Israel's Six Day War
Comprehensive
Timeline
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"We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood" - President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser [20]
In the first quarter of 1967 there were over 270 border "incidents" causing rising concern in Israel.
President Attassi of Syria: “it is the duty of all of us now to move from defensive positions to offensive positions and enter the battle to liberate the usurped land…Everyone must face the test and enter the battle to the end.” [1]
Landmine injures tractorist in Kibbutz Shamir.
Explosion on train tracks near Kibbutz Lahav.
Two Palestinians killed trying to demolish a water pump near Arad.
Syrian gunners fired from their Golan Heights position on an Israeli tractor farming in the demilitarised zone. Artillery fire was exchanged and the fight escalated. Israel sent airplanes against the Syrian gun positions and several Syrian villages. The Syrians sent up MiG jets and an all-out dogfight ensued – Israel downed six Syrian MiG 21 fighters and chased the remainder all the way back to Damascus. [2]
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Confidential telegram to UK Foreign Office, sent 10th April, relating to 7th April exchange of fire.
"...the ground being tilled by the Israelis on 7 April had been in dispute certainly since 1961 and probably before. The Israelis had cultivated the land from time to time but cultivation had depended on the policy of the Syrian local commander at any time. In this case the Israel reaction to the Syrian fire was almost instantaneous and noone was in any doubt that the Israelis expected Syrian fire and as in the Dan incident were fully prepared to sieze the opportunity to teach Syria a lesson..."
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Full account of dogfight posted here
Syria’s information minister Mahmoud Zubi: “(this battle will be)…followed by more severe battles until Palestine is liberated and the Zionist presence ended.” [1]
Syria shells Israeli village of Ein Gev in Israel - The New York Times
"In view of the fourteen incidents of sabotage and infiltration perpetrated in the past month alone, Israel may have no other choice but to adopt suitable countermeasures against the focal points of sabotage. Israel will continue to take action to prevent any and all attempts to perpetrate sabotage within her territory. There will be no immunity for any state which aids or abets such acts." - PM Levi Eshkol speech [10]
Anwar Sadat arrives back from Moscow with the information he gives to Nasser that Israel is massing 10-12 brigades in preparation for an attack on Syria, supposedly to take place May 17. He was told to expect "an Israeli invasion of Syria immediately after Independence Day, with the aim of overthrowing the Damascus regime" [10] The information is false, as were several similar previous Soviet warnings.
[NOTE: Israel was very aware that Russia was fomenting problems, not only by misinformation, but by active support for terrorism emanating from Syria. See Abba Eban's account here]
Israel learns that Egyptian troops have been put on alert and begun reinforcing units in the Sinai “in impressive proportions and with unusual openness, artillery-towing trucks filled with combat-equipped soldiers rolling through Cairo’s streets in broad daylight." …Foreign correspondents placed the size of the unit at a full army division. [3]
Egyptian Battle Order No. 1 issued: "...Raising the level of preparedness to full alert for war, beginning 14.30, 14 May 1967;" -Field Marshal Abd al-Hakim Amer
- more detailed text here.
- more detailed text here.
Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and members of the Cabinet responded by ordering some regular armoured units to reinforce the Sinai front and drafted a message to ensure Egypt understood that Israel was responding to Egyptian actions and not massing troops on its own initiative:
“Israel wants to make it clear to the government of Egypt that it has no aggressive intentions whatsoever against any Arab state at all”[4]
“Israel wants to make it clear to the government of Egypt that it has no aggressive intentions whatsoever against any Arab state at all”[4]
Egypt moves it forces eastward across the Sinai desert towards the Israeli border.
Nasser demands withdrawal of 3,400 man UN Emergency Force: Major General Indar Jit Rikhye, commander of United Nations Emergency Force summoned to the Office of the UAR Liaison Staff in Gaza to be handed this message from General Mahmoud Fawzi, chief of staff of the Egyptian Army:
Commander UNEF (Gaza)
To your information, I gave my instructions to all UAR forces to be ready for action against Israel the moment it might carry out any aggressive action against any Arab country. Due to these instructions our troops are already concentrated in Sinai on our eastern border. For the sake of the complete security of all UN troops…I request that you issue your orders to withdraw all troops immediately. [5] [NOTE: General Rikhye was not authorised to undertake any such action.]
To your information, I gave my instructions to all UAR forces to be ready for action against Israel the moment it might carry out any aggressive action against any Arab country. Due to these instructions our troops are already concentrated in Sinai on our eastern border. For the sake of the complete security of all UN troops…I request that you issue your orders to withdraw all troops immediately. [5] [NOTE: General Rikhye was not authorised to undertake any such action.]
By this time Egypt had added a further 30,000 troops to the 30-35 thousand permanently stationed on the peninsula, plus 200 tanks, and it was continuing to pour in more troops all the time. [9]
"The existence of Israel has continued too long. We welcome the Israeli aggression. We welcome the battle we have long awaited. The peak hour has come. The battle has come in which we shall destroy Israel." - Cairo Radio
On learning of Egypt’s demands of UNEF a series of emergency meetings was held by the Cabinet in Israel. There was great apprehension when head of Israeli military intelligence, Major General Aharon Yariv, reported to army headquarters, apparently mistakenly, that the Egyptian army was equipped with poison gas (Israel was unprepared for chemical warfare). [3]
“All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel” - Cairo Radio
The NY Times reports that the PLO pledges to “keep sending commandos”into Israel
Evening: Israel called up more reserve units and sent them to the southern front to face Egypt’s gathering forces. [9]
SUBJECT: Urgent Message to Eshkol: We had hoped yesterday that tension in the Israel-Syria-UAR triangle was dropping after an ostentatious Egyptian show of putting its forces around Cairo on alert. Last night, however, we and the Israelis learned that the Egyptians have moved forces into the Sinai. Now they have moved forces in front of the UN Emergency Force on the Israel-UAR border and all but ordered it to withdraw. - Memorandum From the President's Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson [30 Doc 7]
“The Zionist barrack in Palestine is about to collapse and be destroyed. Every one of the hundred million Arabs has been living for the past nineteen years on one hope – to live to see the day Israel is liquidated…There is no life, no peace nor hope for the gangs of Zionism to remain in the occupied land.”
“As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel….The sole method we shall apply against Israel is a total war which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence”. - Cairo Radio’s Voice of the Arabs broadcast
An Egyptian MIG-21 made extensive photographic reconnaisnce of possible targets in the central Negev. [10]
UN Secretary General U Thant was informed that Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad had called the ambassadors of the UNEF countries to his office in Cairo to declare that they must withdraw their troops immediately. The ambassadors, as with General Rikhye, were also not authorised to undertake such an action. - U.N. A/6730/Add.3 26th June 1967
Noon: Egyptian ambassador Kony informed U Thant “Egypt has decided to terminate the presence of the United Nations Emergency Force from the territory of the United Arab Republic and Gaza Strip. Therefore I request that the necessary steps be taken for the withdrawal of the Force as soon as possible.” - U.N. A/6730/Add.3 26th June 1967
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| U Thant |
The UK were deeply upset at the U Thant caving in without bringing the matter to the UN General Assembly:
“The presence of the Emergency Forces in the Sinai desert had kept tensions down. We don’t have to look further for a United Nations success. Yet the Government of the United Arab Republic has made a formal request for the withdrawal of UNEF from its territory as soon as possible.
It really makes a mockery of the peacekeeping work of the United Nations if, as soon as the tension rises, the United Nations force it told to leave. Indeed the collapse of UNEF might well have repercussions on other United Nations peacekeeping forces, and the credibility of the United Nations in this field are thrown into question.”
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| UN Force Leaves Sinai |
…”UNEF was established with the full concurrence of the United Nations…any decision to withdraw the force should be taken in the United Nations after full consultation with all the countries involved – it should not be taken as the result of some unilateral decision.” - George Brown (British Foreign Secretary), speaking at United Nations Association annual dinner in London [21]
TELEGRAM FROM PM ESHKOL TO PRES JOHNSON:(extract) "First: The primary link in the chain of tension is the Syrian policy of terrorist infiltration and sabotage. From Under Secretary Rostow's conversation with Ambassador Harman, I am glad to learn that your government and mine are agreed on this. You are correct, Mr. President, in stating that we are having our patience tried to the limits. There have been 15 attempts at murder and sabotage in the past six weeks. We have not reacted. This in itself proves that there is no lack of temperance and responsibility on our part. On the other hand, the problem is not solved indefinitely by inaction. We cannot always rely on the stroke of fortune which has so far prevented the terrorist acts from taking the toll of life and injury intended by the perpetrators. Although many acts have been committed from Lebanon and Jordan, our present conviction is that Syria is responsible and is attempting to embroil other Arab states. We are alive to this stratagem and shall not cooperate with it.
Second: The Egyptian build-up of armor and infantry in Sinai, to the extent so far of approximately four divisions including 600 tanks, is greater than ever before, and has no objective justification. Egypt knows that there is no foundation for reports of troop concentration against Syria. Yet even after receiving information on this subject from UN and other sources, the UAR has increased its troop concentration. This naturally forces me to undertake precautionary reinforcement in the south. One of the dangers that we face is that the Egyptian troop concentration may encourage Syria to resume terroristic acts under the false impression of immunity." [30 DOC 13]
"El Fatah activities consisting of terrorism and sabotage are a major factor in that they provoke strong reactions in Israel by the Government and population alike. Some recent incidents of this type have seemed to indicate a new level of organisation and training of those who participate in these actions." - UN Secretary General U Thant, Security Council meeting. [10]
“I do not want to cause alarm but it is difficult for me not to warn the Council that, as I see it, the position in the Middle East is more disturbing…indeed more menacing than at any time since the fall of 1956.” - UN Secretary General U Thant, Security Council meeting - U.N. S/7906 26th May 1967
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A UNEF liaison officer says goodbye to the Israeli officer in charge of the Erez border checkpoint just prior to the removal of UNEF forces from Kings Gate. photo Bruner Ilan - Israel National Photo Collection
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U Thant's decision was still provoking great unease within the UN, as reported by The Times: "Quite a few countries feel that the force should not have been withdrawn and virtually disbanded so suddenly at the behest of the United Arab Republic without allowing the United Nations General Assembly, which authorized its coming into existence, to discuss the matter...efforts (are) being made to see if some alternative basis for securing the Israel-Egyptian border…Most European and American countries and also a fair number of Asian and African countries, would welcome some such “salvage” operation. It would be resisted and rejected by the communist block, which has in the past consistently espoused the Arab case against Israel…Brazil and Canada (members of the Security Council) have contributed contingents to the Emergency Force (and) are believed to have argued against its withdrawal.
… In reporting to the General Assembly today U Thant made it clear that his hand was forced by recent troop movements by the Egyptian Army, which in effect put them in positions ahead of the Emergency Force observation posts."[22]
… In reporting to the General Assembly today U Thant made it clear that his hand was forced by recent troop movements by the Egyptian Army, which in effect put them in positions ahead of the Emergency Force observation posts."[22]
4pm: General Rikhye drove to the UN observation post on the Gaza-Tel Aviv road to deliver this message: “In accordance with instructions I have received from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, you will withdraw your guards and observation posts at 5 o’clock.”. . . .
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General Rikhye (L) with U Thant
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By this time there were an estimated 40 thousand Egyptian troops and 500 tanks in the Sinai. Israel ordered an immediate large-scale mobilization of reserves.[5]
“The Egyptian Army build-up in Sinai was described in Tel Aviv today as the largest force to be assembled for ten years” - The Times (illustrated by a large picture of “A column of Russian T34 tanks of the United Arab Republic halt for refuelling in the Sinai desert yesterday on their way to take up positions along the Egyptian-Israel border." [25]Prime Minister Levi Eshkol sent a message to France’s President de Gaulle assuring him that he could count on Israel not to initiate hostilities “...until or unless (Egyptian forces) close the Straits of Tiran to free navigation by Israel” [4]
Eshkol also advised the leading maritime powers: “Israel would stop at nothing to cancel the blockade. It is essential that President Nasser should not have any illusions.”
