“…I have never had any doubt that the decisive link in the chain of events which unfolded in 1967 was forged, in both senses of the word, by the Soviet Union. It is undeniable that Soviet warnings about imaginary Israeli “troop concentrations” on the Syrian border prodded Nasser to action. And it is quite impossible that Moscow could have believed what it was saying. The mobilization of “eleven to thirteen” Israeli brigades, to say nothing of their concentration in the north, would have had a conspicuous effect on our national life. The disruption of normality in so many families would have resounded across the chanceries and newspapers of the world. Nine months after the 1967 war, at his trial in Cairo, the former minister of Defense Shamseddin Badran confirmed that “false Soviet reports” of an imminent Israeli drive for Damascus had caused Egypt to undertake a policy of confrontation in Sinai. United only by a common rancor, Moscow, Damascus and Cairo had laid an explosive charge of falsehood at the foundations of Middle Eastern peace. The wick was to be three weeks long.”
– Abba Eban, Abba Eban: An Autobiography. Random House. ISBN 0-394-49302-8
© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
