When Gamal Abdel Nasser Invited Disaster Upon Himself
In the runup to the Six Day War (June 5th – 10th, 1967), tensions between Israel and her Arab neighbors climbed steadily. Raids from Palestinian guerrillas based in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, increased, and elicited massive Israeli reprisals. That put Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in a bind. He was the Arab world’s most popular politician, a hero of the masses for his defiance of Britain, France, and Israel in the Suez Crisis of 1956. Now, however, he was criticized for his failure to aid those Arab states against Israel. He was also accused of hiding behind a UN peacekeeping force stationed on the Israeli-Egyptian border.
Nasser knew that the Egyptian military was in no shape to fight Israel. However, he sought to regain his stature in the Arab world by bluster and bluff. He broadcast increasingly heated speeches that threatened Israel, and sought to convey his seriousness with demonstrations short of war. Nasser got carried away with his own rhetoric, however, and escalated the demonstrations beyond the point of prudence. He massed Egyptian forces in the Sinai. A few days later, he requested withdrawal of the UN peacekeepers who separated the Israeli and Egyptian forces. A few more days, and he closed to Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli ships. A week later, Jordan’s king arrived in Egypt to ink a mutual defense pact. The Iraqis did the same soon thereafter.
