Samu Incident

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Operation Shredder
Part of Israeli-Arab conflict
Date November 13, 1966 Location Es Samu, West Bank (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) Result Demolition of 40-120 houses in the town of Samu; rioting in West Bank against king of Jordan; increased tensions contributed to outbreak of Six-Day War
Belligerents
Israel Defense Forces	Jordanian Armed Forces
Commanders
Yoav Shalam Levi Eshkol	Bahjat al-Muhaisen Hussein I bin Talal
Strength
400 troops 40 half-tracks 10 tanks	100 troops 20 convoy vehicles
Casualties and losses
1 killed 10 wounded	16 Jordanian Armed Forces killed 54 Jordanian Armed forces wounded 15 vehicles destroyed 1 fighter jet downed 3 civilians killed 96 civilians wounded

The Samu Incident refers to events centered around an Israeli military operation on November 13, 1966, when the Israeli Defense Forces entered the southern Jordanian-controlled West Bank in response to Fatah attacks against Israelis near the West Bank border. It was the largest Israeli military operation since the 1956 Suez Crisis. The operation is considered to have led to the Six-Day War of 1967 along with many other factors.

Contents 1 Background 2 Goal 3 Operation Shredder 4 Aftermath 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References

[edit] Background

On the night of November 11, an Israeli border patrol vehicle drove over a mine near the Israeli-Jordanian border implemented by PLO subgroup Fatah. As a result, three policemen were killed and six were injured.^[1]On November 12, King Hussein of Jordan, fearing Israeli retaliation, issued a condolence letter to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol via the U.S. embassy in Amman. From there it was sent to the U.S. embassy in Tel-Aviv to ambassador Barbour who instead of forwarding it to the prime minister, left the letter on his desk assuming it was not important and there was no rush. Early on the morning 13 November, King Hussein, who had been having clandestine meetings with Abba Eban and Golda Meir for three years concerning peace and secure borders, received an unsolicited message from his Israeli contacts stating that Israel had no intention of attacking Jordan.^[2] However, shortly thereafter, the IDF mobilised 400 men, 40 half-tracks and 10 tanks and crossed the border into the West Bank.

[edit] Goal

Israel's goal in the operation was to demolish houses in Palestinian villages located south of Hebron in retaliation for allegedly aiding and providing a safe-haven for Fatah and other PLO militants. Israel hoping then, that the residents of those villages would appeal to King Hussein to tame Fatah and other Palestinian militant groups. Israel also aimed at warning Jordan as well as Syria of its military strength without actually confronting the Jordanian Armed Forces.

The Israeli rationale for the attack on Samu has often been questioned. For example, Colonel (ret.) Jan Mührenm, a Dutch UN observer in the West Bank who patrolled Samua during this period, gave an interview to Dutch current affairs program Nova on the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War where he denied the Israeli charges regarding Samu. He said "Had the people from this village anything to do with the attack on Israel - Well no. Not just from this village but also not from the entire West Bank. ... only western officers operated here and we did patrols. The situation was completely calm."

In a report by the Arab League, it was assumed that the main goal of this attack was to test the efficiency of what was called the The Joint Arab Forces Command, and see if any other Arab country such as Egypt or Syria will come to the aid of Jordan. It also assumes that this battle was in preparation for the Six-Day War. ^[3]

[edit] Operation Shredder

Israel's mobilised a force of around 3,000-4,000 soldiers, backed by tanks and aircraft, divided into a reserve force, which remained on the Israeli side of the border, and two raiding parties, which crossed into the Jordanian-occupied West Bank. Ground troops moved into the village of Rujm al-Madfa located just southwest of Hebron and destroyed its police station. From there, the larger force of eight Centurion tanks followed by 400 paratroopers mounted in 40 open-topped half-tracks and 60 engineers in 10 more half-tracks headed for Samu, while a smaller force of 3 tanks and 100 paratroopers and engineers in 10 half-tracks headed towards two smaller villages, Khirbet el-Markas and Khirbet Jimba. In Samu, the bulk of the town's residents responded to orders by the IDF to gather at the town square. Sappers from the 35th paratrooper brigades destroyed numerous buildings inside and near the village with dynamite. Reports of the total number of building destroyed range from 40 (IDF estimate) to 120 (United Nations estimate). The 48th Infantry Battalion of the Jordanian army, commanded by Major Asad Ghanma, ran into the Israeli forces north-west of Samu. Two companies of the Hitteen Infantry Brigade (لواء المشاة حطين)commanded by Brig. Gen. Bahjat al-Muhaisen (العميد الركن بهجت المحيسن)approaching from the north-east, made up of roughly 100 men and 20 convoy vehicles, were intercepted by the Israelis. Apparently, Muhaisen was leading his troops into the town of Yattah, another village south of Hebron, but the road to Yattah passed though Samu and consequently they were ambushed by Israeli forces.

According to Brig. Gen. (Colonel at the time of the battle) in an interview with Al Aqsa Magazine; issued by the Jordanian Armed Forces, his intelligence had informed him that the target was Samu Village. He ordered his troops to move towards Samu from two directions one through Thaheria Village and the other that he lead himself went through Yatta. It was a race to reach Samu village, the Israelis reached higher ground first.

Bahjat knew that the Israeli forces outnumbered his troops, and were better armed with tanks and armored vehicles and the luxury of air-support. He had none of that, but believed that his troops will fight by keeping high moral, and a strong will power and a fighting spirit. "Being there with them made that happen" he said. He was wounded in action during that battle. ^[4]

Another platoon of Jordanians armed with two 106mm recoilless rifles entered Samu. In the ensuing battle fifteen Jordanian soldiers and three Jordanian civilians were killed; fifty-four other soldiers and ninety-six civilians were wounded. The commander of the Israeli paratroop battalion, Colonel Yoav Shaham, was killed and ten other Israeli soldiers were wounded.^[5][6] Jordanian Hunter jets attacked Israeli forces but were driven off with the loss of one plane.

