324 • 17 ISRAEL'S REBIRTH AND THE RISE OF ARAB NATIONALISMradical wing of the Ba'th Party. Most of the new leaders belonged to a mys¬
terious minority, the Alawi religious sect, many of whose members had
joined the Syrian officer corps to advance themselves socially. Hoping to
win over the Sunni majority in Syria, these young Alawi officers took pains
to uphold the principles of Arabism and hence those of the struggle
against Israel. By this time Nasir had realized that his army, still bogged
down in Yemen's civil war, would not be ready to fight against Israel for a
long time. Egypt's relations with Washington had sunk to a new low after
its air force shot down a US civilian plane and President Lyndon Johnson
cut off surplus wheat sales. The USSR still backed Nasir but withheld the
offensive weapons he needed to attack Israel. Nasir hoped to restrain
Syria's new leaders from drawing Egypt into another war by making a mil¬
itary alliance with them.
This was a serious miscalculation. In April 1967 Syrian planes got into a
dogfight with the Israelis and came out a poor second. Eshkol warned Syria
that Israel would retaliate unless it stopped firing on Israeli settlements
near its borders. In early May the Soviets told Nasir that Israel was massing
troops in its north for a preemptive attack on Syria. Egypt called up its re¬
serves, routed tanks through Egypt's cities and into the Sinai, and made
threats against Israel. Nasir may have been bluffing to impress Syria, but no
one thought so at the time. For months, his rivals, especially the Saudis,
had taunted him for hiding behind UNEF in Gaza and Sinai. On 16 May
Nasir asked the United Nations to withdraw some of its peacekeeping
units. Secretary-General U Thant promptly pulled out all UN forces (to
Nasir's amazement), without even consulting the Security Council. Once
UNEF had evacuated all the key points in Gaza and Sinai, Egyptian mili¬
tary units moved in. Among the strategic points they occupied was Sharm
al-Shaykh, from which they renewed the Arab blockade against Israeli
shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba. Nasir's prestige soared again through¬
out the Arab world.
This blockade has come to be seen by Israel and its supporters as the
main cause of the ensuing war of June 1967. Israel argued that it could not
allow its trade from Eilat (important in asserting ties with South Asia and
East Africa, though minor compared with its Mediterranean trade) to be
hampered in this way. Besides, as Arab newspapers and radio stations were
openly calling for a war to destroy the Jewish state, the Israelis could hardly
assume that the Arab governments would stop at blockading the Gulf of
Aqaba. But what should they do? Their passage through the Tiran Straits
had been guaranteed by the Western powers. The US government, mired in
the Vietnam War, counseled caution. The European governments, realizing