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From Socialist Worker, No. 84, June 1968, pp. 4 & 5.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
A YEAR HAS PASSED since the six-day war in the Middle East. Like most wars, it signified the end of an era and the start of a new one.
The 1948 war marked the beginning of the disintegration of the British empire. It exposed the corruption of the feudal monarchies in Egypt, Trans-Jordan and Iraq and precipitated the officers’ revolution in Cairo.
It was on the battlefields of Palestine that the Egyptian officers first asked themselves : “Why are we fighting here?” as well as: “Why were we defeated?” It was there that the 1952 revolution was hatched that overthrew Farouk.
The 1956 war witnessed the end of Britain and France’s imperialist role in the Middle East. The Aswan dam enterprise, the nationalisation of the Suez canal by Nasser and the defeat of the Israeli, French and British attack on Egypt brought Arab nationalism to its peak.
The refusal of the veteran pro-British regime in Baghdad to come to the help of Egypt eventually brought about the 1958 officers' revolution in Iraq.
In both cases the conflict with Israel acted as a catalyst to processes within the Arab world, hastening the downfall of that traditional prop for British imperialism, the feudal monarchies.
How does the June war of 1967 look from this viewpoint? It highlighted the limitations and weaknesses of the officers’ revolutions, of Arab nationalism, and of the role played by Moscow. It established the United States as the main imperialist power in this part of the world.
The fact that the officers’ revolutions in Egypt and Iraq, established in power 15 and nine years ago respectively, abundantly armed by Russia, well-prepared for a military attack, suffered a shattering defeat within six days is bound to raise many searching questions throughout the Arab world, especially when their efforts are compared to Vietnam.
“Why can the Vietcong defeat the US, where the means gap is much greater, yet Egypt cannot stand up for one week against Israel?” Such questions have already brought about a profound change inside Egypt.
The grip of the professional officers’ class on Egyptian society was broken after the June defeat. That class, incompetent as it was, provided Nasser’s main support, but since June 1967 it serves him only as a scapegoat.
So far the regime has survived. Nasser has survived, too, as a symbol of Arab nationalism and past victories, but that symbol, cracked in the defeat, is no longer what it was.
Every serious revolutionary in the Arab world knows that thee nationalist officersreached the end of their progressive role and from now on can only become captives of imperialism. It is likely that Nasser will become for the Arab world what Chiang Kai-shek became for China in the 1930s
Washington is well aware of its power to dislodge Israel from Suez and Sinai. This could serve to bring Nasser, with his prestige as a “fighter against imperialism,” into the US orbit in order to contain the masses. Prior to the June war, the CIA wanted to remove Nasser – as it did with Sukarno and Nkrumah. After the war he became its most valuable pawn in the game against the masses in that area.
But while Nasser’s domestic position remains shaky, Washington, keeping all its options open, sent a consignment of Skyhawk jets to Israel. Never before in its history has Israel received arms directly and openly from the US.
While students and workers demonstrated in Cairo for the first time since 1952 for democracy, against the officers and the regime (which closed all universities for three weeks), in Jerusalem all the Zionist parties, from the leftist Mapam to the rightist Herut, still sit together in the “ National Unity ” coalition formed on the eve of the war.
The fate of the “conquered-held-liberated” territories is still debated between the extremists and the moderates. The former advocate outright, total annexation, the latter, while voting for the annexation of East Jerusalem, favour trading territory for a peace treaty with Hussein and Nasser. Public opinion, never a factor in Israeli politics, which are manipulated by an oligarchy of Zionist parties, probably prefers peace and security to territory, but it is unable to challenge the Zionist principles of the annexationists.
The Israelis suddenly realised that Israel is not the state of the Israelis, but the state of the Jews. The leaders consider Israel as the incarnation of Zionism, not as a state of its own population. Israel is not a population which produced its political institutions; it is a case of institutions motivated by the ideology of “Jewish Power” and “ Back to Zion” gathering a population.
Since de Gaulle. Wilson and Kiesinger decided that it was time to woo Nasser and company and leave Johnson to burden himself by supporting Israel, this unique political creature, an appendage of the imperialist system became, directly and exclusively, dependent on the US.
In spite of the fact that the June war was won mainly by the French planes of the Israeli air force, de Gaulle emerged as the “ friend of the Arabs ” for denouncing Israel’s aggression. Wilson and Kiesinger now do their best to make a similar short cut for regaining “ influence.”
The most significant local result of the war is the re-emergence of the Palestinians as a political entity. In 1948, due to a secret pact between Ben-Gurion and Abdullah, they were carved up socially into refugees and residents and politically between Jordan, Israel and Egypt.
But despite their disappearance as a political entity their invisible presence haunted the entire Arab world. It undermined the political status quo established after 1948 and endorsed by Britain, France and the US – the Tripartite Declaration of 1950.
The Palestinians hardly participated in the wars of 1948, 56 and 67. Now, as a result of the Israeli victory, they are reunified under Israeli rule and share once again a common fate and aim.
Nasser, always considering them a burden, tried to keep them under his control by arming and financing the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Ahmed Shukairy. Nasser’s man leading the PLO, was probably the greatest liability for the Palestinians.
This racialist, one-time representative of Saudi-Arabia at the UN, hailed as the liberator of Palestine by Chou En-lai in Peking in 1966, was deposed by his own people as a result of the June war.
The PLO is no longer under Nasser’s control and has to vie with the more militant and independent El-Fatah in the struggle against the Israeli occupation.
The situation has wakened Hussein, the last remnant of the feudal monarchies. who survived mainly because of Israel’s indirect support. Having lost the West bank to Israel his kingdom is deprived of its economic and social backbone.
This puppet, imposed by imperialism on the Palestinians, who even after the June war ordered to shoot, capture, and imprison ail independently-armed Palestinians because they jeopardised his secret deals with Israel, is now forced to release them from prison and respect their armed presence on his territory.
The Israeli raid on the El-Fatah training camp in Karameh was planned to support Hussein, who was unable to stamp them out himself. But as it happened, it merely established El-Fatah’s status as an independent adversary of Israel.
At present, neither El-Fatah nor the PLO have succeeded in gaining the support of most Palestinians under Israeli rule. The latter are still numbed by uncertainty, wondering whether the Israeli occupation is final or not.
The military parade through East Jerusalem on May 2 convinced them – as it was meant to – that the annexation of the city is final. It is bound to strengthen those who believe in armed resistance as the only way for liberation and independence.
The political aim of imperialism in the middle east, as in every part of the unindustrialised world, is “stability” meaning stability for the status quo from which it benefits. It is movements like the Vietcong and Che Guevara’s guerrillas who actively undermine that status quo between imperialism and the masses, that are the greatest danger to the system. In the Middle East the Palestinians are now the most probable candidates for producing such movements while Nasser is the most probable candidate for a Chiang.
Ironically, it is the most stable supporter of imperialism in the area – Israel – that has destroyed the previous delicate balance and plunged the entire area into a whirlpool of new instability. As the nationalist officers have already played out their anti-imperialist role, the choice for the Arab world is between a Vietcong-type struggle and Ky-type regimes. It will depend on the activity of the revolutionaries in that area which of the two will materialise.
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Last updated on 30 October 2020