A short discussion of the Israeli term used to describe the ongoing, ever-growing, national propaganda effort
A sign at an event hosted by "The Israel Project" (photo: Noam Shiezaf)
I have used the word “Hasbara” pretty freely recently, and so do more and more people, without stopping to explain what it actually means. The use of this term has been widespread in Israeli Hebrew for many years now, usually with a positive meaning, though not always in a positive context – there is a never-ending debate on “the failure of Hasabra” – yet I often wonder how many people outside Israel actually know it, let alone understand what it stands for. So here are a few words on Hasbara.
Hasbara is a form of propaganda aimed at an international audience, primarily, but not exclusively, in western countries. It is meant to influence the conversation in a way that positively portrays Israeli political moves and policies, including actions undertaken by Israel in the past. Often, Hasbara efforts includes a negative portrayal of the Arabs and especially of Palestinians.
The Hebrew meaning of the word Hasbara (הסברה) is “explanation” (the term “propaganda” has a different word in Hebrew – תעמולה). I believe that the popular use of this term also reflects a widespread public notion that a better effort of explaining Israel’s actions to the world will generate better understandings of Israel’s policies, and more international support. A less common use of the verb “to explain” (להסביר), which has to do with welcoming someone, was used in the past by the Tourism Ministry in campaigns urging Israelis to show a hospitable approach to tourists.
Hasbara represents only one side of propaganda, as it is mostly aimed at foreign audience. The use of the Hebrew term Hasbara in a critical context, rather than “propaganda” or “public diplomacy” (the title of the Wikipedia entry on the issue), is necessary, because Hasbara efforts are wider and their goals much more ambitious than any similar activities taken by all democracies and most non-democracies. Hasbara targets political elites, opinion makers and the public simultaneously; it includes traditional advocacy efforts as well as more general appeals made through mass media, and it is carried out by government agencies, non-governmental organizations, lobbying groups, private citizens, students, journalists and bloggers.
The Israeli government encourages all citizens to actively engage in Hasbara. Recently, it even distributed brochures with talking points to all Israelis traveling abroad (a Hebrew web version of the campaign can be viewed here). Israelis are asked to engage in politically-oriented conversations with their hosts and contacts abroad. Rather than discuss the Palestinian conflict, they are advised to cite Israeli technological achievements, mention environmental policies and take pride in notable cultural works. The West Bank is to be discussed – under its ancient Hebrew name, Judea and Samaria – as a potential tourist marvel.
Until a few years ago, the main government agency carrying out Hasbara work was the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its Media and Hasbara department. Under Ehud Olmert’s government, and more so under Netanyahu’s, there was a considerable increase in Hasbara efforts. Prime Minister Netanyahu has launched for the first time a Hasbara Ministry, headed by a government minister (the current hasbara minister is Yuli Edelstein). The Hasbara Ministry includes a situation room, which operates in five languages; it has a new-media team that can reach, according to the office’s web page, 100,000 volunteers on social media networks, as well as many bloggers.
UPDATE: The Ministry of Hasbara is hiring! “Advantage to minorities and representatives of the gay community.” More details here.
On top of the Hasbara Ministry, there is a Hasbara branch in the Prime Minister’s Office (in charge of both local and international PR). The IDF Spokesperson has an international arm with a new media branch, which makes Hasbara efforts and does not limit itself to providing information on army activities. Other government agencies, such as the Ministry of Tourism or the Ministry of Culture, also take part in ad-hoc Hasbara activities. There are other agencies that have gradually moved into greater involvement in Hasbara – perhaps the most notable is The Jewish Agency, which used to serve as a liaison to Jewish communities abroad, and now trains its envoys to American campuses to engage in propaganda.
Under Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the Foreign Ministry was instructed to take a bigger role in the Hasbara effort (a popular rant against the foreign ministry for many years was that it deals with peacemaking instead of advocacy, and Lieberman has promised to solve that). I was contacted awhile ago by a private agency that won a contract with the foreign ministry; they were looking for professionals to play hostile journalists in simulations with Israeli diplomats.
Much of the Hasbara work carried out outside official channels – but with heavy official influence – is carried out through non-governmental organizations such as Stand With Us, The Israel Project and more. These organizations produce resources – booklets, slideshows, flyers, maps, polls and more – and spin news events in ways which are favorable to the Israeli government. A lot of thought is put into influencing opinion-makers: journalists and bloggers are flown on a regular basis to tours in Israel, accompanied by government officials, while Israeli representatives – former diplomats, journalists, soldiers and officers – are brought to give lectures at campuses, think-tanks, conferences and other public events around the world. Organizations also try to influence the grassroots level by granting Hasbara fellowships to international students in Israel.
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There is an interesting tension in Israel between the tremendous efforts put into Hasbara – Israeli advocacy is probably the most widespread and ambitious state-run propaganda effort in the world today – and a sense of “Hasbara failure” in the Israeli public. Rants about the fact that Israel is misunderstood and complaints about the incompetence of those dealing with Hasbara are often heard in the popular media. In my opinion, “the failure of Hasbara” is actually a failure of policy – especially, but not limited to, that relating to the occupation and the control over the Palestinians.
