Samu Incident
Encyclopedia
The Samu incident refers to events on November 13, 1966 involving an Israeli military attack on the Jordan
ian-controlled West Bank
village of Samu
in response to Fatah
raids against Israelis near the West Bank border. It was the largest Israeli military operation since the 1956 Suez Crisis and is considered to have been a contributing factor to the outbreak of the Six-Day War
in 1967.
, and Prime Minister's deputy, Abba Eban
, concerning peace and mutually secure borders. On the night of November 11 however, an Israeli border patrol vehicle carrying policemen drove over a mine near the Israeli-Jordanian border, killing three and wounding six; the mine was reportedly planted by the PLO subgroup, Fatah
. On November 12, King Hussein sent a letter of condolence to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol
, via the U.S. embassy in Amman
. From there it was sent to U.S. ambassador Barbour at the embassy in Tel-Aviv; instead of forwarding it to the prime minister, he left the letter on his desk - assuming it was not important and there was no rush. According to another version of the story, the letter reached Barbour on the 11th (a Friday), but he delayed passing it on due to the coming Sabbath. Early on the morning of November 13, King Hussein received an unsolicited message from his Israeli contacts stating that Israel had no intention of attacking Jordan. Early the same day also, the Israeli military mobilized 3000-4000 troops, and sent about 600 of these, with 60 half-tracks and 11 tanks, across the border into the Jordanian-controlled West Bank.
villages located south of Hebron
as a show of force to preempt future Palestinian violence. Israel hoped that the residents of those villages would appeal to King Hussein to tame Fatah and other Palestinian militant groups. Additionally, Israel aimed to warn Jordan as well as Syria
of its military strength and tactics, without actually confronting the Jordanian Armed Forces
.
The Israeli rationale for the attack on Samu has often been questioned. For example, Colonel (ret.) Jan Mühren, a Dutch UN observer in the West Bank who patrolled Samu 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." That, despite the attack against the Israeli patrol two days earlier.
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 United Arab Command
, and see if any other Arab country such as Egypt
or Syria
would come to the aid of Jordan
. It also assumes that this battle was in preparation for the Six-Day War
.
s followed by 400 paratroopers mounted in 40 open-topped half-tracks and 60 engineers in 10 more half-tracks headed for Samu. Meanwhile, the smaller force of three tanks and 100 paratroopers and engineers in 10 half-tracks headed toward two smaller villages, Khirbet el-Markas and Khirbet Jimba. When the larger force entered Samu, most of the town's residents responded to orders by the IDF to gather in the town square. Sappers from the 35th paratrooper brigades then dynamited numerous buildings within and near the village; reports of the total number of building destroyed range from 40 to 125 (IDF and United Nations
estimates, respectively). The UN also reported the destruction of the village medical clinic, a 6-classroom school and a workshop, in addition, one mosque and 28 houses had been damaged.
The 48th Infantry Battalion of the Jordanian Army, commanded by Major Asad Ghanma
, encountered the Israeli forces north-west of Samu. Two companies of the Hitteen Infantry Brigade (لواء المشاة حطين) also approached from the north-east; these were composed of roughly 100 men and 20 convoy vehicles, and commanded by Brig. Gen. Bahjat al-Muhaisen
(العميد الركن بهجت المحيسن). Apparently, al-Muhaisen was leading his troops to Yattah, another village south of Hebron, but the road there passed though Samu. The Jordanians were subsequently ambushed by Israeli forces.
According to then-Colonel al-Muhaisen, in an interview with the Jordanian Armed Forces' Al Aqsa Magazine, Jordanian intelligence had informed him that the target of the Israeli attack was Samu village. He ordered his troops to move toward Samu from two directions, one through Thaheria Village and the other through Yatta, which he led, in an attempt to reach Samu before the Israelis did. The Israelis reached higher ground first.
Eight Jordanian Hawker Hunter
jets scrambled at Mafraq Airbase and attacked Israeli forces to relieve pressure on their own troops, but were met by a force of Israeli jets. In the air battle that followed, a Jordanian plane was shot down and the pilot was killed, and an Israeli plane was damaged and forced to land.
Another platoon of Jordanians armed with two 106 mm recoilless rifles entered Samu, engaging the IDF. In the ensuing battle fifteen Jordanian soldiers were killed, and fifty-four other soldiers were wounded, including Colonel al-Muhaisen. The commander of the Israeli paratroop battalion, Colonel Yoav Shaham, was killed and ten other Israeli soldiers were wounded.
Three civilians were also killed and 96 wounded during the battle.
