Arab-Israeli Conflict - 1967 Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (Hebrew:
מלחמת ששת הימים transliteration: Milhemet Sheshet Hayamim), also known
as the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Six Days' War, or June War, was fought
between Israel and its Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. It began
when Israel launched a preemptive war on its Arab neighbors; by its end
Israel controlled the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank,
and the Golan Heights. The results of the war affect the geopolitics of
the region to this day.
Background
The 1956 Suez War was a military defeat, but a political victory, for
Egypt. Heavy diplomatic pressure from both the United States and the
Soviet Union forced Israel to withdraw its military from the Sinai
Peninsula (hence: Sinai) of Egypt which in exchange had agreed to stop
sending guerrillas into Israel. As a result the border between Egypt and
Israel quieted for a while.
At the time no Arab state had recognized Israel. The aftermath of the
1956 war saw the region return to an uneasy balance, maintained more by
the competition among Egypt, Syria and Jordan than any real resolution
of the region's difficulties. Egypt and Syria, aligned with the Soviet
bloc, and Jordan, aligned with the West, maintained a constant pressure
of guerilla raids on Israel.
In 1956, when the US withdrew its support of Egypt's Aswan High Dam
facility, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez
canal, a move which incensed Britain and France, who were the majority
shareholders. The two former Middle Eastern colonial powers partnered
with Israel, which attacked Egypt. This alliance quickly collapsed under
the weight of overwhelming world condemnation. The US, USSR, and UN were
uncharacteristically in agreement on the issue; the USSR even issued
veiled threats to use nuclear missiles against Paris or London. Israel
was able to obtain the stationing of a UN peacekeeping force in the
Sinai, U.N.E.F. (United Nations Emergency Force), to keep that border
region demilitarized.
In 1957, at the UN, 17 maritime powers declared that Israel had a right
to transit the Straits of Tiran. Moreover, the Egyptian blockade prior
to the 1956 Suez War possibly violated customary international law on
innocent passage through international straits. Several years later, in
response to Israel's construction of the National Water Carrier, Syria
initiated a plan to divert the waters of the Dan/Baniyas stream so that
the water would not enter Israel and the Sea of Galilee, but rather flow
through Syria to Jordan and into the Jordan river. In addition to
sponsoring attacks against Israel (often through Jordanian territory,
much to King Hussein's chagrin), Syria also began shelling Israeli
civilian communities in north-eastern Galilee, from positions on the
Golan Heights (It has been argued that this shelling was often
deliberately provoked by Israeli incursions into, and settlement of, the
Israel-Syria demilitarized zone). Although Israel destroyed the
water-diversion facilities in 1964, the border remained a scene of
constant conflict.
In 1966, Egypt and Syria signed a military alliance, initiated for both
sides if either were to go to war. On April 7, 1967, a minor border
incident escalated into a full-scale aerial battle over the Golan
Heights, resulting in the loss of seven Syrian MiG-21s to Israeli Air
Force (IAF) aircraft, and the latter's flight over Damascus. Border
incidents multiplied and numerous Arab leaders, both political and
military, called for an end to Israeli reprisals. Egypt, then already
trying to seize a central position in the Arab world under Nasser,
accompanied these declarations with plans to re-militarize the Sinai.
Syria shared these views, although it did not prepare for an immediate
invasion. The Soviet Union actively backed the military needs of the
Arab states. It was later revealed that on 13 May a Soviet intelligence
report falsely claimed that Israeli troops were massing along the Syrian
border.
On May 17, Nasser demanded that U.N.E.F. evacuate the Sinai, a request
with which UN Secretary-General U Thant complied. The UN asked to move
its force to Israel, but Israel refused to allow UN peacekeepers to
deploy on its territory on their belief that it was a breach of the
cease fire agreement. Nasser began the re-militarization of the Sinai,
and concentrated tanks and troops on the border with Israel. On May 23,
Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran (Israel's main shipping route to the
south and particularly for oil) to Israeli shipping, and blockaded the
Israeli port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. In
accordance with international law (United Nations Conference on the Law
of the Sea, Geneva: UN Publications 1958, pp. 132–134), Israel
considered the closure of the straits to be a casus belli. Almost
overnight the tense Middle East had slid from a relatively stable status
quo to the brink of regional war.
