----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 5:58
PM
Subject: Re: Israel & the Korean
War
I doubt that Israel offered troops for the Korean War. That
said, I would
like to point out that the U.S.-Israeli alliance is hardly as old as
Israel itself.
The U.S. was on the side of Egypt in the 1956 Suez contretemps
(opposing
Britain and France as well as Israel), and successfully forced Israel
and
her allies out of Sinai. (In the succeeding decade Israel's number
one ally
was France.) The Israelis did not forget what they considered
this
betrayal, and the memory was still fresh in their minds at the time of
the
1968 war. It is my theory that the Liberty incident was fallout
from Suez --
the Israelis still deeply distrusted the Americans intentions and did
not
want them to know too much about their military operations.
By the time of the 1973 war U.S. support to Israel was put to the
test
and thanks in part to clumsy Soviet maneuvering, came through with
flying colors. U.S. support has been solid since then, although it
has
required considerable concessions from the Israelis. So I would
date
the U.S.-Israel alliance only from the early 1970s (Nixon era).
Concerning the Korean War, I am still hoping that someone knows
something about official post-mortems on the dual intelligence
failures
of the war, or on official or academic studies of PLA troops
assigned
to the KPA in 1949 and early 1950.
Many thanks,
Don
----- Original Message -----
From:
DasHaas@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 11:53
AM
To: KOREAN-WAR-L@raven.cc.ku.edu
Subject: Re: Israel & the Korean
War
In a message dated
10/7/2001 2:22:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time, mdavino@yahoo.com writes:
I saw Shimon Peres, the Israeli Foreign Minister, on
TV
today talking about the US strikes on the Taliban.
When he was talking
about how good an ally Israel is
to the US, he mentioned that during
the Korean War,
David Ben-Gurion offered Israeli forces to the US.
Apparently the US turned them down. Does anyone know
anything
about this?
US support for Israel has been a
fact for so long that I was surprised a few years ago to read that as late
as the Eisenhower period, the US had some distinct reservations about
destablizing the entire Middle-east to satisfy Jewish aspirations in
Palestine. And that being so, I think the obvious "hook" of accepting
Israel's offer to help in Korea was pretty apparent to Ike. Don't know
what Truman's involvement was.
Col. Mike Haas, USAF, ret.,
author
In the Devil's Shadow: UN Special
Operations during the Korean War
Apollo's Warriors: US Air Force
Special Operations during the Cold War
Member: Air Commando,
Special Forces, UDT-SEAL, and Special Operations Associations