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Originally posted by Chairm:

Israel fired the first shot in self-defence; the war was not started by that shot. Egypt and its allies presented an imminent threat, and telegraphed that threat, but they where rapidly defeated by a state which they had planned to eraise from the map. It was a war of aggression -- by Egypt and its allies.

Nasser: "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ... to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not of more declarations."

No state is obligated to endure an overwhelming attack before taking decisive action to defend itself.

If you want to pursue a full discussion of this subtopic, open another thread and those interested can follow your there.

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Continued from over here,

That's all you got? Militaristic sounding rhetoric? It isn't even a declaration of an intention to do more than stand together. No where does he say we will attack, or are attacking, and that is what really matters.

No. Israel fired the first shot period.

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"I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which 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."

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General Yitzhak Rabin, Chief of Staff, Israeli Defence Forces, during the 1967 war.

So we have two former Israeli generals who both fought in the war, both who contradict what you are saying... but please... go on. you know better...

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“They attacked on a Monday, knowing that on Wednesday the Egyptian vice-president would arrive in Washington to talk about re-opening the Strait of Tiran. We might not have succeeded in getting Egypt to reopen the Strait, but it was a real possibility.”

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Dean Rusk, US secretary of state, under Johnson.

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“There is no reason to hide the fact that since 1949 no one has dared, or more precisely, no one was able, to threaten the very existence of Israel. In spite of that, we have continued to foster a sense of our own inferiority, as if we were a weak and insignificant people, which, in the midst of an anguished struggle for its existence, could be exterminated at any moment. … it is notorious that the Arab leaders themselves, thoroughly aware of their own impotence, did not believe in their own threats. … I am sure that our General Staff never told the government that the Egyptian military threat represented any danger to Israel or that we were unable to crush Nasser’s army, which, with unheard-of foolishness, had exposed itself to the devastating might of our army. … To claim that the Egyptian forces concentrated on our borders were capable of threatening Israel’s existence not only insults the intelligence of anyone capable of analysing this kind of situation, but is an insult to the Zahal.”

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IDF General Peled

[ 04 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 04 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Although Yitzkhaki’s claim that up to 1,000 prisoners had been killed was not substantiated, in the ensuing national debate in Israel more soldiers came forward to say that they had witnessed the execution of unarmed prisoners and a long-suppressed public reckoning began. Gabby Bron, a journalist on the tabloid, Yedioth Ahronoth, said he had witnessed the execution of five Egyptian prisoners. [6] Michael Bar-Zohar confessed that he had personally witnessed the murder of three Egyptian POWs by a cook [7] and Meir Pa'il said that he knew of many instances in which soldiers had killed PoWs or Arab civilians. [8] In the Associated Press article in which Yitzhaki’s claims spread around the world [9] it was noted that "Rabin, who was chief of staff when some of the 1967 killings allegedly were committed, walked away today when a reporter shouted a related question. His office later issued a statement denouncing the killings and calling them isolated incidents". However, leading Israeli military historian Uri Milstein was reported in the same article as saying that there were many incidents in the 1967 war in which Egyptian soldiers were killed by Israeli troops after they had raised their hands in surrender. "It was not an official policy, but there was an atmosphere that it was okay to do it," Milstein said. "Some commanders decided to do it; others refused. But everyone knew about it." [10]

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Back in 1967 I was a short wave radio fan. The Egyptian English language short wave radio service was announcing Egyptian victories as its armies slashed into Israel. I remember this. Yes, it was a lie, the Egyptian army, despite rigorous Russian training was incapable of fighting the Israelis. I remember the book "Inside the Soviet Army" by Vladimir Rezun, writing as Victor Suvorov in which Soviet Army officers cursed the Egyptian forces which they had trained for a decisive war against the Jews. On the other hand, the Arab Legion, trained by the British fought well and bravely but were overwhelmed by superior numbers.

[ 04 August 2006: Message edited by: Bobolink ]

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Originally posted by Bobolink:
A blockade is, by definition an act of war. [ 04 August 2006: Message edited by: Bobolink ]

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Originally posted by Bobolink:
You cannot escape that Egypt committed the first overt act of war. Buy ousting the UN from Sinai and installing artillary at Sharm el Sheik blockading the only Israeli oil port at Elat Israel was reduced to 6 weeks supply of petroleum. A blockade is, by definition an act of war. By placing the Jordanian Arab Legion under direct Egyptian command, Israel was forced to deal with two fronts. The Jordanians were 16 km from the Israeli Mediterranian coast (the West Bank was part of Jordan in 1967).

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Ahhh then I see the Americans and the British declared war on Japan in 1940 by their oil embargo against is. Pearl Harbour was then not a dastardly suprise attack, but just retaliation for the US and British attempt to starve the Japanese people.

Fact 1: The staight of Tiran is well within the 50 mile limit of Egyptian terrirorial water.

Fact 2: Nasser agreed to resolve the dispute in the World Court at the Hague.

Fact 3: Eliat was illegally occupied and annexed in 1958 by Israel against the explicit articles of the 1956 cease fire agreement.

Correction 1: Only 5% of Israel's imports came through Eilat.

Correction 2: Only ships under Israeli flags or carrying "strategic materials" (oil) were prohibited from going through the straight of Tiran.

Correction 3: No ship under Israeli flag had docked at the port in several years. Primary point of access for Israel was and still is in the Mediteranean.

Correction 4: Other types of shipping nor requiring the deep Enterprise Channel in the Straigh of Tiran had no reason to go through the channel and could simply sail up off the coast of the Hedjaz.

Correction 5: The common Israeli English spelling of the port of Eilat is "Eilat" not "Elat."

Analysis: The crisis was manufactured and exploited to justify Israel's exapnsionist goals as outlined by the Allon Plan for occupation and settlement of the West Bank.

[ 04 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Oil is bought and sold like a commodity. At any one moment in time there are thousands upon thousands of oil tankers floating the globe, while millions and millions of barrels of oil are pumped overland by pipeline.

As a commodity, it is not necessarily the case that one would buy (say) a million barrels of oil from Iran, and then be forced to lug it by sea all the way aroung the coast of Africa to bring it to Israel through the straight of Gibralter, if the straight of tiran were closed. What actually can happen, (and often does,) is that British Petroleum pumping oil out of the North Sea could simply trade the oil with Exxon, (or whomever) in the US. Thus instead of sending our hypothetical tanker all the way around the world from Iran to Tel Aviv, ownership of the content of any tanker anywhere could be "traded," for oil from regions with a more direct route to Israel.

So, Exxon might send a ship to Portsmouth from Texas, instead of sending one to the Philipines, and BP would send one to Tel Aviv. Meanwhile the tanker from Iran would simply make up the difference by going to the Phillipines.

For all we know, a ship leaving Lybia or Algeria might simply have had its content "traded" and then been redirected to Israel directly once they left Lybian waters, while the Iranian tanker would head elswhere.

So, the whole issue of Eilat was of little strategic signifigance.

[ 04 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]