The few regional forces which might have prevented war quickly crumbled.
In spite of the will of Jordan's Hussein, who felt that Nasser's
pan-Arabism was threatening his rule, it had numerous supporters in
Jordan, and May 30 saw Egypt and Jordan signing a mutual defense treaty,
joining the military alliance already in place with Syria. President
Nasser, who had called King Hussein an "imperialist lackey" just days
earlier, declared: "Our basic objective will be the destruction of
Israel. The Arab people want to fight."
Several days later Jordanian forces were given to the command of an
Egyptian general. Israel called upon Jordan numerous times to refrain
from hostilities. Hussein, however, was caught on the horns of a galling
dilemma: allow Jordan to be dragged into war and face the brunt of the
Israeli response, or remain neutral and risk full-scale insurrection
among his own people.
Israel's own sense of concern regarding Jordan's future role originated
in Jordanian control of the West Bank. This put Arab forces just 17
kilometers from Israel's coast, a jump-off point from which a well co-ordinated
tank assault could cut Israel in two within half an hour. Although the
size of Jordan's army meant that Jordan was probably incapable of
executing such a maneuver, the country was perceived as having a history
of being used by other Arab states as staging grounds for operations
against Israel; thus, attack from the West Bank was always viewed by the
Israeli leadership as a threat to Israel's existence. At the same time
several other Arab states not bordering Israel, including Iraq, Sudan,
Kuwait and Algeria, began mobilising their armed forces.
Within Israel, some saw the chance to assure its territorial integrity
and security by establishing a buffer zone. As Begin was to admit in
1982, Nasser didn't choose to attack Israel, Israel chose to attack
Nasser. The view was, as reporter Mike Shuster put it, that Israel "was
surrounded by Arab states dedicated to its eradication. Egypt was ruled
by Gamal Abdel Nasser, a firebrand nationalist whose army was the
strongest in the Arab Middle East. Syria was governed by the radical
Baathist Party, constantly issuing threats to push Israel into the sea."
[3] With provocative acts of Nasser, including the blockade of the
straits and the mobilisation in the Sinai, creating military and
economic pressure, and the United States siding temporising because of
its entanglement in Vietnam War, Israel's political and military elite
came to feel that preemption was not merely militarily preferable, but
transformative.
The same discussion was occurring in reverse in Egypt. Nasser gained
effective military control over the forces of Jordan on May 30th with an
alliance, and already had an alliance in hand with Syria. At the same
time, Nasser believed that the Israeli's striking first would be
disasterous for Israel's standing in world opinion, and he decided that
his forces could manage the damage done by a first strike by Israel and
still have enough force remaining to cut Israel in two, some of his
commanders believed that Egypt was in no position to fight. A third of
its troops were bogged down in a civil war in Yemen, while Egyptian
military communication and supply lines were in ill shape. With the
blockade to work on Israel's economic and military capacity, Nasser saw
it as a matter of time before Israel would have to strike first. In the
mean time, he continued to take actions intended to increase the level
of mobilisation of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, in order to bring unbearable
pressure on Israel.
Israel viewed the closure of the straits with some alarm, and tried
various diplomatic routes to try settling them. The U.S. and U.K. were
asked to open the straits of Tiran, as they guaranteed they would in
1957. Jordan was asked by the Jewish lobby in the USA through numerous
channels, weeks before the war, to refrain from entering the conflict.
All Israeli requests for peace were left unanswered, creating a feeling
of grave concern for the future of the country. Israelis claimed that
the closing the Straits met the international criteria for an act of
war.
