Between Cease-Fires in the Middle East

The Security Council Resolution of November 22, 1967 (“the November Resolution”) will obviously be a main focus of international attention in the diplomacy following the renewed Israel-Egypt Cease-Fire of August 8, 1970. And the writer has published a study of it in “The ‘November Resolution’ and Middle East Peace: Pitfall or Guidepost”? The present study, parallel to that one, is a stocktaking for the three years or so between the Cease-Fires of 1967 and 1970, of the conduct of Israel and the Arab States, as this bears upon their obligations under international law. The detailed aspects of conduct involved will be clear enough from the headings. All of them obviously pertain either to conduct affecting the regime of cease-fire, or to conduct affecting the regime of Israel's administration of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Sinai and the Golan Heights.Egypt and Syria, with massive Soviet support, have more than restored their armaments virtually to pre-June 1967 levels. According to Washington Post figures of May 23, 1970, Egypt's front-line aircraft then numbered 600 (including 320 Mig 21's and Sukhai 7's) as compared with 450 immediately before, and only 100 immediately after, the Six Day War. To these, after the disclosure of actual Soviet air patrols in Egypt, it is clear that by July 1970 a further 100 Mig 21's with accompanying Soviet pilots have to be added; and the arrival of another 50 Soviet-piloted aircraft was reported to be then impending. Syria was reported by Aviation Week and Space Technology (at about the same date) to have 230 planes (including 100 Mig 21's and Sukhai 7's). That magazine estimated that the Arab States involved marshalled a total of 1230 fighter bombers (including the 100 Soviet-manned planes), and that this represented a four to one superiority over Israel's 330 aircraft which included 60 Mirage 3J's, 42 Phantoms, and 48 Skyhawks. (The London Institute of Strategic Studies estimated Israel's holdings in May as only 325, including 50 Phantoms).