want
to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will use
our nuclear bombs."(120)

Israel never signed the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has not allowed
inspection of its nuclear facilities since the late 1960s. According to Mordechai
Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, the inspectors were consistently deceived in the
early 1960s.(121) Israel had 12 to 16 warheads by the end of 1969, according to the
Nixon administration. A CIA report concluded that Israel also tried to keep other Middle
Eastern countries from developing nuclear weapons by assassinating their nuclear
scientists.(122)

What was U.S. policy before and during the Six-Day War? In the tense days before the
outbreak of hostilities, Johnson moved the Sixth Fleet to the eastern Mediterranean. On
May 23, while declaring an embargo on arms to the area, he secretly authorized the air
shipment to Israel of important spare parts, ammunition, bomb fuses, and armored
personnel carriers.(123) After the war started, the United States vetoed a Security
Council resolution calling for Israel to return to its prewar boundaries, and Johnson
refused to criticize Israel for starting the war.(124)

Author Stephen Green has written that the United States participated in the conflict
even more directly. Green contends that pilots of the U.S. Air Force's 38th Tactical
Reconnaissance Squadron of the 26th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing flew RF-4Cs--with white
Stars of David and Israeli Air Force tail numbers painted on them--over bombed air bases
in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan to take pictures for the Israelis. They flew 8 to 10 sorties
a day throughout the war, and the pilots carried civilian passports so they would appear
to be contract employees if caught. When the enemy air forces were destroyed, the RF-4C
mission was changed to tracing Arab troop movements at night, which enabled the Israelis
to bomb the troops the next morning. The pilots also flew close-in reconnaissance
sorties around the Golan Heights. Apparently, none of the flights proved decisive, but
they did enable Israel to achieve its objectives quickly.(125) Ironically, the Arabs
accused the United States of providing tactical air support. In re- sponse to the
accusations, President Johnson said publicly that the United States provided no
assistance of any kind to the Israelis.

A critical question is whether the U.S. government gave Israel a green light to go to
war. Israeli officials frequently consulted with U.S. officials in the days before June
5; they were looking for support, claiming that Israel had been promised access through
the Strait of Tiran in 1956. U.S. officials often told the Israelis that "Israel will
only be alone if it decides to go alone"--a statement that was interpreted by some
Israelis as a nod to go ahead. That impression could have been confirmed by Secretary of
State Dean Rusk's reported comment to a journalist, regarding the U.S. attitude toward
Israel: "I don't think it is our business to restrain anyone."(126) Finally, Foreign
Minister Abba Eban later wrote in his autobiography that when he visited Washington in
late May, "what I found . . . was the absence of any exhortation to us to stay our hand
much longer."(127)

The Six-Day War was a diplomatic disaster for the United States. That might have been
foreseen, but President Johnson had other things on his mind. He seems to have been
motivated by a desire to win Jewish American support for the war in Vietnam and to
advance the "strategic relationship," begun by President Kennedy, with Israel against
the Soviet Union.(128)

The cost in Arab alienation was great. Johnson had assured the Arabs that Israel would
not attack and that he would oppose aggression. Yet he never called on Israel to
withdraw from the conquered territories or to resolve the Palestinian question. Rather,
the United States gave Israel substantial help, including diplomatic support that
facilitated Israel's conquest of neighboring territories by providing critical
delays.(129)

In no sense did the war bring stability to the Middle East, if indeed that was a U.S.
objective. Nasser summed up the consequences: "The problem now is that while the United
States objective is to pressure us to minimize our dealings with the Soviet Union, it
will drive us in the opposite direction altogether. The United States leaves us no
choice."(130)

Nasser's prediction was borne out by events. Within three years the Soviets were
shipping military equipment to the Egyptians, including surface-to-air missiles to
defend Egypt against Israel's U.S.-made F-4 Phantom jets. Thousands of Soviet troops,
pilots, and advisers were provided. The Soviets also moved closer to Syria and the
Palestine Liberation Organization. The United States responded by giving more weapons
and planes to Israel.(131)