Understanding this point could shed light on a self-defeating element in the Hasbara battle: as Israel loses interest in finding a solution to the Palestinian question that would meet the minimal moral standards of the Western World – either “one man one vote” or complete Palestinian sovereignty over a contiguous territorial unit – Hasbara efforts are just likely to draw more attention to the ongoing Israeli failure to live up to the promise of its talking points, and will shed more light on the ever-growing gap between the model, picture-perfect democracy reflected in brochures and the grim reality on the ground.
November 15, 2011
12:39 pm
Aristeides
I guess, according to you Israel should have just acted as it did in 1973 and it should have allowed the Arabs to attack first. Even in 1973 such an act of gross negligence nearly cost it it’s existence. But it did not because it had strategic depth at that time. It had all of the Sinai as a buffer zone to absorb the effects of the initial attack
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In 1967, had Israel waited, then first it’s economy would have ground to a halt. Then if the Arab armies would have attacked first, Israel would have been sliced into two parts within literally minutes, remember the narrow 1967 borders which are about 15 km at it’s narrowest point, near Israel’s main population centres?
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And Aristeides, I won’t even mention the civilian casualties that Israel would have incurred had it allowed Egypt to attack first because you would call that too as just an excuse.
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By the way, in the case of Jordan, Israel wasn’t the first to attack it. Jordan attacked Israel first. And guess what, that’s how Israel ended up occupying the West Bank.
November 15, 2011
12:40 pm
Aristeides
I guess, according to you Israel should have just acted as it did in 1973 and it should have allowed the Arabs to attack first. Even in 1973 such an act of gross negligence nearly cost it it’s existence. But it did not because it had strategic depth at that time. It had all of the Sinai as a buffer zone to absorb the effects of the initial attack.
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In 1967, had Israel waited, then first it’s economy would have ground to a halt. Then if the Arab armies would have attacked first, Israel would have been sliced into two parts within literally minutes, remember the narrow 1967 borders which are about 15 km at it’s narrowest point, near Israel’s main population centres?
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And Aristeides, I won’t even mention the civilian casualties that Israel would have incurred had it allowed Egypt to attack first because you would call that too as just an excuse.
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By the way, in the case of Jordan, Israel wasn’t the first to attack it. Jordan attacked Israel first. And guess what, that’s how Israel ended up occupying the West Bank
November 15, 2011
12:48 pm
Aristeides …
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Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a preemptive attack can actually be justified. This justification would have to require an imminent and unavoidable attack from the other side. But your “facts” show no such thing”
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Really? Is that what Nasser and his Arab allies said? Did he just get the UN peace keepers for fun? Did he mobilize his army just for fun? Did he close the straits of Tiran for fun? Did he issie specific threats about his intentions to destroy Israel, just for fun?
November 15, 2011
12:57 pm
Recap:
(1) BOSCO claimed that Hasbarah, or “explaining” is good because it shows that Israeli do not love occupation (at least, not all) and that they wish peace if only …
(2) I claimed that it least some Hasbarah is explaining that Occupation is just and beautiful and we, non-Israeli, should support it (if not love it), of course using some correct names like “Jews connecting to their historical/ eternal roots” etc. I gave an example.
(3) BOSCO claimed that expanding of the largest settlements which were featured in Hasbarah tour for American congressman does not constitute occupation.
(4) But the same tour featured rabbi of an “outpost” settlement of 90 families and 3 kilometers from Nablus as an exemplar to admire. I copy/pasted from the settlers’ website. Basically, they follow footsteps of Joshua whom they regard as a historical figure trying to steal more land in their rather twisted understanding of both the Bible and Oslo agreements.
(5) BOSCO asks: do I think that all Israeli feel that way.
Well, for starters outposts like Bar Bracha can exists only because of copious support from IDF and occupation authorities. Some Israeli object, but not those who provide Hasbarah. To the contrary, outposts are presented as very nice. And people like those who run 972mag.com are all too often presented as traitors.
What BOSCO loves already constitutes occupation. Other pieces, like expansion of extremist outposts, are just not worth mentioning.
November 15, 2011
1:13 pm
Piotr Berman
“Other pieces, like expansion of extremist outposts, are just not worth mentioning”
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So why did you mention it?
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As for the major settlement blocs, if you want to consider those as occupation rather than as lands for which the Palestinian Arabs would be given land swaps, that’s your call. But if that’s how most Arabs feel, then there won’t be peace.
November 15, 2011
1:43 pm
Bosko – Why don’t you ask yourself that question? Why DID Nasser mobilize his army? Maybe there might be some facts you’ve left out of your account.
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At any event, to say, “We had to start a war and kill tens of thousands, or else our economy would have suffered,” is not just an excuse, it’s a heinous excuse.
November 15, 2011
2:12 pm
Why does Hasbara not work? … Settlements, Occupation and Settlements.
