The Removal of Unef and the Limits of UN Diplomacy

In mid-May 1967 United Nations Secretary-General U Thant quickly acceded to Egyptian demands that he withdraw the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) from its positions on the border between Israel and the United Arab Republic (UAR), a border upon which it had stood since 1956. At a time of growing political tension in the region, the removal of UNEF left the two countries’ military forces facing each other directly. Three weeks later, when war broke out, Thant shouldered much of the blame in the West for having removed what many considered to have been a successful venture in UN peacekeeping and an indispensable barrier to the resumption of hostilities between two long-time combatants. The 1967 War, including Thant’s decision to remove UNEF, has generated a substantial volume of scholarship and retrospective analysis, much of it published in the first decade following the war. In addition to the public debate that played out as the crisis unfolded, there are numerous academic studies and memoirs––including Thant’s contemporaneous public defense and autobiography––that examine the arguments for and against Thant’s decision to remove UNEF. In general, these studies can be divided into four categories. First are memoirs and biographies by or about those who played a role in the crisis, among them Thant’s own memoir.1 Second are general histories of the war that examine the decision to remove UNEF, but only as part of a larger discussion of the war.2 Third are studies concentrating on Thant’s decision to remove UNEF that inevitably wade into the controversy surrounding the decision.3 Fourth are examinations of the international legal issues surrounding Thant’s decision to remove UNEF, with most of these works appearing in international legal journals.4

Diplomacy · Foreign policy · Memoir · Peacekeeping · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · Law