Egypt
ian and Syria
n radio also verbally attacked Jordan accusing King Hussein of collaborating with the CIA to plot an overthrow of the Ba'ath Party in Syria. Following the Palestinian demonstrations against him, King Hussein accused Nasser
of using the presence of the United Nations Emergency Force
on Egypt's border with Israel, as an excuse for failing to take action against Israel. As Palestinians rioted in Hebron
, Nablus
, Jerusalem on the West Bank and Irbid
in Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Organization
warned all Jordanian ministers to resign by noon on 26 November.
In Israel, angered opposition parties demanded to know why Israel attacked Jordan rather than Syria, which was the guerrilla home base. In a special parliamentary debate, Prime Minister Eshkol listed 14 major acts of sabotage carried out from Jordan in the past year, climaxed by the land-mine explosion that killed three Israeli troops on 12 November. Eshkol said: "It is regrettable that this particular act of aggression came from Jordan." But since it did, he had picked Jordan as his target. "No country where the saboteurs find shelter and through whose territory they pass on their way to Israel can be exempt from responsibility." What Eshkol left unsaid was his certainty that, with the so-called Arab unity being what it was, Jordan would find itself with far less Arab support than Syria, which was much closer to Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. Jordan's Arab partners did wait until the Israelis had withdrawn before making indignant vows of support.
Two days after the attack, in a memo to President Johnson
, his Special Assistant Walt Rostow
wrote "I'm not suggesting our usual admonition against retaliation. We'll maintain that posture,... but 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. In hitting Jordan so hard, the Israelis have done a great deal of damage to our interests and to their own: 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. It's important that we strengthen the hand of those within the Israeli Government who feel this is not the proper way to handle the problem. Even members of the Israeli military now doubt that retaliation will stop the cross-border raids, though they see no better solution."
On 18 November, the Security Council
requested that the existing United Nations Military Observers prepare a report of their findings regarding the incident; it was presented to the Security Council a few days later. In a rare agreement, Russia joined the U.S., France and Great Britain and condemned the Israeli attack. U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg
termed the raid "inexcusable" and pushed for a formal U.N. resolution censuring Israel. 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."
Some months later and just weeks before the Six-Day War
, the U.S. ambassador in Amman, Findley Burns, reported in a telegram to the State Department
that Hussein had expressed the opinion in a conversation the day before that,
David Ben-Gurion
later criticized the raid, arguing that it weakened King Hussein's position counter to Israel's interests. Moshe Dayan
was also critical. He believed that the Samu Operation should have been directed at the Syrians.
The incident at Es Samu is regarded as a prelude to the Six-Day War.
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ian-controlled West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
village of Samu
As-Samu
As Samu or es-Samu is a town in the Hebron Governorate of the West Bank, 12 kilometers south of the city of Hebron. as-Samu is 60 kilometers south-west of Jerusalem. The area is a hilly, rocky area cut by some wadis. The Armistice Demarcation Line runs generally east to west approximately five...
in response to Fatah
Fatah
Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
raids against Israelis near the West Bank border. It was the largest Israeli military operation since the 1956 Suez Crisis and is considered to have been a contributing factor to the outbreak of the Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
in 1967.
Background
For three years King Hussein of Jordan had been meeting clandestinely with Israeli Foreign Minister, Golda MeirGolda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
, and Prime Minister's deputy, Abba Eban
Abba Eban
Abba Eban was an Israeli diplomat and politician.In his career he was Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister, Education Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, and ambassador to the United States and to the United Nations...
, concerning peace and mutually secure borders. On the night of November 11 however, an Israeli border patrol vehicle carrying policemen drove over a mine near the Israeli-Jordanian border, killing three and wounding six; the mine was reportedly planted by the PLO subgroup, Fatah
Fatah
Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
. On November 12, King Hussein sent a letter of condolence to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol
Levi Eshkol
' served as the third Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death from a heart attack in 1969. He was the first Israeli Prime Minister to die in office.-Biography:...
, via the U.S. embassy in Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
. From there it was sent to U.S. ambassador Barbour at the embassy in Tel-Aviv; instead of forwarding it to the prime minister, he left the letter on his desk - assuming it was not important and there was no rush. According to another version of the story, the letter reached Barbour on the 11th (a Friday), but he delayed passing it on due to the coming Sabbath. Early on the morning of November 13, King Hussein received an unsolicited message from his Israeli contacts stating that Israel had no intention of attacking Jordan. Early the same day also, the Israeli military mobilized 3000-4000 troops, and sent about 600 of these, with 60 half-tracks and 11 tanks, across the border into the Jordanian-controlled West Bank.
