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UNEF, the Secretary-General, and International Diplomacy in the Third Arab-Israeli War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Yashpal Tandon
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Extract

The third Arab-Israeli war, June 5–10, 1967, has been variously described as the first major conventional war between a modern state and a not-yet-modern society, as an instance of Western imperial aggression by proxy, or as a tragic ritual of the ineluctable Middle Eastern war game. Some analysts see it is as a prelude to a Vietnam-style people's war of liberation or even a nuclear war, those more optimistic as an end to all war in the Middle East. The third Arab-Israeli war is thus likely to be studied with interest by historians, strategists, military sociologists, political scientists, and even by armaments sellers.

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Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , Spring 1968 , pp. 529 - 556
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1968

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References

1 For a good description of this voluntaristic and nonsanctions character of UNEF see the report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Emergency Force in UN Document A/6672, July 12, 1967, pp. 8–9.

2 What the three invading powers had envisaged was a kind of UN force that would temporarily occupy the Egyptian territory from which they were asked to withdraw until the desirable political concessions were extracted from Egypt. See Rosner, Gabriella, The United Nations Emergency Force (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), pp. 31–32Google Scholar.

3 See the “Summary study of the experience derived from the establishment and operation of the Force” (General Assembly Official Records…Annexes [13th session], Agenda item 65 [UN Document A/3943, 10 9, 1958], pp. 8–33Google Scholar [hereinafter cited as “Summary study of UNEF”]), paragraph 158.

4 See the aide-mémoire in the annex to UN Document A/3375, November 20, 1956 (General Assembly Official Records…Annexes [11th session], Agenda item 66, pp. 9–10Google Scholar [hereinafter cited as “Aidemémoire”]).

5 The text of the memorandum can be found in International Legal Materials, 1968 (Vol. 6), pp. 593–603Google Scholar. The memorandum was written on August 5, 1957, and left with a prominent American attorney, Ernest A. Gross. It was published for the first time in The New York Times on June 19, 1967, p. 12. Its publication, almost ten years after Hammarskjöld had written it and at a time when the Secretary-General was in the midst of public criticism, was condemned by U Thant as raising questions of “ethics and good faith.” (See The New York Times, June 20, 1967, pp. 1, 19.) Mr. Gross seems, however, to have discussed it in his book The United Nations: Structure for Peace (New York: Harper and Brothers [for the Council on Foreign Relations], 1962), pp. 31–34Google Scholar. It is curious why he did not earlier make public a memorandum of obvious international interest.

6 Sec footnote 3 above.

7 See “Aide-mémoire,” p. 10. General Assembly Resolution 1000 (ES-I) established

a United Nations Command for an emergency international Force to secure and supervise the cessation of hostilities in accordance with all the terms of resolution 997 (ES-I) of the General Assembly of 2 November 1956.

Resolution 997 (ES-I) had urged

that all parties now involved in hostilities in the area agree to an immediate cease-fire and, as part thereof, halt the movement of military forces and arms into the area;…

and had urged Egypt and Israel

prompdy to withdraw all forces behind the armistice lines, to desist from raids across the armistice lines into neighbouring territory, and to observe scrupulously the provisions of the armistice agreements;…

Dag Hammarskjöld defined the immediate functions of UNEF under resolutions of November 2 and 5, 1956, as:

to enter Egyptian territory with the consent of the Egyptian Government, in order to help maintain quiet during and after the withdrawal of non-Egyptian troops, and to secure compliance with the other terms established in the resolution of 2 November 1956.

(United Nations Document A/3302, November 6, 1956, contained in General Assembly Official Records…Annexes [1st emergency special session], Agenda item 5, p. 21.)Google Scholar However, it was not until much later, that is, on February 2, 1957, that UNEF was specifically asked to supervise the observance by Egypt and Israel of the armistice agreements.

8 In fact, this interpretation of Egypt's obligations that it implicitly assumed by accepting the goodfaith accord is not very different from the obligations that Hammarskjöld claimed in his private memorandum Egypt had explicitly accepted in their conversations of November 1956.

9 “Summary study of UNEF,” paragraph 158.

10 Rosner, pp. 86–87.

11 General Assembly Resolution 1125 (XI), February 2, 1957.

12 Press statement by the Secretary-General on June 19, 1967. See The New York Times, June 20, 1967, p. 19.

13 UN Document A/6669, May 18, 1967, p. 4.

14 As a matter of fact, Brigadier Eiz-El-Din Mokhtar, who handed General Fawzi's letter to the UNEF Commander, told General Rikhye at the time that he must order the immediate withdrawal of UN troops from El Sabha and Sharm el Sheikh. See UN Document A/6730/Add.3, June 26, 1967, paragraph 5.

