Haaretz

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Israel's Oldest News Source, Since 1918.

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SOLUTION TO HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN JORDAN REMAINS ELUSIVE
-Hodaya Levinson, Tel Aviv, 7 January 1971


A Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan.

With the total number of refugees in Jordan exceeding one million at the start of the decade - thanks to population growth and further evacuation of the West Bank following the war in 1967 - and Palestinians now outnumbering Jordanians in their own country, it is not difficult to see why tensions have been flaring. While the Palestinians in Jordan were granted full rights and Jordanian citizenship by King Hussein in 1951, and the King is doing his best to integrate them into his nation, not all have - or can - take up the opportunities that this affords. Many hundreds of thousands still reside in refugee camps, with few ways out - and with Arab governments refusing to send aid to the refugees, or to allow them to settle in their nations and make new lives elsewhere, the burden has fallen almost entirely upon the Kingdom of Jordan. A humanitarian tragedy is occurring, just a few miles from our own borders.

But it was not only peaceful citizens who arrived in Jordan. Multiple armed groups, supported and armed by the Syrian and Egyptian governments, soon sprang up in the refugee camps - essentially declaring themselves a state within a state, and starting conflicts with the Jordanian authorities, making it even harder for King Hussein and his government to provide aid, or integrate the peaceful majority into his country. Militants, taking advantage of the concentration of human misery, began a protection racket over the refugee population, seizing control of the camps, setting up armed checkpoints, murdering Jordanian government officials and law enforcement officers by firing upon them on sight when they approach the camps, and ensured that access is denied to humanitarian aid - even basic necessities such as food - for all but their supporters. Anarchy did not reign in the camps, but the rule by fear and the barrel of the gun, with armed militias roaming the tented streets, making repeated attacks across the border into Israel to kidnap and slaughter civilians.


Palestinian militants seizing control of a refugee camp headquarters in Ibrid.

As time went on into the new decade, these militant groups were even able to take effective control of major Jordanian towns and cities, such as Amman. Despite his efforts, King Hussein has experienced several failed assassination attempts, as efforts by the militants to destabilise the country continue. With the terrorists expanding their campaign to the taking of foreign - including Israeli - hostages, bombings, and the hijacking of airliners, and having exhausted all other options, the Jordanian army could no longer allow the militants to provide a haven for these activities. Thus began the events now dubbed 'Black September' - on the 16th, Jordanian government forces moved to restore control of six refugee camps and the city of Amman, finding initial success in restoring order and defeating the armed groups that opposed them.

However, two hundred Syrian tanks soon crossed the border south into Jordan, their Syrian insignia hastily painted over and replaced with the symbols of terrorist groups. An undeclared war began, causing the mobilisation of the Israel Defence Force and the despatch of aircraft carriers by both the United States and the United Kingdom, in case the conflict flared up. Four days of hard fighting later, the Syrian invasion was beaten back by the Jordanian forces, with over 20,000 militants - including Chinese military advisors - captured by the Jordanians, and more than three hundred and sixty armed camps dismantled at the time of the ceasefire. In an effort to ease tensions, King Hussein subsequently appointed Ahmad Toukan, a Palestinian, as his Prime Minister, instructing him to "bandage the wounds". With the continuation of terrorist actions in Jordan and elsewhere, however, this goal remains unachieved.


King Hussein at the signing of the ceasefire with Palestinian militant leader Arafat and President Nasser of Egypt.

Today, an uneasy peace lies over Jordan, and the Middle East as a whole. The humanitarian crisis in Jordan remains as extreme as ever, and we, at Haaretz, wonder what it will take - if not the tragedy of the refugee camps and their descent into terrorist control - for the world to take notice of the terrible events that certain Arab governments are fostering and encouraging, in the pursuit of narrow self-interest and an aggressive ideology, and for our own government to take measures to ensure that we create an Israel that all law-abiding people, Israeli or Arab, Jewish or Muslim, can feel safe in, avoiding further refugee crises in the future. Tensions remain high - and as the events of Black September have shown, until states in the region are willing to pursue the path of peace and negotiation - rather than supporting militant groups to destabilise their regional rivals - then a just and fair settlement for a tranquil Levant will remain out of the grasp of all peoples.