"Our intention to regard the closing of the Straits as a casus belli was communicated...to the foreign ministers of those states which had supported international navigation in the Straits in 1957 and thereafter. There can be no doubt that these warnings reached Cairo. One thing was now clear. If Nasser imposed a blockade, the explosion would ensue not from 'miscalculation', but from an open-eyed and conscious readiness for war." - Abba Eban [10]
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| Hafez Assad |
The Times reported: Egypt and Israel faced each other directly tonight as the United Nations Emergency Force, which had stood between them for more than ten years, began its official withdrawal.
…in Cairo…there was little consolation for the peacemakers in the announcement that all Egyptian preachers had been ordered to preach Jihad or holy war. The Ministry of Religious Affairs said congregations must be reminded of the honour of dying a martyr in a holy battle. [23]
…in Cairo…there was little consolation for the peacemakers in the announcement that all Egyptian preachers had been ordered to preach Jihad or holy war. The Ministry of Religious Affairs said congregations must be reminded of the honour of dying a martyr in a holy battle. [23]
There was distinct disappointment in Whitehall yesterday at what was felt to be the unduly unquestioning acceptance by U Thant of Egypt’s request that the United Nations Emergency Force should be withdrawn. - The Times, continuing to report on the UK's feelings about UN actions [24]
The NY Times reported Egyptian soldiers massing in the Sinai. Egypt’s President Nasser announced: “The Israeli flag shall not go through the Gulf of Aqaba. Our sovereignty over the entrance to the Gulf cannot be disputed”.
The NY Times reported that the PLO would be stepping up its attacks in Israel, that Cairo was calling up 10,000 reserves and that Iraq would be sending aid for a battle against Israel.
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| Attasi (L) with Nasser |
"We want a full scale, popular war of liberation… to destroy the Zionist enemy" - Syrian president Dr. Nureddin al-Attasi speech to troops [6]
"Israel today proposed a mutual reduction in troop concentrations in the Middle East, while its Arab neighbours laid plans to strengthen still further their forces round her borders…" - The Times [26]
INTERNAL U.S. MEMORANDUM (probably never sent):
GAS MASKS FOR ISRAEL: Israel asked on 19 May to buy for cash on an urgent basis 20,000 US Army M-17 gas masks to be air shipped to Israel for immediate distribution. The US Army can make 20,000 masks available immediately from its stocks. These are being prepared for shipment and could be dispatched as quickly as the GOI can arrange air charter.
The Egyptians have used chemical agents, including nerve gas, in the Yemen recently. Israeli intelligence reports that Egypt has brought gas shells or bombs forward to the Sinai in its recent deployments. Although we believe it highly unlikely that Egypt would use gas against Israel, this possibility cannot be altogether discounted.
Secretary Rusk is aware of and supports the Israeli request to purchase American masks, even though all concerned (including the Israelis) recognize that the number of masks involved is too small to do much good and that by themselves could not assure adequate protection against the type of gas which may be used. This would be essentially a psychological gesture.
- Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Hoopes) to Secretary of Defense McNamara/1/ Doc 37[30]
- Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Hoopes) to Secretary of Defense McNamara/1/ Doc 37[30]
[NOTE: See June 1st - Germany agreed to what was evidently the same request!]
Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran (Gulf of Aqaba ) to Israeli shipping, thereby cutting off Israel’s only supply route with Asia and stopping the flow of oil from its main supplier, Iran. By international law, this was an act of war. (Reported that day in every newspaper in the world - see report in The Times )
[Note: In January 1950, Egypt had recognised the international character of the Straits of Tiran, when it wrote to the American Embassy in Cairo: “It goes without saying that this passage through the Straits of Tiran will remain free as in the past in conformity with international practice and with the recognised principle of international law”. In 1957, 17 maritime powers had declared at the UN that Israel had a right to transit the Straits.]
By his reported decision to close the Straits of Tiran, President Nasser has struck at Israel in one of her most sensitive areas. Eilat is her gateway to the east and the vital supplies of oil.
...In the present atmosphere of tension, time is not on Israel's side. She has had to react to the situation by calling up a large number of reserves, but the economy, already ailing slightly, cannot afford for long to be bled of the highly qualified manpower which has been taken back into the army.
...The Arab armies can certainly afford to mass their armies on Israel's border for longer than Israel can remain at a high state of military readiness. There is a danger that pressure from within might oblige Israel to do something quickly rather than submit to the economic strangulation of a long period of unrelieved tension. - Charles Douglas-Home, The Times p8 [23]
...In the present atmosphere of tension, time is not on Israel's side. She has had to react to the situation by calling up a large number of reserves, but the economy, already ailing slightly, cannot afford for long to be bled of the highly qualified manpower which has been taken back into the army.
...The Arab armies can certainly afford to mass their armies on Israel's border for longer than Israel can remain at a high state of military readiness. There is a danger that pressure from within might oblige Israel to do something quickly rather than submit to the economic strangulation of a long period of unrelieved tension. - Charles Douglas-Home, The Times p8 [23]
THE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS: ...In the hour of crisis all Arabs stand shoulder to shoulder; troops mobilize and offers of help flash to and fro...But there is one element that is new and that justifies U Thant's extreme concern and hurried journey to Cairo. The disappearance of United Nations forces from the Sinai peninsula turns the Gulf of Aqaba back into what it was before 1956 - a bottleneck leading to Israel's only east-looking port, the entrance to which is now again commanded by Arab batteries. Israel has often said in the past that interference with shipping in the Gulf would be a casus belli; and late last night President Nasser was reported to have claimed to have closed it to Israeli vessels and any ships carrying strategic supplied to Israel. - Leader editorial (extract), The Times May 23rd 1967
9.30am: Israel's Ministerial Committee on Defence got underway, finally unanimously passing a policy statement:
1. The blockade is an act of aggression against Israel
2. Any decision on action is postponed for 48 hours, during which time the Foreign minister will explore the position of the United States.
3. The Prime Minister and the Foreign minister are empowered to decide, should they see fit, on a journey by the Foreign minister to Washington to meet President Johnson.
2. Any decision on action is postponed for 48 hours, during which time the Foreign minister will explore the position of the United States.
3. The Prime Minister and the Foreign minister are empowered to decide, should they see fit, on a journey by the Foreign minister to Washington to meet President Johnson.
Housewives, who had displayed restraint up until then, stormed the grocery stores, stocking up on canned goods, flour, oil and sugar in preparatrion for a long war. Thousands of Israelis paid their taxes and others donated cash and jewellery to the Defence Ministry to provide extra funds to purchase weapons. Neighbourhood groups formed on their own to build bomb shelters, dig trenches and volunteer for essential services.
The nation's mobilisation was by now far advanced and the newspapers were filled with columns of cancelled meetings and postponed weddings "because of the situation". Old men and women now drove the public buses since the young drivers had been called up. Thousands of Israeli mothers baked cakes and tarts and sent them off to the Negev so their fighters would have something fresh to eat apart from combat rations. Civilians appeared in the outposts handing out cigarettes, soft drinks and magazines.
Israelis were digging in, getting ready for war.[7]
Mobilisation started with phone calls to the commanders of the most important units. One of them, a lawyer in civilian life, reported for duty with his private secretary and driver and 'within ninety minutes was busy getting his brigade out of the card index and into the field'. The message passed down the line to officers who called NCOs, who called soldiers. Other units were called up by code words that were broadcast on the radio.
. . . .
In a couple of days, most Israeli men under fifty were in some sort of uniform. Some units had a turnout of more than 100 per cent. Overage men arrived at their unit's mobilisation points and demanded to be allowed to fight. One persistent 63-year-old, a veteran of the British army, was told his unit would only take him back if he brought a jeep. the next day he turned up with one from Hertz. [8]
. . . .
In a couple of days, most Israeli men under fifty were in some sort of uniform. Some units had a turnout of more than 100 per cent. Overage men arrived at their unit's mobilisation points and demanded to be allowed to fight. One persistent 63-year-old, a veteran of the British army, was told his unit would only take him back if he brought a jeep. the next day he turned up with one from Hertz. [8]
President Johnson tonight condemned the Arab blockade of Israel shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba as "illegal and potentially disastrous to the cause of peace"..."The purported closing of the Gulf of Aqaba has brought a new and grave dimension to the crisis. The United States considers the gulf to be an international waterway."...Mr Johnson condemned the "hurried withdrawal" of the United Nations emergency force from Gaza and Sinai, and the "recent build-up of military forces in the area". - Times May 24th 1967 full text here
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| Abba Eban |
Israel’s foreign minister Abba Eban met with UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson at 10 Downing Street. Wilson revealed that the Cabinet had met that morning and concluded that Egypt’s blockade “must not be allowed to triumph; Britain would join with others in an effort to open the Straits.”
“The British radio and television, which I turned on briefly before retiring, were full of sympathy for Israel, but they had a distinctly funereal air.” - Abba Eban noted in his diary, on returning to his hotel, that evening. [10]
- broadcast in Arabic by Cairo Radio’s Voice of the Arabs, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 19.35 GMT, 26th May 1967 (the speech made front page news in The Times May 27th) Full text here
Egypt’s government sponsored daily paper Al Ahram carried an article by Mohamed Heikal (a close friend of Nasser’s). He wrote that closing the Straits of Tiran “had put Israel in a situation where it had to react…for many reasons, chiefly the psychological, Israel cannot accept or remain indifferent to what has taken place…Israel has to reply now. It has to deal a blow…Then it will be our turn to deal a second blow, which we wil deliver with the utmost possible effectiveness…Let Israel begin! Let our second blow then be ready! Let it be a knockout!” [11]Appendix 5
Eban opened the discussion by saying the Cabinet meeting on Sunday was very important; there has never been a moment like this in Israeli history; and the country is on the footing of expectancy. If Israel is denied access to the Gulf of Aqaba, its primary line to East Africa and Asia--half of the world--would be cut off. From a legal point of view, the Law of the Sea Conference in 1958 clearly supported the principle of freedom of the seas as applied to Gulf of Aqaba and Strait of Tiran. Nasser has committed an act of aggression and his objective is the strangulation of Israel. Israel is confronted with two alternatives: either to surrender or to stand, and we are confident if we stand we will win. - Memorandum of discussion between Abba Eban and President Johnson in Washington [30 Doc 77]
The head of the Mercaz Harav Kook Yeshiva (an academy for the advanced study of Jewish texts) issued a ruling for his students being called up by the Military Police that "despite the Sabbath, they should board the trucks and go. They should board tanks and violate the prohibition against touching their tefillin (phylacteries) on Sabbath and take them with them when they go to join their units. ...in a national emergency, Army service falls into the category of "pikuach nefesh" (the saving of a life)."[32]
UK: The Chief Rabbi, the Haham and the chairman of Liberal / Progressive synagogues asked for special prayers for peace for Israel to be recited in synagogues throughout the country. [32]
Scores of non-Jewish Germans, including nurses and ex-soldiers had contacted the Israeli Embassy volunteer their services or to raise funds, according to the Jewish Chronicle correspondent in Bonn. [32]
However, Israelis took (the) occasion (to) embark on (an) emotional, evidently sincere, exposition (of) their thesis that evidence available to them (was) conclusive that Nasser has "crossed his Rubicon" and surprise aerial attack (was) expected any moment. My remonstrances that our most careful and equally authoritative assessment is to contrary were met by argument we (were) behind (the) times and essential intelligence (in) this regard had been received in last few hours. They talked in terms of surprise air strike knocking out Israeli airfields and rendering their response ineffective. They said they had intercepts of Egyptian messages to confirm situation as they see it. Also frightened by fact four MIGs overflew Israel yesterday and Israeli Airforce (were) not able intercept. - (extract) Telegram From the US Embassy in Israel to the US Department of State [30 Doc 82]
Nasser cancels a planned Egyptian attack on Israel (Operation fajr - Dawn), planned for following day, after it became obvious that the Israelis knew about the plan.