Israel's goal
Israel's goal in the operation was to demolish houses in PalestinianPalestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
villages located south of Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
as a show of force to preempt future Palestinian violence. Israel hoped that the residents of those villages would appeal to King Hussein to tame Fatah and other Palestinian militant groups. Additionally, Israel aimed to warn Jordan as well as Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
of its military strength and tactics, without actually confronting the Jordanian Armed Forces
Jordanian Armed Forces
The Jordanian Armed Forces , also referred to as The Arab Army , with all of it branches, is under direct control of the King of Jordan...
.
The Israeli rationale for the attack on Samu has often been questioned. For example, Colonel (ret.) Jan Mühren, a Dutch UN observer in the West Bank who patrolled Samu 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." That, despite the attack against the Israeli patrol two days earlier.
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 United Arab Command
United Arab Command
The United Arab Command was a unified Arab military command established by unanimous resolution of the thirteen member states of the Arab League at the summit held in Cairo, Egypt, on 13 - 16 January 1964.-Predecessors:The UAC was the culmination of a history of pan-Arabist collective security...
, and see if any other Arab country such as Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
or Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
would come to the aid of Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
. It also assumes that this battle was in preparation for the Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
.
Operation Shredder
Israel mobilised a force of around 3,000-4,000 soldiers, backed by tanks and aircraft, in the attack code-named Operation Shredder. The force was divided into a large reserve force, which remained on the Israeli side of the border, and two attack forces, 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 tankCenturion tank
The Centurion, introduced in 1945, was the primary British main battle tank of the post-World War II period. It was a successful tank design, with upgrades, for many decades...
s followed by 400 paratroopers mounted in 40 open-topped half-tracks and 60 engineers in 10 more half-tracks headed for Samu. Meanwhile, the smaller force of three tanks and 100 paratroopers and engineers in 10 half-tracks headed toward two smaller villages, Khirbet el-Markas and Khirbet Jimba. When the larger force entered Samu, most of the town's residents responded to orders by the IDF to gather in the town square. Sappers from the 35th paratrooper brigades then dynamited numerous buildings within and near the village; reports of the total number of building destroyed range from 40 to 125 (IDF and United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
estimates, respectively). The UN also reported the destruction of the village medical clinic, a 6-classroom school and a workshop, in addition, one mosque and 28 houses had been damaged.
The 48th Infantry Battalion of the Jordanian Army, commanded by Major Asad Ghanma
Asad Ghanma
Asad Ghanma is a Jordanian Orthodox Christian. From the town of Al Hisn in north of Jordan, he served as Major and Commander of the 48th Infantry Battalion of the Jordanian army during 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the Battle of Karameh...
, encountered the Israeli forces north-west of Samu. Two companies of the Hitteen Infantry Brigade (لواء المشاة حطين) also approached from the north-east; these were composed of roughly 100 men and 20 convoy vehicles, and commanded by Brig. Gen. Bahjat al-Muhaisen
Bahjat al-Muhaisen
Bahjat al-Muhaisen was a Royal Jordanian Land Force officer who served in significant infantry commands during his career....
(العميد الركن بهجت المحيسن). Apparently, al-Muhaisen was leading his troops to Yattah, another village south of Hebron, but the road there passed though Samu. The Jordanians were subsequently ambushed by Israeli forces.
According to then-Colonel al-Muhaisen, in an interview with the Jordanian Armed Forces' Al Aqsa Magazine, Jordanian intelligence had informed him that the target of the Israeli attack was Samu village. He ordered his troops to move toward Samu from two directions, one through Thaheria Village and the other through Yatta, which he led, in an attempt to reach Samu before the Israelis did. The Israelis reached higher ground first.
Eight Jordanian Hawker Hunter
Hawker Hunter
The Hawker Hunter is a subsonic British jet aircraft developed in the 1950s. The single-seat Hunter entered service as a manoeuvrable fighter aircraft, and later operated in fighter-bomber and reconnaissance roles in numerous conflicts. Two-seat variants remained in use for training and secondary...
jets scrambled at Mafraq Airbase and attacked Israeli forces to relieve pressure on their own troops, but were met by a force of Israeli jets. In the air battle that followed, a Jordanian plane was shot down and the pilot was killed, and an Israeli plane was damaged and forced to land.
Another platoon of Jordanians armed with two 106 mm recoilless rifles entered Samu, engaging the IDF. In the ensuing battle fifteen Jordanian soldiers were killed, and fifty-four other soldiers were wounded, including Colonel al-Muhaisen. The commander of the Israeli paratroop battalion, Colonel Yoav Shaham, was killed and ten other Israeli soldiers were wounded.
Three civilians were also killed and 96 wounded during the battle.
