Subject: OT: Sharon considered 1967 coup to force war with Egypt
From: Absolute Zero

Thought someone would've posted this by now. Oh well, here you go.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/17/wmid17.xml

Ariel Sharon considered a military coup to force a war against Egypt in
1967, the Israeli prime minister confessed in a government publication
released yesterday.

The revelation was contained in Ma'arachot, published by the defence
ministry, and Mr Sharon's admission may lead to a re-examination of the
build up to the 1967 war, which ended in the occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.

Ariel Sharon
Sharon: demanded war

The study shows that the general staff, which included the then Maj Gen
Sharon and Yitzhak Rabin, then chief of staff and later prime minister,
was convinced that the country was in danger because the government was
prevaricating over the launch of war. This caused Mr Sharon to consider
locking up the cabinet.

Mr Sharon admitted that he suggested to Mr Rabin that they could hold
the cabinet in a room until "the chief of staff goes to Israel Radio and
makes an announcement".

According to Mr Sharon's account: "We often asked whether in the State
of Israel there could arise a situation in which the army takes control.

"And I always said it was impossible, that this couldn't happen in the
State of Israel.

"And then, after the meeting [with Levi Eshkol, the prime minister] on
May 28, I said to the chief of staff and others who were present, that
there had arisen a situation in which this could happen, and that it
would also be well accepted - that is to say, to seize control not in
the framework of wanting to govern, but in the framework of making a
decision, the fundamental decision, and that [the] army can make it
without the government.

"I don't remember if he agreed or not, but I think he also viewed it in
this way."

Mr Sharon believes the government might have acceded, adding: "They
would have accepted it with a sense of relief. That was my feeling."

The army has long been known to have put pressure on the government to
declare what became the Six Day War but it was not previously known that
Mr Sharon went so far as to contemplate a coup.

Stressing that no firm plot was drawn up, he confirmed that Yitzhak
Rabin did not rule out the option after he discussed it with him.

In what historians have called the "generals' revolt", Mr Sharon and
others demanded Levi Eshkol declare war against Egypt.

In his recently published book on the Six Day War, Jeremy Bowen, a BBC
journalist, quotes Mr Sharon as telling Mr Eshkol that the Egyptians
were ill prepared, and that "hesitation and delay" was eroding Israel's
best deterrent, which was "the Arabs' fear of us".

The military maintained that Israel must strike first, and regarded the
build up of Egyptian armed forces in the Sinai peninsula and in the Red
Sea as a casus belli.

Mr Eshkol initially refused, holding out for international assistance
that never arrived but finally he relented and ordered an attack on June