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Israel
The War of Attrition
The tarnished legitimacy of the Arab states following the June
1967 War was especially poignant in Egypt. Israeli troops were
situated on the east bank of the Suez Canal, the canal was closed
to shipping, and Israel was occupying a large piece of Egyptian
territory. Nasser responded by maintaining a constant state of
military activity along the canal--the so-called War of Attrition--
between February 1969 and August 1970. Given the wide disparity
in the populations of Israel and Egypt, Israel could not long
tolerate trading casualties with the Egyptians. The Israeli government,
now led by Golda Meir, pursued a policy of "asymmetrical response"--
retaliation on a scale far exceeding any individual attack.
As the tension along the Egyptian border continued to heat, United
States secretary of state William Rogers proposed a new peace
plan. In effect, the Rogers Plan was an interpretation of UN Security
Council Resolution 242; it called for the international frontier
between Egypt and Israel to be the secure and recognized border
between the two countries. There would be "a formal state of peace
between the two, negotiations on Gaza and Sharm ash Shaykh, and
demilitarized zones." In November Israel rejected the offer, and
in January 1970 Israeli fighter planes made their first deep penetration
into Egypt.
Following the Israeli attack, Nasser went to Moscow requesting
advanced surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and other military equipment.
After some wavering, the Kremlin committed itself to modernizing
and retraining the Egyptian military. Egypt's new Soviet-made
arsenal threatened to alter the regional military balance with
Israel. The tension in Israeli-Soviet relations escalated in July
1970, when Israeli fighter planes shot down four Egyptian planes
flown by Soviet pilots about thirty kilometers west of the canal.
Fearing Soviet retaliation, and uncertain of American support,
Israel in August accepted a cease-fire and the application of
Resolution 242.
Following the June 1967 War, the PLO established in Jordan its
major base of operations for the war against Israel. Throughout
the late 1960s, a cycle of Palestinian guerrilla attacks followed
by Israeli retaliatory raids against Jordan caused much damage
to Jordan. In September 1970, after militant factions of the PLO
(who previously had stated that "the road to Tel Aviv lies through
Amman") hijacked four foreign planes and forced them to land in
Jordan, King Hussein decided it was time to act. Throughout September
the Jordanian military launched an attack to push the PLO out
of Jordan. Jordan's attack on the PLO led to an escalation of
Syrian-Israeli tensions. It was widely believed in Washington
that deployment of Israeli troops along the Jordan River had deterred
a large-scale Syrian invasion of Jordan. As a result, President
Richard M. Nixon increasingly viewed Israel as an important strategic
asset, and the Rogers Plan was allowed to die.
While negotiating a cease-fire to the conflict in Jordan, Nasser
died of a heart attack. The new Egyptian president, Anwar as Sadat,
quickly realized, just as Nasser had toward the end of his life,
that Egypt's acute economic and social problems were more pressing
than the conflict with Israel. Sadat believed that by making peace
with Israel Egypt could reduce its huge defense burden and obtain
desperately needed American financial assistance. He realized,
however, that before some type of arrangement with Israel could
be reached, Egypt would have to regain the territory lost to Israel
in the June 1967 War. To achieve these ends, Sadat launched a
diplomatic initiative as early as 1971, aimed at exchanging territory
for peace. On February 4, 1971, he told the Egyptian parliament:
that if Israel withdrew her forces in Sinai to the passes
I would be willing to reopen the Suez Canal; to have my forces
cross to the East Bank . . . to make a solemn declaration of
a cease-fire; to restore diplomatic relations with the United
States and to sign a peace agreement with Israel through the
efforts of Dr. Jarring, the representative of the Secretary
General of the United Nations.
Sadat's peace initiative, similar to the Rogers Plan, was not
warmly received in Israel. Prime Minister Golda Meir stated unequivocally
that Israel would never return to the prewar borders. She also
commissioned the establishment of a settlement on occupied Egyptian
territory at Yamit, near the Gaza Strip. Her rejection of the
Egyptian offer reflected the hawkish but also complacent politico-military
strategy that had guided Israeli policy after the June 1967 War.
Advised by Minister of Defense General Moshe Dayan and ambassador
to Washington General Yitzhak Rabin, the Meir government held
that the IDF's preponderance of power, the disarray of the Arab
world, and the large buffer provided by Sinai, the West Bank,
and the Golan Heights would deter the Arab states from launching
an attack against Israel. Therefore, the Israeli government perceived
no compelling reason to trade territory for peace. This view had
wide Israeli public support as a result of a growing settler movement
in the occupied territories, a spate of Arab terrorist attacks
that hardened public opinion against compromise with the Arabs,
and the widespread feeling that the Arab states were incapable
of launching a successful attack on Israel. Israel's complacency
concerning an Arab attack was bolstered in July 1972 by Sadat's
surprise announcement that he was expelling most Soviet military
advisers.
Data as of December 1988
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