Islamic apologist Mohammed Hijab
Part of the Christian faith is something called Just War Theory. Basically there are only certain scenarios when a Christian nation may go to war. This philosophy was largely developed by St. Augustine since there existed Christian governments at his time. It is largely based off of Biblical texts like Luke 14:31 and others.
Now, to be fair, Christian governments haven’t always followed this theory, though it has been the gold standard. The Reconquista is a good example of just war theory in action since it liberated Christian lands from an occupying foreign power. Sadly, post-1492 Spain would go on to abandon just war theory in many cases.
One thing that I’ve always noticed is that whenever unjust war is raged, people try to spin the narrative completely. Allow me to give two examples. One is modern and the other involves the Muslims in the 630s.
I read a lot of politics. I have firm political views and I’m quite opinionated about them. However, I only mention them when it directly coincides with religion as this is a religious blog. Having bad political views won’t send you to hell but wrong religious views will.
One of the things that I like to study is the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the most interesting things is the 1967 war because the results of that war laid the groundwork for the Green Line and future peace talks. We always hear people talking about the 1967 borders.
If you hear Jewish apologists for Israel talk about the 1967 war, they always talk about it being a defensive war and a fight for Israel’s survival. The truth is that the 1967 war was a war that Israel started. Israel wasn’t invaded, but did the invading.
A few days ago, American homosexual apologist Rabbi Shmuley Boteach put out an ad attacking my country of Canada for saying that goods in the West Bank can’t be labelled as Israeli goods. I won’t get into all the details here but in the ad, he says:
While Judea and Samaria were reconquered by Israel in a defensive war in 1967 – in which Arab states sought to annihilate the Jewish State – China has been brutally occupying Tibet since 1954
Why does the Rabbi and many other Jews say this? Because defensive wars are noble and virtuous whereas offensive wars are shameful and imperialistic. It was defensive, therefore justified. The Rabbi has to do this because he knows it was a shameful offensive war.
Now, let’s rewind the clock to the 630s. In the early 630s, Muhammad had died and shortly after his death, Arabia had been consolidated as a Muslim region. What happens next? The Roman and Persian empires get invaded by the newly formed Islamic Empire. This was raw naked imperialism. There is no other explanation.
Now, these are clearly unjust offensive wars. Neither of these empires attacked the Arabian peninsula or threatened to attack Arabia, even according to Muslim sources. They had actually just finished a war with each other that had lasted a quarter century. This war had been started by the Persians invading though Khosrow II likewise had a pathetic and shameful excuse to try and justify it.
At this point, you can go to any Muslim website and they’ll make up stories of Byzantine and Persian aggression and nonsense about them posing a danger to Arabia. Why do they make up this nonsense? Because if you’re going to fight an offensive war of aggression, you’d better have a pretty good cause and like the Israelis of the 1960s, the Muslims of the 630s didn’t have one.
The truth is that modern day Muslims are ashamed of these imperialistic endeavours so they have to justify them through lies. Remember when David Wood debated Muhammad Hijab and a question came up about Islam spreading by the sword. Hijab essentially yelled a bunch of nonsense at the questioner and said that Islam spread organically. Muhammad Hijab is Egyptian. I wonder what he would have said if an Israeli tried to talk about Israel spreading organically in 1967 when it attacked Egypt and took control of the Gaza Strip and Sinai by force.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
– Isaiah 5:20
Hi Allan,
I am not an apologist for Israel and I recognize that many crimes have been committed by the state of Israel. I want a Palestinian state on roughly the 1967 borders and a shared Jerusalem, if no better solution can be found.
The way I see the war in 1967, though, is more complex than aggressive/defensive war. Even if someone might push either narrative. Yes, Israel fired the first shot. No book of history says otherwise. Israel bore a huge part of the responsibility for the events that lead to the war to begin with (e.g., Samua, dog fights over Damascus). No book of history says otherwise. Not even Michael Oren’s book on the subject. But particularly Egypt also bore a huge part of the responsibility too, by placing huge amounts of troops in the Sinai and to a lesser extent in Jordan. Israeli prime minister at the time, Levi Eshkol, attempted to the best of his ability to avert a war, which neither he nor Nasser, the Egyptian president at the time, wanted but did not succeed.
In the end the Israeli felt they could not live with the “siege” around it borders (males were drafted indefinitely, causing a dire financial situation) and had to break it. The Israeli military establishment certainly had a better appraisal of the real balance of power than the world knew. And the military certainly took advantage of the situation, for example stalling the eventual ceasefire.
The Russians too played had a part of it, unfortunately, their part has not yet been as extensively studied.
As I see it all the players ultimately bore part of the responsibility for the war in 1967, regardless of who fired the first shot. Rabbi Boteach’s view reflects a popular Israeli narrative, that does not well represent the facts. Even many Israelis are critical of this popular narrative.
There were certainly shameful aggressive elements to the war itself and to the events leading up to the war. However, once the situation escalated, the Israeli political leadership tried to avoid the war they themselves had created to a large extent (they had failed to keep the military in a tight enough leash tough). Despite all of these faults, it should also be clear that Israel could not afford to have all those armies amassed at its borders and be in a perpetual state of full mobilization. And so they decided to go on the attack.
Hi Samuel,
Thanks for commenting on the blog. Are you Israeli by chance?
God bless,
Allan
No, I am not Israeli. Why?
BTW just wanted to let you know that I just found your blog and I like it – many interesting articles.
I just thought you might be.
Thank you for taking an interest in my blog. You’re always welcome to comment.
