Palestinian immigration Israel: Encyclopedia II - Palestinian immigration Israel - Arab governmental responsibility

Palestinian immigration Israel - Arab governmental responsibility

The Israeli government has accused the Arab governments of supporting and sponsoring the infiltrations, as a means to bring about the collapse of the recently created Israel. The Egyptian formal adoption of the Fedayeen in 1954 seems to support this claim; moreover, Israel points out that after its retaliatory operations, the Arab countries managed to significantly decrease the number of infiltrations by deploying on the borders and by other measures. The non-prevention of armed infiltration (even of non-governmental forces) over an agreed border is widely considered an act of war; therefore Israel argued that their retaliatory strikes, which were also acts of war, were justified.

Israel's neighbours had different means to control the infiltrations: Lebanon transferred refugees farther north to Tyre and Beirut, the Syrian authorities kept a strict control over their 50 kilometer-long border with Israel and infiltrations from there was rare. The Jordanians, on the other hand, had the longest border with Israel. Many civilians lived close to the border on both sides of it. According to the Jordanians, this made preventing all infiltrations an impossible task. Most infiltrations came from Jordan and most retaliatory strikes was executed into it.

The Arabs denied support for infiltration and did not understand the Israeli accusations. King Hussein, who took over the throne in Jordan in May 1953, was very puzzled by the violence of Israel's response to minor incursions over the armistice line. Shlaim (p. 85) writes in an interview with King Hussein of Jordan:

Shlaim writes that an Israeli historian and reserve general, Yehoshafat Harkabi, supported this position:

Other Israeli officials have supported that view. He proceeds by saying that the Israeli claims were unfounded, basing on an interview with an individual named Aryeh Eilan, who is described as an official in the Israeli Ministry of Exterior:

Glubb Pasha, the British officer who commanded the Jordan Arab Legion at the time, wrote that

A number of documents captured by Israel during the Six-Day War were publicized, such as a letter from the minister of defence wrote to the prime minister demanding drastic steps to prevent infiltration, dated 27 February 1952.

Therefore, it seems that while the Israeli accusations of direct governmental complicity are unfounded, and on the higher level, the Arab governments showed cooperation with Israel and the Mixed Armstice Committee, their policemen and local guards were not always keen about protecting the border, and the Arab governments either lacked the will or the ability to force them to do that. Morris (Righteous Victims p. 270) concludes that:

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Arab governmental responsibility", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki