released 28 aug 05 / last mod 01 jun 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* On 5 June 1967, the Israelis launched a surprise air assault that wrecked Arab air power. Over the next two days, Israeli forces crushed the Egyptian Army, and seized all of Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan.
* Israel's front-line combat aircraft inventory of 250 aircraft reflected France's role as the nation's arms supplier. The spearhead was 65 sleek, Mach 2 Dassault Mirage III delta-wing fighters. They were backed up by the Mirage's Dassault predecessors: 35 Super Mysteres, 35 Mystere IVs, and 50 elderly Ouragans -- as well as 20 Sud-Ouest Vatour twin-engine attack aircraft and 45 Fouga Magisters. The Magisters were trainers but they could carry a light warload; in the IDF-AF, everyone carried their weight.
The air offensive actually got underway at 07:10 AM on the morning of 5 June 1967. Magister trainers took off to fly air patrols as if they were Mirage or Mystere fighters, while the larger aircraft got off the runways with their bombloads. By 07:30 AM, almost 200 machines were in the air, leaving almost nothing behind to defend Israel. They flew at low altitude to avoid Arab radars and maintained strict radio silence. Pilots were even told they could not break radio silence if they suffered a malfunction and had to eject over the sea.
The aircraft were to fly along three general routes. Some would fly directly into the Sinai to strike forward-based Egyptian airfields there, and a group would fly down the Red Sea to hit the Egyptian airbase at Luxor to the south. The heavy hammer was to assemble over the Mediterranean and descend on Egyptian airfields in the Cairo area. Israeli intelligence had a highly accurate knowledge of the location of every Egyptian aircraft. In contrast, the Egyptians had no idea of the thunderbolt that was about to fall on them. Jordanian radar operators, with a state-of-the-art British radar set and a good view, detected the masses of warplanes in the air and immediately sent a warning off to Egypt. The warning was set aside and lost, since the Egyptians had changed their communications protocols on 4 June while the Jordanians had not.
On the approach to their targets, the Israeli fighters popped up to medium altitude and then dove on their targets. Egyptian radars could spot them now, but it was far too late. Israeli Mirages fell on the runways, dropping bombs and strafing aircraft with their twin 30-millimeter cannon. Some of the bombs were a new French-designed "runway breaker" munition, which stabilized itself with a parachute to point nose-down, fired a rocket to punch itself into a runway, and then exploded after a delay to crater out the runway and render it useless. Once the runways were ruined, the warplanes turned on Egyptian bombers since they were the greatest threat to Israel, followed by Egyptian fighters, and then support facilities. Low on ammo and fuel, the IDF-AF fighters returned home to be loaded up for the next wave. IDF-AF ground crews were highly drilled and could turn around the fighters for another strike in less than ten minutes.
By 8:00 AM, six Egyptian airfields had been neutralized and over 200 Egyptian planes had been destroyed, nearly all of them on the ground. There was little anti-aircraft fire. Field Marshall Amer was in air transit that morning and feared that his aircraft might be fired on in error, so he had sent out a strict no-fire order. The IDF-AF lost only eight aircraft and five pilots. One of the aircraft lost had been shot down by an Israeli Hawk surface-to-air missile after suffering damage and straying over the Dimona nuclear-reactor site. The pilot had kept radio silence as ordered.
The Israelis were stunned by their own success. It had all gone exactly as planned, better than anyone expected. At 08:15 AM Dayan sent out the "Red Sheet" codeword, and the ground offensive jumped off. While artillery pounded Egyptian positions and tanks rolled forward, Israeli fighters went back to Egypt to hit targets again, this time not bothering to observe radio silence. By mid-morning, 286 of Egypt's 400 combat aircraft had been destroyed. At 10:35 AM, IDF-AF commander General Motti Hod reported matter-of-factly to Rabin: "The Egyptian air force has ceased to exist."
The Egyptians on the receiving end of this rough treatment were in shock. One officer commented later: "Israel spent years preparing for this war, whereas we prepared for parades." Amer's transport plane was stuck in the air with no place to land for almost an hour and a half, until it was able to land at Cairo's International Airport. There was some confusion when Amer arrived, some of his people believing that a coup was in progress and drawing their pistols. Air Force Commander Sidqi Mahmud was level-headed, snapping at them: "Fools! Put your guns away! Israel is attacking us!"
Amer managed to take a taxi to headquarters. Surprisingly, he was excited and enthusiastic, believing that the fight had just begun when the reality was that it had now been irretrievably lost. He called Damascus and Baghdad and asked that they begin air strikes on Israel immediately. They were cooperative in principle, but of course they were in no state of preparation to do any such thing right away.
Amer was not alone in his delusions. There were excited crowds in the street, clapping and chanting slogans, and wild reports were broadcast of terrible Israeli losses and Egyptian offensives. Even Nasser was taken in for a time, but as Israeli jets continued their strikes and the only evidence of any response was in bombastic news reports, he became suspicious. However, communications were so broken down that he remained in the dark.