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“Whoever came up with the phrase “settlements” set in motion a lexicon that was doomed from the start. Nothing is tougher to articulate effectively to neutral Americans than a message in favor of the settlements. Let me be clear about this conclusion. Plenty of Israeli and American Jewish leaders have tried, but American and European audiences rejected almost everything we tested. There is no magic language to unify public support. ”
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http://fedgeno.com/documents/israel-projects-2009-global-language-dictionary.pdf
November 15, 2011
2:45 pm
“Bosko – Why don’t you ask yourself that question? Why DID Nasser mobilize his army? Maybe there might be some facts you’ve left out of your account”
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Yea, I find that a hard question to answer (sarcasm). I ask myself, why did Egypt attack Israel in 1948? Could it be that they were planning to do the same in 1967? Let’s see what Nasser himself has been saying about it …
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“We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood” – President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser [20]”
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“it is the duty of all of us now to move from defensive positions to offensive positions and enter the battle to liberate the usurped land…Everyone must face the test and enter the battle to the end.” – President Attassi of Syria[1]”
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“(this battle will be)…followed by more severe battles until Palestine is liberated and the Zionist presence ended.” – Syria’s information minister Mahmoud Zubi [1]”
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http://www.sixdaywar.co.uk/crucial_quotes.htm
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Do you think he was just joking Aristeides?
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Oh and if a hostile neighbour lines up it’s army and threatens to destroy your country, NO country would wait till their economy collapses while the hostile armies bide their time waiting for exactly that to happen. So if you want to call Israel’s action to save itself and not play by the rules that it’s enemies tried to impose on it, as an excuse. That’s your call Aristeides. But most main stream hisrorians don’t agree with you.
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Oh, and I’ll say it again, since you ignored me last time. Israel did not attack Jordan. Jordan attacked Israel and that’s how the West Bank occupation came about as I claimed all along. Is that a lie of mine too? Or is it an excuse too?
November 15, 2011
2:57 pm
In 1956 Israel did plan to take and keep the Sinai:
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“The Israeli forces launch in the evening of 29 October 1956 a large scale attack on the Egyptian forces with the aim of reaching the Canal Zone the following day.”
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“Israel undertakes not to attack Jordan during the period of operations against Egypt. But in the event that during the same period Jordan should attack Israel, the British Government undertakes not to come to the aid of Jordan.”
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http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Protocol%20of%20Sevres%201956%20Anatomy%20of%20a%20War%20Plot.html
November 15, 2011
3:08 pm
“In 1956 Israel did plan to take and keep the Sinai”
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Really? I don’t agree with that either. At least not with the bit that “it tried to keep Sinai”. But that’s another discussion which I’ll have with you too directorb. But first let’s finish our discussion about 1967.
November 15, 2011
3:10 pm
Go read a real history book, Bosko. Look for the FACTS of the situation instead of inflammatory statements. Go look up the reasons that Jordan joined in the war alongside its allies after ISRAEL BEGAN IT.
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And then you can work on some lame excuse to justify why Israel illegally moved its settlers onto the West Bank and Gaza after it occupied them. I’m sure the Hasbara Handbook has plenty of shopworn examples.
November 15, 2011
3:32 pm
“Go read a real history book, Bosko. Look for the FACTS of the situation instead of inflammatory statements. Go look up the reasons that Jordan joined in the war alongside its allies after ISRAEL BEGAN IT”
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That’s it Aristeides? That’s your reasoning? To me, this looks like a set of assertions. No logic or reasoning. I don’t even need Hasbarah to show that what you are asserting above is just plain faith based on ideology. I would expect such statements from someone who tries to spread religious dogma not from someone who I assume to be secular. Are you secular, Aristeides? Or is that assumption of mine false?
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By the way, I know why Jordan fired the first shots against Israel, Aristeides. Because had King Hussein not joined the fray, Nasser and his cronies would have called him a traitor and they would have arranged his assassination sooner rather than later. But that of course does not change the fact that Jordan attacked Israel. Not the other way around. And isn’t that what I said all along??
November 15, 2011
4:11 pm
@Bosko,
A bunch of data or a set of facts is important but does not equal value free information.
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After Israel threatened Syria, Egypt and other Arab forces mobilized.
The main cause of the war was probably that the IDF having being challenged by Nasser had to show its might and confirm the unbalance of power.
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Israel and the US knew that Egypt would not attack, but the US (McNamara) after some convincing by Israel did not mind Israel to teach Nasser a lesson.
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After the initial strike it became pure land grab. It is a moot point whether it was to enlarge Israel or to strengthen Israels negotiation position.
November 15, 2011
4:51 pm
After Israel challenged Syrian terrorism? Is that what you meant directorb? Because that’s what triggered the events. The Syrians firing on northern Kibutzim.
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After that, the events that unfolded had an aura of inevitability. Nasser ordering out the UN peace keepers from Sinai, lining up it’s troops along Israel’s borders, it’s allies doing likewise. Closing off the straits of Tiran which, by the way, the US promised to keep open after it forced Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai in 1956 but then did not or could not deliver in 1967. After all that, Israel had no choice but to launch a preemptive strike. To wait indefinitely, would have been suicidal. Any other country with it’s back to the wall, as Israel was, would have done the same.
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By the way, what about Jordan? It fired the first shots against Israel. Not the other way around. So I stand absolutely by my original comment. The occupation occurred as a result of a war forced on Israel, not a war that Israel wanted. After all, the West Bank was under Jordan’s control at that time. So even if you don’t agree with what I say about Egypt, even then, my original comment was not a lie, despite assertions by some in here to the contrary.
