Thursday, 29 July 2010
 Kissinger’s Guilt
By David Isaac
Dr. Henry Kissinger
Recently declassified White House transcripts (featured in an editorial in the Israeli daily Haaretz) show former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger blaming Israel for the problems in the region, accusing Israel of being “deliberately provocative” and attempting “to create maximum commotion in the Middle East.”
In the newly released documents Kissinger refers to the Golan Heights as “Syrian territory” and the Syrians as “my friends.” He confides to an Algerian diplomat that “a (new Arab-Israeli) war wouldn’t be so bad for us. … We could show (Israel) we are tough.” Us? This strongly suggests Kissinger identified with the Arab side in the Arab-Israel conflict.
While these documents do not cover the period of the 1973 war (they cover the end of the Nixon administration and eighteen months of the subsequent Ford administration), they bear out Shmuel Katz’s devastating assessment of Kissinger’s role during the war as crucial in turning Israel’s military victory into a bitter strategic defeat. Just a year after the Yom Kippur War, in his 1974 pamphlet, “The Crisis of Israel and the West” Katz described Kissinger’s actions and their repercussions.
When Israel had recovered from her initial, nearly disastrous setback, the resourcefulness, and courage and qualitative superiority of her solders so succeeded that – in view of all the responsible military analysts – she was on the brink of achieving the greatest victory in her history. … [T]he Israel army had created an excellent bargaining position for whatever negotiations might ensue after the Cease Fire had been formalized in a resolution by the UN Security Council. It held firmly a wide salient deep into Egyptian territory proper with the road to Cairo open. The Egyptian Third Army, one of the two Egyptian forces that had crossed over the east bank of the Suez Canal, was encircled and its supplies completely cut off. …
But in two further decisive steps the U.S. Secretary of State dictated the conversion of Israel’s advantageous position into a posture of defeat. He insisted on the unconditional lifting of the siege of the Third Army. Brief Israeli resistance (by the Minister of Defense in a telephone conversation) was brusquely rejected….By February 1974 Israel had by diplomatic negotiation lost the Yom Kippur War, and the aggressor had been awarded the beginnings of a retrospective victory in the Six Day War. The Egyptians moreover made no secret of their confidence that this was only the first step to Israel’s being forced out of all of Sinai. The Egyptian President in particular repeatedly gave expression to this confidence, indicating without inhibition that this is what he had been promised by the U.S. Secretary of State whom he trusted absolutely in view of what he had already done for the Arab cause.
Twenty seven years later, in 2001, in a column “In Politics: No Friendships, Only Interests” Shmuel Katz returned to the theme of Kissinger’s 1973 game plan, this time with Kissinger’s own memoirs as evidence. Kissinger was determined, Katz wrote “on a diplomacy that would result in Egypt’s moving over from the Soviet orbit to the American. The price, as became evident, was to be a sacrifice of Israel….That is why the Egyptians to this day celebrate what they claim was a military victory over Israel. That is why, in Israel, the Yom Kippur War is remembered and felt as a bitter defeat. The harm done to Israel was and remains incalculable, not least in that sense of having been defeated.”
Moreover, Kissinger accomplished his goals through deception. As Katz details in “The Man with A Plan” (Oct. 23, 2003), with Israel facing a “dangerous shortage of materiel” Kissinger held up the arms shipments to Israel, claiming falsely it was Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger’s doing. Kissinger then used Israel’s predicament to pressure American Jewish leaders to abandon their efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry in return for his support in expediting the delivery of the sorely needed materiel – arms and supplies which he was responsible for holding up in the first place.
Kissinger also hinted to Defense Minister Moshe Dayan of a Soviet atomic threat if Israel didn’t comply with his demands. Katz says this was a bald-faced lie. The Soviets had made no such threat. Katz writes: “Dayan later realized that he had been hoodwinked, and indeed, on examination of Kissinger’s blow-by-blow negotiations with the Russians, there is not a smidgen of a hint of an atomic threat by the Russians. In a public lecture in May 1974, Dayan declared:
‘The Americans denied us the fruits of victory. It was an ultimatum. Had the US not pressed us, the Third Army and Suez City would have had to surrender. We would have captured 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers and Sadat would have had to admit it to his people. We might have held them only for a day and let them walk out without their arms, but it would have changed the whole Egyptian attitude about whether they won the war or not.’”