Anwar Sadat went into headquarters at about 11:00 AM and got a realistic, entirely ugly description of the true state of affairs from Soviet Ambassador Pojidaev. Sadat, discouraged and lacking any constructive thing he could do under the circumstances, went home and stayed their for a few days, at least partly so he could be out of sight and sound of the crowds "chanting, dancing, and applauding the faked-up victory reports which our mass media put out hourly."
In the meantime, IDF armor was pushing through the Egyptian defensive lines in the Sinai. Although the Egyptian troops were fighting without any clear direction from the top, they still fought hard, and inflicted serious casualties on the Israelis. Still, the offensive was moving well ahead of schedule, and by the time night fell the Israeli armored spearhead had penetrated over 32 kilometers (20 miles). One lieutenant wrote of the scene that night: "Egyptian tanks were burning as for as far as we could see, and Egyptian soldiers lying beside them. But many of our own tanks were also ablaze, and the Israelis lying beside them were no longer alive."
* The Israelis had hoped that King Hussein would not jump into the fight, believing that Jordan would, as one observer hopefully put it, fire of a "salutory salvo to fulfill its obligations to inter-Arab unity" and leave it at that. Discreet requests were sent to Amman to ask Hussein for restraint, though Dayan felt it was redundant, asking sarcastically: "Doesn't Hussein know he's not supposed to attack us?!"
Jordan presented a real threat to Israel, since most of the IDF was then smashing into Egyptian lines to the south and only skeletal forces were available to resist any attack from the east. Hussein was in fact determined to carry out his obligations and follow the directions of Egyptian General Riyad, partly because he was being misled by the wild reports coming out of Egypt. At 09:30 AM, Hussein announced to his people over Radio Amman that "the hour of revenge had come."
At the time of Hussein's radio broadcast, Jordanian and Israeli troops began to exchange small-arms fire across the lines in Jerusalem, with the ground fighting slowly escalating. At 10:00 AM, Jordanian American-built 155-millimeter "Long Tom" guns began to fire on the suburbs of Tel Aviv and the big IDF-AF airbase at Ramat David in northern Israeli, and at 10:50 AM 16 Jordanian British-built Hawker Hunter fighter jets performed attacks on Israeli targets. These attacks were fairly limited in scope, not out of line with the "salutory salvo" that had been expected, but at 11:15 AM Jordanian howitzers began an intense and not particularly discriminate barrage, sending what would amount to a total of thousands of shells onto Jewish West Jerusalem.
By this time, the Syrians and Iraqis had finally got themselves together well enough to mount air attacks on Israel. Twelve Syrian MiGs attacked settlements in northern Israel until the IDF-AF arrived and chased them off, shooting down three MiGs in the process. Three Iraqi Hunters strafed Israeli targets and an Iraqi Tupolev Tu-16 medium jet bomber was shot down by the IDF-AF.
Israeli ground forces in the Jerusalem area were following orders to be restrained, but Dayan decided that it was necessary to respond, ordering that air strikes be conducted. Ezar Weizman had wanted to conduct a preemptive strike on Jordan and had been overruled by Rabin, but he was chafing at the bit and was delighted to be set loose. IDF-AF pilots, having largely completed their thorough smash-up of the Egyptians thoroughly earlier, were able to turn their attention east, beginning yet another wave of strikes just before 12:30 PM.
Hussein was at his home when the IDF-AF arrived and had a perfect view as Israeli fighters shot up and bombed Jordanian Hunters as they were refueling. Within an hour, Jordan's air force had also ceased to exist. Sorties were also being performed against Syria, which would lose two-thirds of its aircraft by nightfall, and against airfields in western Iraq. The Syrians and Iraqis were not caught completely unprepared and ten IDF-AF aircraft were shot down, losing six pilots dead, including two who parachuted to ground to be killed by angry Syrian villagers.
The IDF-AF also attacked Jordanian ground forces, with armed Magister trainers chewing up a Jordanian vehicle column. In addition, the Israelis had set up oversized unguided "L" rockets, a short-range weapon with a big warhead, on the front lines, pretargeted on Jordanian strongpoints in preparation for the right time. The time had come and the rockets were launched with devastating effect, some witnesses believing that the Israelis had dropped an atomic bomb.
Despite all the strikes, the Israelis were still hoping to keep the war in the east under control. The commander of UN observers in the area, Norwegian General Odd Bull, proposed a ceasefire, and the Israelis accepted it at 11:40 AM. The Jordanians were still determined to fight, however, and at 12:45 PM the Jordanian Arab Legion began an attack towards west Jerusalem. Dayan ordered a limited counterattack to drive back any Jordanian incursions and to eliminate sites where the Jordanians were firing into Israel. He still wanted to avoid a general fight with the Jordanians.
There was some confusion over his ambivalence, with one IDF colonel present at the deliberations saying later: "Damn it, what did Moshe Dayan really want?" Dayan's waffling was not surprising under the circumstances, but his long custom of playing his cards close to his vest, or for that matter from up his sleeve, made people impatient with him.