November 15, 2011
5:00 pm
Directorb
Question1: How long do you think Israel could afford to keep it’s army mobilized before it would have experienced an economic collapse?
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Question2: What would have happened if Israel would have unilaterally demobilized it’s citizen army, while the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan were lined up at it’s borders?
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Question3: Why did Egypt blockade the straits of Tiran? And was that act not a casus belli for war?
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Question4: What did you expect from Israel after Jordan attacked it? Did you expect Israel not to fight back?
November 15, 2011
5:07 pm
Question5: What do you think would have happened if Israel would have waited long enough for it’s economy to collapse? Would the war with Egypt been avoided then? Were Nasser’s threats just empty threats? Was he just playing silly little games when he clearly said that he wanted Israel’s destruction?
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I don’t know how old you guys are. But those events unfolded right in front of my eyes. I still remember what happened then as if it happened yesterday. So you’ll need to do a bit better than just assert your beliefs based on revisionist history that you hear from your ideologues.
November 15, 2011
6:35 pm
What you remember, Bosko, are the lies promulgated by Israel to justify its aggression against its neighbors. You remember the fearmongering meant to mobilize the Israeli public to support an aggressive war – just like we see today as Netanyahu whips up another war of aggression against Iran. Israel keeps recyling the same lies over and over.
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I remember the same lies. I actually believed them at the time, until I learned the truth.
November 15, 2011
7:18 pm
Aristeides …
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“What you remember, Bosko, are the lies promulgated by Israel to justify its aggression against its neighbors”
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Yea, Aristeides, the only problem is that you are still unwilling to tell me which of the bits that I mentioned to you are lies? Let me try and ask you again …
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Was the fact that Jordan was the first to shoot at Israel a lie?
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Was the fact that Nasser told U Thant to remove the UN peace keepers from the border a lie?
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Was the fact that Egypt mobilized and lined up 100,000 of it’s troops along Israel’s borders a lie?
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Was the fact that Syria and Jordan did the same, a lie?
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Was the fact that they publicly said that in the forthcoming war, Israel would be erased, a lie? (I heard this with my own ears and it wasn’t on Israeli TV. I heard Arab leaders uttering words to that effect directly. I repeat, it wasn’t broadcast by Israeli TV. They were broadcast in another country, by reporters on the ground in Egypt and Syria). Werethose lies too?
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Was the closure of the strait of Tiran a lie too?
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And Aristeides, I asked, your friend directorb a number of questions above. I would welcome answers from you too if you would be willing to give answers rather than just stick to your generalised accusations. Because generalised accusations, without the willingness to discuss pertinent issues, is just shoddy and dishonest.
November 16, 2011
1:21 am
Bosko, don’t you know?….Israel should have waited till Egypt’s troops broke into Tel Aviv….Only then would Israel have had a right to strike back….I wonder if Aristeides and company tells his son to only hit back a peer at school starting a fight with him after being punched in the face by him [rolls eyes]
November 16, 2011
4:50 am
Mitchell
The ill will from these people towards Israel is something to behold. And we are not even talking about Likud and Netanyahu because in 1967, Israel had a leftist labour government. These people are anti Israel, pro Arab, no matter what government rules Israel and no matter what Israel does or does not do. According to them Israel is always the war monger.
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I think I need a holiday from all this shit.
November 16, 2011
7:05 am
The lie, Bosko, is that this situation FORCED Israel to make war. That’s why it’s an excuse, it absolves Israel of responsibility, of guilt. “No one is ever guilty in Israel.”
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And that is why no one trusts or believes in Israel’s hasbara. It’s always the same story. It’s always a wolf.
November 16, 2011
8:51 am
Mitchell, where I live, if my son punches out another kid in school, he’ll be expelled as a bully. The principal won’t listen to his excuse that the other kid drew a line in the dirt and dared him.
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I wonder if you Zionist apologists ever ask WHY people become anti-Israel. I certainly didn’t start out that way. I read that horrible Leon Uris book, I had the vague and unfounded notion that Israel was in the right, all because I didn’t know the facts, only what was reported in the media. But you can’t keep the facts from everyone forever. And for many people, it’s the palpable mendacity of the hasbara itself that clues them in to the lie.
November 16, 2011
12:46 pm
Aristeides
You will never convince me and many like me that Israel was NOT forced to go to war unless you can come up with satisfactory answers to the questions that I asked you and your friends but which you willfully evade. Here they are again:
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Question1: How long do you think Israel could afford to keep it’s army mobilized before it would have experienced an economic collapse?
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Question2: What would have happened if Israel would have unilaterally demobilized it’s citizen army, while the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan were lined up at it’s borders?
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Question3: Why did Egypt blockade the straits of Tiran? And was that act not a casus belli for war?
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Question4: What did you expect from Israel after Jordan attacked it? Did you expect Israel not to fight back?
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Question5: What do you think would have happened if Israel would have waited long enough for it’s economy to collapse? Would the war with Egypt been avoided then? Were Nasser’s threats just empty threats? Was he just playing silly little games when he clearly said that he wanted Israel’s destruction?