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ALIGNMENT ANNOUNCES CREATION OF NEW DEVELOPMENTS TO INTEGRATE SOVIET REFUGEES
Esau Iskowitch, Tel Aviv, 8 August 1971

In what some are terming as a Sixth Aliyah, an unexpected wave of new olim, largely from the Soviet Union, have begun arriving at our nation's borders in large numbers - bringing with them tales of the persecution that they have encountered, on the basis of their ethnicity and religion, in a nation which claims to accept both without discrimination. The Ma'abarot, which have not been seen for nearly a decade, are beginning to re-open, the temporary cabins, huts, tents and other military-style accomodation springing up. Conditions, now, are certainly better than when many of us arrived in the Promised Land, with sanitation facilities and reliable food and medical supplies already available, being provided by the Defence Force and the Interior Ministry. Nevertheless, the new arrivals cannot remain in these conditions forever, or for long, as the flow does not seem likely to dry up any time soon.


New shikunim being constructed in Negev under the recently-announced Salach Programme.

The Minister for the Interior, Yosef Burg, is well-aware of the problem - not least due to the queue of skilled professionals outside the Ministry, seeking assistance in finding appropriate positions for their skills. Burg's Salach Programme, however, recently proposed in and passed by the Knesset, aims to address this problem. The plan calls for a massive expansion of the remit and funding of the state-owned Amidar housing construction company, with a mandate for the construction of social housing - in order to avoid the problems of securing sufficient or affordable private accomodation for the new refugees that dogged many of the arrivals in the last decade. In addition, a national skills registry under the Interior Ministry is to be established, in order to document the qualifications and experience of our population and match employers and citizens together.


New Israelis of Ukrainian descent making themselves at home in a recently-constructed shikunim project in Galilee.

Similarly, in order to make room for the expanding population, the areas of Lachish, Ashkelon, Negev and Galilee have been declared Development Regions, with planning permission for construction of new Development Towns being expedited so long as the new constructions are built to recognised, pre-approved designs and town plans. This expansion of Amidar also serves the dual purpose of providing employment to those olim workers who have recently arrived in our land, taking on those who have the relevant skills into their old jobs and training others, as necessary, through an in-work apprenticeship system. It is hoped that these apprenticeships will be expanded to all areas of the productive economy by this time next year, but for now, such opportunities are limited to Amidar only, plus those private companies that seek to take advantage of the new influx of labour.

Economically conservative opposition parties in the Knesset have criticised Burg's proposal, and more broadly, the Labour Party's spending policy, citing the huge costs to the taxpayer on top of the costs of the country's defence, the lack of explicit opportunities for private involvement in the construction of these Development Regions, and the rapid way in which the Salach Programme was pushed through the legislature as a swift response to the refugee situation, with little opportunity for extensive consultation or debate. What all agree on, however, is that the State of Israel cannot sit back and simply do nothing as more and more Jewish refugees come within its borders under the Law of Return.

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5TH ANNIVERSARY OF VICTORY IN THE SIX-DAY WAR
Lital Woolf, Tel Aviv, 5 June 1972

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Six-Day War - the conflict which saw the decisive defeat of the Arab invasion forces, returned Jerusalem into the hands of Israel, and secured our national borders, all in the space of under a week, and while Israel was outnumbered more than 5:1 in infantry, 4:1 in combat aircraft and 2.5:1 in tanks and armoured vehicles. Other than reports of informal gatherings, dinners and parties being planned among some off-duty members of the Defence Force and veterans from the conflict, however, reaction has been muted, and business has continued as usual throughout the Land of Israel. Today, however, Haaretz wishes to pay homage to those who kept us safe from aggression through their courage and skill, by discussing the two most prominent branches of the Defence Force: The Armoured Corps and the Air Force, who, between them, played the largest role in defending our nation and secured victory.


Israeli tankers mount their Sho't main battle tanks during the call to arms.