According to Israeli historian Michael Oren it was this situation in
which the so-called "red telephone" that linked the White House with the
Kremlin during the Cold War was used for the first time in history: On
May 26, 1967, "Foreign Minister of Israel Abba Eban landed in Washington
with the goal of ascertaining from the American administration its
position in the event of the outbreak of war. As soon as Eban arrived,
he was handed an ultra-secret cable directly from the Israeli
government, and in it the information that Israel had learned of an
Egyptian and Syrian plan to launch a war of annihilation against Israel
within the next 48 hours. Eban met with Secretary of State Dean Rusk,
Defense Secretary McNamara, finally with the president himself. The
Americans said their intelligence sources could not corroborate the
claim; that the Egyptian positions in the Sinai remained defensive. Eban
left the White House distraught. Johnson sat around with his advisors
and said, What if their intelligence sources are better than ours?
Johnson decided to fire off a Hotline message to his counterpart in the
Kremlin, Alexey Kosygin, in which he said, "We've heard from the
Israelis, but we can't corroborate it, that your proxies in the Middle
East, the Egyptians, plan to launch an attack against Israel in the next
48 hours. If you don't want to start a global crisis, prevent them from
doing that." At 2:30 a.m. on May 27, Soviet Ambassador to Egypt Dimitri
Pojidaev knocked on Nasser's door and read him a personal letter from
Kosygin in which he said, We don't want Egypt to be blamed for starting
a war in the Middle East. If you launch that attack, we cannot support
you. Egyptian Minister of Defense, Field Marshall Abdel Hakim Amer
consulted his sources in the Kremlin, and they corroborated the
substance of Kosygin's message. Despondent, Amer told the commander of
Egypt's air force, Major General Mahmud Sidqi, that the operation was
cancelled." [4]
Within Israel's political leadership, it was decided that if the US
would not act, and if the UN could not act, then Israel would have to
act. On June 1, Moshe Dayan was made defense minister, and on June 3 the
Johnson administration gave an ambiguous statement; Israel continued its
plans for war. Israel's attack against Egypt on June 5 began what would
later be dubbed the Six-Day War.
Warfare
Operation Focus
Israel's first and most important move was a pre-emptive attack on the
Egyptian Air Force. It was by far the largest and the most modern of all
the Arab air forces, sporting about 385 aircraft, all of them
Soviet-built and relatively new.
Of particular concern were the 45 TU-16 Badger medium bombers, capable
of inflicting heavy damage to Israeli military and civilian centers. On
5 June at 7:45 Israeli time, as air alarms sounded all over Israel, the
Israeli Air Force left the skies of Israel, sending all but twelve of
its jets in a mass attack against Egypt's airfields. Egyptian defensive
infrastructure was extremely poor, and no airfields were yet equipped
with armored bunkers capable of protecting Egypt's warplanes in the
event of an attack. The Israeli warplanes headed out over the
Mediterranean before turning towards Egypt. Meanwhile, the Egyptians
didn't help themselves by turning off their air defense radars at that
time: they were worried that rebel Egyptian forces would shoot down the
Egyptian military leaders, who were about to perform an inspection. The
Israelis employed a mixed attack strategy; bombing and strafing runs
against the planes themselves, and tarmac-shredding penetration bombs
dropped on the runways that rendered them unusable, leaving any
undamaged planes unable to take off, helpless targets for the next wave.
The attack was successful beyond the wildest dreams of its planners,
destroying virtually all of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground with
few Israeli casualties. Nearly 300 aircraft and 350 combat pilots were
lost. The Israelis lost 19 of their planes mostly to operational losses.
This attack guaranteed Israeli air superiority during the rest of the
war.
Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula
Israeli forces concentrated on the border with Egypt included 3
divisions, which consisted of 9 brigades, of which 5 were armored; there
were also three reserve brigades. The Egyptian forces consisted of 7
divisions, five of them infantry and two armored. Four infantry
divisions were near the Egyptian-Israeli border in the Sinai, an
infantry and an armored division in central Sinai, and a second armored
division in the west. In addition, a reinforced brigade (with 200 tanks)
under Colonel Shazly was deployed in the southern Sinai with orders to
encircle Eilat in the case of war. Overall, Egypt had over 100,000
troops and 1,000 tanks in the Sinai, backed by appropriate artillery.