The NY Times reported that Jordan would admit Saudi and Iraqi forces into its country to do battle with Israel
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| Gamal Abdel Nasser |
…(the crisis had developed because) “Eshkol threatened to march on Damascus, occupy Syria and overthrow the Syrian regime. It was our duty to come to the aid of our Arab brother. It was our duty to ask for the withdrawal of UNEF. When UNEF went, we had to go to the Gulf of Aqaba and restore things to what they were when we were in Aqaba in 1956” - Gamel Abdel Nasser at a press conference for several hundred of the World’s press. [9]
“We will not accept any…coexistence with Israel.…Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel….The war with Israel is in effect since 1948”. - Gamel Abdel Nasser press conference
“Now, eleven years after 1956 we are restoring things to what they were in 1956…The issue now at hand is not the Gulf of Aqaba, the Straits of Tiran or the withdrawal of UNEF, but the rights of the Palestinian people.” - Nasser speech to General Assembly in Cairo:
- Vance, Vick, and Pierre Lauer: Hussein of Jordan. London: Peter Owen, 1968
Abba Eban in his memoirs later commented Nasser’s speech “took the conflict far back beyond the maritime context to place the question mark squarely on Israel’s survival.” [10]
NY Times reports continuing Egyptian build up of military forces in the Sinai and new Syrian attacks on Israel.
Washington Post reports that despite considerable provocation, Israel was still reluctant to have a showdown with its enemies
Washington Post reports that despite considerable provocation, Israel was still reluctant to have a showdown with its enemies
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| Hussein of Jordan and Nasser of Egypt sign defense treaty |
Jordan signed a five year mutual defense treaty with Egypt, thereby joining the military alliance already in place between Egypt and Syria.Jordanian forces were given to the command of an Egyptian General.
"The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ... to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not of more declarations." - Gamal Abdel Nasser speech
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. Army Commander-in-Chief General Sharif Zaid Ben Shaker warned in a press conference that "If Jordan does not join the war a civil war will erupt in Jordan". [13]
“The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map” - President Aref of Iraq
“Under the terms of the military agreement signed with Jordan, Jordanian artillery, coordinated with the forces of Egypt and Syria, is in a position to cut Israel in two at Qalqilya, where Israeli territory between the Jordan armistice line and the Mediterranean Sea is only 12 kilometres wide”. - Al Akhbar, Cairo's daily newspaper
(NB, the newspaper referred to the “armistice line”, not the “border” which is now claimed by the Palestinians to be a legal boundary).
…Dr Ibrahim Makhos, the Syrian Foreign Minister, left for Paris today with a message for General de Gaulle which was officially described as dealing with“Anglo-American-Zionist plans for widespread aggression against the Arab people” - The Times [27]
UK PARLIAMENT DEBATED THE CRISIS:
“Time is not on the side of peace”, said Mr Wilson solemnly several times tonight.
Everybody agreed it was a great pity that the Secretary-General had removed the United Nations force so hurriedly from the danger area.
"Taking the fire brigade away just when fire was about to burst out", the Foreign Secretary (George Brown) called it, “Entirely incomprehensible” agreed Mr Heath. “fatal and perhaps fateful error of judgment” was Sir Alec Douglas-Home’s phrase; this was the lat chance for the United Nations “to get a grip on themselves and apply the principles of their Charter”
"Taking the fire brigade away just when fire was about to burst out", the Foreign Secretary (George Brown) called it, “Entirely incomprehensible” agreed Mr Heath. “fatal and perhaps fateful error of judgment” was Sir Alec Douglas-Home’s phrase; this was the lat chance for the United Nations “to get a grip on themselves and apply the principles of their Charter”
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: "...the first casualty (of this crisis) had been the United Nations. It would need an immense effort, an almost superhuman effort, to restore the prestige of that organization"
Sir Barnett Janner:" ...they could not expect the people of Israel, who have done nothing wrong, to sit for a prolonged period until the pincer movement had got them so entrapped that they could not go on."
Harold Wilson (Prime Minister): "The characteristic of this situation is the declared aim of one side not to win concessions from the other. Their demand is that Israel should cease to exist - indeed has never existed. ...What had to be sought was not merely how to avoid war but to create the conditions of peace. One condition of a lasting peace must be the recognition that Israel has a right to live. Israel had been for nearly 20 years a member of the United Nations entitled to the respect and protection of the United Nations."- The Times [27]
“Brethren and sons, this is the day of the battle to avenge our martyred brethren who fell in 1948. It is the day to wash away the stigma. We shall, God willing, meet in Tel Aviv and Haifa” - Radio broadcast by Iraqi President Abdel Rahman Aref
- 11.00 GMT June 1st 1967, Baghdad Domestic Service in Arabic , Foreign Broadcast Information Service
“Those who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.” - Ahmed Shukairy* (see note below), chairman of PLO in Jordanian Jerusalem, asked in news interview what will happen to the Israelis if there is a war [1]
Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel, sent message to Russian Premiere Kosygin: "When the organs of Arab propaganda raised the contention that Israel is concentrating forces in order to attack Syria, I invited your Ambassador in Israel to visit the frontier to find out for himself that there was no truth in this allegation. To my regret, the Ambassador did not respond to our invitation. The Chief of Staff of the UNTSO checked these claims and informed the Secretary-General of the UN and the capitals of the region that there were no Israel concentrations on the Syrian border. The Secretary-General even included a statement to this effect in the Report he submitted on May 19th to the Security Council." [17]
GERMANY TO SEND GAS MASKS, Bonn: The German Cabinet decided unanimously tonight to agree to Israel’s request for 20,000 gas masks for use in case of an Arab attack. A spokesman said it was “a humanitarian measure”, not a delivery of war material to the Middle East [28, p7]
US BACKS BRITAIN ON SEA PASSAGE RIGHTS: "The United States is backing the initiative taken by Britain to rally support by maritime powers to keep the Gulf of Aqaba open to the world’s shipping, the State Department spokesman said in Washington yesterday" - The Times [28]
MOVE TO JERUSALEM BY PALESTINE LEADER: …Ahmed Shukairy: “We will coordinate efforts of the PLO with responsible authorities in Jordan in all fields – politically, militarily and materially…” Mr Shukairy seemed determined that the war should come soon. "It was", he said, "very probable that the Jordan army might start the battle.” It is doubtful whether his new allies would agree with this. [28, p7] - The Times, Nicholas Herbert, Amman, June 1st
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| Moshe Dayan |
To create the illusion that war was not near Gen Moshe Dayan had thousands of soldiers released for the weekend.
Their appearance back at their homes and on beaches and in café’s seemed to confirm that tensions were relaxing. Some reporters gave up their vigil and left Israel in search of more pressing stories. [9]
A CHURCHILL GIVES HIS BLOOD: Winston S. Churchill, the son of Mr. Randolph Churchill and grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, who is covering events in Israel for the “News of the World,” joined a queue of civilians waiting at Dizengoff Circle on Sunday to donate blood for the emergency blood banks which have been established in the city.
Seventy tourists from Britain also donated blood before leaving for home.
Civil defence preparations are being pushed forward. In Tel Aviv, 12,000 volunteers, including school children, joined in digging trenches and filling sandbags. [29]
In the UK "500 volunteers, including 100 non-Jews w(ill) be leaving London shortly to take over civilian jobs in Israel left vacant by Israelis called up for armed service, reported The Jewish Chronicle. In Stockholm between 200 and 250 Swedes are ready to leave for Israel, including, it is reported, some formers members of the Swedish contingent with the United Nations Emergency Force in the Gaza Strip." Elsewhere in the Jewish Chronicle there was a full page advertisement headed "EMERGENCY APPEAL TO BRITISH JEWS", with the signatories including Britain's Chief Rabbi and Haham. The text included:"Israel is in mortal danger; she stands encircled by enemies who declare their intent to destroy her. This is an appeal to every Jew in the country...to stand by the people of Israel. The Jews of Israel are ready to pay for their country with their lives; the Jews of Britain must show that they are ready to make a sacrifice too." [29]
"Pupils at Carmel College responded to an emergency appeal for Israel and raised a considerable sum of money. They have unanimously asked the school authorities to give them bread and water for at least one meal so that the money could be devoted to Israel" [29]
The New York Times reported that Britain declared the Egyptian blockade could lead to war. They further reported that four Syrian commandos had been intercepted in Israel
MILITARY BUILD-UP: By this time Egypt had 210,000 troops ready for deployment, with 100,000 of them with 930 tanks ready in the Sinai. They had 30 Tu-16 Russian-made bombers, which were a threat to Israel’s cities. Overall the Egyptian Air Force, by far the largest and the most modern of all the Arab air forces, consisting of about 450 combat aircraft, all Soviet-built and relatively new.
Syria had 63,000 troops and Jordan 55,000 – totalling 328,000 troops ready to fight Israel.
The Arabs had twice the number of tanks compared to Israel (2,330 against 1000) and far more combat aircraft too (682 compared to Israel’s 286); They had 1,845 armoured personnel carriers compared to Israel’s 1,500.
However, by fully mobilizing Israel could muster 250,000 men. Israel would need to rely on the training and motivation of this largely civilian army to counter the numeric superiority of the Arabs in manpower and weaponry. [15]
Israel’s newly-appointed Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, wishing to confine hostilities if possible to the imminent battles against Egypt, ordered the Israeli Army not to open a second front with Jordan in the West Bank in the event of war. He instructed the head of the Israeli Army Central Command: “You must not do anything to entangle Israel with the Jordanians...” [6]
Secret resolution passed by the Israeli Cabinet:
After hearing a report on the military and political situation from the Prime Minister, the Foreign minister, the Defence Minister, the Chief of Staff and the head of military intelligence the Government ascertained that the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan are deployed for immediate multifront aggression, threatening the very existence of the State.
The Government resolves to take military action in order to liberate Israel from the stranglehold of aggression which is progressively being tightened around Israel.
The Government authorises the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister to confirm to the General Staff of the IDF the time for action.
Members of the Cabinet will receive as soon as possible the information concerning the military operation to be carried out.
The Government charges the Foreign Minister with the task of exhausting all possibilities of political action in order to explain Israel’s stand and to obtain the support of the powers. [10]
After hearing a report on the military and political situation from the Prime Minister, the Foreign minister, the Defence Minister, the Chief of Staff and the head of military intelligence the Government ascertained that the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan are deployed for immediate multifront aggression, threatening the very existence of the State.
The Government resolves to take military action in order to liberate Israel from the stranglehold of aggression which is progressively being tightened around Israel.
The Government authorises the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister to confirm to the General Staff of the IDF the time for action.
Members of the Cabinet will receive as soon as possible the information concerning the military operation to be carried out.
The Government charges the Foreign Minister with the task of exhausting all possibilities of political action in order to explain Israel’s stand and to obtain the support of the powers. [10]
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| King Husain (48488 UN/DPI Photo) |
King Husain of Jordan today warned Britain and the United States that they stood to lose their friends in the Arab world for ever if they fell into the Zionist trap of supporting Israel in the present crisis.
"There are no words I can use to express my disappointment at the attitude that the British Government has taken with regard to the Gulf of Aqaba", he told a crowded press conference at his palace in Amman. - The Times, June 5th 1967 p4, Nicholas Herbert, Amman "WARNING TO BRITAIN BY KING HUSAIN:Danger of losing Arab friends"
MILITARY BUILD-UP: Seven to eight Egyptian division, two of them armoured, now deployed in Sinai: 200 tanks opposite Eilat, with the aim of cutting off the Southern Negev. Along Israel's Eastern border: 60,000 Jordanian soldiers and 300 tanks. The Jordanian army placed under Egyptian command units, as well as Iraq forces which had entered its territory. On Israel's Northern border with Syria, 50,000 Syrian soldiers dug in, fortified and protected by concrete and steel. Some 600 Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi planes ready.
