Despite Personal Prejudice, Richard Nixon Did the Right Thing on Israel

For many, President Richard Nixon remains a villain. Until this very day, the journalist Carl Bernstein, who alongside Bob Woodward helped uncover the Watergate scandal, never misses an opportunity to blast the late president. Indeed, tapes of Nixon’s paranoid tirades and witness testimony confirm that the disgraced president expressed antisemitic sentiments.

Nixon was a volatile person who ranted not only against Jews, but also against Ivy League graduates, African-Americans, hippies, and others.

However, should a president be judged only by his words?

A few years ago, The Washington Post confirmed that President Harry Truman made antisemitic remarks in private and in letters sent to his wife and friends.

Yet, Truman recognized the State of Israel just minutes after David Ben-Gurion declared the country’s independence, despite objections from close aids and confidants such as his Secretary of State, George Marshall. Truman admired Marshall tremendously, but strongly believed in the plea of the Jewish people and the international legal framework that created Israel, which was defined by the principle of the right to self-determination.

President Lyndon Johnson was a Southern democrat who had anti-Black prejudices. However, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, effectively ending the Southern states’ Jim Crow segregation laws.

Richard Nixon was paranoid and prejudiced. However, he was also a pragmatist who understood what was at stake in the Cold War, particularly during the Yom Kippur War.

Israel faced an existential threat in October 1973, as its leaders were captives of a misguided concept (“Hakonseptzia”), according to which the Arab States were unprepared and would not attack Israel.

Israel was so dreadfully unprepared for the Arab attack that the then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan repeatedly warned in the first stage of the war that “the Third Temple is in danger,” alluding to the existential threat Israel faced.

Those words had significance not only for the Jewish residents of the State of Israel, but for world Jewry, who viewed Israel as a guarantor of global Jewish security.

On October 10, four days after the beginning of the war, Israel began to run short on military supplies. Israel requested ordnances that the US did not immediately deliver — something that Nixon and Kissinger have been heavily criticized for — but as the Soviets supplied its Arab allies with military hardware and ammunition, the Nixon administration did eventually send aid, despite the threat of an Arab oil boycott.

Nixon’s attitude contrasted sharply with that of European countries that refused to allow cargo planes carrying military supplies to Israel to refuel on their bases. Even Germany surrendered to the Arab boycott. The Nixon administration eventually pressed the Portuguese dictatorship to allow the planes to refuel on the Azores Island, under the condition that Israel accept a ceasefire.

The Nixon administration did not want the Arabs to end the Yom Kippur War with a victory that would strengthen the Soviets in the region. Likewise, Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, did not wish to have a total Israeli victory that would humiliate the Arabs again, thus perpetuating the conflict. Whatever the outcome, the Nixon administration sought to take the diplomatic initiative and become the primary mediator of a cease-fire and future negotiations between Israel and the Arabs.

Thus, Israel accepted the ceasefire. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat decided, however, to continue the war to alleviate the military pressure that the Syrians were facing in the Golan Heights and southern Syria from the Israelis. Then, beginning on October 13, under strict orders from President Nixon, the US sent more military supplies and hardware to Israel than the Soviets sent to its Arab allies.

Nixon overruled the Pentagon, which feared upsetting the Arabs and undermining détente, the mutually agreed policy of relaxation in US-Soviet relations to preserve global peace. Nixon rightly thought the Arabs would be upset regardless of whether the US sent massive or limited supplies.

What mattered was a display of force against the Soviets, who were resupplying the Arabs and perhaps counting on the lack of US reaction due to détente.

Nixon was right. An oil embargo ensued, but the massive resupply allowed Israel to turn the tide of the war in its favor, forcing the Egyptians and the Syrians to accept a ceasefire. Israel surrounded the Egyptian Third Army, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) crossed the Suez Canal to the African side. Israel found itself close to Cairo and Damascus. The Soviet clients were on the defensive now, and the Israelis were on their territory. This time, the Arabs begged for a cease-fire 10 days after triumphantly rejecting it.

Eventually, Kissinger’s vision also succeeded. The United States, which initiated a dialogue with Egypt during the war, became the most influential superpower in the region, effectively reducing the role of the Soviets. Kissinger not only reached a ceasefire after the war but reached an interim agreement between Egypt and Israel in 1975, in which Israel agreed to withdraw from parts of Sinai and return two oil fields in exchange for an UN-monitored buffer zone in the evacuated areas. These American-mediated steps led to Sadat’s peace initiative of 1977 that resulted in a peace agreement between both countries in 1979.

Not only did Nixon’s assertive resupply policies allow Israel to survive, but they also allowed it to win a partial battle against the Soviet Union amid the Cold War. Nixon confirmed something that is not fully understood today, particularly in the current progressive left: the value of Israel as a strategic asset.

This was not the first time that Nixon saw Israel as beneficial to US interests. During the Jordan crisis in September 1970, when the Hashemite monarchy faced the threat of a Palestinian takeover of his regime, a Syrian occupation of the Jordanian city of Irbid, and the threat of an all-out Syrian invasion, it was the Israeli mobilization of its troops that deterred the Syrians. As a result, the Syrians abstained from advancing into Jordanian territory. Shortly after, the emboldened King Hussein was able to attack Syrian troops and tanks posted in Jordanian territory, and managed to control his threatened country. Nixon publicly acknowledged Israel’s value as a strategic asset.

Likewise, it was under Nixon’s presidency that the United States endorsed Israel’s policy of nuclear opacity. Israel developed atomic capacity because it faced an existential threat from the Arab states.

Some in the Nixon administration were concerned about Israel’s nuclear program and pushed to condition the sale of Phantom fighter jets to Israel on Israeli assurances on the nuclear program. Nixon rejected this position. Since then, Israel has adopted a policy of nuclear opacity, and the United States has not pressured Israel to comply with the non-proliferation treaty.  It is reasonable to assume that this resulted from Nixon’s understanding of the importance of nuclear weapons in deterring Israel’s enemies.

Nixon’s expressions of antisemitism are indefensible and reprehensible. His demotion of Jewish staff in the Department of Labor based on mere prejudice was appalling.

However, Nixon’s policies on Israel were the right course to take.

Luis Fleischman, PhD, is co-founder of the Palm Beach Center for Democracy & Policy Research, professor of Social Sciences at Palm Beach State College, and the author of the book The Middle East Riddle: A Study of the Middle East Peace Process and Israeli-Arab Relations in Changing Times.

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