This arrangement was based on the Soviet doctrine, where mobile armor
units at strategic depth provide a dynamic defense while infantry units
engage in defensive battles.
The northernmost Israeli division, consisting of three brigades and
commanded by Israel Tal, one of Israel's most prominent armor
commanders, found itself slowly advancing through the Gaza strip and El-Arish,
which were not heavily protected. The central division (Avraham Yoffe)
and the southern division (Ariel Sharon), however, entered the heavily
defended Abu-Ageila-Kusseima region. Egyptian forces there included one
infantry division (the 2nd), a battalion of tank destroyers and a tank
regiment.
At that moment, Sharon initiated an attack, precisely planned and
carried out. He sent out two of his brigades to the north of Um-Katef,
the first one ordered to break through the defenses at Abu-Ageila to the
south, and the second to block the road to El-Arish and to encircle Abu-Ageila
from the east. At the same time, a paratrooper force was landed there
and destroyed the artillery, preventing it from engaging Israeli armor.
Combined forces of armor, paratroopers, infantry, artillery and combat
engineers attacked the Egyptian disposition from the front flanks and
rear, cutting the enemy off. The breakthrough battles which were in
sandy areas and minefields, continued for 3 and-a-half days until Abu-Ageila
fell.
Many of the Egyptian units remained intact and could be scrambled to
prevent Israeli units from reaching the Suez Canal or engage in heavy
combat in the attempt to reach the canal. However, when the Egyptian
Minister of Defense, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer heard about the fall
of Abu-Ageila, he panicked and ordered all units in the Sinai to
retreat. This order effectively meant the defeat of Egypt.
Due to the Egyptians' retreat, the Israeli Command decided not to pursue
the Egyptian units but rather to bypass the Egyptian units and destroy
them in the mountainous passes of West Sinai. Therefore, in the
following two days (June 6 and 7) all three Israeli divisions (Sharon
and Tal were joined by an armored brigade each) rushed westwards and
reached the passes. Sharon's division first went southward then westward
to Mitla Pass. It was joined there by parts of Yoffe's division, while
its other units blocked the Gidi Pass. Tal's units stopped at various
points to the length of the Suez Canal.
Israel's blocking action was only partially successful. Only the Gidi
pass was captured before the Egyptians approached it, but at other
places Egyptian units did manage to pass through and cross the Canal to
safety. Nevertheless the Israeli victories were impressive. In four days
of operations, Israel defeated the largest and most heavily equipped
Arab army, leaving numerous points in the Sinai filled with hundreds of
burning or abandoned Egyptian vehicles.
On 8 June, Israel had captured the Sinai by sending infantry units to
Ras-Sudar on the western coast of the peninsula. Sharm El-Sheikh, at its
southern tip, had already been captured a day earlier by units of the
Israeli Navy.
Several tactical elements made the swift Israeli advance possible:
first, the complete air superiority the IAF had achieved over its
Egyptian counterpart; second, the determined implementation of an
innovative battle plan; and third, the lack of coordination among
Egyptian troops. These would prove to be decisive elements on Israel's
other fronts as well.
West Bank
Jordan was reluctant to enter the war. Some claim that Nasser used the
obscurity of the first hours of the conflict to convince Hussein that he
was victorious; he claimed as evidence a radar sighting of a squadron of
Israeli aircraft returning from bombing raids in Egypt which he claimed
to be Egyptian aircraft enroute to attacking Israel. One of the
Jordanian brigades stationed in the West Bank was sent to the Hebron
area in order to link with the Egyptians. Hussein decided to attack.
