Waiting

On 26 and 27 May both the General Staff and the government nervously awaited the results of the Foreign Minister’s meeting in Washington. The basic operational plan remained unchanged at this stage – Moked in the air and Kardom 2 on the ground – but at the suggestion of the Operations Department the possibility was contemplated that Arab forces might move into the West Bank, thereby turning the Jordanian front into a theatre of war. Additional plans were also drawn up for the Egyptian front. The planned transfer of an Egyptian armoured assault force, under General Saad a-Din a-Shazli, from the northern sector of the front to the south,1

and the border patrols conducted by Egypt in order to locate breaching points, suggested an Egyptian intention to cut off the southern Negev. The Egyptian propaganda machine prepared the ground for this move by claiming that the conquest of Eilat by the IDF in 1949 had been illegal, because it had occurred after the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice agreement.2 An Egyptian attempt to cut off the southern Negev triangle appeared to be the logical strategic move: it could create the desired territorial continuity between Egypt and the eastern Arab expanse, deny Israel its outlet to the Red Sea, and render the Straits issue irrelevant. Such a territorial bridge would reflect Egypt’s intention to win direct access to Jordan, Syria and Iraq, to encircle Israel and to impose Egyptian hegemony over the entire Fertile Crescent.3