An Israeli infantry brigade still went forward at about 02:30 PM, conducting a nasty and bloody fight in south Jerusalem through much of the late afternoon, with both sides taking casualties but the Israelis prevailing by the evening. There had been a lot of shooting, with a compound used by the UN observers getting in the line of fire. Odd Bull didn't much care for the Israelis and was not happy when they blasted his car.
Although the IDF was still focused on the drive into the Sinai, Israeli armored spearheads had moved so fast on the offensive that a paratroop drop was cancelled and the paratroop brigade quickly shifted to the fight in Jerusalem. They joined a mechanized infantry brigade to begin, at about 4:00 PM, a drive into northern Jerusalem and the villages to the north of the city. The terrain was rugged and the paratroopers had major difficulties with mines, several of them losing legs. By evening, the Jordanians and the Egyptian commandos assisting them were falling back, unhinging the defense of Jerusalem.
To the north, Israeli armor was driving into the northwest corner of the West Bank to silence Jordanian Long Tom guns. The terrain was much more level there and Israeli tanks moved rapidly, with the IDF-AF providing devastating close-support strikes. The Jordanians fought back hard, screaming for air support of their own. The Syrians promised to send in aircraft, but in truth the Syrian Air Force had little left to send.
Astoundingly, the Syrians were continuing to broadcast threats and murder, President Atassi announcing that the Arabs "shall meet in Tel Aviv". Syrian artillery began intense bombardments of northern Israel's border settlements that afternoon in preparation for an offensive in the morning. Dayan did not want to fight at all in the north, at least for the moment, and ordered the IDF-AF and IDF artillery to only respond to provocations, counterfiring on Syrian batteries that were actively firing on Israeli settlements. The Israelis had also hoped to avoid entering the Gaza strip in the southwest -- Dayan believed that it could be an expensive operation and would only win Israel a huge refugee camp -- but Palestinian artillery fired on Israeli villages and the IDF was forced to respond, driving into Gaza to seize high ground and silence the guns.
In the meantime, the fighting raged in the Sinai. At 10:00 PM that night, massed Israeli artillery dumped 6,000 shells in twenty minutes on an Egyptian defensive position while mobile units lashed out, striking the Egyptians here, there, everywhere. One Egyptian officer who was taken prisoner vividly described the offensive as "like watching a snake uncoiling."
* While the fighting went on that evening, the politicians dithered. Eshkol was in council with in ministers. Some of them wanted to seize Jerusalem and the West Bank, while Eshkol argued that this would alienate the outside world and would create more complications than it would be worth.
In Cairo, Nasser had cut through the fog of propaganda and realized that Egypt had suffered a staggering military disaster. He remained collected if not completely calm, but Amer was hysterical, claiming that it was American, not Israeli, aircraft that had smashed Egypt's air force on the runways. Given Amer's state of mind, he may have believed this -- he could have believed anything, as far gone as he was -- but Nasser agreed to the fiction to help deflect humiliation from Egypt and pressure the USSR to intervene directly. Messages were sent to Moscow, informing the Kremlin of American "treachery" and asking for help, and Cairo radio announced that "the United States is the enemy." More tangibly, a decision was made to ask Algeria to loan jet fighters to Egypt to help with the fight.
As far as the Americans went, it was 04.35 AM in Washington DC when Lyndon Johnson was rolled out of bed by phone call from National Security Advisor Walt Rostow. The news was of course no surprise. LBJ made a few calls of his own, to Secretary of State Rusk, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and UN Ambassador Goldberg to pass on the news; ate breakfast; and then joined his advisors in the White House situation room. The news from the Middle East was wildly contradictory, with the different sides all claiming they were winning, but US intelligence basically sorted out the truth: the Israelis had shot first and the Arabs were being thrashed. The fact that the Israelis seemed to be winning did not make LBJ happy, since he had hoped for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, and there was no saying that Israel's fortunes might not change abruptly.
At 07:47 AM, a call arrived from Moscow. It was Premier Kosygin. The call was patched into the situation room and Kosygin delivered a message, saying essentially that the Soviet Union intended to push for a cessation of hostilities and requested that the US use its influence with Israel to do the same. Kosygin did not expect an immediate response; LBJ did not provide one. Dean Rusk contacted his opposite number, Foreign Minister Gromyko, a half hour later, to indicate Washington's disapproval of the Israeli action and assure the Soviets that the US would help try to stop the fighting. LBJ cabled his own assurances to Kosygin not long after that.
The exchanges were a relief to LBJ and his people, since the Soviets were showing no inclination to intervene directly in the conflict, at least for the time being. LBJ took additional actions to keep the lid on the pot, ordering the 6th Fleet to remain in the vicinity of Crete and declaring an arms embargo of the Middle East.
Even as administration officials went into motion to try to stop the war, they were thinking of a political settlement that might follow. If the Israelis won the war, as they were judged very likely to by the CIA, they would have a strong bargaining position that would completely alter the political landscape. The old standoff between Israeli and Arab would be broken and a new order might be established. Still, that was a consideration for the future. In the present, the Johnson Administration publicly announced American "distress" at the conflict and pushed for a resolution in the UN Security Council.