War broke out on 5 June when Israel responded to the Egyptian military build-up by launching a surprise attack on Egypt’s air force, destroying most of it on the ground within a matter of hours.
That same morning, Israel sent a message to Jordan’s leader King Hussein via the US State Department, the UN and the British Foreign Office, saying that, despite the outbreak of war, it would not attack the West Bank if Jordan maintained quiet on that front.
Jordan ignored Israel’s appeal to avoid conflict.
That morning, King Hussein received false information from Egypt denying Egyptian losses and claiming a massive and successful Egyptian attack against Israel. Emboldened by this information, Jordan launched immediate multiple attacks on Israel:-
- civilian suburbs of Tel-Aviv were shelled by artillery;
- Israel’s largest military airfield, Ramat David, was shelled;
- Jordanian warplanes attacked the central Israeli towns of Netanya and Kfar Sava;
- thousands of mortar shells rained down on West Jerusalem hitting civilian locations indiscriminately, including the Hadassah Hospital and the Mount Zion Church;
- Israel’s parliament building (the Knesset) and the Prime Minister’s office, each in Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem, were targeted;
- 20 Israelis died in these attacks; 1000 were wounded. 900 buildings in West Jerusalem were damaged.
- “Jerusalem is totally engulfed in war…” reported the British Consul-General that morning.
- All this happened before Israel reacted militarily against Jordan, or moved at all into the West Bank.
NOTE: Israel’s entry into the West Bank in June 1967 was not part of a premeditated Israeli plan for territorial expansion. Quite the opposite: Israel’s own Defence Minister instructed the army not to fight the Jordanians, or move into the West Bank. That position only changed as a result of Jordan’s disregard for Israeli appeals to avoid hostilities, and by its intensive bombardment of Israeli targets. Israel’s entry into the West Bank was an act of self-defence. Its presence there originates as a result, not of Israeli aggression, but of Jordanian aggression. [16]
10,000 at Albert Hall Rally About 10,000 people filled the Albert Hall last night for a demonstration of solidarity with Israel. They heard speeches from members of the three main British parliamentary parties, from Dr. Immanuel Jakoboits, the Chief Rabbi, from Sir Barnet Janner, MP, president of the Zionist Federation, and from Mr. Donald Silk, chairman of the federation, which organized the rally. - The Times
Abba Eban, Israel's Foreign Minister addresses UN Security Council: "I have just come from Jerusalem to tell the Security Council that Israel, by its independent effort and sacrifice, has passed from serious danger to successful resistance.
Two days ago Israel's condition caused much concern across the humane and friendly world. Israel had reached a sombre hour. Let me try to evoke the point at which our fortunes stood.
An army, greater than any force ever assembled in history in Sinai, had massed against Israel's southern frontier. Egypt had dismissed the United Nations forces which symbolized the international interest in the maintenance of peace in our region. Nasser had provocatively brought five infantry divisions and two armoured divisions up to our very gates; 80,000 men and 900 tanks were poised to move."full text here
The Times features report: How the Arabs rallied to the support of Egypt(click for text)
"This morning, the Israel Defense Forces liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned to the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again.
To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour - and with added emphasis at this hour - our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity." - Moshe Dayan [external source here]
To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour - and with added emphasis at this hour - our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity." - Moshe Dayan [external source here]
"Peace has now returned with our forces in control of all the city and its environs. You may rest assured that no harm whatsoever shall come to the places sacred to all religions. I have requested the Minister of Religious Affairs to get in touch with the religious leaders in the Old City in order to ensure regular contact between them and our forces, so as to make certain that the former may continue their spiritual activities unhindered." - Prime Minister Levi Eshkol[external source here]
Abba Eban TV broadcast:
"Wars are not always begun by shots. They are often begun by action and the action which really created the state of war in an acute sense was the imposition of the blockade. To try to murder somebody by strangulation is just as much attempted murder as if you tried to murder him by a shot, and therefore the act of strangulation was the first violent, physical act which had its part in the sequence. But also on that Monday morning we acted against the movement of forces. The Egyptian air force had been making incursions into Israel before, whether for reconnaissance or for other reasons, but there had been a pattern of encroachment. One never knows when aircraft come towards you what their intention is."
"Wars are not always begun by shots. They are often begun by action and the action which really created the state of war in an acute sense was the imposition of the blockade. To try to murder somebody by strangulation is just as much attempted murder as if you tried to murder him by a shot, and therefore the act of strangulation was the first violent, physical act which had its part in the sequence. But also on that Monday morning we acted against the movement of forces. The Egyptian air force had been making incursions into Israel before, whether for reconnaissance or for other reasons, but there had been a pattern of encroachment. One never knows when aircraft come towards you what their intention is."
A document which we subsequently captured revealed a very instructive picture. The Egyptian command was taking a very intense interest in the disposition of Israel's very few airfields. They wanted to know where they were, and there was an operation plan, which I read to the Security Council, about how to knock them out. My impression is, therefore, that those aircraft which appeared on our radar screens that Monday morning were the start of an operation agianst our air fields. Whether they were to make the first reconnaissance move or the first knock-out is not relevant in this era of war. But we acted against movement towards us in the air." [18]
US President Lyndon Johnson declared: “If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed. The right of innocent, maritime passage must be preserved for all nations”.
Eight Arab heads of state attended an Arab summit conference in Khartoum during August 29 September 1, 1967, formulating what became known as the Khartoum Resolutions. They called for the continued struggle against Israel, the creation of a fund to assist the economics of Egypt and Jordan, the lifting of an Arab oil boycott against the West and a new agreement to end the war in Yemen. By adopting the dictum of no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel, the Arab states appeared to have slammed the door on any progress towards peace. The Resolutions became known as the "three noes".
*NOTE: AHMED SHUKEIRY - formerly an aide to the late Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The Mufti notoriously sought friendship with Hitler during World War 2, requesting: " ... to settle the question of Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the national and racial interests of the Arabs and along the lines similar to those used to solve the Jewish question in Germany and Italy." He got as far as planning a concentration camp, near Tel Aviv. He was also responsible for recruiting Balkan Muslims for infamous SS "mountain divisions" that tried to wipe out Jewish communities throughout the region.[19] ]
“The existence of Israel is in itself an aggression…what happened in 1948 was an aggression – an aggression against the Palestinian people.
…(the crisis had developed because) “Eshkol threatened to march on Damascus, occupy Syria and overthrow the Syrian regime. It was our duty to come to the aid of our Arab brother. It was our duty to ask for the withdrawal of UNEF. When UNEF went, we had to go to the Gulf of Aqaba and restore things to what they were when we were in Aqaba in 1956” - Gamel Abdel Nasser at a press conference for several hundred of the World’s press. [9]
Jordan signed a mutual defense treaty with Egypt, thereby joining the military alliance already in place between Egypt and Syria.
…(the crisis had developed because) “Eshkol threatened to march on Damascus, occupy Syria and overthrow the Syrian regime. It was our duty to come to the aid of our Arab brother. It was our duty to ask for the withdrawal of UNEF. When UNEF went, we had to go to the Gulf of Aqaba and restore things to what they were when we were in Aqaba in 1956” - Gamel Abdel Nasser at a press conference for several hundred of the World’s press. [9]
Concise Timeline
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This page outlines only the principal events that shaped the crisis leading to the 1967 War - good for quick reference, but much detail is missing.
NOTE: THERE ARE MANY MORE USEFUL QUOTE IN THE FULL TIMELINE. The latter recreates the rising tension around the world, documenting both what happened in the Middle East and reaction around the rest of the world.
The two timelines are interconnected - click on any date here to explore that aspect in more depth, then click a date to return to this version.
NOTE: If you clicking a reference below it brings up a fresh window. To continue browsing just click on the main timeline to hide the reference window.
In the first quarter of 1967 there were over 270 border "incidents", mainly emanating from Syria, which caused rising concern in Israel.
Syrian gunners fired from their Golan Heights position on an Israeli tractor farming in the demilitarised zone. Artillery fire was exchanged and the fight escalated. Israel sent airplanes against the Syrian gun positions and several Syrian villages. The Syrians sent up MiG jets and an all-out dogfight ensued – Israel downed six Syrian MiG 21 fighters and chased the remainder all the way back to Damascus. [2]
Full account of dogfight posted here
Anwar Sadat arrives back from Moscow, primed with misinformation he gives to Nasser that Israel is massing 10-12 brigades in preparation for an attack on Syria, supposedly to take place May 17.
Israel learns that Egyptian troops have been put on alert and begun reinforcing units in the Sinai .
Israel responds by ordering some regular armoured units to reinforce the Sinai front and drafted a message to ensure Egypt understood that Israel was responding to Egyptian actions and not massing troops on its own initiative:“Israel wants to make it clear to the government of Egypt that it has no aggressive intentions whatsoever against any Arab state at all”[4]
Nasser demands withdrawal of 3,400 man UN Emergency Force (UNEF)
Egypt now has a further 30,000 troops to the 30-35 thousand permanently stationed on the peninsula, plus 200 tanks, and it was continuing to pour in more troops all the time. [9]
A series of emergency meetings was held by the Cabinet in Israel. There was great apprehension when head of Israeli military intelligence, Major General Aharon Yariv, reported to army headquarters, apparently mistakenly, that the Egyptian army was equipped with poison gas (Israel was unprepared for chemical warfare). [3]
“All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel” - Cairo Radio
“The Zionist barrack in Palestine is about to collapse and be destroyed. Every one of the hundred million Arabs has been living for the past nineteen years on one hope – to live to see the day Israel is liquidated…There is no life, no peace nor hope for the gangs of Zionism to remain in the occupied land.”
“As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel….The sole method we shall apply against Israel is a total war which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence”. - Cairo Radio’s Voice of the Arabs broadcast
UN Secretary General U Thant sent cable to Cairo advising that UNEF would be withdrawn. He added the rider: “Irrespective of the reasons for the actions you have taken, in all frankness, may I advise you that I have serious misgivings about it for…I believe that this Force has been an important factor in maintaining the relative quiet in the area of its deployment during the past ten years and that its withdrawal may have grave implications for peace.” - Charles W Yost "How it Began", Foreign Affairs, Winter 1968
The UK were deeply upset at the U Thant caving in without bringing the matter to the UN General Assembly: It really makes a mockery of the peacekeeping work of the United Nations if, as soon as the tension rises, the United Nations force it told to leave. Indeed the collapse of UNEF might well have repercussions on other United Nations peacekeeping forces, and the credibility of the United Nations in this field are thrown into question.” …”UNEF was established with the full concurrence of the United Nations…any decision to withdraw the force should be taken in the United Nations after full consultation with all the countries involved – it should not be taken as the result of some unilateral decision.” - George Brown (British Foreign Secretary), speaking at United Nations Association annual dinner in London [21]
“I do not want to cause alarm but it is difficult for me not to warn the Council that, as I see it, the position in the Middle East is more disturbing…indeed more menacing than at any time since the fall of 1956.” - UN Secretary General U Thant, Security Council meeting.
- U.N. S/7906 26th May 1967
Now an estimated 40 thousand Egyptian troops and 500 tanks in the Sinai. Israel ordered an immediate large-scale mobilization of reserves.[5]
“Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland”. - Syria’s Defence Minister Hafez Assad (later to be Syria’s President).
Egypt and Israel faced each other directly tonight as the United Nations Emergency Force, which had stood between them for more than ten years, began its official withdrawal.[23]
Egypt’s President Nasser announced: “The Israeli flag shall not go through the Gulf of Aqaba. Our sovereignty over the entrance to the Gulf cannot be disputed”.
