Oren Michael B. Six Days of War. June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East

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202 SIX DAYS OF WA R

bodies of soldiers after the Israeli tanks had run them over . . . I saw the

wounded lying on the ground and was utterly unable to help them.” By night-

fall, Mendler’s men had achieved a strategically valuable position, able to pre-

vent Shazli Force from aiding Umm Qatef and also to join Sharon’s next major

engagement, at Nakhl.

In the north, Tal’s division consolidated its hold on Rafah and Khan Yunis,

and reached the outskirts of al-‘Arish. “Clearing the city was hard fighting,”

according to the IDF record. “The Egyptians fired from the rooftops, from

balconies and windows. They dropped grenades into our half-tracks and blocked

the streets with trucks. Our men threw the grenades back and crushed the

trucks with their tanks.”

Between Tal and Sharon’s forces, close to midnight and with lights blaz-

ing, passed the third of Israel’s southern divisions—Gen. Yoffe’s—en route to

Bir Lahfan and Jabal Libni. Skirting Abu ‘Ageila to the north, threading through

Sharon’s battlefield and exchanging friendly fire with some of his tanks, the

lead Centurions of Col. Elhanan Sela advanced and turned southwest. Farther

to the north, in the sandy wastes of Wadi Haridin, inched the 200th Brigade of

Col. Yissachar “Yiska” Shadmi. Believed impassable by the Egyptians, the wadi

had been studied by IDF paratroopers in 1956 and found suitable for tanks.

Bedeviled by mines and artillery bombardments, Sela and Shadmi nevertheless

managed to cut off all the major road junctions—to Jabal Libni, Abu ‘Ageila,

and al-‘Arish—and to stop two Egyptian armored brigades attempting to en-

circle Sharon.

Less success attended the Israelis’ advance in a battle they had hoped to

avoid, in Gaza. Dayan had expressly forbade entry into the twenty-five-mile

Strip, explaining that Israel did not need to saddle itself with 250,000 Palestin-

ian refugees and complicated inner-city fighting. Yet, shortly after issuance of

the Red Sheet order, Palestinian positions in Gaza opened fire on nearby Is-

raeli settlements of Nirim and Kisufim. Rabin overruled Dayan’s orders and

instructed a reinforced mechanized brigade, the 11th, under Col. Yehuda Reshef,

to enter the Strip. The force promptly met withering artillery fire and spirited

opposition from Palestinian soldiers and remnants of the 7th Division from

Rafah. “The Egyptian soldier, by his nature, is better at static than mobile

defense,” Rafael Eitan, the paratrooper commander, observed. “The Palestin-

ian soldiers, by contrast, were more willing to make sacrifices.”

Seventy Israelis would be killed in some of the war’s heaviest fighting. Also

killed were Ben Oyserman of the CBC, Life magazine’s Paul Schutzer, whose

final photographs would appear in a special edition on the war, and twelve more

members of UNEF. By sunset, IDF forces had taken the strategically vital ‘Ali

Muntar ridge, overlooking Gaza city, but were beaten back from the city itself.

Other unanticipated battles continued to rage along the eastern front, where

the resistance offered the Israelis was no less dogged. Around Jenin, the Legion’s

Day One: June 5 203

12th Armored Battalion held off repeated attempts by Bar Kokhva’s column—a

far larger force—to break through Burqin woods, close by the Kabatiya cross-

roads. The deputy battalion commander, Maj. Muhammad Sa‘id al-‘Ajluni, or-

dered the woods held “to the last man and shell,” and claimed to have destroyed

eighteen Israeli tanks. “Confused and panicky, the Israelis were running around

their blazing vehicles like frightened ants,” ‘Ajluni’s commander, Maj. Salah

‘Alayyan, recorded. But relentless IAF air strikes began to take their toll on the

Jordanians. Their M-48 Pattons, equipped with external fuel tanks, proved vul-

nerable at short distances, even to Israel’s older Shermans. Twelve of ‘Ajluni’s

tanks were destroyed, and only six remained operative. Then, just after dusk,

‘Ajluni spotted lights approaching from the south that he believed belonged to

reinforcements from the 40th Armored Brigade. In fact, they were the lights of

yet more Israeli tanks which, once within range, immediately opened fire.

