Gamal Abdel Nasser - War of Attrition and Later Life

War of Attrition and Later Life

In January 1968, Nasser commenced the War of Attrition against Israel, ordering his forces to begin harassing Israeli positions east of the now-blockaded Suez Canal. In the same month, he allowed the Soviets to construct naval facilities in Port Said, Marsa Matruh, and Alexandria. Then in March, Fatah under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, faced off with Israel in Jordan in what became known as the Battle of Karameh. The Jordanian Army eventually backed Fatah fighters forcing Israel to withdraw its troops without achieving its strategic goal—destruction of the Palestinian fedayeen base. The battle was thus seen as an Arab victory over Israel and Nasser immediately dispatched Mohammed Hassanein Heikal to invite Arafat to Cairo. There, Nasser offered the Fatah movement arms and financial support, but advised Arafat to think of peace with Israel and establishing a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; Nasser was effectively ceding his leadership of the "Palestine issue" to Arafat.

As the war against Israeli forces in the Sinai was underway, Israel retaliated by heavily bombing key Egyptian military and civilian infrastructure and causing a large exodus of Egyptians from the western bank of the Suez Canal, leading to a large influx of Egyptian refugees. As a result, Nasser ordered all military activities to cease, while embarking on a program to build a network of internal defenses. The war resumed in March 1969 and Nasser received the financial backing of the Gulf Arab states while the PLO spearheaded infiltrations into Israel from Lebanon and Jordan. In September 1969, Nasser suffered a heart attack; doctors warned him that if he did not stop his workaholic ways and refrain from smoking he would end up killing himself. In November, he brokered an agreement between the PLO and the Lebanese military granting the Palestinians the right to use Lebanese territory to attack Israel. A month later, in December 1969, Nasser appointed Sadat and Hussein el-Shafei, a former RCC comrade, as his vice presidents. By then, relations with his other RCC comrades, namely Khaled and Zakaria Mohieddin and former vice president Ali Sabri had become strained.

In June 1970, Nasser with support from King Hussein accepted the US-sponsored Rogers Plan which called for an end to hostilities and an Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory, but it was immediately rejected by Israel and the PLO, as well as most of the Arab states. Sadat advised against it. Nasser's confidants—Heikal and Abdel Magid Farid, among others—insisted Nasser's acceptance of the US peace plan was a strategic one aimed at exposing Israel's reluctance to negotiate with the Arabs. Nasser was also openly considering replacing Sadat with Boghdadi; he had since reconciled with the latter.

Meanwhile, in July 1970, King Hussein informed Nasser of his dissatisfaction with the PLO's behavior in Jordan. On 6 September, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked and blew up four emptied international airplanes on Jordanian soil, despite protests from Nasser who issued condemnations against the hijackers. Ten days later, King Hussein sent in his army to rout out Palestinian guerrilla forces from the country in what became known as "Black September". Escalations in violence brought the Middle East close to a wider war, prompting Nasser to hold an emergency Arab League summit on 27 September. The attending heads of states launched verbal denunciations against each other, while Nasser pleaded with Arafat and Hussein to cease hostilities. At the end of the conference, he forged an agreement ending the conflict.