"We want a full scale, popular war of liberation… to destroy the Zionist enemy" - Syrian president Dr. Nureddin al-Attasi speech to troops [6]
"Israel today proposed a mutual reduction in troop concentrations in the Middle East, while its Arab neighbours laid plans to strengthen still further their forces round her borders…" - The Times [26]
Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran (Gulf of Aqaba ) to Israeli shipping, thereby cutting off Israel’s only supply route with Asia and stopping the flow of oil from its main supplier, Iran. By international law, this was an act of war. (Reported that day in every newspaper in the world - see report in The Times )
President Johnson tonight condemned the Arab blockade of Israel shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba as "illegal and potentially disastrous to the cause of peace"..."The purported closing of the Gulf of Aqaba has brought a new and grave dimension to the crisis. The United States considers the gulf to be an international waterway."...Mr Johnson condemned the "hurried withdrawal" of the United Nations emergency force from Gaza and Sinai, and the "recent build-up of military forces in the area". - Times May 24th 1967 full text here
Israel’s foreign minister Abba Eban met with UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson at 10 Downing Street. Wilson revealed that the Cabinet had met that morning and concluded that Egypt’s blockade “must not be allowed to triumph; Britain would join with others in an effort to open the Straits.”
“Taking over Sharm el Sheikh meant confrontation with Israel (and) also meant that we were ready to enter a general war with Israel. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel” - Gamal Abdel Nasser speech to the General Council of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions
- broadcast in Arabic by Cairo Radio’s Voice of the Arabs, Gamal Abdel Nasser, 19.35 GMT, 26th May 1967 (the speech made front page news in The Times May 27th) Full text here
Nasser cancels a planned Egyptian attack on Israel (Operation Fajr - Dawn), planned for following day, after it became obvious that the Israelis knew about the plan.
The NY Times reported that Jordan would admit Saudi and Iraqi forces into its country to do battle with Israel
…(the crisis had developed because) “Eshkol threatened to march on Damascus, occupy Syria and overthrow the Syrian regime. It was our duty to come to the aid of our Arab brother. It was our duty to ask for the withdrawal of UNEF. When UNEF went, we had to go to the Gulf of Aqaba and restore things to what they were when we were in Aqaba in 1956” - Gamel Abdel Nasser at a press conference for several hundred of the World’s press. [9]
“We will not accept any…coexistence with Israel.…Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel….The war with Israel is in effect since 1948”. - Gamel Abdel Nasser press conference
“Now, eleven years after 1956 we are restoring things to what they were in 1956…The issue now at hand is not the Gulf of Aqaba, the Straits of Tiran or the withdrawal of UNEF, but the rights of the Palestinian people.” - Nasser speech to General Assembly in Cairo:
- Vance, Vick, and Pierre Lauer: Hussein of Jordan. London: Peter Owen, 1968
Jordanian forces were given to the command of an Egyptian General.
"The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ... to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not of more declarations." - Gamal Abdel Nasser speech
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. Army Commander-in-Chief General Sharif Zaid Ben Shaker warned in a press conference that "If Jordan does not join the war a civil war will erupt in Jordan". [13]
“The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map” - President Aref of Iraq
“Brethren and sons, this is the day of the battle to avenge our martyred brethren who fell in 1948. It is the day to wash away the stigma. We shall, God willing, meet in Tel Aviv and Haifa” - Radio broadcast by Iraqi President Abdel Rahman Aref
- 11.00 GMT June 1st 1967, Baghdad Domestic Service in Arabic , Foreign Broadcast Information Service
“Those who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.” - Ahmed Shukairy* (see note below), chairman of PLO in Jordanian Jerusalem, asked in news interview what will happen to the Israelis if there is a war [1]
Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel, sent message to Russian Premiere Kosygin: "... I invited your Ambassador in Israel to visit the frontier to find out for himself that there was no truth in this allegation. To my regret, the Ambassador did not respond to our invitation. The Chief of Staff of the UNTSO checked these claims and informed the Secretary-General of the UN and the capitals of the region that there were no Israel concentrations on the Syrian border. " [17]
MILITARY BUILD-UP: By this time Egypt had 210,000 troops ready for deployment, with 100,000 of them with 930 tanks ready in the Sinai. They had 30 Tu-16 Russian-made bombers, which were a threat to Israel’s cities. Overall the Egyptian Air Force, by far the largest and the most modern of all the Arab air forces, consisting of about 450 combat aircraft, all Soviet-built and relatively new.
Syria had 63,000 troops and Jordan 55,000 – totalling 328,000 troops ready to fight Israel. The Arabs had twice the number of tanks compared to Israel (2,330 against 1000) and far more combat aircraft too (682 compared to Israel’s 286); They had 1,845 armoured personnel carriers compared to Israel’s 1,500.
However, by fully mobilizing Israel could muster 250,000 men. Israel would need to rely on the training and motivation of this largely civilian army to counter the numeric superiority of the Arabs in manpower and weaponry. [15]
Israel’s newly-appointed Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, wishing to confine hostilities if possible to the imminent battles against Egypt, ordered the Israeli Army not to open a second front with Jordan in the West Bank in the event of war. He instructed the head of the Israeli Army Central Command: “You must not do anything to entangle Israel with the Jordanians...” [6]
MILITARY BUILD-UP: Seven to eight Egyptian division, two of them armoured, now deployed in Sinai: 200 tanks opposite Eilat, with the aim of cutting off the Southern Negev. Along Israel's Eastern border: 60,000 Jordanian soldiers and 300 tanks. The Jordanian army placed under Egyptian command units, as well as Iraq forces which had entered its territory. On Israel's Northern border with Syria, 50,000 Syrian soldiers dug in, fortified and protected by concrete and steel. Some 600 Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi planes ready.
War broke out on 5 June when Israel responded to the Egyptian military build-up by launching a surprise attack on Egypt’s air force, destroying most of it on the ground within a matter of hours.
That same morning, Israel sent a message to Jordan’s leader King Hussein via the US State Department, the UN and the British Foreign Office, saying that, despite the outbreak of war, it would not attack the West Bank if Jordan maintained quiet on that front.
Jordan ignored Israel’s appeal to avoid conflict.
That morning, King Hussein received false information from Egypt denying Egyptian losses and claiming a massive and successful Egyptian attack against Israel. Emboldened by this information, Jordan launched immediate multiple attacks on Israel:-
- civilian suburbs of Tel-Aviv were shelled by artillery;
- Israel’s largest military airfield, Ramat David, was shelled;
- Jordanian warplanes attacked the central Israeli towns of Netanya and Kfar Sava;
- thousands of mortar shells rained down on West Jerusalem hitting civilian locations indiscriminately, including the Hadassah Hospital and the Mount Zion Church;
- Israel’s parliament building (the Knesset) and the Prime Minister’s office, each in Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem, were targeted;
- 20 Israelis died in these attacks; 1000 were wounded. 900 buildings in West Jerusalem were damaged.
- “Jerusalem is totally engulfed in war…” reported the British Consul-General that morning.
- All this happened before Israel reacted militarily against Jordan, or moved at all into the West Bank.
NOTE: Israel’s entry into the West Bank in June 1967 was not part of a premeditated Israeli plan for territorial expansion. Quite the opposite: Israel’s own Defence Minister instructed the army not to fight the Jordanians, or move into the West Bank. That position only changed as a result of Jordan’s disregard for Israeli appeals to avoid hostilities, and by its intensive bombardment of Israeli targets. Israel’s entry into the West Bank was an act of self-defence. Its presence there originates as a result, not of Israeli aggression, but of Jordanian aggression. [16]
"This morning, the Israel Defense Forces liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned to the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again.
To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour - and with added emphasis at this hour - our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity." - Moshe Dayan [external source here]
To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour - and with added emphasis at this hour - our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity." - Moshe Dayan [external source here]
"Peace has now returned with our forces in control of all the city and its environs. You may rest assured that no harm whatsoever shall come to the places sacred to all religions. I have requested the Minister of Religious Affairs to get in touch with the religious leaders in the Old City in order to ensure regular contact between them and our forces, so as to make certain that the former may continue their spiritual activities unhindered." - Prime Minister Levi Eshkol[external source here]
US President Lyndon Johnson declared: “If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed. The right of innocent, maritime passage must be preserved for all nations”.
Arab summit conference in Khartoum during August 29 September 1, 1967, formulated the Khartoum Resolutions. It stated: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.
*NOTE: AHMED SHUKEIRY - formerly an aide to the late Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The Mufti notoriously sought friendship with Hitler during World War 2, requesting: " ... to settle the question of Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the national and racial interests of the Arabs and along the lines similar to those used to solve the Jewish question in Germany and Italy." He got as far as planning a concentration camp, near Tel Aviv. He was also responsible for recruiting Balkan Muslims for infamous SS "mountain divisions" that tried to wipe out Jewish communities throughout the region.[19] ]
6 Days War: Crucial quotes
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"We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood" - President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser [20]
“it is the duty of all of us now to move from defensive positions to offensive positions and enter the battle to liberate the usurped land…Everyone must face the test and enter the battle to the end.” - President Attassi of Syria[1]
“(this battle will be)…followed by more severe battles until Palestine is liberated and the Zionist presence ended.” - Syria’s information minister Mahmoud Zubi [1]
"In view of the fourteen incidents of sabotage and infiltration perpetrated in the past month alone, Israel may have no other choice but to adopt suitable countermeasures against the focal points of sabotage. Israel will continue to take action to prevent any and all attempts to perpetrate sabotage within her territory. There will be no immunity for any state which aids or abets such acts." - PM Levi Eshkol speech [10]
Egypt must expect "an Israeli invasion of Syria immediately after Independence Day, with the aim of overthrowing the Damascus regime" [10] Soviet misinformation delivered to Anwar Sadat in Moscow.
“Israel wants to make it clear to the government of Egypt that it has no aggressive intentions whatsoever against any Arab state at all” -Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol [4]
'...I gave my instructions to all UAR forces to be ready for action against Israel the moment it might carry out any aggressive action against any Arab country. Due to these instructions our troops are already concentrated in Sinai on our eastern border. For the sake of the complete security of all UN troops…I request that you issue your orders to withdraw all troops immediately. [5] - written request from Nasser to Commander UNEF (Gaza)
"The existence of Israel has continued too long. We welcome the Israeli aggression. We welcome the battle we have long awaited. The peak hour has come. The battle has come in which we shall destroy Israel." - Cairo Radio
“All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel” - Cairo Radio
"We had hoped yesterday that tension in the Israel-Syria-UAR triangle was dropping after an ostentatious Egyptian show of putting its forces around Cairo on alert. Last night, however, we and the Israelis learned that the Egyptians have moved forces into the Sinai. Now they have moved forces in front of the UN Emergency Force on the Israel-UAR border and all but ordered it to withdraw." - Memorandum From the President's Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson [30 Doc 7]
“The Zionist barrack in Palestine is about to collapse and be destroyed. Every one of the hundred million Arabs has been living for the past nineteen years on one hope – to live to see the day Israel is liquidated…There is no life, no peace nor hope for the gangs of Zionism to remain in the occupied land.”
“As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel….The sole method we shall apply against Israel is a total war which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence”. - Cairo Radio’s Voice of the Arabs broadcast
“Egypt has decided to terminate the presence of the United Nations Emergency Force from the territory of the United Arab Republic and Gaza Strip. Therefore I request that the necessary steps be taken for the withdrawal of the Force as soon as possible.” - Egyptian ambassador Kony informs U Thant - U.N. A/6730/Add.3 26th June 1967
“Irrespective of the reasons for the actions you have taken, in all frankness, may I advise you that I have serious misgivings about it for…I believe that this Force has been an important factor in maintaining the relative quiet in the area of its deployment during the past ten years and that its withdrawal may have grave implications for peace.” - UN Secretary General U Thant cables Cairo advising that UNEF would be withdrawn.