Prior to the war, Jordanian forces included 11 brigades (total of 60,000
troops), equipped by some 300 modern Western tanks. Of them, 9 brigades
were deployed in the West Bank and 2 in the Jordan valley. The Jordanian
ground army was relatively well-equipped and well-trained. Furthermore,
Israeli post-war briefings claimed that the Jordanian staff acted
professionally as well, but was always left "half a turn" behind by the
Israeli moves. The Royal Jordanian Air Force, however, consisted of only
about 20 Hawker Hunter fighters, obsolete by all standards.
Israeli Central Command forces consisted of five brigades. The first two
were permanently stationed near Jerusalem and were called the
"Jerusalem" brigade and the mechanized "Harel" brigade. A paratrooper
brigade was summoned from the Sinai front, Mordechai Gur's 35th. An
armored brigade was allocated from the General Staff reserve and brought
to the Latrun area. The 10th armored brigade was stationed north of
Samaria. The Northern Command provided a division (3 brigades) which was
stationed to the north of Samaria and led by Elad Peled.
On the morning of 5 June, Jordanian forces made thrusts in the area of
Jerusalem, occupying Government House used as the headquarters for the
UN observers and shelled the city. Units in Qalqiliya fired in the
direction of Tel-Aviv. The Royal Jordanian Air Force attacked Israeli
airfields. Both air and artillery attacks caused little damage. Israeli
units were scrambled to attack Jordanian forces in the West Bank. In the
afternoon of that same day, Israeli Air Force (IAF) strikes destroyed
the Royal Jordanian Air Force. By the evening of 5 June, the infantry
Jerusalem brigade moved south of Jerusalem, while the mechanized Harel
encircled it from the north.
On June 6, the Israeli units attacked: The reserve paratroop brigade
completed the Jerusalem encirclement in the area called "The Ammunition
Hill" (which was the site of a bloody battle). The infantry brigade
attacked the fortress at Latrun capturing it at daybreak, and advanced
through Beit Horon towards Ramallah. The Harel brigade continued its
push to the mountainous area of north-west Jerusalem, linking the Mount
Scopus campus of Hebrew University with the city of Jerusalem. By the
evening, the brigade arrived in Ramallah.
The Jordanian forces in Samaria amounted to 4 divisions, one of them
being the elite armored 40th. The IAF caught the 60th Jordanian Brigade
on the road from Jericho to reinforce Jerusalem and destroyed it. One
battalion from Peled's division was sent to check Jordanian defenses in
the Jordan Valley. A brigade belonging to Peled's division captured
Western Samaria, another captured Jenin and the third (equipped with
light French AMX-13s) engaged Jordanian Pattons main battle tanks to the
east.
On 7 June heavy fighting ensued. Gur's paratroopers entered the Old City
of Jerusalem via the Lion's Gate, and captured the Western Wall and the
Temple Mount. The Jerusalem brigade then reinforced them, and continued
to the south, capturing Judea, Gush Etzion and Hebron. The Harel brigade
proceeded eastward, descending to the Jordan river. In Samaria, one of
Peled's brigades seized Nablus; then it joined one of Central Command's
armored brigades to fight the Jordanian forces which held the advantage
of superior equipment and were equal in numbers to the Israelis.
Again, the air superiority of the IAF proved paramount as it immobilized
the enemy, leading to its defeat. One of Peled's brigades joined with
its Central Command counterparts coming from Ramallah, and the remaining
two blocked the Jordan river together with the Central Command's 10th
(the latter crossed the Jordan river into the East Bank to provide cover
for Israeli combat engineers while they blew the bridges, but was
quickly pulled back because of American pressure).
Golan Heights
During the evening of 5 June, Israeli air strikes destroyed two thirds
of the Syrian Air Force, and forced the remaining third to retreat to
distant bases, without playing any further role in the ensuing warfare.
A minor Syrian force tried to capture the water plant at Tel Dan (the
subject of a fierce escalation two years earlier). Several Syrian tanks
are reported to have sunk in the Jordan river. In any case, the Syrian
command abandoned hopes of a ground attack, and began a massive shelling
of Israeli towns in the Hula Valley instead.
