The Preventive War

As recently as five weeks ago Israel's David Ben-Gurion told his people and the world: "We will never start a war. We do not believe that wars provide comprehensive solutions to historic problems."

When he broke that promise last week, Ben-Gurion acted with the apparent approval and certainly with the complete support of his entire people. They went to war sure of their superior strength and weary of eight years of continuing crisis and uncertainty.

When Israel sprang into existence in 1948, some of its U.N. sponsors wondered whether it would find its peaceful place in the Middle East or develop into a "nasty little Sparta." Its 650,000 people, with the help of a sympathetic world, had elbowed their way to a place in a hostile part of the world. They performed prodigies of desert pioneering. But they never succeeded in winning the tolerance or the trade of their neighbors.

Twice-Promised Land. Back in World War I the British had promised "to view with favor the establishment of a national home" for Jews in Palestine. At first, in the mandated territory of Palestine that the League of Nations assigned to Britain, Arabs outnumbered Jews seven to one (668,200 to 83,790), a statistic that underlies the Arab assertion that the Western world thrust Israel upon them.

By the end of World War II the British, trying to shuck off some of their worldwide obligations, sought to leave behind a Palestine that would in effect be a single federal economic unit with two divisions: a Jewish state and a larger Arab one. By that time the Jews had narrowed the Arabs' population lead to two to one, and by their industry and Western talents had made themselves Palestine's senior partner. Their young men had served bravely with the British and won Britain's obligation and sympathy. When Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin then tried to hold them down, they went right ahead bringing in homeless refugees from Hitler's Europe by the boatload. They fought and made their own state. The very day they proclaimed its independence, President Truman recognized Israel. The next day five Arab armies invaded the new republic. Israel hurled them back.

In an earlier era the dynamic young nation would have pushed on until it had found the borders it could hold, but this was no longer possible in the day of U.N., of collective security and world opinion.

The U.N. armistice of 1949 left Israel a misshapen territory about the size of New Jersey. It was hemmed around by the hate of 900,000 Palestinian refugees and the vengeful memories of five defeated Arab nations. Economically the infant country was dependent on world Jewry for $100 million a year in aid. The Arab conviction was that the U.S.

Jews who largely made up the deficits would eventually get tired and quit, and the little state would cave in. There were many in Israel too (and among U.S. Zionists) who argued that Israel had to learn to live peacefully with its neighbors if it was to survive as a nation. In 1953 Ben-Gurion suffered an election setback and retired to a pioneer desert community. Into office went Moshe Sharett, a modest, cautious lawyer who made some effort to diminish Arab hostility, to settle the problem of the 900,000 Palestinian refugees, to let some of them back into Israel and to join with Arab states in diverting Jordan water to desert land on which refugees could build new homes. The Arabs rejected all of Sharett's proposals.

Turning Point. Convinced that neither the U.N. nor the big powers would ever win for Israel what they might win for themselves, the Israelis preferred to make their own way in the world. Said Ben-Gurion: "Israel will stand or fall by what is achieved in Israel." If desert settlers were to be protected from the endless sneak raids of Arab infiltrators, Israel must attend in its own way to its border security. Ben-Gurion returned early last year from the Negev desert to active duty as Defense Minister. Just eleven days later Israeli armed forces carried out a smash ing raid on the Gaza Strip, in reprisal for acts of individual Palestinian refugees who had crossed the border to their former holdings. This was a turning point, not only for Israel but the Middle East. Egypt's Nasser has since justified a large part of his belligerent actions on the basis of that sudden, crunching blow. "Until Feb. 28, 1955," he once said, "I felt that the possibility of real peace was near. The borders between Israel and Egypt had been quiet since 1952, and I felt at peace." When the Jews struck at Gaza, that feeling left. "That is why I bought arms from the Communists. I would rather have spent the money on social development."

With Ben-Gurion back, and soon Prime Minister again, less and less was said of coming to terms with the Arabs. Following the new tough policy, Israel struck again and again. By this summer a new-pattern of incidents emerged on the Jordan border, with Israel answering the smallest incursions with large-scale reprisals. Most notable example: an attack on Kalkilya in which Israelis killed 48 Arabs in return for the murder of two Israelis. Israel claimed that over the years many more Israelis than Arabs had been killed in border incidents. But hatreds on both sides could not be measured or atoned for statistically.

Not Peace but a Sword. Seven months ago Dag Hammarskjold rushed to the Middle East and signed all parties to a ceasefire. In a major speech to the Knesset, Ben-Gurion declaimed: "Preventive war would be madness." But all the time Israel prepared. Last month, when Iraqi troops were reported massing to enter a weakened Jordan, Ben-Gurion disappointed some of his followers by his mild response. Army Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan rose in the middle of the speech and stomped out of the Knesset gallery.

For Ben-Gurion the No. 1 enemy for attack was not Jordan but Egypt, and last week the time was right. It did not matter that for weeks there had been comparative quiet on the Egyptian border (Nasser was too busy with the Suez crisis) nor that Egypt did not even have its usual strong Jorces on the frontier. After the big push began, Israel justified its attack by saying that it had arrested three Egyptian-trained fedayeen (self-sacrificers) units that had penetrated into Israel. Israel did not even mother to accuse them of any overt act after entering Israel. The dozen fedayeen hardly justified a war. But the fact was, as everyone knew, that Israel's case had to rest not on an immediate provocation but on a long history.

Four years ago Ben-Gurion wrote in his best Biblical style: "Ahead of us are the campaigns and the conquests, the splendors and the portents still to come." As Gaza fell last week, Israel's Ambassador to Britain Eliahu Elath announced that his country had no designs on Egyptian territory. But he added: "Nobody can expect us to lose a military advantage."

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