15 The request for withdrawal should have been made to the Secretary-General and not to the UNEF Commander.

16 UN Document A/6730, June 26, 1967, pp. 4–5.

17 As has been suggested by some, for instance, by Greenfield, Meg, “A Story of Forty-Eight Hours,’ The Reporter, 06 15, 1968 (Vol. 36, No. 12), pp. 19–21Google Scholar.

18 One must distinguish between forcibly resisting the actual withdrawal of UNEF, which the UN could not do, and resisting the idea of UNEF's withdrawal.

19 UN Document A/6730/Add.3, paragraph 11.

20 General Assembly Resolution 1001 (ES-I), November 7, 1956, operative paragraph 9.

21 UN Document A/6730/Add.3, paragraphs 10–14. None of the reports of the Secretary-General mentions India and Yugoslavia by name although from the positions that the two states took in the Security Council debate on the question of UNEF's withdrawal these would appear to be the two states in question. One might add that neither of them actually asked its troops in Egypt to withdraw. What they might have done had not the Secretary-General taken the withdrawal decision is debatable.

22 Indeed the relations between Egypt and Canada were particularly strained. On May 27, 1967, the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs wrote to the Secretary-General:

“I have the honour to bring to your attention a serious and grave situation resulting from the regrettable attitude of the Government of Canada, in connexion with the United Nations forces.…

“In view of these serious acts and in the light of the present situation in the Middle East, and desirous to prevent any probable reaction from the people of the United Arab Republic against the Canadian forces in UNEF, which may have undesirable reflection on the United Nations forces as a whole, [sic] I urge you to order the complete withdrawal and departure of the Canadian forces immediately, and not later than forty-eight hours from the time my cable reaches you.”

(UN Document A/6672, p. 23.)

23 UN Document A/6730/Add.3, paragraph 21.

24 See note 5 above.

25 UN Document A/3563, February 26, 1957, contained in General Assembly Official Records…Annexes (11th session), Agenda item 66, p. 71Google Scholar.

26 UN Document A/6730/Add.3, paragraph 13.

27 However, see Tandon, Yashpal, “Consensus and Authority Behind United Nations Peacekeeping Operations,” International Organization, Spring 1968 (Vol. 21, No. 2), pp. 267–276Google Scholar.

28 UN Document A/6730/Add.3, paragraph 42.

29 UN Document A/PV.1528, June 20, 1967, p. 33.

30 UN Document A/PV.1526, June 19, 1967, p. 38.

31 See Brown, Neville, “The Third Arab-Israeli War,” World Today, 07 1968 (Vol. 23, No. 7), p. 269Google Scholar.

32 UN Document A/6672, paragraph 29.

33 UN Document A/6730/Add.3, paragraph 8.

34 For an excellent review of the third Arab-Israeli war see Howard, Michael and Hunter, Robert, “Israel and the Arab World: The Crisis of 1967,” Adelphi Papers, 10 1968 (No. 41)Google Scholar; and Draper, Theodore, “Israel and World Politics,” Commentary, 08 1968 (Vol. 44, No. 2), pp. 19–48Google Scholar. A good concise account of inter-Arab relations and their relevance to die origins of the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 is given in Kerr, Malcolm, The Arab Cold War, 1958–1967 (New York: Oxford University Press [for the Royal Institute of International Affairs], 1968)Google Scholar.

35 Quoted in Draper, , Commentary, Vol. 44, No. 2, p. 31Google Scholar.

36 Quoted in Howard, and Hunter, , Adelphi Papers, No. 41, p. 19Google Scholar.

37 UN Document S/7906, May 26, 1967, paragraph 9.

38 Howard, and Hunter, , Adelphi Papers, No. 41, p. 28Google Scholar.

39 UN Document S/PV.1342, May 24, 1967, p. 27.

40 See “Sources of conflict in the Middle East,” Adelphi Papers, 03 1966 (No. 26)Google Scholar, for an analysis of great-power interests in the Middle East.

41 See Draper, , Commentary, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 31–32Google Scholar.

42 See The New York Times, June 11, 1967. What the Soviet Union might have promised the Arabs, on the other hand, was to help to neutralize possible United States intervention on behalf of Israel.

43 Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Debates (House of Commons), 05 31–June 9, 1968 (5th series, Vol. 747), col. 206Google Scholar.

44 See Draper, , Commentary, Vol. 44, No. 2, p. 39Google Scholar.

45 UN Document A/6672, paragraph 2.

46 The office of the Secretary-General's Special Representative was created under Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) of November 22, 1967. The resolution asked the Secretary-General's Representative

to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance widi die provisions and principles in this resolution.

Among die provisions and principles mentioned were: withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from occupied territory, termination of a state of belligerency, respect for the sovereignty of all states, freedom of navigation through international waterways, and a just setdement of the refugee problem.

47 UN Document A/6672, paragraph 24.