7 June and 8th passed in this way. At that time, a debate had been going
on in the Israeli leadership whether the Golan Heights should be
assailed as well. Military wisdom, however, suggested that the attack
would be extremely costly, as it would be an uphill battle against a
strongly fortified enemy. The western side of the Golan Heights consists
of a rock escarpment that rises 1700 feet from the Sea of Galilee, and
the Jordan River to a more gently sloping plateau. Moshe Dayan believed
such an operation would yield losses of 30,000, and opposed it bitterly.
Levi Eshkol, on the other hand, was more open to the possibility of an
operation in the Golan Heights, as was the head of the Northern Command,
David Elazar, whose unbridled enthusiasm for and confidence in the
operation may have eroded Dayan's reluctance. Eventually, as the
situation on the Southern and Central fronts cleared up, Moshe Dayan
became more enthusiastic about the idea, and he authorized the
operation.
The Syrian army consisted of about 50,000 men grouped in 9 brigades,
supported by an adequate amount of artillery and armor. Israeli forces
used in combat consisted of two brigades (one armored led by Albert
Mandler and the Golani Brigade) in the northern part of the front, and
another two (infantry and one of Peled's brigades summoned from Jenin)
in the center. The Golan Heights' unique terrain (mountainous slopes
crossed by parallel streams every several miles running east to west),
and the general lack of roads in the area channeled both forces along
east-west axes of movement and restricting the ability of units to
support those on either flank. Thus the Syrians could move north-south
on the plateau itself, and the Israelis could move north-south at the
base of the Golan escarpment. An advantage Israel possessed was the
excellent intelligence collected by Mossad operative Eli Cohen (who was
captured and executed in Syria in 1965) regarding the Syrian battle
positions.
The IAF, which had been attacking Syrian artillery for four days prior
to the attack, was ordered to attack Syrian positions with all its
force. While the well-protected artillery was mostly undamaged, the
ground forces staying on the Golan plateau (6 of the 9 brigades) became
unable to organize a defense. By the evening of 9 June, the four Israeli
brigades had broken through to the plateau, where they could be
reinforced and replaced.
On the next day, June 10, the central and northern groups joined in a
pincer movement on the plateau, but that fell mainly on empty territory
as the Syrian forces fled. Several units joined by Elad Peled climbed to
the Golan from the south, only to find the positions mostly empty as
well. During the day, the Israeli units stopped after obtaining maneuver
room between their positions and a line of volcanic hills to the west.
To the east the ground terrain is an open gently sloping plain. This
position later became the cease-fire line known as the "Purple Line".
War in the air and at sea
During the Six-Day War, the IAF demonstrated the crucial importance of
air superiority during the course of a modern conflict. It was able to
thwart and harass the Arab forces and to grant itself air superiority
over all fronts; it then complemented the strategic effect of their
initial strike by carrying out tactical support operations. Of
particular interest was the destruction of the Jordanian 60th armored
brigade near Jericho and the attack on the Iraqi armored brigade which
was sent to attack Israel through Jordan.
In contrast, the Arab air forces never managed to mount an effective
attack: Attacks of Jordanian fighters and Egyptian TU-16 bombers into
the Israeli rear during the first two days of the war were not
successful and led to the destruction of the aircraft (Egyptian bombers
were shot down while Jordan's fighters were destroyed during the attack
on the airfield).
War at sea was also extremely limited. Movements of both Israeli and
Egyptian vessels are known to have been used to intimidate the other
side, but neither side has ever engaged the other at sea. The only moves
that yielded any result were the unleashing of 6 Israeli frogmen in
Alexandria harbor (they were captured, having sunk a minesweeper), and
the Israeli light boat crews capturing the abandoned Sharm El-Sheikh.
On June 6 the second day of the war, King Hussein and Nasser declared
that American and British aircraft took part in the Israeli attacks.