Things were stirring at the UN. General Rikhye had reported the fighting at 02:40 AM New York time, describing Israeli airstrikes that had incidentally killed three UNEF soldiers from the Indian contingent. U Thant was up and about before LBJ. However, just because things were stirring didn't mean that any progress was being made. The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gideon Rafael, was under orders to stall for time. Surprisingly, so was his Arab counterpart, Mohammed El Kony, who was deluded by the wild reports he was receiving of Arab victories. Even more surprisingly, despite their communications with the White House, the Soviets were backing the Egyptians for the moment on the belief they were winning, and did not want an immediate cease-fire.
For the time being, things were going in circles at the UN. However, by evening LBJ was feeling at least a little more reassured, particularly since he had received clear intelligence that the Arab claims of mighty blows against Israel were lies. Walt Rostow forwarded the president a report that began: "Herewith the account, with a map of the first day's turkey shoot."
* The fighting in the Sinai went on all through the night, with the ground forces slugging it out, and once the sun came up the IDF-AF began air strikes again, leaving the desert spotted with the burning wrecks of Egyptian tanks and other vehicles. Without air support of their own, Egyptian troops were extremely vulnerable to Israeli air power. The Israelis sent more strikes into Egypt to make sure that the Egyptians couldn't repair their runways, and IDF-AF fighters quickly shot down such few Egyptian aircraft as made it into the air.
Israeli troops entered al-Arish, on the Mediterranean coast between the canal and Gaza, and found it quiet -- for a moment. Then firing broke out from every door and every window. The Israelis had a nasty house-to-house fight on their hands. Egyptian soldiers were willing to fight; they deserved better leadership.
Gaza had been cut off from the main body of Egyptian forces by the Israeli offensive and fell quickly. By mid-morning, Israeli troops were conducting mop-up operations. To the south, Egyptian soldiers were reeling back from IDF attacks. The Egyptians in the path of the assault were outgunned and their logistics had broken down. They had no food, no ammunition, no fuel. However, half the Egyptian army in the Sinai had yet to fire a shot. The original plan for the defense of the Sinai, codenamed CONQUERER and devised under Soviet direction, set up multiple lines of defense. The Israelis were to penetrate the first line of defense relatively easily, only to be trapped and destroyed by more formidable second and third lines of defenses.
In effect, nothing had happened that took CONQUERER off the playing board. Nasser was also getting promises of support, including transfers of combat aircraft, from other Arab nations. IDF combat units, while still on a roll, were starting to approach the limits of their physical endurance and were outrunning their supply lines. Things could still go wrong for Israel. Outside pressure, particularly from the United States and the Soviet Union, was building up on Israel to stop the offensive before it had achieved its objectives. Dayan said: "We'll find the war coming to an end before we get our hands on its cause!"
Conveniently for the Israelis, however, Egyptian leadership caved in completely. Late that day, orders went out to tell the Egyptian Army to get out of the Sinai as quickly as possible. In the meantime, Egyptian radio broadcasts continued to proclaim victory after victory, while nothing was done to push for a cease-fire.
The decision to order a wholesale withdrawal would unsurprisingly prove controversial in the aftermath. Some would blame it on Field Marshal Amer and it did seem to reflect the hysteria that had seized him. Anwar Sadat and others claimed that Nasser knew nothing of the decision until it was too late, while others claim Nasser was fully aware of and agreed with the decision.
Given that the Israelis had air superiority, there was certainly a legitimate fear that Egyptian units in the Sinai might be isolated and destroyed, and a fighting withdrawal, conducted mostly at night to minimize injury from Israeli strike aircraft, was not unreasonable. However, that wasn't what was done. Staff officers presented a plan to Amer for a phased withdrawal that would be conducted over three days. He shot back: "I gave you an order to withdraw -- period!"
In effect, Egyptian troops had been put to rout, not by the enemy, but by their own leaders. It unsurprisingly did much to take the fight out of the soldiers. Many wept from stress and humiliation. The wholesale retreat actually took the Israelis by surprise. Dayan commented: "Though Israel had gained control of the skies, Egypt's cities were not bombed, and the Egyptian armored units at the front could have fought on without air support."
Well, an opportunity was an opportunity, no matter how it had come about, and IDF leadership quickly realized their goals for the campaign could be expanded. In the meantime, the IDF-AF pounded the fleeing Egyptians.
* Having abandoned any inclination to actually fight, Nasser and Amer turned to the propaganda front, continuing to announce to the world how Israel had been actively supported by American and British forces. Americans in Egypt were told to get out of the country immediately; Ambassador Nolte's mission to the country proved remarkably brief. The message went over well across the Arab world, with attacks on US embassies and consulates.
Oil-producing states such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq cut off oil shipments to the US and Britain, though there was less to this than met the eye. The royalist Saudis had no love for Nasser, who had done everything to undermine their rule. After the war, King Faisal would tell the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia: "Nasser is an arch intriguer and a bogus leader. If I'd been in the Jews' place, I'd have done exactly the same thing to him."
