Free Republic

Brainchild of the KGB As Ion Mihai Pacepa, onetime director of the Romanian espionage service (DIE), later explained, the PLO was conceived at a time when the KGB was creating “liberation front” organizations throughout the Third world. Others included the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created in 1964 with help from Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and the National Liberation Army of Colombia, created in 1965 with help from Fidel Castro. But the PLO was the KGB’s most enduring achievement. In 1964, the first PLO Council, consisting of 422 Palestinian representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Soviet blueprint for a Palestinian...

Six Days to Remember - Accurately Against a gusher of revisionist history. With the 40th anniversary of Israel's astonishing victory in the Six Day War has come a gusher of revisionist history, most of it suffused with sympathy for the Palestinians, disapproval of Israel, and indignation at the ongoing "occupation" that is said to be at the heart of the Middle East's turmoil. On the BBC website, for example, Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen's retrospective on the war - "How 1967 defined the Middle East” - begins by noting that "it took only six days for Israel to smash the...

http://www.nsa.gov/liberty/ U.S.S. Liberty What’s new? On 08 June 2007, the National Security Agency (NSA) finalized the review of all material relative to the 08 June 1967 attack on the USS Liberty. This additional release adds to the collection of documents and audio recordings and transcripts previously posted to the site on 02 July 2003. The attack on the USS Liberty, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. It is not NSA's intention to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of...

Forty years ago this month Israel's defence force dealt a fatal blow to Arab war-mongers and the Pan-Arabism of the Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Through the preceding weeks Arab preparations for a final showdown with Israel had gathered unchecked steam. Arab intent to annihilate the Jewish state was never masked following the uneasy truce reached through the UN efforts in 1949 between the two sides. But internal Arab politics as ever remained divisive, and the strident call for Arab unity by dictators in Egypt and Syria barely hid the reality of deeply entrenched quarrels within their world. An axiom...

One of the great enigmas of the modern Middle East is why, forty years ago next week, the Six-Day War took place. Neither Israel nor its Arab neighbors wanted or expected a fight in June 1967; the consensus view among historians holds that the unwanted combat resulted from a sequence of accidents.Enter Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, a wife-husband team, to challenge the accident theory and offer a plausible explanation for the causes of the war. As suggested by the title of their book, Foxbats Over Dimona: The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War (Yale University Press), they argue...

he legacy of the Six-Day War Posted By Melanie Phillips On May 29, 2007 @ 4:57 pm In Diary | Comments Disabled I attended an excellent seminar yesterday in Jerusalem, run by the estimable Shalem Centre, on the legacy of the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arabs, the 40th anniversary of which falls next week. Michael Oren, a notable historian of that war who has been mining the treasure trove of recently de-classified documents about it, related how, during the period leading up to June 1967 when attacks upon Israel were mounting, the tension in Israel became unbearable as...

U.S. had emergency plan for attacking Israel in 1967 By Amir Oren, Haaretz Correspondent For some time, the United States had had an emergency plan to attack Israel, a plan updated just prior to the 1967 war, aimed at preventing Israel from expanding westward, into Sinai, or eastward, into the West Bank. In May 1967, one of the U.S. commands was charged with the task of removing the plan from the safe, refreshing it and preparing for an order to go into action. This unknown aspect of the war was revealed in what was originally a top-secret study conducted by...

The ceremony has become a tradition ever since the liberation of the Temple Mount during the Six-Day War in 1967 and is seen as an observance of the Jewish obligation to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Temple three times a year, on Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost) and Sukkot (Tabernacles). During the weeklong Pesach and Sukkot holidays, the ceremony is held on the second of the Hol haMoed (intermediate) days. Hundreds of kohanim, Jews who trace their lineage to Aaron, the first High Priest, stood closest to the Western Wall to take part in the special blessings....

Britain's dirty secret Meirion Jones 13th March 2006 Exculsive - Secret papers show how Britain helped Israel make the A-bomb in the 1960s, supplying tons of vital chemicals including plutonium and uranium. And it looks as though Harold Wilson and his ministers knew nothing about it. By Meirion Jones Mirage jets swoop from the sky to destroy the Egyptian air force before breakfast; tanks race across the desert to the Suez Canal; Moshe Dayan, the defence minister, poses with eyepatch after the Jerusalem brigade has fought its way into the Old City. These are the heroic images of the Six...

Hello and Shalom, I was wondering what do the American poeple think about the IDF. You are now going to read the general information about teh IDF that I am posting here, and I am also going to post about two of the 5 Israeli-Arab wars; The War of Independence and the Six Days War. Therefore I must be honest and say that this is a long reading passege, and I hope you enjoy reading and find it interesting, as also I hope it will increase a lot your knowladge about Israel and the IDF. I will be glad if...

The author, a retired U.S. Army colonel, draws upon many years of firsthand observation of Arabs in training to reach conclusions about the ways in which they go into combat. His findings derive from personal experience with Arab military establishments in the capacity of U.S. military attache and security assistance officer, observer officer with the British-officered Trucial Oman Scouts (the security force in the emirates prior to the establishment of the UAE), as well as some thirty years of study of the Middle East.~ Ed. ARABIC-SPEAKING ARMIES have been generally ineffective in the modern era. Egyptian regular forces did poorly...

On the day the Kotel was liberated, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook and Rabbi David Cohen, "the Nazir", were privileged to be among the first to arrive there, together with the paratroopers who had liberated it. Rabbi Kook then stirringly proclaimed, "We have come home. We shall never leave." We all felt our spirits exalted. Motta Gur's historic cry - "The Temple Mount is in our hands!" - thrilled millions of Jews in Israel and throughout the world. During those moments, it was hard to understand why Rabbi Kook should have to cry out so forcefully, "We shall never leave." Was...

An Israeli pilot who mistakenly attacked the American intelligence ship USS Liberty during the 1967 Six Day War said they were lucky he had no bombs – otherwise he would have sunk her. "There was a mistake. Mistakes happen. As far as I know, the mistake was of the USS Liberty being there in the first place," said Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yiftah Spector. After 36 years Spector, who this week was dismissed by the IAF for signing the pilots' refusal letter protesting the policy of targeted killings, agreed to speak to a reporter for the first time on his role in...

Much propaganda is thrown against Israel in the "information war" but no subject is highlighted more than a tragic friendly-fire incident which occurred between Israel and the US almost 40 years ago. US Florida Judge Jay Cristol was responsible for having successfully petitioned the NSA to release US data confirming the accident. Cristol believes that Israel's enemies have tried to use this incident for decades to create a wedge between Washington and Jerusalem. Judge Cristol, in an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post explains what happened to the USS Liberty and discusses the relevance of the new information released by...

Transcripts of tapes released by the US National Security Agency appear to confirm Israel's contention once and for all that the sinking of the USS Liberty off the coast of the Gaza Strip by Israeli jets in June 1967 was an accident. Thirty-four Americans were killed and 171 injured in the attack on the US naval ship. Israel has always said it attacked what it thought was an Egyptian supply ship bringing supplies to Egyptian troops that Israel was battling. But Israel's detractors have continued to insist over the years that Israel deliberately targeted the ship, fearing the Americans were...

U.S. agency confirms sinking of USS Liberty was accident By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent WASHINGTON - New documents released this week by America's National Security Agency support Israel's version of a long-festering controversy between the two countries: Israel's sinking of an American spy ship, the USS Liberty, off the coast of Gaza during the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel has always said it had no idea the ship was American, but conspiracy theorists and anti-Israel propagandists still claim Israel sank the ship in the full knowledge that it was American. The documents, originally defined as top secret, were made public by...

The U.S. State Department does not recognize that the Six Day War ever occurred - or at least so it seems from a map of Israel on its website. The Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs section features a map that looks like it was printed between 1948 and 1967. Gaza is the same color as Egypt, and the area it refers to as the "West Bank" is the same color as Jordan. As opposed to the Golan Heights, clearly noted as "Israeli-occupied" (the area was annexed by Israel in the 1980's), Judea, Samaria and Gaza are clearly indicated as...

Codenamed Moked, the plan called for hitting 11 Egyptian airfields in the first wave. The planes were to take off at 7am on a carefully staggered schedule that would bring them simultaneously over airfields deep in Egypt, 45 minutes' flying time, and in nearby Sinai, 20 minutes' flying time. Total radio silence was to be maintained, even if a plane crashed en route. Only 12 planes were to be left behind to provide air defense for Israel. Within three hours, the first-wave planes were to rearm and strike again. These two blows would hopefully eliminate the Egyptian air force. "Everything...