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Give me satisfactory answers to the above questions and you might have a convert on your hand. Continue to evade answering and just assert unfounded conclusions, and you will just confirm my belief that you are an avowed enemy of Israel who wants to see Israel harmed. It’s as simple as that as far as I am concerned.
November 16, 2011
12:50 pm
Aristeides
You will never convince me and many like me that Israel was NOT forced to go to war unless you can come up with satisfactory answers to the questions that I asked you and your friends but which you willfully evade. Here they are again:
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Question1: How long do you think Israel could afford to keep it’s army mobilized before it would have experienced an economic collapse?
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Question2: What would have happened if Israel would have unilaterally demobilized it’s citizen army, while the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan were lined up at it’s borders?
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Question3: Why did Egypt blockade the straits of Tiran? And was that act not a casus belli for war?
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Question4: What did you expect from Israel after Jordan attacked it? Did you expect Israel not to fight back?
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Question5: What do you think would have happened if Israel would have waited long enough for it’s economy to collapse? Would the war with Egypt been avoided then? Were Nasser’s threats just empty threats? Was he just playing silly little games when he clearly said that he wanted Israel’s destruction?
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Give me satisfactory answers to the above questions and you might have a convert on your hand. Continue to evade answering and just assert unfounded conclusions, and you will just confirm my belief that you are an avowed enemy of Israel who wants to see Israel harmed. It’s as simple as that as far as I am concerned!
November 16, 2011
12:53 pm
Aristeides
You will never convince me and many like me that Israel was NOT forced to go to war unless you can come up with satisfactory answers to the questions that I asked you and your friends but which you willfully evade. Here they are again:
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Question1: How long do you think Israel could afford to keep it’s army mobilized before it would have experienced an economic collapse?
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Question2: What would have happened if Israel would have unilaterally demobilized it’s citizen army, while the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan were lined up at it’s borders?
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Question3: Why did Egypt blockade the straits of Tiran? And was that act not a casus belli for war?
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Question4: What did you expect from Israel after Jordan attacked it? Did you expect Israel not to fight back?
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Question5: What do you think would have happened if Israel would have waited long enough for it’s economy to collapse? Would the war with Egypt been avoided then? Were Nasser’s threats just empty threats? Was he just playing silly little games when he clearly said that he wanted Israel’s destruction?
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Give me satisfactory answers to the above questions and you might have a convert on your hand. Continue to evade answering and just assert unfounded conclusions, and you will just confirm my belief that you are an avowed enemy of Israel who wants to see Israel harmed. It’s as simple as that as far as I am concerned!!!
November 16, 2011
1:08 pm
Oh and here are another couple of questions for you.
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If you are wrong and the Arabs WOULD have been allowed by Israel to attack do you think Israel would have been able to absorb an attack while the Arab airforces would have been in tact? Remember 1973? It was a near disaster for Israel
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And continuing from the above, what sort of civilian casualties would Israel have had?
November 16, 2011
1:42 pm
@Bosko,
Was Israel innocent?
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According to Rabin in his diary Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan were not so happy with Israel mobilizing. According to Dayan Israels actions towards Jordan and Syria left Nasser no choice but defend his image.
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http://books.google.nl/books?id=Gb8sjKSTvFwC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=ben+gurion+in+that+case+you+or+whoever+mobilize+mistake&source=bl&ots=THsD2rdBL6&sig=tQeAFyvwj4cogwPQU2YiqM0JyAU&hl=nl&ei=EBbETpLXAsjqOcSc5OEN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ben%20gurion%20in%20that%20case%20you%20or%20whoever%20mobilize%20mistake&f=false
November 16, 2011
2:54 pm
It’s interesting, Bosko, that you are so firmly convinced Israel had no choice but to attack, when the generals and politicians at the time, as Rabin’s memoirs and other histories make clear, were by no means so sure. In fact, many of them thought it was starting war that threatened Israel, not failing to start war.
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However …
#1 Who forced Israel to mobilize to the point where the mobilization itself might constitute a problem? That was a choice. If Israel makes a bad choice, that’s Israel’s problem, but it’s not a reason to go to war. You don’t go to war for a mistake. “Our economy will suffer” is an excuse, not a justification.
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#2 See #1.
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#3 This is the wrong question. The right question is: Why did Nasser take ANY of these belligerent steps?
However, if you MUST obsess about this, look at a map, and you will see that the Straits of Tiran are entirely within Egyptian sovereign territory and Egypt had never acknowledged them as international waters. Israel may have declared that it would regard a blockade of the straits as an act of war, but Egypt certainly regarded it as within its rights to exercise control over its sovereign territory.
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#4 Egypt was the major Arab power in the region. Jordan and Syria allied with Egypt because of constant Israeli aggression and provocation on their borders. Once Israel began the war, Jordan was bound by the terms of its alliance to join in. But there was certainly no way Jordan was going to attack Israel without Israel having attacked first. Your question is meant to give Israel another excuse, but it doesn’t work, since the initial attack on the alliance was Israel’s.
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# 5 Again, the possibility of harm to Israel’s economy is no excuse to go to war. You make the assumption that there are only two options: attack or be destroyed. This is not so.
