Howard Heyman, in his letter {"Distorted view" July 23],
makes the incredible statement :" Israel has never launched a military
attack on another country without justifiable provocation." This statement
defies historic record. A whole series of wars of aggression were committed by Israel against its neighbours
without provocation. I will restrict myself to few of those wars. In October
1956, Israel invaded Egypt in secret collusion with France and
UK., a fact exposed and admitted by its planners. In
June 1967, Israel invaded first Egypt and later Syria and Jordan, claiming that President Nasser of Egypt was planning to attack Israel. The falsehood of this claim was
confirmed by all Israel's leaders at the time, as shown in
the following statements:
Yitzhak
Rabin, chief
of staff of the Israeli army at the time, stated :"
I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been
sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." {Le Monde, Feb.28,1968}.
Menachem Begin, a cabinet minister in June 1967,
stated, while prime minister, addressing Israel's NationalDefenceCollege, on Aug.8,1982,
: " In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations
in the Sinai did not prove Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with our
selves. We decided to attack him" [The
N.Y.Times, Aug.21,1982].
That is not
to mention the various wars waged against Lebanon, in 1978, 1982 and 2006, and the
bombing of Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, with manufactured
flimsy provocations.
It is time
that Israel's apologists take note of historic
facts.