<p>JERUSALEM -- Few people in June 1967 would have imagined that, 36 years later, controversy would still engulf the territories won by Israel in the Six-Day War. Numerous peace plans have sought to resolve the status of the West Bank and Gaza, but without success. Now, on the anniversary of that war, George W. Bush is trying again.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, Syria's attacks on Israeli kibbutzim from the Golan Heights provoked a retaliatory strike on April 7, 1967, during which Israeli planes shot down six Syrian MiGs. Shortly thereafter, the Soviet Union-which had been providing military and economic aid to both Syria and Egypt-gave Damascus information alleging a massive Israeli military buildup in preparation for an attack. Despite Israeli denials, Syria decided to invoke its defense treaty with Egypt.</p>

The 1967 Six-Day War by Mitchell Bard -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Israel consistently expressed a desire to negotiate with its neighbors. In an address to the UN General Assembly on October 10, 1960, Foreign Minister Golda Meir challenged Arab leaders to meet with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to negotiate a peace settlement. Nasser answered on October 15, saying that Israel was trying to deceive world opinion, and reiterating that his country would never recognize the Jewish State.(1) The Arabs were equally adamant in their refusal to negotiate a separate settlement for the refugees. As Nasser told the United Arab Republic National Assembly March...

DISPUTED TERRITORIES: Forgotten Facts About the West Bank and Gaza Strip February 2003 Introduction In 1967, Israel fought a desperate war of self-defense and despite dire odds, won. As a result, the Jewish State not only survived, it also came into possession of additional lands, including territory that is of vital importance to its security. The Six Day War and its consequences still affect the Middle East today. A clear understanding of how and why the territories came into Israel’s possession in 1967 and an awareness of Israel's connection to these areas are essential components of any fair and balanced...

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren (Oxford University Press, 446 pp., $30) I. Thirty-five years ago this summer, in one of the shortest wars in modern history, Israel confronted and destroyed the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, established itself as a regional superpower, and definitively re-configured the politics of the Middle East and much else besides. Since we are still living with its consequences, the Six Day War itself seems somehow familiar. Its immediacy is reinforced by the presence today at the head of Israel's government...

<p>What really happened to the United States spy ship Liberty during the Six Day War?</p> <p>Federal bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol never gave it much thought until he started dabbling in international studies at the University of Miami in 1986.</p> <p>One of his professors suggested that as a former U.S. Navy lawyer and combat flier, Cristol might be ideally suited to write about the tragic incident 19 years earlier, when an Israeli fighter jet attacked the Liberty in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula.</p>

The Six-Day War, Writes Michael Oren, Turned on Events as Trivial and Capricious as a Jordanian Envoy's Undelivered Message In the 35 years since the last shot was fired on June 11, 1967, countless journalists, politicians, diplomats and generals have tried to decipher the complex circumstances that led to the Six-Day War and its astonishing results, which radically changed the parameters of Arab-Israeli relations. There have been myriad attempts to unravel the events that brought about the greatest military victory Israel ever achieved, and the greatest humiliation the Arabs suffered, in the 100-plus years of intractable conflict. Now, in the...

In the spring of 1967, as war loomed and as Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, armed with Soviet weapons, brimmed with confidence that their combined forces could crush Israel, the Israelis themselves were experiencing a strange dichotomy in their self-image. On the one hand, they felt that with the well-trained Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) they were "militarily invincible." Yet at the same time, they saw their tiny country as "mortally vulnerable" to the threats surrounding it. Because of this complex, Israel's prime minister at the time, Levi Eshkol, called his country "Samson the nerd." But in the war that began on...

The Six Day War between Israel and its Arab enemies ended on June 10, 1967, with a massive Jewish victory that included the extension of Israeli control over the Golan Heights, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, along with the Sinai peninsula. It was just a week, but what a tremendous week it was. In a massive sweep through territories illegally occupied by Jordan for the preceding 19 years, the Jewish army returned to Judea and Samaria — the biblical heartland; Jerusalem, capital of the previous two Jewish commonwealths, was once again in Jewish hands; Jews returned to Hebron, where their...

In the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Arab states launched a surprise attack against Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Once again they tried to eliminate Israel, further motivated this time by the desire to redeem their honor after their major defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War. Though Israel was initially caught off guard, it then regrouped and repelled the Arab attack, but not before incurring heavy casualties. The war convinced the Arabs that they would not be able to destroy Israel militarily within its post-1967 boundaries. Thus they embarked upon a new three-stage strategy for...