According to the Israeli Government, fifteen Jordanians were killed but the true number was never disclosed by the Jordanians in order to keep up morale and confidence in King Hussein's regime.^[7]

United Nations Military Observers prepared a report^[8] to be presented to the UN Security Council. Jordan declared all its losses while Israel refused permission to interview any military personnel involved. They failed to declare their losses, and denied that a Jordanian Hunter Jet Fighter was shot down in their territories. They also denied the involvement of their Air force. In the village and the vicinity of the village the investigating Observers found that 125 houses, a clinic, a 6-classroom school and a workshop had been completely demolished. A mosque and 28 houses had been damaged. In a flour mill, 2 explosive charges were found which had failed to detonate. The investigating Observers were provided with death certificates for 14 Jordanian servicemen and 5 civilians killed.

[edit] Aftermath

A total of 16 Jordanian troops were killed including the pilot of a downed fighter jet. Another 54 troops were wounded. Three Arab civilians in the village of Samu were also killed and 96 wounded. Israel suffered the loss of its battalion commander and a total of ten wounded soldiers.

Two days later in a memo to President Johnson his Special Assistant Walt Rostow wrote "retaliation is not the point in this case. This 3000-man raid with tanks and planes was out of all proportion to the provocation and was aimed at the wrong target" and went on to describe the damage done to U.S. and Israeli interests: "They've wrecked a good system of tacit cooperation between Hussein and the Israelis... They've undercut Hussein. We've spent $500 million to shore him up as a stabilizing factor on Israel's longest border and vis-à-vis Syria and Iraq. Israel's attack increases the pressure on him to counterattack not only from the more radical Arab governments and from the Palestinians in Jordan but also from the Army, which is his main source of support and may now press for a chance to recoup its Sunday losses... They've set back progress toward a long term accommodation with the Arabs... They may have persuaded the Syrians that Israel didn't dare attack Soviet-protected Syria but could attack US-backed Jordan with impunity."^[9]

Facing a storm of criticism from Jordanians, Palestinians and his Arab neighbours for failing to protect Samu, Hussein ordered a nation-wide mobilization on 20 November.^[10] Riots spread throughout the West Bank demanding the king be overthrown. Four Palestinians were killed by Jordanian police as a result of the riots.

On 25 November the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 228 unanimously deploring "the loss of life and heavy damage to property resulting from the action of the Government of Israel on 13 November 1966", censuring "Israel for this large-scale military action in violation of the United Nations Charter and of the General Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan" and emphasising "to Israel that actions of military reprisal cannot be tolerated and that, if they are repeated, the Security Council will have to consider further and more effective steps as envisaged in the Charter to ensure against the repetition of such acts."^[11]

Egyptian and Syrian radio also verbally attacked Jordan accusing King Hussein of collaborating with the CIA to plot an overthrow of the Ba'ath Party in Syria.

In a telegram to the State Department on 18 May, 1967 the U.S. ambassador in Amman, Findley Burns, reported that Hussein had expressed the opinion in a conversation the day before that,

if Israel launched another Samu-scale attack against Jordan he would have no alternative but to retaliate or face an internal revolt. If Jordan retaliates, asked Hussein, would not this give Israel a pretext to occupy and hold Jordanian or Occupied territory? Or, said Hussein, Israel might instead of a hit-and-run type attack simply occupy and hold territory in the first instance. He said he could not exclude these possibilities from his calculations and urged us not to do so even if we felt them considerably less than likely.^[12]

David Ben-Gurion later criticized the raid, arguing that it weakened King Hussein's position counter to Israel's interests.^[13] Moshe Dayan was also critical. He believed that the Samu Operation should have been directed at the Syrians.^[13]

Following Palestinian demonstrations against him King Hussein accused Nasser of using the presence of the United Nations Emergency Force as an excuse for failing to take action against Israel.^[14]As Palestinians rioted in Hebron, Nablus, Jerusalem and Irbid the Palestine Liberation Organization warned all Jordanian ministers to resign by noon on 26 November.^[15]

The incident at Es Samu is regarded as a prelude to the Six-Day War.^[16]

[edit] See also

• Israeli-Arab conflict
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Six-Day War

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• The IDF raid on Samu: the turning-point in Jordan's relations with Israel and the West Bank Palestinians. Retrieved 1 Oct 2007.
• Ben-Yehûdā, Ḥemdā and Sandler, Shmuel (2002). The Arab-Israeli Conflict Transformed: Fifty Years of Interstate and Ethnic Crises. SUNY Press. ISBN 079145245X
• Bowen, Jeremy (2003). Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East. London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-3095-7
• Brenchley, Frank (1989). Britain and the Middle East: An Economic History 1945-87. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 1870915070
• Hussein of Jordan (1969). My "War" with Israel. London: Peter Owen. ISBN 0-7206-0310-2
• Mayhew, Chrsitopher and Adams, Michael (2006). Publish It Not: The Middle East Cover Up. Signal Books. ISBN 1-904955-19-3
• Oren, Michael (2002). Six Days of War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515174-7
• Prittie, Terence (1969). Eshkol of Israel: The Man and the Nation. London, Museum Press. ISBN 027340475X
• Shalom, Zaki (2006). Ben-Gurion's Political Struggles, 1963-67: A Lion in Winter. London: Routledge. ISBN 0714656526