It is painful to think that someone who fled Nazi persecution as a young boy in 1938 should do so much damage to the Jewish State. Yet, a closer look shows that Kissinger has, at best, a tenuous connection with his Judaism. Rabbi Norman Lamm, former chancellor of Yeshiva University, spotted this early. In his article “Kissinger and the Jews” (Dec. 20, 1975), a devastating critique, he writes, “Dr. Kissinger is an illustration of how high an assimilated Jew can rise in the United States, and how low he can fall in the esteem of his fellow Jews.”
Lamm referred to a recent visit by Henry Kissinger and his parents to Furth, their hometown in Bavaria which they escaped before the war. They had only kind words for their native city, “but nary a word about the Holocaust, not a word about the Nazis who drove them out of that city!” On top of this, Lamm reveals that Kissinger didn’t want to visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial, during his first trip to Israel, and had to be “persuaded.” He “accepted only when he was told that every other foreign minister visiting Israel had done so.”
This hasn’t stopped Kissinger from portraying himself as one with the Jewish community, accepting awards from the Anti-Defamation League and bestowing awards on behalf of Jewish organizations like the United Jewish Appeal.
Kissinger’s guilt runs deep. Whether or not he feels it is another matter. Zionist writer William Mehlman offers a remarkable footnote involving Kissinger and Katz sometime after the Yom Kippur War. Kissinger got wind of a rumor – unfounded – that Shmuel had taken out a contract on his life (a fantasy Kissinger apparently believed based on the allegations about his role in delaying the resupply of munitions to Israel during the war).
“Shmuel, informed of what had transpired and anxious to put the rumor to rest, arranged a face-to-face meeting with Kissinger at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. ‘From the moment I entered his suite until I left three minutes later,’ Katz related to a small circle of friends in Tel Aviv, ‘he did not stop shouting at me. He never gave me a chance to refute the rumor. In fact I never got a chance to say a word. Finally, I just turned around and walked out.’”
Mehlman writes, “Whatever debt Henry Kissinger may or may not have felt he owed his conscience, he must surely have learned by now that it wasn’t Shmuel Katz who had come to collect.”
Kissinger is 87. It doesn’t look as if he will make amends in this world. Perhaps in the next.
Posted on 07/29/2010 9:27 PM by Hugh Fitzgerald
Comments
30 Jul 2010
 Lugo
It is not at all clear that Kissinger's strategy "damaged" the Jewish state. In order to move Egypt into the western camp, Kissinger had to encourage the Egyptians to attack and then prevent Israel from launching a decisive counterattack. (This would not have been necessary if Israel had not been utterly intransigent regarding any kind of peace with Egypt from 1967 to 1973.) The ultimate result - Egypt in the western camp and an Egyptian-Israeli peace settlement - was unquestionably good for Israel. Israel no longer had to face a two-front war, only one front, and Syria was a much less powerful Soviet proxy than Egypt.
A total, crushing Israeli victory (e.g., surrounding the Third Army) would have precluded peace with Egypt, precluded Egypt moving into the American camp (since this would have demonstrated to Egypt that America could not or would not restrain Israel), and returned the situation to the untenable prewar status quo. 30 Jul 2010
Hugh Fitzgerald
Thisis the Received Wisdom, the interpretation put on the Yom Kippur War: that by rescuing Egypt's Third Army from comoplete destruction, Kissiner made it possible for Sadat to go to Jerusalem, and as Saint Sadat, flanked by such acolytes as Jimmy Carter, to produce the Camp David Accords which have turned out so wonderfully.
I don't accept any of this.I think the Camp David Accords were foolishly entered into by the Israelis, who even more foolishly had allowed themselves to become hysterically enthusiastic when Sadat arrived -- wearing a swastika-embossed tie -- in Israel. The way the Israelis carried on helped to create the myth of Saint Sadat. Sadat had one goal: to get back the Sinai (which, as few may recall, became part of Egypt only in the 1920s, a point made, with an accompanying map, by Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen in his "Diary"), and of course Carter and Brzezinski, deeply hostile to Israel, were happy to further infrlate that, even as they made demands on Begin that even Sadat had not dared at first to make.