“The Jordanians fought bravely and effectively,” conceded an official Is-

raeli history of the battle, “Their tanks and antitank weapons had to be de-

stroyed before the [Peled’s] Ugdah could proceed to higher ground and the

enemy’s infantry positions.” Ephraim Reiner, commander of the IDF’s 37th

Armored Brigade, described how his forces were unable to advance without

first waiting for supporting artillery fire and air strikes against the enemy. “One

plane swung around and dove right onto the Jordanian commander’s tank,

wounding him and killing his radio operator and intelligence officer. Only then

did I inform the division that I was attacking . . . a classic night attack, very

nice.” Wounded, ‘Ajluni ordered his surviving tanks to fall back to Jenin where,

together with the remnants of Khalidi’s 25th Infantry Brigade, they found them-

selves effectively surrounded.

The IDF’s breakthrough in the northern West Bank was mirrored in the

Jerusalem area, where Ben-Ari’s 10th Brigade was approaching Bidu and the

crucial Beit Iksa-Beit Hanina junction. Another Brigade, the 4th, under Col.

Moshe Yotvat, had been thrown together from sundry infantry units and sent

to open the Latrun Corridor. The Jordanian police fort at the corridor’s west-

ern entrance—Bab al-Wad in Arabic, and in Hebrew, Sha‘ar HaGai—had with-

stood successive Israeli forays in 1948, but it fell with surprisingly little resistance

in the early evening of June 5. So, too, did the adjacent villages of Yalu, Imwas,

and Beit Nuba.

Billeted within those villages were commandos of Egypt’s 33rd and 53rd

“Thunderbolt” battalions, prepared to attack Israeli airfields. “The patrols, each

led by Jordanian intelligence scouts, moved out toward Ramla and Hatzor at

7:00

P.M.,” confirmed commando officer ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Mun‘im Marsi. “We started

infiltrating through Israeli settlements . . . We had no clear idea of our assign-

ment, only a palm-sized photograph of one of the bases.” Marsi’s men were

soon detected, however, and sought shelter in nearby fields, which the Israelis

then set on fire. Of the original force of 600 commandos, only 150 survived

and fled to Jordan.

206 SIX DAYS OF WA R

“They’ll be in the city within two hours,” Deputy Chief of Staff Haim Bar-

Lev, referring to the Harel Brigade’s tanks, blithely reported to the govern-

ment that evening. Within the city, too, the confrontation was coming to a

head. Starting at 7:45

P.M., salvos of Israeli mortar and artillery shells saturated

the Jordanian positions along the so-called northern line leading from the

Mandelbaum Gate up to Mount Scopus. Flares and search beams lit up the

night. Israeli infantrymen stationed along that line received their first relief

from the Jordanian shell and small-arms fire that had continued unabated

throughout the day. For Motta Gur’s paratroopers, though, the countermea-

sures were merely preparations for the pending effort to burst through the

Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and link up with Mount Scopus. Resisting

that assault was a dense network of obstacles—bunkers, barbed wire, and mines.

Rabin tried to persuade Gur to delay his attack until dawn, when cover

could be provided by the IAF, but the offer was promptly declined. Jets were of

little use in the close, street-by-street fighting ahead, Gur explained, while the

paratroopers preferred to fight in darkness. Also, if fighting intensified in Sinai,

or broke out with Syria, the army might postpone the Jerusalem operation

indefinitely. Gur hoped to move out at midnight, but logistical difficulties de-

layed H-hour until 2:15

A.M., leaving only ninety minutes before daybreak. Yet

the colonel remained confident, later writing, “We knew that the Arab Legion

would defend Jerusalem from its fixed positions . . . [and] that they never con-

structed a second defense line. Once we broke through [the first line], our

progress would be easy.”

Jordan’s brigades in the Jerusalem area—King Talal, Hittin, and Imam

‘Ali—were indeed immobile, with little coordination or even communication

between them. By the late afternoon, however, as the Israeli attacks intensified,

command over the city was entrusted to King Talal’s general, ‘Ata ‘Ali Haza‘.

The 44-year-old ‘Ali, mild-mannered and slight, a soldier since the age of fif-

teen, had been decorated for gallantry in fighting near the Mandelbaum Gate

in 1948. A graduate of England’s Camberley College, he was a no-nonsense

officer, deeply patriotic, and averse to Arab radicals. “Before 1967, I had no

fear that Israel would start a war,” he attested, “but since 1956, I feared that

Nasser would.” While deploring Jordan’s entanglement in “Nasser’s war,” he

was determined to hold out in Jerusalem, at least until a cease-fire.