The Egyptian's message did not go over so well in Moscow. Soviet intelligence had disastrously fallen down on the job, but there was no way the transfer of large numbers of US combat aircraft to Israel could have gone unnoticed. As far as the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean went, Red Navy cruisers always shadowed US Navy carrier groups. They had a perfect right to go where they pleased on the open seas, the US Navy couldn't do more than make them keep a safe distance in peacetime, and in this case the US Navy had every reason to want them there. The idea that a major American carrier strike could be performed unnoticed was completely out of the question.
In short, the Kremlin knew that Nasser and Amer were telling a lie, a big and obvious lie, and the Soviets were also figuring out that the Arabs in general were getting thrashed badly. Amer compounded the irritation by browbeating Ambassador Pojidaev about the low quality of Soviet weapons. Pojidaev replied, swallowing his irritation, that the same weapons supplied to the North Vietnamese had proved themselves superior to America's. The Americans might have disagreed with Pojidaev but certainly would not have agreed with Amer.
* While the Egyptians were taking flight, King Hussein of Jordan was fighting on. He described the night of 5:6 June as "hell", adding: "It was as clear as day. The sky and the earth glowed with the light of the rockets and the constant explosions of the bombs pouring from Israeli planes."
On the front lines, Jordanian forces near the West Bank town of Jenin obtained reinforcements before sunrise and pushed the Israelis back, bloodying them. Then the sun came up and the Jordanians were hit by IDF-AF air strikes and pounded by artillery. Surviving Jordanian armor withdrew, but troops left behind proved stubborn enough to delay the Israeli occupation of the town until midday.
Since early in the dark hours of the morning, Israeli troops had been pushing through Jordanian defenses in Jerusalem, cutting through barbed wire and clearing paths through minefields under heavy fire. The Jordanians pushed back, in one case countercharging enthusiastically with Bren light machine guns and crying out: "ALLAH AKHBAR (GOD IS GREAT)!" The Israelis suffered badly, but they had the upper hand in numbers and firepower and the Jordanians suffered worse. By early morning the IDF had broken through. The Jordanians were forced to withdraw. By noon, Jordanian troops announced that the Israelis had possession of all of East Jerusalem, except for the area known as the "Old City".
This dismal turn of events was not a surprise to Hussein. Before sunrise, General Riyad, the Egyptian who was in command of Jordan's armies, told Hussein had a choice between accepting a ceasefire or ordering a general retreat. Riyad added: "If you don't decided within the next 24 hours, you can kiss your army and all of Jordan goodbye! We are on the verge of losing the West Bank! All our forces will be isolated or destroyed!"
Hussein didn't like either option, since if he demonstrated that he was not willing to face up to the Israelis, even against hopeless odds, he was likely to suffer the same fate as his assassinated grandfather. The army might even revolt. He was in a very troubled state of mind, phoning US Ambassador Burns to have the US push for a face-saving ceasefire. The Americans were skeptical, wondering if Hussein was really willing to or even had the power to get his troops to stop shooting. The Israelis had talked ceasefires with the Jordanians, got nowhere, and of course had passed that back to Washington.
Failing to get quick results from that avenue, Hussein had a chat with Nasser and agreed to go along with the "big lie", that the Israelis were being backed up by American and British air power. The call was made on an open line. Israeli intelligence picked it up and played it up in the propaganda mill.
The fighting went on. An Iraqi brigade tried to move west across Jordan to join the action, but it was set upon by IDF-AF strike aircraft and badly torn up. The IDF-AF also completed their job of smashing Iraqi air power, striking at air bases in the western part of Iraq.
By noon the extent of the disaster was clear, but Hussein still remained undecided; hours passed and he did not make up his mind. General Riyad, normally a relaxed man, screamed at Hussein to get his troops out. How could the king dither while his men were being slaughtered in a hopeless battle? It was unconscionable! Hussein, possibly thinking that inspecting matters and closer range would resolve his indecision, took a jeep from his headquarters and went west, only to run into the retreating survivors of the defense of Jenin. He wrote later: "I will never forget the hallucinating sight of that defeat. Roads clogged with trucks, jeeps, and all kinds of vehicles twisted, disembowled, dented, still smoking ... " The troops were trying to clear the road while IDF-AF Mirages continued to hammer at them.
At about 7:00 PM, the Israelis began a push in Jerusalem to completely encircle the Old City. Dayan was reluctant to occupy it directly, since that might cause an international backlash, but it could be isolated and forced to surrender. The Jordanians fought back hard and blunted the assault, forcing the Israelis to pull back and lick their wounds. The defenders had bought Hussein some time. The only question was whether Hussein could push through a ceasefire before the morning came and the Israelis came back to finish the job.
* Although the Syrians had been battered by Israeli air power, they still continued to bombard towns in northern Israel with artillery. Dayan had been against more than a minimal response to Syrian provocations, arguing that the immediate threats were the Egyptians, because of their large army, and the Jordanians, because they were positioned so close to the heart of Israel. The Syrians could wait. Their time would come.