It became more and more clear as time passed that Egypt did NOT intend to attack. Ben-Gurion certainly didn’t believe it. If they were going to attack, they would have done so by the time Israel decided to attack first. If they actually intended war instead of sabre-rattling, their intention must have been to provoke Israel to attack. But Israel was not FORCED to respond just because Egypt may have wanted it to. In fact, it’s usually a bad idea, militarily, to do what your enemy wants you to.
The real solution, of course, would have been for the armies on both sides to stand down according to some agreed formula, with international intervention. At some point, Egypt must have become aware that the Soviet-instigated report of Israeli mass mobilization on the Syrian border was false, which would have given an opening for negotiations. But Israel could only think of war.
November 16, 2011
3:24 pm
Directorb
I note your reluctance to answer my questions but I won’t be as evasive about your link.
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It talks about REPRISALS against Syria. Dayan was critical of Rabin for being too heavy handed. Fine, that was his opinion. I can even accept it for the sake of argument. But are you telling me that it was the reason why Israel was to blame for the 1967 war? Because it responded to Syrian acts of aggression? It could not possibly those acts of Syrian aggression that were to blame, could it?
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I notice a pattern here that has been repeating over and over again in the history of the Middle East. It goes something like this …
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The Arabs, due to their sense of having been agrieved by the existence of Israel, carry out acts of senseless provocations. They murder an Israeli civilian here, another two there another five elsewhere … Eventually Israel reacts and according to some, over react but that is just their opinion. Yet suddenly everything gets turned upside down and whatever happens, suddenly Israel’s response becomes the problem instead of the endless acts of provocations by Arabs which precede Israel’s reactions. I tell you directorb it’s perverse. It is even racist. No other people other than Jews would be subject to that kind of reasoning. A reaction may be deemed as too harsh but it never is the root cause. By definition, if someone reacts than something precedes that reaction and in Israel’s case, it seems to be serial and endless, senseless acts of terror by Arabs. So please lay the blame where it belongs.
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By the way, in your link, even Ben Gurion conceded that once Nasser chose to close the straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, it constituted an act of war.
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To sum up, what happened in 1967, was triggered off by Syrian provocations. Israel retaliated, some argue it over reacted but it still did not need to lead to war. However, once Nasser closed off the straits of Tiran, got rid of the UN peace keepers, lined up his troops along Israel’s borders, started his saber rattling about this being the moment for vengeance and Israel’s destruction, after that war was inevitable. After that, no one could back off. Nasser could not back off because he would not have survived the loss of face and Israel could not back off because at the least, it’s civilian casualties would have been excessive if it would have allowed the Arabs to attack first, (after an Israeli economic collapse) and at worst, Israel would not have survived at all.
November 16, 2011
3:32 pm
Aristeides
“#1 Who forced Israel to mobilize to the point where the mobilization itself might constitute a problem?”
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So you are claiming that after Nasser got rid of the UN peace keepers, mobilised HIS forces along Israel’s borders, and peomised the final solution for to take care of the Zionist state, Israel should have just ignored that?
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Do you even want me to respond to that?
November 16, 2011
5:10 pm
Bosko – as usual you are wrong. You are wrong because you can only see one side of the events, blame only the Arabs, and refuse to carry the chain of causation back to the beginning point: the expulsion of the Palestinians. It converges there. It begins there. It was the presence of the dispossessed population that has triggered every conflict involving Israel.
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To refer to “Syrian acts of aggression” is incorrect. As in Egypt and Jordan and Lebanon, the conflict began when dispossessed Palestinians attempted to return to their homeland and were murdered and repulsed. Israel labeled these people “infiltrators” and employed armed force against them. When the infiltrators began to fight back, Israel conducted reprisals, cross-border terrorist raids, massacres and other acts of aggression. There were constant provocations. The Arabs states, seeing Israeli aggression on their borders and incursions into their territory, engaged in retaliation and reprisals of their own.
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It all comes back to the refugees. It all comes back to the original sin.
November 16, 2011
5:21 pm
Aristeides
As usual, you are wrong. The chain of events goes back longer than your claim of expulsions (which is simplistic in itself). It goes back to the war that the Arabs started to throttle Israel at it’s birth and your Palestinian Arabs were the major instigators of that war. They refused to accept UN resolution 181 which voted for two states, one Arab one Jewish state, Israel. They wanted only an Arab state and no Jewish state. The day after resolution 181 was passed by the UN, your Palestinian Arabs rioted and murdered Jews. And that’s not the first time they did that either. But I’ll stop there because we were talking about 1967 and whether Israel had any options to avoid war after Nasser clearly stated his intentions to wipe out Israel, after he lined up his troops along Israel’s borders and closed the straits of Tiran.
November 16, 2011
5:28 pm
My question was …
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“Question2: What would have happened if Israel would have unilaterally demobilized it’s citizen army, while the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan were lined up at it’s borders?”
