Democratic Palestine : 24 (ص 28)
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- Democratic Palestine : 24 (ص 28)
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of an army officer they could buy. Though these plans were
not approved by the cabinet at the time, all were enacted in the
ensuing years in accordance with the policy of ‘preventive
wars.’ Menachem Begin forthrightly stated the aims of such
wars in the Knesset on October 12, 1955: «firstly, the annihila-
tion of Arab power; and secondly, the expansion of our ter-
ritory.» Dayan had been even more explicit in Israeli radio in
February 1952, speaking of the Israeli army’s «ultimate objec-
tive of erecting the Israeli empire.» 4
In preparation for its mission, the army’s ability as a mobile
strike force was enhanced by the 1953 formation of special unit
101, trained in night warfare and demolition. It got its combat
experience by massacring 53 civilians, mostly women and
children, in their homes, in Qibya on October 14, 1953. Ata
time when Israeli armistice violations were twice those record-
ed on the Jordanian side, the Zionists called this a ‘reprisal
raid’. Actually it was to provide a model for the whole Israeli
army. Unity 101 was merged with the paratroopers under Ariel
Sharon’s command. In Dayan’s words, «Its achievements set
an example to all other formations in the army.» 5
By June 1956, ‘Israel’ had finalized its plans for attacking
Egypt, and the US had given the green light by withdrawing its
pledge to aid the building of the Aswan Dam. With Nasser’s
nationalization of the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956, ‘Israel’
entered into war preparations with Britain and France, driven
by a number of interrelated aims: One, ‘Israel’ vehemently
resisted the end of British colonial presence in Egypt, as seen in
its 1954 bombing campaign against Egyptian cities, hitting
British and US targets among others, in an effort to sabotage
the negotiations on British withdrawal from the canal and its
bases. Two, ‘Israel’ shared France’s animosity towards the
Algerian liberation movement which was supported by Nasser.
By joining France in war, ‘Israel’ hoped to elicit French arms.
Three, ‘Israel’ wanted to prove its abilities to the imperialist
powers by toppling Nasser’s regime and supposedly lessening
Soviet influence in the area, while securing imperialist control
of a vital waterway. Obviously, this war was not fought in
self-defense, for as Dayan had told Israeli ambassadors in
Washington, London and Paris in 1955, «... we face no danger
at all of an Arab advantage for the next 8-10 years.» © Rather
‘Israel’ was eager to help punish Nasser’s Egypt for having
dared to oppose the US’s cherished Baghdad Pact and to end
British colonialism’s military presence and economic domina-
tion in Egypt. Nasser’s opposition to the traditional Arab
rulers, and his support to nationalist forces throughout the
Arab world, threatened the reactionary status quo on which
imperialism and Zionism relied for asserting their dominance.
Covered by British and French air support (including the use
of napalm), Israeli ground forces attacked Egypt on October
29th. Though failing to topple Nasser, ‘Israel’ did achieve
several aims. The French arms and advisors sent in preparation
for the tripartite aggression were the beginning of the Zionist
state’s first stable and large-scale military cooperation with an
imperialist country, which was to lead to other alliances.
Though the US pretended to distance itself from the attack on
Egypt, and forced its imperialist rivals to withdraw, ‘Israel’
was allowed to remain in the Sinai for four months, doing
reconnaissance for its next try against Nasser, and inviting
foreign military attachés to view captured Soviet arms. «By
1973, weapons systems evaluation and testing would be one of
the central elements of the US-Israeli ‘friendship’.» ?
Last but not least, under cover of the state of war, the
Zionist forces dealt a heavy blow to the Palestinians under oc-
28
cupation. As the war began, curfew was imposed without
warning on a number of Palestinian villages enclosed in the
Zionist state. In one village, Kafr Qasim, Israeli forces opened
fire on residents who were returning from their work in the
fields unawares of the curfew; 51 people were killed, well over
half of them women and children.
THE 1967 AGGRESSION
THE MIDEAST VIETNAM
In aims and execution, the 1967 invasion of Syria, Egypt,
Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was an expanded ver-
sion of the 1956 aggression against Egypt. This time, however,
the Zionists’ conduct was even more closely geared to interna-
tional contingencies. Their retention of the Arab land they in-
‘Israel’ gets biggest share of U.S. foreign aid-$3 billion a year plus $1.5 billion of
emergency economic aid.
vaded reflected the growth of their alliance with US im-
perialismn in particular. While the Zionists might have won the
war with their own forces, US military and reconnaissance
support was essential for making the charted territorial gains in
a short time span.
In 1958, the US had demonstrated its will to steer
developments in the Middle East by sending the Marines to
bolster the reactionary state in Lebanon against the nationalist
movement. In the ensuing period, a series of events elicited
imperialist-Zionist worry: the fall of the monarchy in Iraq, the
government crisis in Jordan, the growing cooperation of Syria
and Egypt with the Soviet Union, and later the rise of the
Yemeni national liberation movement and the Palestinian
revolution. By the mid-sixties, however, the US was too bogg- - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 24
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