This article is a sort of ‘executive summary’ of what Dr.

The point is this: there was no kind of ‘carefully planned set of attacks that followed Nasser’s ‘war game’ maneuvers at the Sinai border’.

This article is a sort of ‘executive summary’ of what Dr. David Nicolle and me have published in the book ‘Arab MiGs, Volume 2’, already back in 2011. Together with the Volume 3 of that series, the book in question is describing the entire situation that led to the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War (better known as ‘Six Day War’), from the point of view of Arab militaries and intelligence agencies, in a step-by-step fashion, and based on official documentation and recollections of (military) participants.

The point is this: there was no kind of ‘carefully planned set of attacks that
followed Nasser’s ‘war game’ maneuvers at the Sinai border’.

There is official documentation (including a report about a meeting of Soviet Politburo, presided by Brezhnev) confirming that Moscow provided fake intelligence to Egypt, citing ‘Israeli troop concentration’ on the cease-fire line with Syria, a plan for an invasion of that country, and removal of Soviet-friendly regime.

What followed was what Soviets expected: namely (and although his own military intelligence could not find trace of evidence for what the Soviets reported) Nasser ordered Field Marshal Amer to mobilize the military and deploy it on the border to Israel. This was precisely the same that Egypt did already several times before (last time before May 1967 was in November 1966) — every time in reaction to Israeli attacks on Jordan or Syria. Intention of each such deployment was always the same: intimidation of Israel in order to prevent a possible Israeli invasion of one of neighbouring Arab countries.

From Nasser’s standpoint, there was no intention to instigate a war. In his own words, he was ‘playing a game of political chess’ with Israel. Furthermore, he knew that although his own military commanders told him the military was ready, it was actually not.

Then (I’m just citing Brezhnev’s statement) the Soviets lost the control of the situation, when — and that was the primary difference to similar situations from earlier times — Nasser ordered a withdrawal of the UN contingent from the Sinai, and Egyptian troops to secure Sharm el-Sheikh. Even this was still not undertaken for military, but for political reasons: as a ‘signal’ to Israel, ‘we do not want a war, and you know it, but we do mean this seriously’.

However — and that’s the point about this article — by that time Egyptian MiG-21-pilots made a number of unauthorised sorties high above Israel, including two above Dimona. That is what put top Israeli commanders on alert: they considered these overflights a ‘preparation for an attack on a precious facility’ and prompted their military intelligence to change its assessment about Egyptian intentions — from one about (put in simplist fashion), ‘Egypt does not want a war’, to ‘Egypt wants a war’.

All of this combined, this means these unauthorized over-flights of Dimona were actually more influential for Israeli intelligence assessments than the usually cited withdrawal of UN troops or deployment of Egyptian paratroopers at Sharm el-Sheikh. The latter were merely ‘evidence in support’ of a thesis that Egypt ‘wanted a war’ - based on over-flights by Fishbeds over Dimona.