title: 1967 war: Six days that changed the Middle East date: 5 July 2017 author: Jeremy Bowen publication: BBC News tags: Israel-Palestine
- Nasser helped overthrow the king of Egypt, and became president in 1956
- Defied Britain, France and Israel in the Suez crisis and “became the hero of the Arab world”
- Rabin was Israel’s military chief-of-staff in 1967
- “Egyptian forces and those of its ally Syria, trained less, boasted more and forgot that the political victory that emerged after the 1956 Suez crisis was preceded by a military defeat.”
- From Wiki
- The Straits of Tiran route served Israel’s only port on the Gulf of Aqaba, Eilat. However, this had limited economic relevance prior to 1956 – construction of the Port of Eilat was only begun in 1952, and was only able to take oceangoing vessels from March 1956. Prior to this point, an average of only two vessels per year travelled to Eilat.
- It was Nasser who was concentrated on building a pan-Arab nationalist movement
- Abdul Hakim Amer made commander-in-chief of the armed forces
- By 1967 Egypt was trapped in a war in Yemen (think Vietnam)
- Soviets were giving Egypt intelligence, air force
- Israel was friends with the US, mostly getting aid from France and Britain though
- Apparently Syria tried diverting the River Jordan away from Israel’s national water grid and that’s a part of why Israel and Syria fought so much
- Also Syria sheltered Palestinian guerrillas
- The US joint chiefs of staff thought Israel was capable of fighting off all Arab nations (each or together) for the next 3-5 years (history.state.gov)
- Supposedly King Hussein (Jordan) was pretty tight with Israel, when they did a raid into Jordanian-occupied West Bank (Samua) he was shocked and scared
- Israel and Syria fight a war on 7 April 1967, Israel destroys them, Palestinians are like “wtf where was Egypt?”
- Moshe Dayan, Israel’s military’s former chief-of-staff said to Rabin “You’re leading the country to war!”
- Israel’s fighting with Syria made everone think Syria was about to make bigger moves against Syria
- Soviet Union tells Egypt that Israel is massing troops on the Syrian border and will attack within the week
- some theorize that the USSR was intentionally causing shit, to jblock Israel’s nuclear weapons plans, and to fuck with the US
- Half of Egypt’s army was still in Yemen, RIP
- Then they kicked out the UN peacekeepers that had been chilling at the border since 1956, and moved into Sinai
- “Shlomo Gazit, who was head of analysis in military intelligence, told American diplomats that Israel had been taken by surprise by Egypt’s belligerency, but it was “an elaborate charade”, that would only get serious if Egypt blockaded the port of Eilat on the Red Sea by closing the Straits of Tiran.”
- Israel didn’t bite Egypt’s aggressions when the UN was removed
- On 22 May, Nasser banned Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran (ban was lifted since 1956)
- Within 42 minutes (really?) America was like “Please don’t”
- Lyndon B Johnson’s Presidency
- Nasser promised that Egypt would not fire the first shot
- The next day, Israel orders full mobilization of the army
- TODO: “In 1956, when Israel attacked Egypt as part of a secret agreement with Britain and France, the Americans branded Israel an aggressor, and forced it to pull out of the land it conquered.”
- Israel’s foreign minister Abba Eban goes to Washington, Johnson says “Don’t fire the first shot”
- Jordan sides with Egypt because King Hussein is scared that the Palestinians within Jordanian West Bank will attack
- “I knew that war was inevitable. I knew that we were going to lose. I knew that we in Jordan were threatened, threatened by two things: we either followed the course we did, or alternatively the country could tear itself apart if we stayed out.”
- Israel’s Prime Minister was Levi Eshkol at the time, apparently a weak leader
- Brig Gen Ariel Sharon raged “we have removed our principal weapon, fear of us”.
- PM was also minister of defence at the time, but was forced to give it up to Moshe Dayan
- Oh wtf, Israel’s spy agency head Meir Amit flew to DC and told US defence secretary he was going to recommend war, and the US kinda just let him
- Returned to Israel with gas masks? uhhhhhhh
- Also apparently Iraqe armoured divisions were moving towards the Jordan Valley, soooo it kinda makes sense that Israel went on the attack
- Israel’s surprise attack - Operation Focus
- Israel had really good surveilence, esp relative to other arab nations
- including voice-recognition files of Arab commanders? Wtf bro
- By EoD Israel had wrecked the air force of Jordan, Syria, and presumably Egypt
- Israel told Jordan they’d be spared if they stay out, but after Samua Jordan didn’t trust them
- Off-topic, Anwar Sadat was the president who succeeded Nasser, made a historic peace deal with Israel, and was assassinated by his own guards because of it. Rough
- Israel conquers everything from the Golan heights through to Sinai
- King Hussein lost East Jerusalem, kept in secret talks with Israel and eventually made peace deals in 1994
- Key word: Junta
- Literally just including this map to show how confusing this shit is:
- “no negotiations, no recognition and no peace with Israel.”
- The PLO moved away from Nasser’s control after the war, Arafat and the Fatah start doing their own thing
After the war
- Rabin serves as PM, in second term he signs the Oslo peace accords, then gets assissinated by an ultranationalist Israeli Jew
- King Hussein expulses the PLO, rejects future calls to war, signs peace treaty with Israel in 1994
- Hafez al-Assad takes power of Syria in 1970 (coup). Syria until today refuses any peace deal that doesn’t include the return of their territory
- Anwar Sadat succeeds Nasser, eventually signs peace deal with Israel in 1979, assassinated by an Egyptian officer 2 years later
Lasting legacy
- “made Israel an occupier”
- “A Jewish extremist assassinated Rabin in Tel Aviv in 1995. His killer was so pleased that he had killed a man he saw as a traitor and a threat to Jews that during his first interrogation he picked up a cup to toast his success.”