Whenver before in history has the victor in a war hbeen made, as the Israelis were in Washington, to sue for peace? And what preposterous terms, whereby Israel would hand over the entire Sinai within the space of several years, when if it was going to be done at all, it ought to have been done over 20 years, at least, to make sure that the Egyptians kept their side of the bargain, which was to halt all hostile propaganda against Israel and to encourage friendly relations -- none of which happened. But Israel agreed to hand over the Sinai, oh not all at once, but in three tranches, over a few years. Perhaps the Israeli negotiators, including Begin, though t they were being "toughj" -- they sometimes allow themselves to believe that. And of course, back in 1978, no one raised, for no one knew about, or wanted to thin about, the relevance of the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah and why it was foolish to on treaties with Egypt, or any other Muslim entity or state. Almost every single agreement, begining with those Israel signed in 1949 with Arab neighbors, have been scrupulously observed by the Israelis and just as scrupulously ignored (save in the case of Lebanon) in most respects by the Muslim signers. What Egypt did should not have surprised anyone. And what it did -- or what it failed to do -- is almost never mentioned, and the Israelis have only themselves to blame. They don't want to rock boats. They want to cling to the myth of Sadat and the whole business around the Camp David Accords. The only reason that Egypt does not attack Israel is because it can't, because it knows that if it again suffers a military defeat, even the Israelis will this time not surrender, for the third time (after the Sinai Campaign, and then again in the Camp David Accores), the Sinai. In other words, the "peace" that Israel has with Egypt is maintained for exactly the same reason that the "peace" with Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, is maintained, and not because there has been a change, as one was supposed to be encouraged, in the hearts and minds of Egyptians -- who remain steadfastly anti-Israel, and who are subject to steady doses of anti-Isael and antisemitic propaganda that infects even the those "liberal intellectuals" who dislike Mubarak's Family-And-Friends corruption, and who are so misunderstood in the West.
Again and again Israel has been snookered into, or pressured into, halting its military operations prematurely. In 1949, it was David Ben Gurion himself who prevented the Jewish forces from taking the area that the Jordanians were left with west of the Jordan -- that is, those parts of Judea and Samaria (to use the toponyms that had been used in the West for more than 2000 years, uninterruptedly)which the Jordanians promptly renamed as "the West Bank" for the same reasons that the Romans, long before, had renamed "Judea" as "Syria palaestinorum" or "Palestine" for short, and renamed Jerusalem, for the same reasons, as Aelia Capitolina.
In 1967 the Israelis halted, but they might have gone still further, across the Jordan for example, and used that extra territory as a bargaining chip. And in 1973, had Kissinger not pressured them -- he always exhibited, in his dealings with Nixon, of what in European history was called "the Court Jew" --- cruel but accurate in his case, and he was always thinking only of the Soviet Union, which perhaps is why he also allowed Turkey to seize the northern part of Cyprus. A shallow machiavel, who got far too much adoration, and -- good god-- for his intellect yet. I observed Kissinger when he was still using every trick he could to meet the great and the future great (those who would "take a leadership role" etc.), that was in the days before his German accent deepened, and he was still just one more sammy-glick-of-academe, polishing the boots at the bedside of the well-filled bed of the monstrously ithyphallic Nelson Rockefeller, Kissinger's first patron -- if you don't count Carl Friedrich. .
Kissinger was strutting his stuff back in the 1970s. That was not too early for a farseeing and genuine statesman to begin worrying about Islam. Kissinger never did it, and he hasn't given the slightest sign of having learned about Islam in the years since. Others, however -- such as Jacques Ellul -- were warning. If they could do it, why couldn't this latter-day halford mackinder with the German accent do it too? 30 Jul 2010
Lugo
"I think the Camp David Accords were foolishly entered into by the Israelis"
It was foolish to eliminate the two-front military threat? I hardly think so.
"Sadat had one goal: to get back the Sinai"
Of course. So what? It was part of his country. Israel was hardly going to be able to occupy it forever.
"Whenver before in history has the victor in a war hbeen made, as the Israelis were in Washington, to sue for peace?"
Meh. Plenty of victorious powers have been forced to cough up their gains at the peace table. Ask the Brits how they feel about Suez.
The fact is, if you are a client state you must accept the restraint the patron imposes on your actions.
"The only reason that Egypt does not attack Israel is because it can't, because it knows that if it again suffers a military defeat, even the Israelis will this time not surrender, for the third time"
The reason Egypt does not attack is because (a) it has no reason to, since Israel returned the Sinai, and (b) Egypt moved into the US camp after 1973 and values this relationship more than it values attacking Israel.
The idea that if Egypt attacked, Israel "will not surrender this time", is absurd. What is Israel going to do, occupy all of Egypt? Israel eventually got tired of occupying Gaza and the West Bank, they'd get sick of sitting on 80 million Egyptians much more quickly. Not to mention, if the US didn't stop Israel from doing this, the rest of the world would fly into a rage.
"the "peace" that Israel has with Egypt is maintained for exactly the same reason that the "peace" with Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, is maintained"
No it isn't. Jordan and Saudi have no capability to attack Israel. Egypt does.