The supremacy of the tank in desert warfare was a lesson learned in the Western Desert campaigns of the Second World War, by the veterans who would later become the Jewish Brigade in the British Army. In the Israel Defence Forces, there is a saying: "האדם שבטנק ינצח" ("The man in the tank wins.") This was never more true than in the Six-Day War, where this adage was proven so decisively that it was adopted as the motto of the Israeli Armoured Corps. While the Arab forces deployed many of their tanks and armoured vehicles spread-out, in support of their infantry and to boost their morale, the Defence Force organised its entire tank force into nine armoured brigades. Despite being heavily outnumbered overall, these tank brigades were able to concentrate their firepower in a small area, destroying or routing one Arab unit after another in brief, rapid battles - a classic example of force concentration and the schwerpunkt doctrine. With their protecting tanks destroyed, and the Arab lines penetrated in multiple locations, the result was a disaster, with the air battle of the previous day meaning that the invasion forces had no alternative but to rout back to their own territories.


A Vautour strike aircraft passing over an Armoured Corps tank column on its way to provide close air support against Egyptian armour.

The result on the ground was not only due to tactical doctrine, but in the wider doctrinal and structural differences between the Israeli and Arab forces. The Israel Defence Forces' reserve system, in which every citizen is expected to serve equally and be available for the defence of the country, allows for the raising of a large force when attacked, but a demobilisation and a return to civilian life in peacetime, allows for the creation of a professional, merit-based officer corps, and an army in which every man and woman knows that he or she is fighting for his nation and his family's security and survival. By strongly keeping a policy of "no-one left behind", a powerful bond of espirit de corps is proudly shared, and individual initiative and courage are not only permitted, but expected.


An Egyptian tank crewman lies dead near his destroyed T-34/85 medium tank, at Um-Katef. Many thousands of unfortunate Arab conscripts suffered the same fate, forced to lay down their lives for the ideological objectives of distant dictators.

Arab forces relied - and continue to rely - upon a mass standing army of conscripts, often poorly-educated and partly illiterate, as those who served in the rank-and-file were those who lacked the money or influence to bribe their way out of military service. The officer corps, by contrast, are largely selected on the basis of their political loyalty to the leadership and ideological purity to the cause of pan-Arabism, with social and wealth requirements to be commissioned. Such a military doctrine was suited to the mass combat of the First World War, but is utterly inadequate in the face of modern maneuver warfare. Indeed, such was the contempt for the common Arab soldier and his sacrifice among the Arab leadership that President Nasser is even rumoured to have ordered the Republican Guard to fire upon retreating Egyptian soldiers, to prevent them spreading the news of the catastrophic defeat of the assembling invasion force in the Sinai.


A flight of Shahak interceptors on patrol over Galilee during the war. Such was the military threat to Israel that only a single squadron could be retained to intercept Arab air attacks against the civilian population.

Meanwhile, the actions of the Air Force in 'Operation Moked' are so legendary across the globe that they do not even require a great degree of description. In response to the invasion preparations, the Israeli Air Force - severely outnumbered - was able to launch three air raids in a single day, in extremely quick turnaround, with each aircraft being fully refuelled and re-armed in an average of seven and a half minutes from landing to returning to the air. In the first wave launched at 7:45 am, 11 airfields were attacked by 183 Israeli aircraft, during which 197 Egyptian aircraft and 8 radar stations were destroyed. During the second wave, launched at 9:30 am, 16 airfields were attacked and 107 Egyptian aircraft were destroyed; while two Syrian fighters that had managed to get into the air were destroyed in aerial combat. By the time the third wave lifted off at 12.15pm, the Egyptian Air Force had effectively ceased to exist, and the strikes moved to the near-complete neutralisation of the Syrian and Jordanian air forces. In total, 452 Arab aircraft were destroyed, for the loss of 46 aircraft and 24 pilots from the Israeli Air Force - a success ratio of nearly ten to one, while facing numerical odds of more than four to one against. This allowed the Air Force to devote its full attention to the support of the Armoured Corps, destroying the Arab armoured divisions and blunting their attack through close air support and logistical strikes, closely interoperating between branches.


A destroyed Soviet-made MiG-15 fighter of the Egyptian Air Force.

