A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle

by Julian T. Jackson

De Gaulle’s preferred solution to the crisis was a meeting of the four great powers to broker a negotiated settlement. This was vetoed by the Soviet Union, which was inciting Nasser to hold firm. On 2 June, as tension escalated, the French government issued a communiqué, drafted personally by de Gaulle, declaring that France opposed the opening of hostilities by any power. On the next day, he announced an embargo on arms deliveries to all powers in the region. Since France was Israel’s main arms supplier, this was not really an even-handed measure. Just before hostilities broke out, de Gaulle told Foccart: ‘They are going to launch war … I recognize that the Arabs are also unbearable, I recognize that the Arabs are threatening and that the Israelis feel suffocated … [But] the Israelis will win, and after that everything will be different.’58 This prediction was entirely accurate. On 5 June, the Israeli air force launched a series of air raids on Egyptian airfields and destroyed the Egyptian air force in a day. The Israeli government did all it could to restrict the conflict to Egypt alone, but the Jordanian and Syrian governments both decided to join in, believing Egyptian propaganda that Israel was about to be defeated. Despite de Gaulle’s public declaration regarding arms deliveries, on 7 June he did discreetly authorize the delivery of war matériel already paid for by Israel, including spare parts for Mirage jets. So during the short conflict Israel did not in fact lack...