This announcement was intercepted by the Israelis and turned into a
media frenzy. This became known as "The Big Lie" in American and British
circles (see 'Claims of U.S. and British combat' support below).
Two days later, on June 8 the USS Liberty, an American electronic
intelligence vessel sailing 13 miles off al-Arish, was attacked by
Israeli air and sea forces, nearly sinking the ship and causing heavy
casualties. Israel claimed the attack was a case of mistaken identity,
but whether or not this is true is still heavily debated to this day
(see USS Liberty incident).
Conclusion of conflict and situation after war
By June 10, Israel had completed its final offensive in the Golan
Heights and a ceasefire was signed the following day. Israel had seized
the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank of the Jordan River
(including East Jerusalem), and the Golan Heights. Overall, Israel's
territory grew by a factor of 3, including about one million Arabs
placed under Israel's direct control in the newly captured territories.
Israel's strategic depth grew to at least 300 kilometers in the south,
60 kilometers in the east and 20 kilometers of extremely rugged terrain
in the north, a security asset that would prove useful in the 1973
Arab-Israeli War six years later.
The political importance of the 1967 War was immense; Israel
demonstrated that it was not only able, but also willing to initiate
strategic strikes that could change the regional balance. Egypt and
Syria learned tactical lessons, but perhaps not the strategic ones, and
would launch an attack in 1973 in an attempt to reclaim their lost
territory.
Yet another aspect of the war touches on the population of the captured
territories: of about one million Palestinians in the West Bank, 300,000
(according to the US State Department) fled to Jordan, where they
contributed to the growing unrest. The other 600,000[5] remained. In the
Golan Heights, an estimated 80,000 Syrians fled [6]. Only the
inhabitants of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights were allowed to
receive Israeli citizenship, as Israel annexed these territories in the
early 1980s. Both Jordan and Egypt eventually withdrew their claims to
West Bank and Gaza (the Sinai was returned on the basis of Camp David
Accords of 1978 and the question of the Golan Heights is still being
negotiated with Syria). After Israeli conquest of these newly acquired
'territories' a large settlement effort was launched to secure Israel's
permanent foothold. There are now hundreds of thousands of Israeli
settlers in these territories.
The Casualties of the war, far from Israel's anticipated heavy estimates
were quite low. On the Egyptian front Israel lost 338 soldiers, and the
Egyptians between 10,000-15,000. On the Jordanian front, Israel lost
some 300 soldiers and Jordan roughly 800. In the conquest of the Golan
Heights, 141 Israelis died, and according to Israeli estimates 500
Syrians lost their lives.
The 1967 War also laid the foundation for future discord in the region -
as on 22 November 1967, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242,
the "land for peace" formula, which called for Israeli withdrawal "from
territories occupied" in 1967 in return for "the termination of all
claims or states of belligerency."
The framers of Resolution 242 recognized that some territorial
adjustments were likely and deliberately did not include words all or
the in the English language version of the text when referring to
"territories occupied" during the war, although it is present in other,
notably French, Spanish and Russian versions. It recognized the right of
"every state in the area" - thus Israel in particular - "to live in
peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts
of force." Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1982, after the Camp
David Accords.
Claims of U.S. and British combat support
Some Arabs believe the US and Britain provided more support for the
Israelis than the American and British governments admit. Claims of
American and British combat support for Israel began on the second day
of the war. Radio Cairo and the government newspaper Al-Ahram made a
number of claims, among them: that US and British carrier-based aircraft
flew sorties against the Egyptians; that US aircraft based in Libya
attacked Egypt; that US spy satellites provided imagery to Israel. Both
Syria and Jordan broadcast similar reports on Radio Damascus and Radio
Amman. Michael Oren claims that the purpose of these claims was to
secure Soviet support. If this were true, it would in many ways mirror
claims Israel made during this time in attempts to get US support. In
reaction to these claims, Arab oil-producing countries announced either
an oil embargo on the United States and Britain or suspended oil exports
altogether.