However, in the dark hours of the morning of 6 June the Syrians greatly stepped up their barrages, inflicting major damage on the border settlements with 130 millimeter guns, mortars, and antitank guns. Encouraged by the failure of the Israelis to respond, after sunrise the Syrians sent tanks and troops into northern Israel as part of their preplanned offensive, optimistically codenamed VICTORY. The probes were half-baked, with the heaviest units blocked by such unexpected obstacles as bridges that were too small for tanks. Those that did cross the border were smashed in short order by well-prepared Israeli defenses. The Syrians had been threatening and harassing northern Israel for years, and the idea that the Israelis hadn't set up a welcoming party for ground intrusions was foolish.
The Israelis hit back with artillery barrages of their own and such air power as could be spared. It was enough. The Syrians abandoned the probes, and the only "victories" they enjoyed were in the form of fantasies broadcast over Damascus radio.
* Eshkol and other senior Israeli officials knew they would have to accept a ceasefire sooner or later, but they preferred that it be later. Israel was winning and a return to the "status quo ante bellum" was not in the cards.
Foreign Minister Eban took a short-haul airliner to Athens that morning -- larger civilian aircraft had been taken over by the military -- and managed to make connections to New York City, arriving that evening. Israeli UN Ambassador Rafael Gideon was waiting for him and took him to the UN. Eban got hold of US UN Ambassador Goldberg and went on at length about Israel's situation and the demands of the crisis. Goldberg finally managed to get a word in edgewise and told him not to worry, the US was basically on the same diplomatic wavelength as Israel.
Eban had little time to digest this, since he immediately had to go address the Security Council. He had been preparing his speech on the flight over the Atlantic and put his heart and soul into it. He outlined the origins of the crisis and how Israel had been forced to act: "Look around this table and imagine a foreign power forcibly closing New York or Montreal, Boston or Marseilles, Toulon or Copenhagen. What would you do?! How long would you wait?!" Although he had been warned against taking such a step before leaving Israel, Eban then went on to press for a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement.
The speech was superlative, and it was sent around the world by the news media. It went over very well in the United States, where the White House was being flooded by expressions of support and admiration for Israel from American citizens. Only 1% of the thousands of letters pouring into the White House supported the Arab cause. American news reports were almost as one-sided. Eban had scored a diplomatic victory to match the victories on the battlefield.
Lyndon Johnson -- still essentially living in the White House situation room with Rusk, McNamara, and Walt and Gene Rostow -- was a politician to the core and keenly understood the need to keep voters happy. He wouldn't have been in the White House if he hadn't, and for the time being he was still considering running for reelection in 1968. While LBJ wanted the war wrapped up quickly lest it go far off track, he and his people believed that the Israelis deserved to win at least some of the goals they had begun the war to achieve. As Dean Rusk put it: "We can't make Israel accept a puny settlement."
Levi Eshkol had sent a message to LBJ through back-channels to ask for American political support, in holding off a cease-fire until the Israelis had consolidated their gains; in backing Israel's attempts to bargain those gains for national advantage; and in particular in discouraging the Soviet Union from intervening militarily. Eshkol said that no American military support was necessary: "We are prepared to handle the matter ourselves."
The Israelis began to get back signals that their request was finding a receptive audience in Washington. However, LBJ was still concerned about damage control, and he wired Kosygin in mid-morning to push for a cease-fire, while emphasizing Israel's rights of free passage through the Straits of Tiran, a broad hint that a simple return to the status quo wasn't satisfactory. LBJ also asked the USSR to help dampen the lies being spread by the Egyptians that the Americans were militarily involved in the conflict.
Back at the UN, US Ambassador Goldberg was pushing for a cease-fire that recognized Israeli gains and their usefulness in bargaining, and told his Soviet counterpart, Ambassador Federenko, that it was a "package deal -- take it or leave it." Federenko thought highly of Goldberg, calling him "a slick Jew who could fool the Devil himself," but his instructions from Moscow told him to leave it. The Kremlin still kept to the line that Israel had to stop fighting and give up all the gains made in the war -- until that afternoon, when the Soviet foreign ministry reversed direction and told Federenko to push for an unconditional ceasefire, even if the Arabs were against it. Moscow was finally beginning to see the full extent of the disaster suffered by its bumbling Arab allies, and it was obviously time to fold the cards and cut the losses.
This turnabout confused the White House, particularly since Kosygin then sent a wire backing a ceasefire -- with a withdrawal, exactly what the US government did not want. The American and Soviet delegations at the UN went into a huddle and finally came forward with a resolution for a simple unconditional ceasefire. The resolution was put to a vote and passed. The ceasefire was to go into effect that evening.
There was the slight problem of getting the people who were doing the shooting to agree. Egyptian UN Ambassador Mohammed El Kony, in response to probes from Goldberg, was confused on what to do and contacted Cairo. El Kony was told in no uncertain terms that a ceasefire without a withdrawal was out of the question. He addressed the UN and rejected the ceasefire, then blasted America's and Britain's "collusion" with Israeli aggression. The Syrian and Iraqi representatives followed him with much the same line.
