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Article: The historical place of the Czech-Egyptian arms deal, fall 1955.(Special Issue: Israel)
- Article from:
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Article date:
- October 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Frank Cass & Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A virtual axiom of the literature on the Arab-Israeli conflict is that when the news was received, in late September 1955, of an arms deal on an unprecedented scale between Egypt and Czechoslovakia, key players on the Israeli side began thinking in terms of a preventive war. `Against the background of the Czech-Egyptian deal, the growing threat from the south, and the blockade of the Straits of Tiran,' wrote Michael Bar-Zohar, `Israel embarked upon a road that led to a preventive war.' Both Bar-Zohar and, afterward, Bar-On, emphasize that a sense of emergency and a feeling of dread gripped the public when the arms deal became public knowledge. The British historian K. Kyle ...