Overall, there is no reason to believe that the close co-operation between the Armoured Corps and the Air Force, each with their own brand of valour and martial skill, will not continue bringing victory in battle and keep our nation safe from attack in the future. As Yitzhak Rabin said of the war: "Our airmen, who struck the enemies' planes so accurately that no one in the world understands how it was done and people seek technological explanations or secret weapons; our armoured troops who beat the enemy even when their equipment was inferior to his; our soldiers in all other branches, who overcame our enemies everywhere, despite the latter's superior numbers and fortifications - all these revealed not only coolness and courage in the battle but an understanding that only their personal stand against the greatest dangers would achieve victory for their country and for their families, and that if victory was not theirs the alternative was annihilation." This was the true test of not only our military doctrine and tactics, but of the courage of our citizens-in-arms, and since the war, all the world now knows that Israel lacks neither.

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THE ARAB COMMONWEALTH: A STEP BACKWARDS FOR PEACE?
-Hodaya Levinson, Tel Aviv, 7 February 1972

It is said, by many, that regional co-operation is the future. Genuine and successful efforts towards regional peace and goodwill, like the European Economic Community, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, rightfully bring hope to many that their regions can lift themselves out from the shadow of conflict and into the sunlit plateau of peace and prosperity. The Arab League, too, was founded with these lofty goals in mind; but from its very inception, it has been a flawed project, bound not by geography or shared interests, but by theories of race and ethnicity, and of promoting the interests not of all peoples in a region, but establishing the dominance of one race and culture, at the expense of all others. Swiftly, peaceful goals were overtaken by a political agenda - and, indeed, the rejection of peace at any cost, with an Arab League invasion in 1948 successfully derailing the peace process between Israel and Transjordan and disrupting the work of the United Nations. Since then, its policy has been directed not to improving the lives of its people, but to directing the League's national resources and objectives into attacks of all kinds - military, political, economic, even criminal - against Israel.

The recent declaration of the Arab Commonwealth is much the same as the Arab League, though smaller in nature, and with a greater degree of integration. In this way, it more closely resembles the short-lived union between Egypt and Syria, the United Arab Republic. It has the same goals as the League, but seems to make the citizens of its members even less able to choose their own destiny - tying them to a unified military and foreign policy, regardless of their own interests. In the case of the United Arab Republic, Nasser inevitably used it to expand his own power and politics at the expense of Syria, placing his own cronies in key positions and abusing Egypt's place as the larger partner - and one suspects that the new Arab Commonwealth under Sadat will be much the same. When a smaller project between two nations, both purporting to share the same common interests and ideology, lasted only a matter of three years, what hope does the much more ambitious Arab Commonwealth possess?


The 1964 Arab League Summit in Cairo, which called for the 'liquidation of Israel' in its closing statement of intent.

"The establishment of Israel is the basic threat that the Arab nation in its entirety has agreed to forestall. And Since the existence of Israel is a danger that threatens the Arab nation... Accordingly, the Arab states have to prepare the plans necessary for dealing with the political, economic and social aspects, so that if necessary results are not achieved, collective Arab military preparations, when they are not completed, will constitute the ultimate practical means for the final liquidation of Israel."

It is difficult, therefore, to see the new Arab Commonwealth - an entity which, in its very charter, declares its adherence to the aggressive, warlike principles of the Khartoum Resolution - as anything more than more of the same, and a repetition of the present failures of the Arab League, as well as the failures of the United Arab Republic in the past. Even if, G-d forbid, the Arab Commonwealth should achieve its hateful aims, and complete the genocide it seeks, what will happen then? It seems likely that it would immediately dissolve into bickering and infighting, even civil war, absent the manufactured external threat and scape-goat which tenuously binds it together. For the Arab League and the Arab Commonwealth, no matter their other words, do not exist to serve the interests of the Arab people - they are there only to serve the tyrants, and maintain their power and strength. Perhaps, in time, the Arab states will learn that co-operation based solely on hatred, of a policy of being together only to inflict harm upon what is falsely believed to be a common enemy, cannot be sustainable, nor will such a negative world-view bring themselves or their people anything but hardship and anguish.

Regional co-operation may be the key to a peaceful future - but it must be truly regional, irrespective of boundaries of race or religion, and dedicated to the promotion of prosperity and security for all. The Arab League, and the new Arab Commonwealth, fall at the first hurdle - and as such, represent a step backward for the Middle East.