The Strategic Relationship and Aid to Israel

The idea of a strategic relationship between the United States and Israel emerged after
the Suez crisis, when the Eisenhower administration realized that both countries had an
interest in containing Nasser's influence. Because the Eisenhower administration feared
that the Soviets were gaining clout in some Arab countries, such a relationship was seen
as useful in containing the Soviet Union as well. When John F. Kennedy became president,
he abandoned an initial preference for a balance of power between Israel and the Arabs
in favor of a strategic relation ship. He was the first to provide Israel with
sophisticated weapons and to commit the United States to a policy of maintaining
Israel's regional military superiority. In 1962 Kennedy privately told Israeli foreign
minister Golda Meir that their countries were de facto allies, and shortly before his
assassination, Kennedy reportedly guaranteed Israel's territorial integrity in a letter
to Prime Minister Eshkol.(132)

As the U.S.-Israeli strategic relationship matured, military and economic aid increased.
But that increase does not mean the earlier aid had been insignificant. According to
historian Nadav Safran: "During Israel's first nineteen years of existence, the United
States awarded it nearly $1.5 billion of aid in various forms, mostly outright grants of
one kind or another. On a per capita basis of recipient country, this was the highest
rate of American aid given to any country."(133)

According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, between 1949 and 1965 U.S.
aid to Israel averaged $63 million annually, and over 95 percent of that assistance was
for economic development and food aid.(134) The first formal military lending, which was
very modest, occurred in 1959. However, from 1966 through 1970 average annual aid jumped
to $102 million, and the share of military loans climbed to 47 percent. In 1964 the U.S.
government lent no money to Israel for military purposes. In 1965 it lent almost $13
million. In 1966, the year before the Six-Day War, it lent $90 million. In the year of
the war such loans fell to $7 million, but in succeeding years the total rose, reaching
$85 million in 1969 and hitting a high of $2.7 billion in 1979. More significant,
military grants began in 1974; they ranged from $100 million in 1975 to $2.7 billion in
1979. In the first half of the 1980s, loans and grants ranged between $500 million and
nearly $1 billion. Then, beginning in 1985, the loans stopped and all U.S. military aid
was made as grants, ranging from $1.4 billion in 1985 to $1.8 billion each year from
1987 through 1989. Economic grants hit a high of nearly $2 billion in 1985, before
falling to $1.2 billion in 1989. (See Appendix.)

Although U.S. aid has been given to Israel with the stipulation that it not be used in
the territories occupied in 1967, the Congres-sional Research Service reported that
"because the U.S. aid is given as budgetary support without any specific project
accounting, there is no way to tell how Israel uses U.S. aid."(135) Moreover, the
service wrote that, according to the executive branch, in 1978, 1979, and 1981, Israel
"may have violated" its agreement not to use U.S. weapons for nondefensive
purposes.(136) In 1982 the United States suspended shipments of cluster bombs after
Israel allegedly violated an agreement on the use of those weapons. In 1990 Israel
accepted $400 million in loan guarantees for housing on the condition that the money not
be used in the occupied territories, but the promise was soon repudiated.(137)

Reporter Tom Bethell has written that of $1.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid to
Israel, only about $350 million is sent by check. The rest never leaves the United
States; it is spent on U.S.-made planes and weapons. Bethell also has reported that,
according to the State Department, Israel returns $1.1 billion of $1.2 billion in
economic aid as payment of principal and interest on old loans. It keeps the interest
accrued from the time the money is received at the beginning of the year to the time it
is sent back at the end of the year.(138)

The Yom Kippur War, 1973

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.(139)

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."(140) (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.(141) 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.(142)

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 govern- ment . . .
had produced the stalemate for which I had striven by design.(143)

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.(144)

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
ab- stract 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."(145) 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 alFatah, 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.(146) 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.(147)

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.(148)

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."(149)

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, Kis-singer 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."(150) 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.(151)

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.(152)

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.(153) "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.(154)

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."(155)

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.(156)

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.(157)

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.(158)

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
turne
...

Homosexuality: A New Threat to Human Dignity and Development

In the first place, it is clear that sexual perversion—homosexuality and lesbianism—finds a great resort and refuge in the Western countries where it is accepted and legalized by the laws of these countries that put man in a position even worse than animals under the pretext of protecting human rights.