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And your response, Aristeides, was …
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“#2 See #1″
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Are you serious? Is that even an answer? Your #1 was that Israel should not have mobilized in response to three Arab armies mobilizing their troops along Israel’s borders. And threatening to wipe out Israel. Are you being perverse? Of course you are …
November 16, 2011
5:34 pm
Aristeides …
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“Egypt had never acknowledged them as international waters. Israel may have declared that it would regard a blockade of the straits as an act of war, but Egypt certainly regarded it as within its rights to exercise control over its sovereign territory”
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It does not matter what Egypt claims about Tiran. What matters is how the international community regards the laws of the sea. According to the International community, the straits of Tiran are an international waterway which is subject to freedom of navigation. Moreover, after the 1956 war, after Israel withdrew from Sinai, the US offered a guarantee to Israel that it would ensure freedom of passege through the straits of Tiran.
November 16, 2011
5:42 pm
Aristeides …
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“#4 Egypt was the major Arab power in the region. Jordan and Syria allied with Egypt because of constant Israeli aggression and provocation on their borders. Once Israel began the war, Jordan was bound by the terms of its alliance to join in. But there was certainly no way Jordan was going to attack Israel without Israel having attacked first. Your question is meant to give Israel another excuse, but it doesn’t work, since the initial attack on the alliance was Israel’s”
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Constant provocations by Israel? Those are outright lies Aristeides. Israel was the one that responded to Arab provocations who had an axe to grind. They were continuing the war that they started against Israel in 1948. A war which by their own repeated declarations had the aim of the elimination of the state of Israel.
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Jordan was bound by a treaty? Fair enough. But Israel had to defend itself against Jordan once it started shooting at Israel. As I said, the occupation of the West Bank came about as a result of a war that Israel did not start, certainly not against Jordan.
November 16, 2011
5:46 pm
Aristeides …
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# 5 Again, the possibility of harm to Israel’s economy is no excuse to go to war”
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Possibility? It would have been a certainty. All of Israel’s work force HAD TO BE mobilised. Otherwise the three Arab armies would have over-run Israel and we would only be talking about Israel as a memory today.
November 16, 2011
5:52 pm
Aristeides …
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“It became more and more clear as time passed that Egypt did NOT intend to attack”
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Not in the short term. Nasser’s strategy was to force a stalemate which would lead to the collapse of the Israeli economy. Then, after that, after chaos would have ensued in Israel, then his plan was to finish Israel off. That’s what he himself said. He made no secret of it. He forced Israel’s hands. No country would have played into Nasser’s hands. Particularly since Israel did have a much better option. The option that it actually exercised.
November 16, 2011
6:46 pm
Bosko – you’ve gotten tedious and repetitive. Read Benny Morris’s ISRAEL’S BORDER WARS and get back to me later when you’re informed.
November 16, 2011
8:01 pm
Aristeides: I perceive envy in your writing. Perhaps you live in an old country that has plenty of unjust wars in its history, say, Sicilian Expedition if you are an Athenian. Recently there was a little discussion in Poland because some guys wanted to celebrate an anniversary, 400 years ago Poles have beaten up Russians really well. Except that nobody pretends that it was anything beyond totally unprincipled aggression and looting on the occasion of a civil war there. A young monk pretended to be the surviving son of the deceased son and convinced some Lithuanian border lords to help him, and it started from there. So while admitting that this is a NICE story — Poles never beat up Russians so well again — less patriotic folks objected to the idea of celebrating it.
By the way of contrast, in her short history Israel had only just wars. There.
November 16, 2011
8:05 pm
Sorry, the Pretendent, or “Lzhe-Dimitr” pretended to be a son of Ivan the Terrible (who among other qualities, was not a good father, and no son survived him).
November 16, 2011
9:17 pm
Aristeides
You recommend Benny Morris’s “Israel’s Border Wars”? Ok, here is a reference to it …
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http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Israel_s_border_wars_1949_1956.html?id=YUthqHRF-m8C
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And here is a summary of it …
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“This book looks at the development of Israeli-Arab relations during the formative years 1949 to 1956, focusing on Arab infiltration into Israel and Israeli retaliation. Palestinian refugee raiding and cross-border attacks by Egyptian-controlled irregulars and commandos were a core phenomenon during this period and one of the chief causes of Israel’s invasion of Sinai and the Gaza strip in 1956.”
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It confirms exactly what I said. And I know about that period first hand too. My father lived near the Jordanian border in a Moshav and he had to go out regularly at night to shoot back at infiltrators to defend his family. There were many instances when entire Israeli families were wiped out by such infiltrators. All it took is a couple of hand grenades thrown in through the window in the middle of the night while the families were sleeping. So pkease, don’t preach to me about who provoked whom, ok Aristeides?
November 17, 2011
4:37 am
“Mitchell, where I live, if my son punches out another kid in school, he’ll be expelled as a bully. The principal won’t listen to his excuse that the other kid drew a line in the dirt and dared him.” [End of Aristeides]
I don’t know where you live, but if my son got expelled for punching out some punk who was pushing him around and threatening him, I would ask him two questions:
1) how did the other bloak look?
2) did you get all your homework assignments….?-)
The rest of your post is not even worth responding to as your are doing a good job posting links that contradict what you are claiming.