‘Ata ‘Ali ordered his forces consolidated in a line extending from Abu Tor

in the south and northward to the Old City, Sheikh Jarrah, and Tel al-Ful

astride Mount Scopus. At his disposal were 5,000 Legionnaires and 1,000 Pal-

estinian militiamen, armed with heavy mortars, machine-guns, and howitzers.

But he had no tanks, and believed that the Israeli forces outnumbered his own

by at least three-to-one. Though his own transmitter was seriously damaged,

‘Ata ‘Ali managed to get a message through to Maj. Gen. Muhammad Ahmad

Salim, commander of the Western Front, urging him to send tanks and troops

immediately.

Day One: June 5 207

Salim obliged and dispatched a Patton battalion from the 60th Armored

Brigade. Like the 40th, the 60th Brigade was a corps d’élite, commanded by King

Hussein’s cousin, Brig. Sharif Zayd bin Shaker, a graduate of the U.S. Army Staff

College. His original orders were to repel Israeli forces from the Latrun Corri-

dor, but in view of the worsening situation in Jerusalem itself, the brigade was

now to proceed to the city’s Arab suburbs and from there attack Mount Scopus.

Inching forward in the dark, the tanks climbed the twenty-mile, 2,700-foot as-

cent from Jericho. Parallel to them, struggling up a mountain track from Wadi

Qelt to ‘Isawiya, came infantrymen from Imam ‘Ali Brigade. Well before they

reached their destinations, though, both forces were spotted by Israeli planes

and, subjected to rocket and cannon fire, virtually decimated.

At 9:00 that night, just as the Israelis completed their capture of southern

Jerusalem and prepared to assault the northern line, ‘Ata ‘Ali saw the sky light

up over the Mount of Olives. Instinctively, he knew what had happened. Fur-

ther appeals to send troops from Ramallah and Hebron were rejected; both

cities were braced for attack. Jerusalem would receive no reinforcements.

The worsening plight of the Jordanians was closely monitored by Israeli lead-

ers. For them, the question now was not whether the IDF would win in Jerusa-

lem, but whether capture of the city’s eastern half was politically prudent. Several

members of the government, most notably Menachem Begin and Yigal Allon,

emphatically thought so, and throughout the day had pressed Eshkol to ap-

prove a Jerusalem offensive. “Sis Agedank,” Eshkol replied—in Yiddish, slap-

ping a hand to his forehead—“That’s an idea.” The prime minister was once

again torn between total confidence in Israel’s fighting ability and fear for its

future safety. Now, in addition to Soviet intervention, Israelis faced the danger

of censure and even embargo by the Christian world should they capture the

Old City and its Holy Places.

Eshkol was not alone; other ministers, most notably those from the Na-

tional Religious party, shared his fear of an international backlash. But

countervailing pressures were also at work, beginning with those from Jordan.

Despite repeated Israeli requests, conveyed through diplomatic channels, for a

cease-fire, the shelling of outer Tel Aviv and downtown Jerusalem had contin-

ued. Dayan, arriving at the Knesset for his own swearing-in ceremony as de-

fense minister, found the building deserted and returned to Tel Aviv. It was

not until the early evening that the other ministers managed to get through

and, at Begin’s request, convene in an underground shelter.

Begin’s purpose was to discuss the Old City—whether Israeli forces should

enter it and what Israel’s policy would be if they did. In addition to the military

requisites of forcing Hussein to stop the shelling and of defending Mount Scopus,

the ministers were seized by the millennial vision of a united Jewish capital. “Per-

haps the most important Cabinet meeting Jerusalem ever held,” Col. Lior wrote,

mindful of his own elated state: “As the son of an observant family exterminated

in the concentration camps, as the scion of the Jewish people and a citizen of the

State of Israel, I could not hold back my soaring emotions.”

208 SIX DAYS OF WA R

Emotions indeed flared as the ministers, speaking above the basso continuo

of incoming shells, spoke their minds. “This is the hour of our political test,”

Begin opened. “We must attack the Old City in response both to the unheeded

warnings we sent Hussein as well as to the Jordanian shelling.” Allon con-

curred: “We all want to see the Old City as an indivisible part of Israel—or that

Israelis at least have access to the Holy Places.” But Eshkol advised caution.

“We have to weigh the diplomatic ramifications of conquering the Old City,”

he said, “Even if we take the West Bank and the Old City, we will eventually be

forced to leave them.” The NRP’s Haim Moshe Shapira supported Eshkol,

declaring, “I assume that there will be pressure to internationalize the city, and

I, for one, won’t oppose the idea.” The debate broke down less on ideological

than on visceral lines, with Mapai’s Zalman Aran seconding Shapira and

Mordechai Bentov, of the left-wing Mapam, siding with Begin. Abba Eban

expressed concern for possible damage to the Holy Places.

In the end, the ministers agreed not to agree, accepting a compromise

formula proposed by Eshkol: “In view of the situation created in Jerusalem by

the Jordanian bombardment, and after warnings were sent to Hussein, an op-

portunity has perhaps been created to capture the Old City.” The immediate

task, however, was to silence the Jordanian guns.

Dayan was already wrestling with that question, deep in the Pit with his

generals—Rabin, Weizman, Bar-Lev. “I know what you want,” he told them.

“You want to take Jenin.” None of them raised an objection, nor did Dayan

demur. Thus, laconically, the first step was authorized for Israel’s entry into

the West Bank. As for Jerusalem, Dayan ordered another message sent to

Hussein, this one threatening to bomb Amman if his forces persisted in bom-

barding Israel. In the interim, the IDF could press its attacks to the north and

south of the Old City, surrounding it. “The Old City can be in our hands by

tomorrow,” Dayan responded when Eshkol informed him of the Cabinet’s dis-

cussion. But the defense minister was determined to delay that action even

longer, until the conquest of Sinai was complete.

The Egyptian and Jordanian fronts remained intrinsically related. Jordan’s

bombing of Israel came in reaction to Israel’s attack on Egypt, the early success

of which enabled Israel to strike back at Jordan. Another nexus existed in the

fact that neither Nasser nor Hussein was aware of the perilous state of their

armies. Nasser’s officers were afraid to enlighten him while Hussein’s, lacking

communications with the field, were clueless. Neither would easily believe that

Egypt’s air force, the linchpin of the Arab war effort, had been eliminated in a

matter of hours, or that Israeli tanks were advancing on two fronts while the

Syrians remained inert. Egypt’s propaganda organs, radio and press, continued

to boast of extraordinary victories, while according to Jordanian communiqués,

Israeli forces had been repulsed from Jerusalem and Jenin and thirty-one Is-

raeli planes shot down.

Such ignorance could not withstand the mounting

evidence of disaster, however, as the first day of fighting waned.

Day One: June 5 209

The truth became known to Nasser at 4:00 P.M. when, for the first time

that day, he entered Supreme Headquarters and encountered bedlam. ‘Amer,

either drunk or drugged or both, had gone from a state of extreme excitement

to one of profound depression. Screaming into the phone, he told Murtagi first

to move his forces at al-‘Arish to Umm Qatef, and then changed his mind and

ordered a retreat to Jabal Libni and the second line of defense. He spoke with

Sidqi Mahmud and declared that U.S., and not Israeli, planes had performed

the attack against Egypt, and that one of his pilots—Husni Mubarak—had seen

the American jets. ‘Amer refused to take other calls, whether from the Soviet

ambassador or from the Foreign Ministry, all of them anxious for information.

Nor could they get through to Shams Badran. The defense minister had a bed

moved into his office, then sequestered himself inside. “To think that’s our

highest security official,” scoffed ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi who, along with

Kamel Hassan and Hassan Ibrahim—all former Free Officers—had volunteered

their services at headquarters. “That’s our equivalent to Dayan.”

Nasser tried to talk with his field marshal but found him inconsolable and

practically incoherent. The exact substance of their conversation remains un-

known, but its outcome was indisputable. Orders went out to Gen. Salah Muhsin,

commander of the 14th Armored Brigade at al-‘Arish, to counterattack at dawn,

even without air cover. A decision was also made to inform Algeria of the air

force’s destruction and to request that it loan Egypt a large number of its MiG’s.