In such countries that credit civilization and progress to itself, those people are free to establish their own unions, clubs and forums where they can gather together to discuss their problems and work for further forms of perversion and deviation.

To accept such ignominies as a substitute for the natural human relation between males and females is no more than a big leap towards chaos and following animal instincts. The outcome of accepting such manias will be no less than more destruction, disgrace and degradation brought to the face of mankind.

This act of accepting such perversion is a fierce attack against the rights of women and deep involvement in filthiness.

In the West, homosexuality is on the increase because youngsters are encouraged by society to date at earlier and earlier ages. When adolescents or even pre-adolescents are not comfortable with the opposite sex, they are not told that this is due to natural shyness at a young age but that they might be homosexual, and they are encouraged to experiment sexually with their same sex.

Sexual perversion, as previously stated, has two main types, namely male homosexuality and lesbianism. Following is a clear discussion of both in an Islamic perspective.

First: Male Homosexuality

The Qur'an tells us the story of the people of Lut (Lot), who deviated from the natural way and got involved in this abnormality, refusing every word of advice from their Prophet Lut. Thus, their destiny was destruction and punishment. Almighty Allah says: “And Lo! (Remember) when he said unto his folk: Will ye commit abomination such as no creature ever did before you? Lo! ye come with lust unto men instead of women. Nay, but ye are wanton folk. And the answer of his people was only that they said (one to another): Turn them out of your township. They are folk, forsooth, who keep pure. And We rescued him and his household, save his wife, who was of those who stayed behind. And We rained a rain upon them. See now the nature of the consequence for evil doers!" (Al-A`raf: 80-84)

The eminent Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, states:

"Almighty Allah has prohibited illegal sexual intercourse and homosexuality and all means that lead to either of them. This perverted act is a reversal of the natural order, a corruption of man's sexuality, and a crime against the rights of females.

The spread of this depraved practice in a society disrupts its natural life pattern and makes those who practice it slaves to their lusts, depriving them of decent taste, decent morals, and a decent manner of living. The story of the people of Prophet Lut as narrated in the Qur'an should be sufficient for us. Lut's people were addicted to this shameless depravity, abandoning natural, pure, lawful relations with women in the pursuit of this unnatural, foul and illicit practice. That is why their prophet, Lut (peace be upon him) told them: "What! Of all creatures, do you approach males and leave the spouses whom your Lord has created for you? Indeed, you are people transgressing (all limits)!" (Ash-Shu`araa: 165-166)

The strangest expression of these peoples' perversity of nature, lack of guidance, depravity of morals, and aberration of taste was their attitude toward the guests of Prophet Lut (peace be on him), who were angels of punishment in human form sent by Allah to try these people and to expose their perversity. The Qur'an narrates the story: "And when Our messengers came to Lut, he was grieved on their account and did not know how to protect them. He said, 'This is a day of distress.' And his people, who had long since been practicing abominations, came rushing toward him. He said, 'O my people, here are my daughters. They are purer for you, so fear Allah and do not disgrace me in front of my guests. Is there not a single upright man among you?' They said, 'Thou knowest well that we have no right to thy daughters, and certainly thou knowest what we want.' He said, 'If only I had strength to resist you or had some powerful support!' Said (the angels) 'O Lut, truly, we are messengers of thy Lord; they shall not reach thee....'"(Hud: 77-81)
Muslim jurists hold different opinions concerning the punishment for this abominable practice. Should it be the same as the punishment for fornication, or should both the active and passive participants be put to death? While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements."

The western people are very proud of their cultural superiority. Unfortunately they feel superiority for the behaviour worse than animals. Now the problem is that the phenomena of homosexuality is gaining momentum in Asia and other developing countries of the world. This is basically due to the impact of globalization and the tendency of the people to blindly emulate western culture. Hence it is the duty of all countries in the East to join against this perverted human behaviour by providing much needed orientation to its citizens from their childhood. According to medical science, it is not possible to treat them properly. Anyway, this homosexual syndrome will be the upcoming threat to human development and dignity.