“The presence of the Emergency Forces in the Sinai desert had kept tensions down. We don’t have to look further for a United Nations success. Yet the Government of the United Arab Republic has made a formal request for the withdrawal of UNEF from its territory as soon as possible.
It really makes a mockery of the peacekeeping work of the United Nations if, as soon as the tension rises, the United Nations force it told to leave. Indeed the collapse of UNEF might well have repercussions on other United Nations peacekeeping forces, and the credibility of the United Nations in this field are thrown into question.” - George Brown (British Foreign Secretary), speaking at United Nations Association annual dinner in London [21]]
…”UNEF was established with the full concurrence of the United Nations…any decision to withdraw the force should be taken in the United Nations after full consultation with all the countries involved – it should not be taken as the result of some unilateral decision.” - George Brown (British Foreign Secretary), speaking at United Nations Association annual dinner in London [21]
"You are correct, Mr. President, in stating that we are having our patience tried to the limits. There have been 15 attempts at murder and sabotage in the past six weeks. We have not reacted. This in itself proves that there is no lack of temperance and responsibility on our part. On the other hand, the problem is not solved indefinitely by inaction. We cannot always rely on the stroke of fortune which has so far prevented the terrorist acts from taking the toll of life and injury intended by the perpetrators. - extract from telegram from Eshkol to Pres. LB Johnson.
“I do not want to cause alarm but it is difficult for me not to warn the Council that, as I see it, the position in the Middle East is more disturbing…indeed more menacing than at any time since the fall of 1956.” - UN Secretary General U Thant, Security Council meeting - U.N. S/7906 26th May 1967
Israel [will] not initiate hostilities “...until or unless (Egyptian forces) close the Straits of Tiran to free navigation by Israel” - Prime Minister Levi Eshkol message to France’s President de Gaulle.
“Israel would stop at nothing to cancel the blockade. It is essential that President Nasser should not have any illusions.” - Eshkol tells leading maritime powers
"Our intention to regard the closing of the Straits as a casus belli was communicated...to the foreign ministers of those states which had supported international navigation in the Straits in 1957 and thereafter. There can be no doubt that these warnings reached Cairo. One thing was now clear. If Nasser imposed a blockade, the explosion would ensue not from 'miscalculation', but from an open-eyed and conscious readiness for war." - Abba Eban [10]
“Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse any aggression, but to initiate the act ourselves, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland of Palestine. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united. I believe that the time has come to begin a battle of anihilation.”- Syria’s Defence Minister Hafez Assad (later to be Syria’s President).
“The Israeli flag shall not go through the Gulf of Aqaba. Our sovereignty over the entrance to the Gulf cannot be disputed” - Egypt’s President Nasser
"We want a full scale, popular war of liberation… to destroy the Zionist enemy" - Syrian president Dr. Nureddin al-Attasi speech to troops[6]
"[The Arab blockade of Israel shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba is] illegal and potentially disastrous to the cause of peace. ...The purported closing of the Gulf of Aqaba has brought a new and grave dimension to the crisis. The United States considers the gulf to be an international waterway."President LB Johnson - Times May 24th 1967 full text here
"[Egypt’s blockade] must not be allowed to triumph; Britain would join with others in an effort to open the Straits.” - UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson to Israel’s foreign minister Abba Eban
"Taking over Sharm el Sheikh meant confrontation with Israel (and) also meant that we were ready to enter a general war with Israel. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel” - Gamal Abdel Nasser speech to the General Council of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions
“The existence of Israel is in itself an aggression…what happened in 1948 was an aggression – an aggression against the Palestinian people.…(the crisis had developed because) “Eshkol threatened to march on Damascus, occupy Syria and overthrow the Syrian regime. It was our duty to come to the aid of our Arab brother. It was our duty to ask for the withdrawal of UNEF. When UNEF went, we had to go to the Gulf of Aqaba and restore things to what they were when we were in Aqaba in 1956” - Gamel Abdel Nasser at a press conference for several hundred of the World’s press. [9]
“We will not accept any…coexistence with Israel.…Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel….The war with Israel is in effect since 1948”. - Gamel Abdel Nasser press conference
“Now, eleven years after 1956 we are restoring things to what they were in 1956…The issue now at hand is not the Gulf of Aqaba, the Straits of Tiran or the withdrawal of UNEF, but the rights of the Palestinian people.” - Nasser speech to General Assembly in Cairo:
- Vance, Vick, and Pierre Lauer: Hussein of Jordan. London: Peter Owen, 1968
"The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ... to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not of more declarations." - Gamal Abdel Nasser speech
“The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map” - President Aref of Iraq
“Under the terms of the military agreement signed with Jordan, Jordanian artillery, coordinated with the forces of Egypt and Syria, is in a position to cut Israel in two at Qalqilya, where Israeli territory between the Jordan armistice line and the Mediterranean Sea is only 12 kilometres wide”. - Al Akhbar, Cairo's daily newspaper
UK Parliamentary debate regarding the hasty removal of the United Nations Emergency Force:
"Taking the fire brigade away just when fire was about to burst out" - Foreign Secretary George Brown
“Entirely incomprehensible” - Edward Heath.
“a fatal and perhaps fateful error of judgment” "...this was the last chance for the United Nations to get a grip on themselves and apply the principles of their Charter” - Sir Alec Douglas-Home
"...the first casualty (of this crisis) had been the United Nations. It would need an immense effort, an almost superhuman effort, to restore the prestige of that organization" - Sir Alec Douglas-Home
" ...they could not expect the people of Israel, who have done nothing wrong, to sit for a prolonged period until the pincer movement had got them so entrapped that they could not go on." - Sir Barnett Janner
"The characteristic of this situation is the declared aim of one side not to win concessions from the other. Their demand is that Israel should cease to exist - indeed has never existed. ...What had to be sought was not merely how to avoid war but to create the conditions of peace. One condition of a lasting peace must be the recognition that Israel has a right to live. Israel had been for nearly 20 years a member of the United Nations entitled to the respect and protection of the United Nations."- Prime Minister Harold Wilson The Times [27]
“Brethren and sons, this is the day of the battle to avenge our martyred brethren who fell in 1948. It is the day to wash away the stigma. We shall, God willing, meet in Tel Aviv and Haifa” - Radio broadcast by Iraqi President Abdel Rahman Aref
- 11.00 GMT June 1st 1967, Baghdad Domestic Service in Arabic , Foreign Broadcast Information Service
“Those who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.” - Ahmed Shukairy, chairman of PLO in Jordanian Jerusalem, asked in news interview what will happen to the Israelis if there is a war
"When the organs of Arab propaganda raised the contention that Israel is concentrating forces in order to attack Syria, I invited your Ambassador in Israel to visit the frontier to find out for himself that there was no truth in this allegation. To my regret, the Ambassador did not respond to our invitation. The Chief of Staff of the UNTSO checked these claims and informed the Secretary-General of the UN and the capitals of the region that there were no Israel concentrations on the Syrian border. The Secretary-General even included a statement to this effect in the Report he submitted on May 19th to the Security Council."- Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel, to Russian Premiere Kosygin [17]
“We will coordinate efforts of the PLO with responsible authorities in Jordan in all fields – politically, militarily and materially…” "It was very probable that the Jordan army might start the battle.” - Ahmed Shukairy - The Times, Nicholas Herbert, Amman, June 1st
“You must not do anything to entangle Israel with the Jordanians...” - Israel’s newly-appointed Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, instructs the head of the Israeli Army Central Command[6]
June 4th 1967to the Zionist trap of supporting Israel in the present crisis.
"There are no words I can use to express my disappointment at the attitude that the British Government has taken with regard to the Gulf of Aqaba - King Husain of Jordan, press conference in Amman - The Times, June 5th 1967 p4, Nicholas Herbert, Amman "WARNING TO BRITAIN BY KING HUSAIN:Danger of losing Arab friends"
"I have just come from Jerusalem to tell the Security Council that Israel, by its independent effort and sacrifice, has passed from serious danger to successful resistance.
Two days ago Israel's condition caused much concern across the humane and friendly world. Israel had reached a sombre hour. Let me try to evoke the point at which our fortunes stood.
An army, greater than any force ever assembled in history in Sinai, had massed against Israel's southern frontier. Egypt had dismissed the United Nations forces which symbolized the international interest in the maintenance of peace in our region. Nasser had provocatively brought five infantry divisions and two armoured divisions up to our very gates; 80,000 men and 900 tanks were poised to move."- Abba Eban, Israel's Foreign Minister addresses UN Security Councilfull text here
"Wars are not always begun by shots. They are often begun by action and the action which really created the state of war in an acute sense was the imposition of the blockade. To try to murder somebody by strangulation is just as much attempted murder as if you tried to murder him by a shot, and therefore the act of strangulation was the first violent, physical act which had its part in the sequence. But also on that Monday morning we acted against the movement of forces. The Egyptian air force had been making incursions into Israel before, whether for reconnaissance or for other reasons, but there had been a pattern of encroachment. One never knows when aircraft come towards you what their intention is.
A document which we subsequently captured revealed a very instructive picture. The Egyptian command was taking a very intense interest in the disposition of Israel's very few airfields. They wanted to know where they were, and there was an operation plan, which I read to the Security Council, about how to knock them out. My impression is, therefore, that those aircraft which appeared on our radar screens that Monday morning were the start of an operation agianst our air fields. Whether they were to make the first reconnaissance move or the first knock-out is not relevant in this era of war. But we acted against movement towards us in the air." - Abba Eban TV broadcast [18]
“If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed. The right of innocent, maritime passage must be preserved for all nations" - US President Lyndon Johnson
Personal recollections from those within Israel
Click on any link below for that person's more detailed account
The lead up...
Winston Churchill's Six Day War recollections (Winston Churchill, jnr, was in Israel as war correspondent for the News of the World - he is the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill.)
"We used to have a very regular Shabbat schedule - the morning would start with an encounter with the Arab Legion snipers. They shot at us out of sheer boredom.[more...] A childhood in Musrara, on the line between west and east Jerusalem - Avi Elzam
"What appeared at first to be no more than bluster and verbal provocation turned almost overnight into a threat to our existence."[more...] - Henry Near
"For Israel, the waiting was excruciating and debilitating. Israel's citizen army had to be mobilized. As its soldiers waited on the various fronts for the world to rescue the nation from its peril, Israeli society ground to a halt and its economy began bleeding to death. Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, later to be hailed as a war hero and even later as a martyred man of peace, had a nervous breakdown. He was incapacitated to the point of incoherence by the unbearable tension of waiting with the life of his country in the balance, knowing that waiting too long would allow the armies of 100 million Arabs to strike first his country of 3 million." [more...] Charles Krauthammer
The newspaper seller was in the very act of stretching out his hand towards the paper I wanted when suddenly the voice caught his attention. His eyes widened and said, as if in surprise 'Oh! They've called me up too'. [more...] - Abba Kovner
There were also the grim preparations that had to be kept secret: the parks in each city that had been consecrated for possible use as mass cemetaries.[more...] - Golda Meir
"...if you examine the days leading up to the war, you will see that the feeling among the Israeli public, and even among many government ministers, was that of the eve of a holocaust." [more...] Menashe (Muni) Ben-Ari
The kibbutz, like the rest of Israel, wasn't prepared. Most people didn't have air raid shelters. I remember helping to dig a trench outside my cousin's home, in the industrial zone of Haifa Bay.[more...] - Rona and Michal
When the postmen were called up by the army, the children took over delivering the mail.[more...]- Linda Bennett
We have the news on now, Egypt and Jordan have suddenly agreed on something. The way Radio Jordan was going on about Nasser the other week, I rather hoped he and Hussein would poison each other off in Cairo. -[more...] Rona Hart
During...
