November 30 2023, 2:52 p.m. (TheIntercept.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE ENCOMIUMS HAVE<\/strong> flowed voluminously for Henry Kissinger, and there have been some condemnations too. But even in the latter, little attention has been paid to his efforts to prevent peace from breaking out in the Mideast \u2014 efforts which helped cause the 1973 Arab\u2013Israeli War and set in stone the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This underappreciated aspect of Kissinger\u2019s career adds tens of thousands of lives to his body count, which is in the millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kissinger, who died at 100 on Wednesday, served in the U.S. government from 1969 to 1977, during the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. He began as Nixon\u2019s national security adviser. Then, in Nixon\u2019s second term, he was appointed secretary of state, a position he held on to after Ford became president following Nixon\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In June 1967, two years before the start of Nixon\u2019s presidency, Israel had achieved a gigantic military victory in the Six-Day War. Israel attacked Egypt and occupied Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, and, following modest responses from Jordan and Syria, also took over the West Bank and the Golan Heights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the following years, the ultimate fallout from the war \u2014 in particular, what, if any, of the new territory Israel would be able to keep \u2014 was still fluid. In 1968, the Soviets made what appeared to be quite sincere efforts to collaborate with the U.S. on a peace plan for the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Henry Kissinger, Top U.S. Diplomat Responsible for Millions of Deaths, Dies at 100<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nick Turse<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n All the Times Israel Has Rejected Peace With Palestinians<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jon Schwarz<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Two Months That Shook the World: The First Phase of the Gaza War<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Intercepted<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Soviets proposed a solution based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242<\/a>. Israel would withdraw from the territory it had conquered. However, there would not be a Palestinian state. Moreover, Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab\u2013Israeli War would not return to Israel; rather, they would be resettled with compensation in Arab countries. Most importantly, the Soviets would pressure their Arab client states to accept this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was significant because at this point, many Arab countries, Egypt in particular, were allies of the Soviets and relied on them for arms supplies. Hosni Mubarak, who later became Egypt\u2019s president and\/or dictator for 30 years, started out as a pilot in the Egyptian air force and received training in Moscow and Kyrgyzstan, which was a Soviet republic at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Nixon took office in 1969, William Rogers, his first secretary of state, took the Soviet stance seriously. Rogers negotiated with Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the U.S., for most of the year. This produced what American diplomat David A. Korn, then assigned to Tel Aviv, Israel, described<\/a> as \u201ca comprehensive and detailed U.S. proposal for a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n One person prevented this from going forward: Henry Kissinger. Backstage in the Nixon administration, he worked assiduously to prevent peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was not due to any great personal affection felt by Kissinger for Israel and its expansionist goals. Kissinger, while Jewish, was happy to work for Nixon, perhaps the most volubly antisemitic president in U.S. history, which is saying something. (\u201cWhat the Christ is the matter with the Jews?\u201d Nixon once wondered in an Oval Office soliloquy<\/a>. He then answered his own question, explaining, \u201cI suppose it\u2019s because most of them are psychiatrists.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather, Kissinger perceived all the world through the prism of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Any settlement at the time would require the involvement of the Soviets, and hence was unacceptable to him. At a period when it appeared in public that an agreement with the Soviets might be imminent, Kissinger told an underling \u2014 as he himself recorded<\/a> in his memoir \u201cWhite House Years\u201d \u2014 that was not going to happen because \u201cwe did not want<\/em> a quick success [emphasis in the original].\u201d In the same book, Kissinger explained<\/a> that the Soviet Union later agreed to principles even more favorable to Israel, so favorable that Kissinger himself didn\u2019t understand why the Soviets acceded to them. Nevertheless, Kissinger wrote, \u201cthe principles quickly found their way into the overcrowded limbo of aborted Middle East schemes \u2014 as I had intended.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The results were catastrophic for all involved. Anwar el-Sadat, then Egypt\u2019s president, announced in 1971 that the country would make peace with Israel based on conditions in line with Rogers\u2019s efforts. However, he also explicitly said<\/a> that a refusal of Israel to return Sinai would mean war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On October 6, 1973, it did. Egypt and Syria attacked occupied Sinai and the Golan Heights, respectively. Their initial success stunned Israeli officials. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was convinced Israel might be conquered. Moreover, Israel was running out of war mat\u00e9riel and desperately needed to be resupplied by the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kissinger made sure America dragged its feet, both because he wanted Israel to understand who was ultimately in charge and because he did not want to anger the oil-rich Arab states. His strategy, as another top diplomat\u00a0put it<\/a>, was to \u201clet Israel come out ahead, but bleed.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n You can read this in Kissinger\u2019s own words in the records of internal deliberations now available on the State Department website. On October 9, Kissinger told his fellow high-level officials<\/a>, \u201cMy assessment is a costly victory [for Israel] without a disaster is the best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. then did send huge amounts of weaponry to Israel, which it used to beat back Egypt and Syria. Kissinger looked upon the outcome with satisfaction. In another high-level meeting, on October 19, he celebrated<\/a> that \u201ceveryone knows in the Middle East that if they want a peace they have to go through us. Three times they tried through the Soviet Union, and three times they failed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cost to humans was quite high. Over 2,500 members of the Israeli military died. 10,000-20,000 were killed on the Arab side. This is in line with Kissinger\u2019s belief \u2014 recorded in \u201cThe Final Days\u201d by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein \u2014 that soldiers are \u201cdumb, stupid animals to be used\u201d as pawns in foreign policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the war, Kissinger returned to his strategy of obstructing any peaceful settlement. In another of his memoirs, he recorded<\/a> that in 1974, just before Nixon resigned, Nixon told him to \u201ccut off all military deliveries to Israel until it agreed to a comprehensive peace.\u201d Kissinger quietly stalled for time, Nixon left office, and it didn\u2019t come up with Ford as president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s much more to this ugly story, all available at your local library. It can\u2019t be said to be the worst<\/em> thing that Kissinger ever did \u2014 but as you remember the extraordinary bill of indictment for him, make sure to leave a little room for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jon Schwarz<\/a>jon.schwarz@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a>@Schwarz<\/a>on X<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let\u2019s not forget that Kissinger\u2019s crimes included the deaths of thousands of Arabs and Israelis. Jon Schwarz November 30 2023, 2:52 p.m. (TheIntercept.com) THE ENCOMIUMS HAVE flowed voluminously for Henry Kissinger, and there have been some condemnations too. But even in the latter, little attention has been paid to his efforts… Continue reading ![\"JERUSALEM](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-51223459-1.jpg?resize=1200%2C814\")
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