Issue No.328
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5 - 11 June 1997 Issue No.328 Supplement |
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A defeat stronger than victory?
Thirty years on, the June 1967 war continues still to be the subject of much debate. As long as the conflict with Israel continues, the Arabs will discuss the war. Their persistence serves to commemorate it every day. This phenomenon is both confusing and important. The Arabs' way of dealing with the war accentuates its preponderance. Their celebrations of 1973 are not marked by the same passion they devote to debating 1967, and the defeat that attended it. Were the Arabs dissatisfied in 1973? Or did the defeat outweigh the victory?
The Gulf War, for Americans, played somewhat the same role as did 1973 for Egypt. Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was the moment which the US military and political leaders had anticipated. The war served as a catharsis. It allowed the US to reinstate the people's confidence in the military. Political management and media coverage of the Gulf War were designed to stun the American public, the objective being to reverse the trauma caused by Vietnam.
The US, however, managed to keep Iraq's defeat in the press. It made the defeat itself an institution. The UN issued several resolutions, created specialised organisations, imposed sanctions, established international treaties, and drew up a map, which was imposed on the Iraqi government, marking out the new borders that delineate Iraq's territorial and national sovereignty. In other words, the American victory has been "institutionalised", while the Arab partial victory in 1973 was not. Consequently, the Arabs did not manage to break free of the 1967 war.
There are many reasons why the Arabs insist on re-living their memories of 1967 over and over again. The most important is that the struggle continues. Memories of the defeat still survive. Its repercussions persist, and are even re-generated. Another aspect of the defeat involves the international powers which seized the opportunity to impose a kind of peace on the Arabs. The defeat is still used as proof that the Arabs are incapable of progress. Others consider it an appropriate punishment.
Sustaining the memory serves many purposes, some of them contradictory. It may be used as a constant reminder to Egyptians not to rebel against foreign domination, not to form alliances against an imperialist West.
Some pundits say the Israeli victory surpassed all expectations, including the Israelis'. Its after-effects caught the elite unprepared. For the first time, as a result of this victory, the issue of identity emerged as a practical, factual problem, not just a theory. Furthermore, a victory on that scale, and the subsequent expansion, was an initial step in undermining the "idealism" which dominated some trends of Zionist thought. It marked the actual beginning of the end for numerous social and political values. Just as defeat affected the losers, it was a very mixed blessing for the victors. While defeat motivated some Arabs to work towards restoring the honour of the armed forces, victory caused many Israelis to rest on their laurels and become bloated with conceit. This is why parallels have been drawn between the two wars -- 1967 and 1973 -- in terms of their respective consequences and the gravity of their after-effects. The first war led to a national ideological crisis in Egypt. The second inflicted a severe set-back on Zionist ideology.
It is well known now that the years preceding the 1967 war were marked by numerous attempts to impose an economic and political embargo on Egypt. It was the perhaps worst phase in the history of inter-Arab relations. American diplomacy then was actively engaged in putting down independence struggles throughout the Third World. This is not to say the US lit the first fuse in 1967. It means that America was psychologically and politically ready to back any attempt to cut the Arabs down to size in general, and inflict a major defeat on Egypt specifically. All American activities before and during the war were undertaken to support the mobilisation campaign for Israel, and to serve Israeli objectives after the war. Ultimately, the US exploited the Arab defeat to complete its hegemony over the entire region, thereby forcing it to accept the new status quo. This is evidenced by the US's refusal, to this date, to designate the aggressor. It refuses to recognise that Israel fired the first shot, or even that it had been preparing for war several months prior to its outbreak. It will not admit that coordination between Israel and the US preceded the beginning of active hostilities.
Admitting these facts would not change the course of history, but it would delegitimise both the peaceful settlement and Israeli expansion. Israel occupied the Arab territories as punishment for alleged Arab aggression. Peace was imposed as another price to be paid by the aggressors. The gradual erosion of Arab human and economic capabilities is further punishment, and a harsh pre-emptive lesson to anyone who dares contemplate an attack on Israel. Furthermore, an Arab fifth column opposes all attempts to foster Arab solidarity and encourage cooperation.
The Arabs, and Egypt in particular, are still responsible for their defeat. But they were not guilty of starting the war. The Egyptian leadership had sought to re-create the conditions existing in 1956. It mobilised Egyptian and Arab public opinion in an attempt to pressure Israel into peace. But this very mobilisation tied the Egyptian leadership's hands. The army marching through Cairo was, as far as the Egyptian public was concerned, a declaration of war for a just cause. At the same time, on the international political level, Egypt was working to prevent the war, or at any rate, the policy was to minimise the eventuality.
The mobilisation of public opinion, the expectations raised to impossible heights, were perhaps the most decisive factors in the sense of catastrophic defeat which followed the war. Yet it was this defeat that served as a catalyst for the revival of the Palestinian revolution, and the support which the Egyptian political leadership offered in the para-military activities taken over by the PLO in the aftermath of defeat.
Neither of the two wars, at any rate, succeeded in ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. The victory secured by Israel in 1967 unleashed new forces in Israel, aggressive and extreme bigotry and racism. It liberated religious Jews from restrictive secularist ideals, and allowed religious myths and ideology to gain ascendance once more. Waves of expansion and occupation failed to quench the Israelis' thirst for further expansion. The partial defeat, like the glorious victory, have added new issues to the conflict. On the other hand, neither the Camp David agreement nor Madrid, Oslo, or the post-Oslo accords have been able to end the Arab-Israeli conflict either. The struggle did not end with the partial defeat of 1967, nor with the victory of 1973. Similarly, it will not be ended by inequitable or one-sided agreements. The conflict can only be resolved by a comprehensive peace agreement.
By Gamil Matar
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