November 17, 2011
2:00 pm
@Bosko and Nitchell: It is truly pathetic when your ‘hasbara’ has become synonymous with outright lying and propaganda. Even Begin admitted that the ’67 war was a “war of choice”. As to Syrian ‘provocations’, I suggest your read Dayan’s memoirs. Therein he states the Israeli provocation of using bulldozers to uproot more and more Syrian land until the Syrians would respond, thereby giving the Israelis an ‘excuse’ to us violence. Pity you don’t read read your own history. The ’56 was a ‘crisis’ in name only, the Israelis, along with the French and British, cooked up the scheme to attack Egypt and take the Canal. Eisenhower, to his credit, kiboshed that fiasco to the everlasting condemnation of Israelis. The inability of mast Israelis to see themselves as anything other than the world’s perennial victims has run its course.
November 17, 2011
3:04 pm
“Syrian land”
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Live and learn. No man’s land is now Syrian land. Go read up on what Dayan really said.
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And as far as what Begin supposedly admitted, I guess you wouldn’t care to post a reference source to verify it?
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Nah, I didn’t think so.
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You also wouldn’t care to tell us on what basis do you disagree with what I presented above? Nah, I didn’t think so either. It’s just easier to label things you don’t like to hear as lies, eh Mikesailor?
November 17, 2011
3:17 pm
Mikesailor
Pity people like you only concentrate on Israel’s reactions to what it’s Arab neighbours dished out to it prior to 1956. Go read up on the Fedayeen.
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And about Eisenhower whom a leftie like you (you are a leftie aren’t you?) probably despises in every other way: His reaction to what his allies France, Britain did in conjunction with Israel, was a foolish political stunt which did not work out for him or America. He was willing to betray his allies in order to woo Nasser away from the Soviets. It did not work. What a surprise.
November 17, 2011
10:17 pm
Just in case another ‘bright spark’ is contemplating the thought to tell me that even Israeli leaders admitted that the Egyptian army was not poised to attack in June 5 1967. You are all missing the point. Read what I said above again. I said that once Egypt mobilised it’s forces, together with Syria and Jordan and they jointly threatened Israel (whatever the timing), Israel had to, I’ll say it again, HAD TO mobilize too. If it would not have done so, the same thing would have happened as in 1973, only with much worse consequences at least in terms of Israeli civilian casualties. Or worse: A total defeat. This is what the Egyptians did in 1973 …
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” Israel could not afford the massive costs of maintaining a suitable regular standing military which could defeat the Arab coalition which surrounded it.29 Thus, it relied on the capabilities of its reserve forces. Nowhere in the world exists a reserve force which possesses the ability to mobilize and conduct war with the speed and effectiveness of the Israeli Defense Forces’ reserves. However, the cost for such an effective system is the severe economic strain which the nation must bear every time the reserve forces are mobilized. Israel had conducted a large-scale mobilization in the spring of 1973 in reaction to Egyptian movements on the East Bank of the Suez and the cost was enormous”
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http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1997/Moulton.htm
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So, Israel had no choice but to launch it’s premptive strike even though Nasser had no immediate plans to attack. He was willing to bide his time till Israel would collapse economically. Then he would have started hostilities. That was nasser’s plan. Do you guys understand now? Or do you want to post more stupid out of context and irrelevant quotes by whoever, stating that Egypt wasn’t quite ready to attack Israel on June the 5th 1967. Of course he was not. But Israel was not obliged to wait till he WOULD be ready. That would have been stupid of Israel to wait that long!!!
November 17, 2011
10:28 pm
In 1973, Israel paid a very heavy price for it’s complacency when it did not mobilize it’s army in reaction to observing Egyptian preparations of war. It did not do so because it allowed itself to be deceived by several false alarms. In which Israel did mobilize but nothing happened which incurred heavy economic costs. But finally after it failed to react in order not to incur those costs, that’s when Egypt DID attack and the result was a was a hair breath between Israel and total defeat. Had such a thing been allowed in 1967, the outcome would have been much worse because Israel did not have a geographic buffer zone to absorb the initial shock of a surprise attack by the combined Arab forces.
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Now, does anyone else want to try to tell me that I am telling lies?
November 18, 2011
7:34 am
@Bosko,
Let me put it this way, maybe the next Israeli government is prepared to pay you money for not writing on this blog. Your Eisenhower comment is completely over the top and does Israel and your position more harm than good.
November 18, 2011
12:49 pm
Directorb
Which bit of my Eisenhower comment was wrong? I don’t believe that talking about REAL history turns REAL people against Israel. Only people who already are against Israel would be offended by me saying that Eisenhower was playing cold war politics and tried to woo Egypt away from the Russians unsuccessfully. I guess the only thing that I might have added was that it emanated more from his secretary of state Foster Dulles than him personally.
And I’ll say it again, even at the risk of offending. It was a grave mistake of the Eisenhower administration.
November 18, 2011
1:13 pm
Directorb
“@Bosko,
Let me put it this way, maybe the next Israeli government is prepared to pay you money for not writing on this blog”
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“Your Eisenhower comment is completely over the top and does Israel and your position more harm than good”
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Really? By that definition, people like you should be very happy that I am writing on this blog. Hey, do me a favour … Go talk to Ayla and convince her that she should be happy too for me to stay.
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By the way, what do you think is my position, directorb?