One thing that contributed to this belief, other than general US support
for Israel, was US intelligence-gathering during this period. Although
this intelligence gathering was not disputed, the question arose as to
whether the intelligence was handed over to the Israelis, perhaps to
help them coordinate attacks. The US government denies doing this.
High school and lower grade textbooks in Egypt claim that American and
British troops fought on behalf of Israel during the Six-Day War. The
following example comes from ‘Abdallah Ahmad Hamid al-Qusi, Al-Wisam fi
at-Ta'rikh (Cairo: Al-Mu'asasa al-‘Arabiya al-Haditha, 1999), p. 284.
The United States' role: Israel was not (fighting) on its own in the
(1967) war. Hundreds of volunteers, pilots, and military officers with
American scientific spying equipment of the most advanced type
photographed the Egyptian posts for it (Israel), jammed the Egyptian
defense equipment, and transmitted to it the orders of the Egyptian
command.
On 9 June 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser stated in his
resignation speech (his resignation was not accepted):
What is now established is that American and British aircraft carriers
were off the shores of the enemy helping his war effort. Also, British
aircraft raided, in broad daylight, positions of the Syrian and Egyptian
fronts, in addition to operations by a number of American aircraft
reconnoitering some of our positions … Indeed, it can be said without
exaggeration that the enemy was operating with an air force three times
stronger than his normal force.
After the war ended, the Egyptian government and its newspapers
continued to make claims of collusion between Israel, the United Kingdom
and the United States. These included a series of weekly articles in
Al-Ahram, simulaneously broadcast on Radio Cairo, by Muhammad Heikal in
Al-Ahram. Heikal attempted to uncover the "secrets" of the war. He
presented a blend of facts, documents, and interpretations. Heikal's
conclusion was clear-cut: there was a secret U.S.-Israeli collusion
against Syria and Egypt.
Both London and Washington issued strenuous denials of these claims.
Her Majesty's Government are shocked by reports emanating from the
Middle East … that planes from a British aircraft carrier have been
involved in the fighting. This is a malicious fabrication. There is not
a grain of truth in it. It is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to
avoid taking sides in this conflict and to do everything they can to
bring about a cease-fire as soon as possible.
Nonetheless, these claims, that the Arabs were fighting the Americans
and British rather than Israel alone, took hold in the Arab world. As
reported by the British Representative in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a
country at odds with Egypt as a result of the Yemen war:
President Abdel Nasser's allegation … is firmly believed by almost the
whole Arab population here who listen to the radio or read the press …
Our broadcast denials are little heard and just not believed. The
denials we have issued to the broadcasting service and press have not
been published. Even highly educated persons basically friendly to us
seem convinced that the allegations are true. Senior foreign ministry
officials who received my formal written and oral denials profess to
believe them but nevertheless appear skeptical. I consider that this
allegation has seriously damaged our reputation in the Arab world more
than anything else and has caused a wave of suspicion or feeling against
us which will persist in some underlying form for the foreseeable future
… Further denials or attempts at local publicity by us will not dispel
this belief and may now only exacerbate local feeling since the Arabs
are understandably sensitive to their defeat with a sense of humiliation
and resent self-justification by us who in their eyes helped their enemy
to bring this about.
A British guidance telegram to Middle East posts concluded: "The Arabs'
reluctance to disbelieve all versions of the Big Lie springs in part
from a need to believe that the Israelis could not have defeated them so
thoroughly without outside assistance."
War of Attrition
In early 1969, fighting broke out between Egypt and Israel along the
Suez Canal. The Egyptian forces, relying upon the Soviet model of
military operations, made heavy use of artillery. By contrast, Israeli
planes made deep strikes into Egypt. The United States helped end these
hostilities in August 1970. Subsequent U.S. efforts to negotiate an
interim agreement to open the Suez Canal and achieve disengagement of
forces were not successful.
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War
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