Aftermath
In Jordan, King Hussein was faced with a storm of criticism for failing to protect Samu, emanating from Jordanians, as well as from Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries. 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 20 November, Hussein ordered nation-wide military service.Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n radio also verbally attacked Jordan accusing King Hussein of collaborating with the CIA to plot an overthrow of the Ba'ath Party in Syria. Following the Palestinian demonstrations against him, King Hussein accused Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
of using the presence of the United Nations Emergency Force
United Nations Emergency Force
The first United Nations Emergency Force was established by United Nations General Assembly to secure an end to the 1956 Suez Crisis with resolution 1001 on November 7, 1956. The force was developed in large measure as a result of efforts by UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and a proposal...
on Egypt's border with Israel, as an excuse for failing to take action against Israel. As Palestinians rioted in Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
, Nablus
Nablus
Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
, Jerusalem on the West Bank and Irbid
Irbid
Irbid , known in ancient times as Arabella or Arbela , is the capital and largest city of the Irbid Governorate. It also has the second largest metropolitan population in Jordan after Amman, with a population of around 660,000, and is located about 70 km north of Amman on the northern ridge of...
in Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestine Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization which was created in 1964. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations and over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed...
warned all Jordanian ministers to resign by noon on 26 November.
In Israel, angered opposition parties demanded to know why Israel attacked Jordan rather than Syria, which was the guerrilla home base. In a special parliamentary debate, Prime Minister Eshkol listed 14 major acts of sabotage carried out from Jordan in the past year, climaxed by the land-mine explosion that killed three Israeli troops on 12 November. Eshkol said: "It is regrettable that this particular act of aggression came from Jordan." But since it did, he had picked Jordan as his target. "No country where the saboteurs find shelter and through whose territory they pass on their way to Israel can be exempt from responsibility." What Eshkol left unsaid was his certainty that, with the so-called Arab unity being what it was, Jordan would find itself with far less Arab support than Syria, which was much closer to Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. Jordan's Arab partners did wait until the Israelis had withdrawn before making indignant vows of support.
Two days after the attack, in a memo to President Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
, his Special Assistant Walt Rostow
Walt Whitman Rostow
Walt Whitman Rostow was a United States economist and political theorist who served as Special Assistant for National Security Affairs to U.S. President Lyndon B...
wrote "I'm not suggesting our usual admonition against retaliation. We'll maintain that posture,... but 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. In hitting Jordan so hard, the Israelis have done a great deal of damage to our interests and to their own: 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. It's important that we strengthen the hand of those within the Israeli Government who feel this is not the proper way to handle the problem. Even members of the Israeli military now doubt that retaliation will stop the cross-border raids, though they see no better solution."
On 18 November, the Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
requested that the existing United Nations Military Observers prepare a report of their findings regarding the incident; it was presented to the Security Council a few days later. In a rare agreement, Russia joined the U.S., France and Great Britain and condemned the Israeli attack. U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg
Arthur Goldberg
Arthur Joseph Goldberg was an American statesman and jurist who served as the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Supreme Court Justice and Ambassador to the United Nations.-Early life:...
termed the raid "inexcusable" and pushed for a formal U.N. resolution censuring Israel. On 25 November the United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
adopted Resolution 228
United Nations Security Council Resolution 228
United Nations Security Council Resolution 228, adopted on November 25, 1966, after hearing statements from representatives of Jordan and Israel as well as a report from the Secretary-General U Thant concerning the military action, the Council observed that this incident constituted a large-scale...
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."
Some months later and just weeks before the Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
, the U.S. ambassador in Amman, Findley Burns, reported in a telegram to the State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
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.
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion
' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
later criticized the raid, arguing that it weakened King Hussein's position counter to Israel's interests. Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan was an Israeli military leader and politician. The fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces , he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new State of Israel...
was also critical. He believed that the Samu Operation should have been directed at the Syrians.
The incident at Es Samu is regarded as a prelude to the Six-Day War.
See also
- Qibya massacreQibya massacreThe Qibya massacre, also known as the Qibya incident, occurred in October 1953 when Israeli troops under Ariel Sharon attacked the village of Qibya in the West Bank. Sixty-nine Palestinian Arabs, two thirds of them women and children were killed. Forty-five houses, a school, and a mosque were...
- Israeli-Arab conflict
- Israeli-Palestinian conflictIsraeli-Palestinian conflictThe Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
- Six-Day WarSix-Day WarThe Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
- Battle of KaramehBattle of KaramehThe Battle of Karameh was fought on March 21, 1968 in the town of Karameh, Jordan, between the Israel Defense Forces and combined forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Jordanian Army...