"In the early morning hours of Monday, June 5, 1967, the sun was already heating everything up around the Tel Nof airbase. Some of us were making our way to the mess hall of the base as Jordanian artillery shells shook the earth. Fragments reached our barracks, puncturing the outer walls with significant holes. Located in central Israel, the airbase was just a few miles away from a Jordanian base." [more] - Joseph Puder
"I suddenly noticed a Jordanian soldier from behind me. He looked into my eyes and was about to shoot me. It was an amazing moment: we were staring at each other for what seemed an eternity." [more...] - Uri Geller
"I was Third Officer on a British Merchant ship when we were in the last south-bound convoy through the Canal" - Recollections of a merchant sailorNEW
"It was face-to-face fighting. I fought like a tiger. My friend was shot in the backside and he was about to be shot again by a Jordanian. I shot him. Another Jordanian saw I was out of bullets and he charged at me with a bayonet. I don't know how I did it, but I took his gun and shot him with it. It was brutal, and a sad victory. I lost many friends. After the fighting we built a memorial to our friends - and one to the Jordanians, in honour of their bravery." [more...] Yitzak Yifat, one of the three iconic paratroopers depicted on David Rubinger's picture.
Shabbat saved my life! - a remarkable and moving account by Shmuel Gurewicz, a Lubavitcher Chassid, who was called up to fight in the Six Day War.
"Suddenly the buses stopped, and our commander said to us 'Put your helmets on, put your magazines in your guns and get yourselves ready, because in a few minutes you'll be fighting,'" recalls Schwartz. "We started to laugh, and he didn't understand why, and we said, 'Commander, we learned how to fight in the Sinai desert, we don't even know where we are right now.' He said to us, 'You're in Jerusalem, on a street called Shmuel Hanavi, and as soon as we get to the corner of Shimon Hatzadik you're going to get off the buses very quietly and start fighting.'" [more...] Balagan's place in history
"Much time was spent in foxholes, anxiously looking east towards the Hebron Hills and the villages of Bet Awa and Idna, where Jordanian soldiers had been stationed for two weeks and where armoured vehicles had been spotted."[more...] - Yisrael Medad
"When the barrage lifted, the paratroop battalion opposite Ammunition Hill started forward. On nearby Rehov Shmuel Hanavi, a Jerusalem Brigade intelligence officer was transfixed by a keening sound. It was a moment before he recognized it with a chill as the sound of men charging into battle.
The paratroopers had to cross 150 meters of no-man's-land, parts of it sown with mines. The intensive shelling had been intended in part to detonate them, but the results could not be known. The men were to run forward in single file. If someone stepped on a mine, those behind were to pass over him and continue forward.
In the event, the entire battalion crossed safely. But in a fierce battle that continued well after sunrise, 24 paratroopers died in the trenches of Ammunition Hill together with 80 Jordanians..." City Under Siege - Abraham Rabinovich Jerusalem Post 14th May 2007
Letters from the war zone... [more...] Rona Hart
"For the first couple of days there was shelling from the United Nations building (captured by the Jordanians on the first day of the war) which landed around our house." [more...] Josephine Bacon
"At dawn the next morning, I was heading north in a fire-engine red Ford Mustang and learning more lessons about the logistics of Israel’s military predicament. The entire trip to the Golan Heights, where major tank battles already raged, took less than three hours. Along the way, I picked up hitchhikers, clad in military fatigues, trying to reach their units..." [more...]- Sol Stern, reporter from New York Times
At a certain point in the battle only 4 soldiers remained by me. We arrived there with a force of two platoons.[more...] - Yoram Taharlev
I remember sleeping on the floor, in my clothes, thinking there would be bound to be more air raids during the night, and the radio playing Psalms...[more...] - Rona Hart
After...
"I remember when I first went to the Kotel [2], that sense of epiphany…. The Kotel was only open to Jews. You're still surrounded by barbed wire and all kinds of warnings for land mines…" [more...] - Amotz Asa-El
Two soldiers share their experiences of being at the Western Wall when it was liberated - very moving
"...You'd stand by the Wall praying with Jews, you'd hear the muezzin praying from above, you'd hear bells ringing from afar, and it all seemed to be harmonizing.[more...] - Amotz Asa-El
"...In total, two hundred thousand visited the Western Wall that day. It was the first pilgrimage, en masse, of Jews to Jewish-controlled Jerusalem on a Jewish festival in two thousand years, since the pilgrimages for the festivals in Temple times..." IsraelInsider remembers
Personal recollections from the Diaspora
Before
"The British volunteers who played their part in the war were never officially acknowledged. We were not mercenaries. Our names were recorded somewhere. We know what we did!" [more] Jeff Bonsack
I was studying Dentistry at Manchester University. We knew war was on the horizon. The Arab students in the Student Union were posting nasty colour posters labelled in Arabic which were very provocative. [more...] David Barratt
Then, as the tension escalated suddenly, it hit me - this place was part of me and for some unaccountable reason the whole Arab world was poised to destroy it and kill 'my family'. [more...] Derek Lewis
..every synagogue in the area had fund raising events. The one that sticks in my memory more than all the others was a fund raiser at St John's Wood.[more...] Barbara
One picture that has stuck in mind is the contrast between the seemingly smart disciplined Egyptian soldiers and the seemingly laid back, almost scruffy Israeli soldiers - how deceptive appearances can be. [more...] Ruth Leveson, London
Every day, another arrow, representing another hostile Arab army, appeared on a map, pointing at Israel, until Israel was totally surrounded by 7 arrows, each representing a hostile army. [more...] Naomi Benari
On the Monday 5 June my wife had got up first and woke me with, "Frank it's started;" and I remember sitting up and sitting for some moments on the edge of the bed before getting on with the day. I had grown up in Paddington, central London between bomb sites & with ration books, so the prospects looked pretty heavy for real, even if not on the doorstep, as there were, and are, family in Israel [more...] Frank Adam
I was only 7 years old at the time, but it is etched strongly in my memory...We heard how children in Israel were having to do the jobs of the grown-ups, like running the Post Office, as the adults were all needed for the war. [more...] Jonathan
I remember being a school-girl at the time and our head teacher in Liverpool telling the morning assembly that they should pray for Israel 'which is about to be destroyed'.[more...] Dr Irene Lancaster
"...Edward Heath threatened Israel with an arms embargo. It seemed as if Israel was in the most serious trouble and then in that final weekend we saw pictures of Israeli troops on rest and recreation on Tel Aviv beaches we felt as if all were lost... [more] - David Pelta
"As an American teenager, I recall that warm sunny May as a time of contrast between the glories of the season and the ever blacker news exploding in the headlines." [more] Helen Schary Motro
During
"Total chaos reigned at Rex House on Monday morning June 5th - the start of the 6 Day War." [more...] Celia Cohen
"Phones didn’t stop ringing, people rushed from office to office, the telex machines were working non-stop and meetings were constantly being called to keep all those who dealt with news up to date...[more...] Sybil Greenstein, who, in 1967 worked in the Jewish Chronicle Editorial Department
"...I had witnessed something in those days and weeks that didn't make sense in the rest of my world. It has nothing to do with politics or war or even prayer. It had to do with Jewish identity..." [more] Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks
"I was put on the desk for sorting out the hundreds of volunteers who wanted to go to Israel to fight what we all thought was the existential battle. Youngsters from all backgrounds poured into the building." [more...]- Zelda
"The leading BBC story spoke of jubilation in the Arab world now that their armies had finally entered Israel and were liberating it. The Egyptian army had marched from Gaza and reached Tel Aviv, Haifa had been heavily bombed and was next to fall. All at once the Israeli children in the classroom burst into tears which set off the wailing and crying of the other children. Our teacher was doing her best to comfort the class but was clearly outside of her depth in such a situation...." [more...] Michael Cooke, who was 14 years old when the war broke out.
"...we both faced "Captain Hosni" who started his introduction with a reddening slap across our faces. In my case that act of kindness ejected my glasses off my face which came tumbling down shattered to my feet. I bend down to pick them up, to his snickering and his voice saying that he really "meant was to break them into pieces", so I handed the glasses back to him and he completely mangled them and handed the glasses back to me...'[more] - Israel Bonan, a Jewish student born and living in Egypt during the 1967 events
"My barmitzvah celebration was due to take place the weekend after the war started...how could we celebrate when Jews were dying in Israel?" [more] -Steven Linden
A former taxi-driver remembers...Stephen Salt
I remember as a child at chedar at Harley Grove Synagogue in Bow East London going from house to house looking for mezuzahs and asking for donations to help the war effort. [more...] Diana Miller
"...reams of paper were pouring out of the teleprinter: paragraph after paragraph each headed in bold capital letters "WAR WAR"." [more...] - Eric Harris
Rabbi Shmuel Jakobovits remembers...
Sidney Assor remembers...
After
Anyone who was there that year will know what an amazing time it was to be in Israel. Everything opened up. There we were in Jerusalem. Arabs were coming in but nobody was afraid and nobody was the enemy. They would stand and watch the traffic lights! [more...] Lady Elaine Sacks, wife of Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks
...then the one with the British accent stood up and said quite formally, "We invite you to lead a group of civilian volunteers to work in Sinai to clear out damaged and abandoned military equipment. Are you interested?" [more...] - Michael Zimmerman
We all had stickers "We Stand By Israel" to put in our windows and in our cars, and lots of people from my school stuck them on their jackets and schoolbags.[more...] Ilana Rosen
Forty years have passed since I took my backpack and Helen Shapiro backcombed ten-inch high mop on board an El Al plane, having volunteered to do whatever to help Israel during a time of need. Of course I took my favorite Teddy Bear with me for support. The fact that I landed in Israel on the seventh day of the Six-Day-War did not lessen my fear of coming to some physical harm – in fact I remember being so scared that I was cracking jokes all the time to hide it. [full article...] Lydia Aisenberg
We walked through to the old city of Jerusalem, over piles of rubble and with the Mandelbaum gate lying across the road. And would you believe that we hitched a lift into Gaza, where my friend Sue and I were almost sold for four camels each! [more...]- Helen Reisman
I spent 4 months that time, working on kibbutzim and in an army reservist camp. The Israelis were wonderful and so grateful for our presence. I imagine it must have been like Londoners during the Blitz. [more...]- Susie Hirschfield (Mexico)
One of my lasting memories was people commenting "You did well" - just as though I was personally responsible for Israel's victory! [more...] Shirley, Westcliff-on-Sea
I am from Lithuania - I have very vivid memories of the the Soviet press initially celebrating Israel's "defeat", quieting down at a later stage and then screaming for ceasefire. [more...] Chava, Israel
Six Day War: impact on Jews in Arab Countries
Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War had dramatic repercussions on the few thousand Jews still living in Arab countries. With the exception of Syria and Iraq where the Jews were kept as virtual hostages, the vast majority of the remaining Jews of Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia fled in the aftermath of the war, bringing communities established since Biblical times to the brink of extinction . In almost all Arab countries there were demonstrations and anti-Jewish riots. Some Arab governments actively persecuted their Jews as if they were Israelis living their midst.
“Jews of Arab Countries: the Congress is convinced that Jews living in Arab countries do not appreciate the kindness and protection that Muslims have granted them over the centuries. The Congress proclaims that the Jews who live in the Arab states and who have contact with Zionist circles or the state of Israel do not deserve the protection and kindness that Islam grants to non-Muslim citizens living freely in Islamic countries. Islamic governments must treat them as enemy combatants. In the same way, Islamic peoples must individually and collectively boycott them and treat them as mortal enemies."
- The World Islamic Congress meeting in Amman, Jordan, 22 September 1967
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This section of the site documents the situation in each Arab country after the War. There are links with certain countries to more detailed accounts.
IRAQ
The defeat of the Arabs by Israel in the war of 1967 led to another frightening reign of terror against the Jews. In 1968, President Bakr made a speech carried live on Iraqi television in which he declared, "We shall strike mercilessly with a fist of steel of those exploiters…of imperialism and Zionism." He even called out to the crowd of thousands," What do you want?" The answer would be a thunderous "Death to the Spies (Jews)! Execution of all the spies without delay!" [more...]
