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From: mokhtar@ubc-vision.UUCP (Farzin Mokhtarian)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: The 1967 War
Message-ID: <98@ubc-vision.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Mar-86 01:55:32 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.98
Posted: Tue Mar 18 01:55:32 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Mar-86 05:42:20 EST
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 28

Subject: The 1967 War

> Such distortion of history is incredible.  Nasser had ordered the
> U. N. forces out of Sharm el Sheikh (sp?) and instituted a blockade
> of the Straits of Tiran, leading into the Gulf of Aqaba and the
> Israeli port of Eilat, through which more than 90% of Israel's oil
> supply (imported from Iran) flowed.  Nasser rebuffed diplomatic
> efforts to end the blockade.   A blockade is an act of war.
> Hijab conveniently forgets to mention this.  Of course, my news sources
> were the American media (and to a lesser extent, the British media)
> which are of course subsidiaries of the Israeli War Ministry. -)
> Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan

And what you conveniently forget to mention is that only 5% of Israel's
foreign trade went through Eilat. Oil from Iran was the main strategic
material but Israel could easily get that through Haifa. Economically,
the closure of the Straits of Tiran would have little immediate impact.
And it was not really a blockade because Nasser had no intention of
fighting. Yitzhak Rabin, the Chief of Staff, was frank about it:
  
"I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into
 Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against
 Israel. He knew it and we knew it."         {Le Monde, 29 Feb. 1968}

Israel wanted war and the "blockade" was its golden opportunity.
   
   Farzin Mokhtarian