"Again and again Israel has been snookered into, or pressured into, halting its military operations prematurely."
As opposed to occupying more land populated by Arabs? Unless the Arabs can be expelled, this is pointless. Occupying the West Bank in 1948 would have been untenable over the long term, just as it was after 1967.
"In 1967 the Israelis halted, but they might have gone still further, across the Jordan for example, and used that extra territory as a bargaining chip."
What did Israel want from Jordan that it didn't get anyway? Going farther would just have brought more fractious Arabs under Israeli control, which is hardly desirable. 30 Jul 2010
Christopher S. Carson
What this doesn't show is that Prime Minister and Milwaukee native Golda Meier repeatedly begged Kissinger to "allow" her to launch a pre-emptive attack against Egypt, as Israel had done brilliantly in 1967. Kissinger screamed at her "You'll be all alone! We won't help you! You won't get any F-4's (Phantom aircraft)! You'll be overrun! Don't do it!" Golda, knowing that Israel desperately needed spare parts and shipments of F-4's, against her better judgment, did not attack Sadat's Egyptian Army massing on the Bar-Lev Line first, and absorbed the attack. A lot of brave Jews died desperately trying to hold off the Egyptian 3rd Army in the Sinai without air cover because too many IAF planes were shot down by Soviet missiles. The IDF had to send in its tanks without adequate air support and almost was overrun. Golda, on the ropes, appealed directly to the White House. President Nixon ordered the immediate re-supply of the IDF by USAF cargo planes. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, virulently anti-Israel, blocked the orders and delayed their implementation as long as he could. He wanted Israel to be taught a lesson. Nixon learned of this and directly ordered the USAF to resupply, by-passing the SecDef. The replacement planes arrived in the nick of time. The IDF, now with sufficient air support of its tanks, was able to encircle the Egyptian 3rd Army for the kill. It was then that Kissinger hastily convened a "peace conference" and rolled Golda into accepting the withdrawal, instead of destruction, of the Third Army. So Kissinger screwed Israel in two ways. One, by preventing the pre-emptive attack that would have given Israel a quick victory, and then by going along with Schlesinger's attempt to block the Presidential re-supply of the IAF/IDF. 30 Jul 2010
dumbledoresarmy
I observe that in his comment 'Lugo' refers repeatedly to 'the West Bank'.
That is to adopt and perpetuate the terminology of the jihadist enemy.
Before 1948/49 when the Jordanian Arab Muslims illegally seized Judea and Samaria, as well as seizing - and rendering Judenrein - the Old City of Jerusalem, whose ancient and historic Jewish sites they then proceeded with singleminded and obsessive malevolence to desecrate and destroy - there was no such term. The proper term for the region that contains Hebron, Bethlehem, Shechem and Jericho, is - JUDEA and SAMARIA. 'The West Bank' is a hostile neologism coined by *occupying Arab Muslims*.
I observe also that Lugo throughout his comment refers to 'Egyptians' and 'fractious Arabs' and 'Arabs' but carefully avoids ever using the term 'Muslims' and 'Muslim' or 'Islamic'.
And yet, what matters in this whole mess is that the vast majority of the Arabs and forcibly Islamised Arabised populations in Egypt, in that johnny-come-lately state named 'Jordan', not to mention in Syria and Lebanon, and also the great majority of the Arabs who remained within eretz Israel, as also those in Judea and Samaria, are **Muslims** who - like all the rest of the Ummah, including those who have never in their life set eyes on a Jew - suck in Judeophobia with their mothers' milk.
The Islamochristians amongst the local 'Arabs' in Judea, Samaria and eretz Israel are in general not much better; for some peculiar reason they seem to want to live in some future Arab Islamic State of 'Palestine' (to see what kind of future - the grinding near-slavery of dhimmitude - they could realistically expect within such an entity, see what's happened and is happening to Copts in Egypt and Maronites in Lebanon and to Christian minorities all over the Muslim world from North Africa to Indonesia) than to be free and safe within a Jewish state with all their basic civil rights protected.
Oh, and as for the Sinai being 'part of his [Sadat's] country'...an integral part of the ancient Egyptian heartland, just like Alexandria or Cairo or the middle reaches of the Nile? Not quite. Remember that once the Hebrews crossed that ancient Reed Sea, they passed out of Pharaoh's jurisdiction. It might be wise to double-check the old histories and the old atlases and find out just how recently, and how tenuously, that triangular chunk of ferocious desert came to be viewed as 'Egyptian'.
|
.jpg)
%20(2).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