Lastly and most fatefully, Nasser and ‘Amer agreed to maintain the fiction of

direct Anglo-American involvement in the war, both to minimize Egypt’s dis-

honor and to prod the Soviets to intervene. Ambassador Ghaleb in Moscow

was instructed to request an immediate audience with Kosygin to inform him

of the collusion. Arab oil producers, beginning with Iraq and Kuwait, answered

Nasser’s call to suspend all shipments to the U.S. and Great Britain. At 6:05

P.M., listeners to Cairo’s Voice of the Arabs learned that “the United States is

the enemy. The United States is the hostile force behind Israel. The United

States, oh Arabs, is the enemy of all peoples, the killer of life, the shedder of

blood, that is preventing you from liquidating Israel.”

Rumors, traditionally a vehicle for disseminating information in the Middle

East, had begun to spread. Sixteen hours after the first Israeli jet dropped its

bombs on an Egyptian runway, the results of that operation were being whis-

pered in the streets of Lebanon and Syria, in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Jordanian

Military Intelligence Chief Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Ayyub summoned his staff at

7:00

P.M. and told them that, “I have just received information that 90 percent

of the Egyptian air force has been destroyed on the ground.”

One of the few populations in the region to remain totally ignorant of the

course of the battle was, strangely enough, Israel’s. Air raid sirens had sounded

throughout the day, but no signal of “all clear” had followed. Egyptian tanks,

for all Israelis knew, were rumbling into the Negev, while other Arab armies

prepared to invade as well. Speaking on national radio, Eshkol described the

210 SIX DAYS OF WA R

“cruel and bloody campaign” his fellow citizens faced, warning them that “the

distinction between front and rear may become blunted . . . all of Israel is a

front line.” In spite of the grave insecurity these pronouncements instilled,

Dayan insisted on maintaining absolute press silence about the IDF’s achieve-

ments. His purpose was to delay as long as possible international pressure for a

cease-fire and the danger of Soviet meddling.

This did not prevent the Israelis from updating the Americans, however.

Meir Amit briefed McPherson and Barbour, stressing the existential threat Is-

rael had faced and its intention to “press all the buttons” now that the shooting

had started. The battle, he declared, was not only for Israel’s security but also

for the survival of all pro-Western forces in the Middle East. Subsequently, a

general depiction of the IDF’s successes in Sinai, Jerusalem, and the West Bank

was forwarded from Tel Aviv to Washington, along with a report on the 400

Arab aircraft destroyed and Israel’s 19 losses. The updates were reviewed by

Walt Rostow, who then passed them on to the president. “Herewith the ac-

count, with a map,” Rostow’s memo began, “of the first day’s turkey shoot.”

Day Two, June 6 211

THE WAR: DAY TWO, JUNE 6

Israeli advances and Arab retreats.

America on war and peace.

Big Lies and cease-fires.

HOUGH FIFTY-THREE YEARS OLD AND PAUNCHY, the director of Israel’s

Nature Protection Society, Avraham Yoffe, was a seasoned fighter in

Sinai. In 1956, he had led an infantry column down the peninsula’s

eastern coast to capture Sharm al-Sheikh. Later, as head of the Southern Com-

mand, he developed contingency plans for moving tanks over desert wastes

that were widely believed insurmountable. Summoned a few weeks before the

war by Gen. Gavish, Yoffe had arrived at camp in civilian clothes, thinking he

was making a courtesy call. He returned in a brigadier general’s uniform and

took charge of the 31st Ugdah with its two reserve brigades, each with 100

tanks. His assignment was to penetrate Sinai south of Tal’s forces and north of

Sharon’s, dividing the two fronts and preventing enemy reinforcements from

reaching either. Then, dashing eastward, he would attack Egypt’s second line

of defense while its first was still busy fighting.

Yoffe’s initial objective, taking the vital road junctions of Abu ‘Ageila, Bir Lahfan,

and al-‘Arish, had already been accomplished before midnight. “We received in-

formation that two Egyptian armored brigades were approaching,” Yissachar

Shadmi, commanding twenty-four Centurions, later related. “They had turned off

all their lights, and my forward observer reported, ‘I can’t see them!’ I told him,

‘shoot blindly,’ and our first barrage blew up seven vehicles. The Egyptians then

spread out in the dunes and a bitter battle ensued, lasting from 11

P.M. to 10 A.M.

the next morning.” Israeli planes completed the work begun by Shadmi, and by

midday, the desert was strewn with burning wrecks. The Egyptians fled westward,

toward Jabal Libni, which the Israelis regrouped to attack.