* The ceasefire was dead, killed off by the people who had the most to gain from it. To be sure, a ceasefire without a withdrawal wasn't a good deal, but it was the best deal they were likely to get. Tel Aviv was by no means unhappy with this outcome, and in fact had been expecting it. Israel had accepted the ceasefire against the country's own interests, with substantial confidence that nothing would be lost thereby because Egypt would be certain to reject it. Even the measured Yitzhak Rabin had to marvel at the irony of the thing, in a comment that seemed more like Dayan: "Unwittingly, Nasser was beginning to act more like an ally than an enemy."
Once more, an opportunity was an opportunity, and it needed to be exploited. IDF forces would push on to the Mitla and Gidda passes through the hills on the western fringe of the Sinai just short of the Suez Canal, blocking off Egyptian lines of retreat, while probes and attacks were authorized against Sharm al-Sheik, though there was still some uncertainty about the size and capabilities of Egyptian forces in that area.
IDF forces would not move against the Old City in Jerusalem, though they would accept its surrender if offered. The line would be held in the north against Syria -- as well as Lebanon, which had shown some hostile intent that day by sending two Hawker Hunters into Israel, with one shot down. IDF forces would respond to provocations but they were not to take the initiative. An occupation authority was authorized for Gaza, charged with keeping order and restoring some appearance of normalcy to the occupied territory. Similar plans began to emerge for the West Bank, which was not completely in Israeli hands at the moment but, with Jordanian forces on the defensive or on the run, almost certainly would be soon enough.
There was a meeting that night in the prime minister's office to consider the status of the occupied and soon to be occupied territories. Details of practical concern were listed and discussed, and proposals for floated for future arrangements, such as a Palestinian state federated with Israel. Eshkol was upbeat over the possibilities.
* King Hussein was anything but upbeat. Nasser called him and honestly acknowledged that Egypt had suffered a crushing defeat, and at 11:30 PM Hussein ordered a general retreat from the West Bank over the Jordan, as General Riyad had recommended.
Less than two hours later, Hussein rescinded the order and told his troops to stand their ground. He had learned of the UN ceasefire resolution, which Jordan had sensibly approved, and thought if he could hold on a little bit longer he might be able to retrieve some of his fortunes, retaining most of the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem, with its holy places. Unlike the Israelis, possibly clutching at straws, he did not expect that the Egyptians would reject the ceasefire and sell him out. In yet another irony of the war, Hussein had been the least willing to go to war but was proving the most earnest in fighting it once he did -- for whatever good it would do him.
* The momentum of the conflict continued unhindered on 7 June, the third day of fighting. Israeli armored vehicles advanced into the West Bank, while at 6:00 AM IDF artillery began to bombard Jordanian positions in Jerusalem, with IDF-AF strike aircraft soon adding their weight. Israeli ground forces went forward in mid-morning. Jordanian resistance was crumbling, many men having retreated, in some cases with the blessing of their officers, and within a short time Israeli advance units radioed back to headquarters: "The Temple Mount is in our hands."
The Star of David was raised over the mount. Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the IDF's head chaplain, was there with the rest of the victors, blowing blasts on a ram's horn or "shofar". He suggested that IDF demolition experts now destroy the mosques on the site. The suggestion was ignored. Levi Eshkol was careful to quickly place the various holy places under the control of their appropriate clerics -- Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. Taking the Temple Mount opened a difficult political can of worms, though it was still an exultant moment for all Israelis. Eshkol wanted to go up there himself, but the army told him not to come as there were still snipers about. Eshkol was annoyed when he found that Defense Minister Dayan, a person with no great fear of combat and a strong instinct for the dramatic public appearance, went up himself in early afternoon.
By this time, King Hussein had given up the West Bank. He met with his general staff early that afternoon, where one witness described him, to no surprise, as appearing "stunned, depressed, and humiliated." Hussein was screaming to the Americans to push a cease-fire, though Washington, torn between their desire to support a moderate like Hussein and resentment over his complicity in lies that the Egyptians were spreading, did not push the matter very enthusiastically with the Israelis. By the evening, the Israelis had effectively conquered the West Bank. All that remained was mopping up.
* Still, the Israelis knew that the pressure for a cease-fire would soon grow tremendously, and so it was necessary to go as far as possible in the time before the shooting stopped. The IDF had planned to move on Sharm al-Sheik that evening, but had Rabin ordered it to go ahead that morning. Patrol boats fired on Egyptian defenses and got little reaction. The Egyptians had fled, caught up in the rout created by their leadership. Israeli paratroopers went in at mid-day and quickly dealt with the handful of diehards who had stayed behind. At 12;15 PM, Dayan declared the Straits of Tiran an open waterway.
Dayan was simultaneously careful to keep his hands off the Suez Canal, at least for the moment. The closure of the canal in the 1956 war had put tremendous pressure on Israel from the nations who economically suffered from the closure. IDF units were ordered to go no farther than the Mitla and Giddi Passes. When a scout team ventured beyond that line, they were promptly ordered to withdraw.
