American Documents About the October 1973 War

What was Kissinger's 1st offer to Arafat?

Hilmi Mousa

Translated by: Adib S. Kawar

According to the recently published American documents about the October 1973 war, Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State at the time, sent a secret envoy to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat with a message stating that President Richard Nixon's Administration is ready to negotiate with him and approve any arrangements to share work between PLO and the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan, with regard to Palestinian representation in negotiations with Israel to reach a full and final settlement.

The Israeli daily, Haartz, wrote: The envoy was the deputy CIA head, General Vernon Walters, the meeting took place in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, November 2nd 1973.

The National Security Archives released a big collection of documents and recordings covering the October 1973 War, in addition to Henry Kissinger's (Dear Henry as per President Sadat) encouragement to the Israelis (in the person of Israeli PM Golda Meir) to go ahead with the war even after the zero hour of the cease fire was supposed to be put into effect. The documents show that the command of the Israeli Air Force told Kissinger that they have a shortage in the Phantom war planes crews, that is they have less crews than planes, as a result of losing in battle a considerable number of war planes and their crews, the planes were replaced by the US. At the time Israel had seventy crews for about one hundred planes.

The documents said that Kissinger and Meir exchanged intelligence information including what "the French and the British say about Israelis". Meir informed Kissinger that the Israelis have an Egyptian agent close to Sadat. And in this context the head of the intelligence of the Department of State said that America's failure in assessing the prospects of war is due to being "brainwashed" by the Israelis who brainwashed themselves too.

Kissinger denied, in a briefing he gave to the Department of State top officials, Israeli claims that the US refused to give a green light to launch an advance strike. He commented that: "This is sheer nonsense we never told them not to launch such a strike, because we believed that war will break out... actually we were more worried than the Israelis about war."

On the contrary the Israeli Ambassador in Washington, Simha Dintis, reassured him saying: "There is no possibility that the Arabs will strike". He did not feel reassured, and asked for an intelligence assessment about the situation. He received a report from CIA and another from the Department of State intelligence; both parties reassured him: "The idea of an Arab strike is out of the question."

In this context, the chief of the Department of State intelligence, Ray Clan said: "The difficulty we faced was due partially of the brainwashing the Israelis gave us and them selves. More important is that we did not have  intelligence bases in the Middle East to assess for us the day to day conditions in the region". Kissinger, in the presence of US diplomats, accused the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Aba Eban, to have told him at length, just one day and the half before the Egyptian/Syrian attack that: "There is no need for any peace initiative, because the conditions on the ground are completely under control, and could not be altered, and there are no political gains that Israel could achieve from a peace campaign".

The documents show that Israel wasted a lot of precious time to achieve peace with Egypt after the war, as both Kissinger and Meir did not respond to Sadat's call for a peace agreement, based on Israel's retreat to the June 4th,1967 borders. The documents pointed out that Sadat's peace initiative was handed to the Israelis during the kilo meter 101 negotiations. the initiative was handed by the Egyptian General Abdul Al-Ghani Al-Jamasi to the Israeli General Aharon Yareve.

As to the Palestinian side the documents pointed out that American contacts with PLO took place in spring of 1973 between General Walters an Ali Hassan Salameh. Other than the security dimensions of the contacts they had also  political dimensions. The main purpose of the contacts was to reach an agreement by which the Palestinians will refrain from attacking America targets.

The documents also reveals that Walters offered to the Palestinians in general that the Americans Administration is ready: "To listen to Palestinian ideas and their stances, and to inform them that: "America shall take a positive stand". Kissinger said that Walters was given instructions to inform the Palestinians that the US is sincerely intending to make use of time to put extensive efforts for a quick settlement on the bases of the Security Council resolutions 242 and 338. And that Palestinian interests and aims are genuine, as the United States openly announced that it recognizes that no settlement could be reached without taking them into account. And that there are no practical reasons for enmity between the United States and the Palestinians.

End

 Thoroughly reading the above article we feel that there are many cotrdictions in US policy.

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