God bless
Allan
Hi Allan
Thanks, I was however curious to know your thinking of the war in 1967 as an offensive war.
And to just add another point. For the “ordinary” Israelis at the time, who lived to tell the tale the war was a defensive war forced upon them. The genuinely feared annihilation and that is the story, I suppose, they transmitted. Granted, more cool-headed academics and the military historians interpret tell a different story.
Conversely, prior to the war itself, many ordinary Egyptians had no qualms of going to an offensive war. And the initial reports of success they received from their leadership, did not weaken this conviction.
I am not taking or defending particular sides. I am just trying to think how the idea of a “defensive” war was created in the “popular” thinking.
Hi Sam,
This isn’t a political blog so I don’t want to get into a conversation about this. Not to mentioned the post isn’t even on that, but I suppose I used the analogy so I’ll answer. According to Miko Peled and Ilan Pappe, there was no threat of an Egyptian invasion. They said that they were nowhere near prepared for a war. Miko Peled’s dad was a general during the war and Pappe is an Israeli historian. This war gave them several new pieces of land in every direction and to this day, they haven’t given all of it back yet. I recommend reading Peled’s biography and Pappe’s book on the West Bank.
God bless,
Allan
Thanks for your answer. So let me briefly repeat my original point.
The historians agree that at the time the Israeli army and intelligence had appraised that the Egyptian were not ready for an attack. However, this does not mean that they posed no threat or that the Israeli’s could just sit back, when Egypt flooded Sinai and Gaza with soldiers. The Israeli’s had to mobilize. And then they waited. It was actually Miko Peled’s dad, gen. Mattityahu Peled, who at the time argued that Israel could not continue to afford to be massively mobilized (he is quoted from the transcripts I don’t recall in either Peled’s book or Tom Segev’s book).
Also, even the Israeli military and political elite, who had a better appraisal of the situation, clearly felt uncomfortable. As you know, the chief of Staff, Rabin, had a nervous breakdown. Perhaps not so much out fear of the end result, but because he realized that it was the military’s fault – and so ultimately his responsibility – that the country was dragged into a war nobody wanted.
So, in their thinking they had to strike first. In addition, they feared the involvement of the Russians, they were not sure that they would get to keep conquered territory as Moshe Dayan, the defense minister, knew firsthand from 1956, when in an unexpected “alliance” the Russians and Americans agreed to force Israel to withdraw from the Sini. There were many unknowns. Certainly, the Israeli’s took advantage of the situation once the war was underway. It was not, however, really planned from the beginning.
I dont know if we disagree, but my very simple point is that it would perhaps be more helpful to think of the war in 1967 in a more nuanced way rather than see it simply in terms of an aggressive/defensive war.
Interesting points. You seem to say that there were many factors in play and it was a decision arrived at based on these factors.
” It was not, however, really planned from the beginning.”
Have you read Pappe’s book on the West bank? He talks about how Israelis were talking about the annexation of the West Bank shortly after the war of independence. Now, the specific attack wasn’t planned until the weeks before the war but Pappe quotes many Zionist leaders which show that they had their eye on the West Bank and had for a long time.
Yes, the way I see it many factors contributed to the final decision to go to war.
Yes, I don’t think there is any disagreement on this point. Many Israeli leaders coveted the West Bank and many of those who had fought in 1948 were also senior leaders in 1967. They saw it as an open wound, “a job to be finished”. The military had all kind of plans prepared, that might come into play at an opportune moment, in which they could conquer land. To balance the picture I think Tom Segev, says that an Israeli investigation prior to the war concluded that conquering the West Bank would not be good for Israel.
However this may be, the Israeli political leadership, in my view did, the responsible thing and tried to avoid the war by diplomatic means. In contrast, the military wanted to go to war and get it over with. They thought the sooner they got to it the easier they could score a decisive win at a low cost, militarily speaking. I can think of a few examples.
The military was so tired of the Israeli government not wanting to go to war, exploring other options, that general Sharon, perhaps tongue in check, said this was a situation in witch a putsch might be possible or even desirable.
On the morning when the war broke out Israeli prime minister Eshkol sent a letter to Jordan’s king Hussein, saying that if he did not attack Israel he would not be attacked by Israel. I think the letter was not delivered promptly and so the war was on. Since, however, Jordan had entered a defense pact with Egypt, shortly before the war, Hussein was not free to stay out and so war it was. But it simply shows that the Israeli political establishment was not interested in a conflict with Jordan, even on the eve of the war.
Why did the Israelis nevertheless choose to annex the West Bank? Well that is a related but different story.
All the best
Interesting. I wasn’t aware of the friction between the military and government at the time. I’ll have to look into that. It makes sense though. I know that Ben Gurion wanted to give the West Bank back but keep East Jerusalem.
Anyways, thanks for sharing. If you have any books on the topic that you’d like to recommend, feel free. I don’t blog about this topic but I like researching it.
God bless,
Allan
If I remember correctly Tom Segev’s book on the 1967 war quotes quite liberally from the transcripts of the security cabinet meetings. I should certainly hope that any book on the 1967 war would at least touch on this aspect. Just out of curiosity, which books have you read that on the 1967 war that did not discuss this issue?
Just read a few more of you articles – keep up the good work!
I haven’t read any book specifically on the 67 war. Pappe’s book is about the attitude of the Israelis after 48 to 67 then the development of the West Bank settlements under Yigal Allon. The 67 war was talked about briefly but those details not mentioned as it wasn’t the topic of the book.