In the meantime, the IDF was pursuing the routed Egyptians. The worst problem was that the roads were clogged with Egyptian vehicles, some still running and others wrecked and burned, all of which blocked the Israeli advance. IDF units took Egyptian officers and NCOs prisoner, for intelligence and to trade for Israeli captives, but didn't bother with the enlisted men. They were simply encouraged to run off and get out of the way of the fighting.
Some of the Egyptians had fight left in them. Such Egyptian aircraft as could still get into the air conducted strikes, but though they inflicted some casualties on the Israelis they were suicide missions, with the aircraft shot down within a short time by IDF-AF fighters. An armored element of the Egyptian 4th Division put up a stiff fight, finally being wiped out but buying enough time for the division to escape over the canal. Another Egyptian unit escaped when the Israelis got into a tank fight with each other. Israeli units races forward towards the passes to bag the rest of the Egyptian army and won the race that evening.
* The foolishness of Egypt's rejection of the cease-fire of the previous evening should have been apparent to all. It was certainly apparent to the Kremlin. Nasser and Amer hoped the USSR would send them new weapons and even send in Soviet forces, but they were dreaming. A Soviet government official bluntly told an American diplomat in Moscow: "The war has shown that the Arabs are incapable of unity even when their vital interests are at stake." Moscow realized that it was time for the Arabs to cut their losses.
To be sure, the USSR could not leave their Arab allies twisting in the wind. Moscow promised to send substantial military aid, but made it clear in the that it was not going to happen in any hurry. If the Arabs insisted on pretending they were going on with the fight, they could take all the one-sided thrashing they liked. Once they faced up to reality and gave up the pretense, the Soviet Union would tend to their wounds.
Soviet propaganda blasted the US for threatening the Arabs with the Sixth Fleet, but made absolutely no claims that the Americans were actively involved in the fighting. Moscow knew better. Kosygin summoned the Egyptian ambassador to the USSR, Murad Ghaleb, to his office and told the ambassador that the Egyptian accusations against the US were totally unfounded. President Johnson had given Kosygin personal assurances on the matter, and more substantially Soviet intelligence had flatly said there was no evidence to support such charges.
Nasser, in something of a sulk, then began to make noises about Soviet collusion with the US in the conflict, no doubt to the extreme irritation of the Soviet foreign ministry. Moscow, finding its Arab allies uncooperative in putting a stop to a game they were clearly losing, began to put more emphasis on trying to restrain the Israelis, presenting Tel Aviv with demands backed by shadowy and nonspecific threats. Unfortunately the pressure backfired, at least over the short run. In the first place, the Israelis, seeing that their window of opportunity was indeed starting to close, stepped up the pace of their offensive operations. Orders went out to move as fast as possible, one officer commenting dryly: "We might even go on to take Moscow."
In the second place, the Soviet pressure encouraged Amer, who seems to have had a compulsion for grasping at straws, to order Egyptian military units that had escaped across the canal to go back over and hold the line. There were those under him who thought, with plenty of apparent reason, that he had gone mad, but he was obeyed nonetheless.
* In any case, the war was not going to last more than a few more days, and the Israeli government was giving further thought to the postwar reality. Eshkol saw that Israel finally had the bargaining hand to drive peace treaties with Arab nations, though moderates like Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco would be the first in line. As far as the West Bank went, Eshkol suggested that it be given local autonomy, since otherwise Israel would be stuck with the nasty task of governing two million hostile Arabs. Eshkol's observation would prove extremely far-sighted.
As far as Gaza went, Eshkol had no good ideas, calling it "a bone stuck in our throats." Ever-hostile Egypt was another problem, but there were those in the Israeli foreign ministry who hoped that one of the side benefits of the war would be that it would bring down Nasser and his clique, leading to a new government that wouldn't be quite so hard to deal with.
Lyndon Johnson and his people were giving the matter considerable thought of their own, seeing in the postwar future a new arrangement that would be beneficial to both the US and to Israel. Ideas about political tactics were discussed -- for example, it seemed clear that Israel would need to discuss peace treaties with different Arab countries on an individual basis. If all the Arab states sat down together on the other side of the table, each would end up forced to bark louder than the others. It was precisely this barking competition which had helped start the war in the first place.
The Americans would do their best to act as impartial mediators, though it is hard to believe that anybody failed to see how difficult such a position was. The American assumption was that the Israelis would trade land for peace, and up to that afternoon all the feedback coming from Eshkol and Eban suggested that the Israeli government was on the same wavelength.
By that evening, however, Washington began to hear noises about the need to maintain Israeli forces at various places in the occupied territories for security reasons, and the emotional attachment of nearly all Israelis to a Jerusalem united under Israeli rule was becoming obvious. Notions were being floated inside the Israeli government about buying some of the critical territories from the Arabs. This sort of talk irritated LBJ and his people, but it was not an immediate concern. The bigger concerns were to counter the lies being broadcast by the Egyptians and to keep an eye on the Soviets. Things were not going well for the USSR in the Middle East, and it was hard to say which way the Kremlin might jump.