LEBANON
Jewish migration from Lebanon, which accelerated in 1964, reached epidemic proportions after the 1967 war due to fears of impending riots.
“ The Jew first prepares a passport. Afterwards he makes sure to liquidate his affairs and gradually sells his property… Before leaving Jews who are not Lebanese citizens sign a declaration stating that they promise never to return to Lebanon. The Lebanese authorities enter their name on a blacklist and their right to re-enter Lebanon is taken away.
For many years already Jewish merchants have felt the boycott enacted by their neighbours as a hostile reaction to the State of Israel. Under these conditions and in preparation for leaving Lebanon the Jews decided to freeze commercial activities. Given this background, it is easy to explain the wave of bankruptcies flooding Lebanon in recent years. The main cause of this is the withdrawal of Jewish capital from the Lebanese economy.” - Al-Sa’id, Lebanese newspaper
TUNISIA
Riots broke out in the wake of Israeli victory in the Six Day War. The Great Synagogue in Tunis was set on fire and the Bokobza Boukha and Kosher Wine Factory destroyed. The community panicked, abandoned their homes and businesses and piled into boats bound for Marseille, France.
“ A sense of almost total despair took hold of the community despite President Bourguiba’s strong condemnation of the riots and government promises to punish the perpetrators and make restitution. In the words of one eyewitness:” It is the unanimous opinion of Jews one talks to that if there was any doubt about the question previously it is quite clear that there is no future for them in Tunisia.” Most fled to France. Within a year , only about 7,000 to 8,000 Jews remained in the country”. - Norman Stillman: The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times
MOROCCO
The Six-Day War in 1967 led to increased Arab-Jewish tensions worldwide, including Morocco. The Istiqlal (nationalist) party called for an economic boycott against Jewish businesses. By 1971, the Jewish population was down to 35,000; however, most of this wave of middle class emigration went to France and North America rather than Israel.
SYRIA
Following the 1967 Six Day War 57 Qamishli Jews were alleged to have been murdered in a pogrom. Curfews were imposed in Qamlishi and Aleppo. The Jews were confined to their homes for eight months. The community was kept as hostages. [more...]
LIBYA
After the Six-Day War, the Jewish population, now only 7,000 was again subjected to pogroms in which 18 people were killed, and many more injured, sparking a near-total exodus that left fewer than 100 Jews in Libya. When Colonel Qaddafi came to power in 1969, all Jewish property was confiscated and all debts to Jews cancelled. Although emigration was illegal, more than 3,000 Jews succeeded in leaving for Israel.
"...When she got back to the bus, she found the driver holding a match to the gas-drenched vehicle in order to set it ablaze with her family inside." [more...] - Gina Bublil Waldman’s story
“In 1967, at age 13, I barely escaped with my life from the turn of events culminating in a bloody pogrom..." [more...] - Raphael Luzon's story
"I was curious and peeked from the window. It was horrible... horrible... horrible, the picture I saw. They were chanting, ‘kill the Jewish!’ and in my mind I thought there were a million but there was really more like a thousand...[more...] - Doris Keren-Gill's story
EGYPT
"...The authorities arrested nearly all Jewish males between the ages of 17 and 60. Those who held foreign citizenship were taken to Alexandria and thrown on a boat, to be disgorged somewhere in southern Europe. They were the fortunate ones..." - [more] Rami Mangoubi's account of "The Longest Ten Minutes"
"...the authorities came knocking on his door in the afternoon of June 5, 1967. Jews were being detained, he was told, for their own safety and protection. Shabtai and his two brothers were taken to Abu Zaabal prison 65 kilometers outside Cairo and were later transferred to an internment camp at Tourah - the same prison in which he had been treating prisoners for the previous year. The 1967 war ended in six short days. Yet it would take another two years before Shabtai and his brothers were granted their freedom."[more] Exodus ll - Brenda Gazzar - Jerusalem Post
During the first days of the Six-Day war almost all male Jews aged 16 and upwards were interned as ‘Israeli PoWs’ and kept in rudimentary and overcrowded prison conditions, even those who had converted to Christianity or Islam. Those of foreign nationality were deported after a few days. Some Egyptian nationals and stateless Jews were given Spanish passports if they could prove Spanish origin. According to a World Council of Churches report 125 Jews were still interned in November 1967. Some would not be released for three years.
The bread that the prisoners were given was dirty and Khedr talks of finding sand, cigarette butts and nails within. He gave up the aluminum plate and started using the bread as a pillow.[more...] - Marc Khedr’s story
“About a year before we were expelled, we lost everything. They took all our assets and our money and nothing belonged to us any longer except the furniture and the rugs and the cars, although my father had to share the cars with government officials.[more...] - Andre Aciman's story
"The next few minutes of interrogation, if we can call it that, had to do more with using his cane on our backs and continuing his savagery while goading us for being Jews and that they will annihilate us"[more...] - Israel Bonan’s story
When the turn of the Rabbi of Alexandria arrived, they crucified him to the bars of the front door of the prison. Then they beat him until he lost consciousness.[more...] - Beny Melameth’s story
Links for further reading on this topic
Analysis of statement (at top of this page) from The World Islamic Congress meeting in Amman, Jordan, 22 September 1967
The Forgotten Refugees: "In 1945 there were up to one million Jews living in the Middle East and North Africa outside the Palestine Mandate - many living in communities dating back more than three millennia. Today, there are several thousand. Who are these Jews? What precipitated their mass-exodus in the 20th century? Where did they go? And why don't we know their stories?"
JIMENA - a site which advocates and educates about the history and plight of the Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa.
Point of no return - website dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities who have been 'ethnically cleansed' from Arab countries in the past fifty years . It documents their current struggle for recognition and restitution.
Aftermath & Analysis
“If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed. The right of innocent, maritime passage must be preserved for all nations”. - US President Lyndon Johnson - June 19th 1967
"The biggest outcome of the Six Day War was that the State of Israel wasn't destroyed. For the Arabs, the biggest outcome was the discrediting of the Arab nationalist idiom, the movement which had dominated the previous half century.... - [more...] Michael Oren
The USSR wanted to create another trouble spot for the United States in addition to that already existing in Vietnam. - [more...] Ahron Bregman
"... It is undeniable that Soviet warnings about imaginary Israeli "troop concentrations" on the Syrian border prodded Nasser to action. And it is quite impossible that Moscow could have believed what it was saying. " [more...]- Abba Eban
"There was an atmosphere of fear and anxiety in the public, and what bothered me and bothers me ever since was how a nation with such military might can suddenly lose its confidence about its ability to fight back and win, when war becomes inevitable." more...] - Ariel Sharon (then an army general)
"Very soon", I told my grandchildren, "the soldiers will come home; there will be peace; we will be able to travel to Jordan and to Egypt and all will be well." I honestly believed it, but it wasn't to be." - [more...] Golda Meir
... While many individuals and groups did speak up to draw attention to the real threat Israel faced, one group was conspicuously silent - the Christian church. - [more...] Dave Blewett
...this [Soviet] warning was deliberate disinformation, part of a plan approved at the highest level of Soviet leadership to elicit Egyptian action that would provoke an Israeli strike. - abstract from - [more...] Isabella Ginor
"For the Arab world the question is ... how we can best make peace with Israel in such a way that many Arabs believe that they can still destroy Israel..." - [more...] Michael Oren
June 5, 2007 will mark forty years since the Six-Day War. As we approach that anniversary, we can expect Israel’s critics, enemies and alleged friends, to intensify their demands for Israel to relinquish and evacuate the “occupied territories”. - [more...] - Rachel Newuirth.
"The greatest success of the Diaspora in the post-Holocaust era: the saving of Soviet Jewry. That would not have happened without the Six Day War...[more...] -Yossi Klein-Halevi
...on a more positive note, in uniting Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, also opened up the holy places of the world's three major faiths to a degree of freedom of access and worship they had never known in all the centuries of Muslim rule." - [more...] Calev Ben David
Analysis
History
Chronology
Archive commentary
Personal
Maps
The campaign between 5th - 7th June - The Jordan Salient
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Battle of Golan Heights - 9/10 June 1967
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News Articles
For easier navigation the articles on this page are subdivided into the following sections:
Analysis
A number of commentators and blogs are highlighting the BBC's somewhat "revisionist" coverage of the 40th anniversary. See Jeff Jacoby's analysis below
Six days to remember accurately - Jeff Jacoby "THE 40TH anniversary of Israel's astonishing victory in the Six Day War has unleashed a gusher of revisionist history.
On the BBC Web site, for example, Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen's retrospective on the war begins by noting that "it took only six days for Israel to smash the armed forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria." It goes on to emphasize that "the Israeli Air Force destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground on the morning of 5 June 1967 in a surprise attack."
On the BBC Web site, for example, Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen's retrospective on the war begins by noting that "it took only six days for Israel to smash the armed forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria." It goes on to emphasize that "the Israeli Air Force destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground on the morning of 5 June 1967 in a surprise attack."
But the BBC makes no reference to anything the Arabs might have done to provoke Israel's attack, other than broadcasting "bloodcurdling threats" on the radio. The vast buildup of Arab armies along Israel's border, the expulsion of UN peacekeepers from the Sinai Peninsula by Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser, the closing of the Straits of Tiran, an illegal blockade cutting Israel off from its main supply of oil — none of this is mentioned by the BBC.
Instead, Bowen claims that Israel's "hugely self-confident" generals couldn't wait to go to war because they knew they couldn't lose. (In reality, Israel's military and political leaders were deeply anxious; so severe was the stress that Yitzhak Rabin, the chief of staff, suffered a nervous breakdown.) "The myth of the 1967 Middle East war," declares Bowen, turning history on its head "was that the Israeli David slew the Arab Goliath."
Echoes of Joshua's spies - Israel Harel Haaretz 10th June 2007 "...Euphoria reigned after the Six-Day War, say the "forgive-us-for-winning" people. That is not true."[more]
A war that never ends - Richard Chesnoff, Daily News: "...as we mark its 40th anniversary, it's become fashionable in some circles to rewrite the history of the Six-Day War. Radicals, so-called "humanitarians" and others who love to hate Israel now claim that what was essentially a war for survival was in fact just an excuse for Zionist imperialism. [more]
Arab armies planned to destroy Israel - Q & A session with Michael Oren by Steve Linde of the Jerusalem Post "The biggest myth going is that somehow there was not a real and immediate Arab threat, that somehow Israel could have negotiated itself outside the crisis of 1967, and that it wasn't facing an existential threat, or facing any threat at all...What's remarkable is that all the people alleging this - not one of them is working from Arabic sources....What's behind the myth is a more pervasive, ongoing effort to show that Israel bears the bulk, if not the sole responsibility, for decades of conflict in the Arab world, and that the Arabs are the aggrieved party."
"It's an attempt to show that Israel basically planned the Six Day War in advance, knowing that it was going to expand territorially. My position is that it was just the opposite. Israel was taken aback by the crisis, unprepared for it and panicked, believing it faced a true existential threat, and did not plan to expand territory.
We haven't learned all we should about Israel - Chicago Sun-Times: "Forty years ago today, in one of the most stunning developments of the last half-century, Israel pulled off the ultimate in go-for-broke gambles. On the morning of June 5, 1967, it sent all but 12 of its 200 air force planes on a surprise attack on Egypt's air force, knowing if those planes were detected and destroyed, the Israeli homeland would be vulnerable in the extreme to the combined Arab air forces. They weren't and it wasn't, and the Six Day War was written into history."
40 years since Arab-Israeli war - Salim Mansur June 2nd 2007 "An axiom of modern Arab politics is the greater the internal division among Arabs, the more strident is Arab rhetoric against Israel. In May, 1967, this stridency reached its peak when Nasser announced on May 22 the closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, which triggered the Six Day War.
The six-day war, forty years on - The Arabs' defeat by Israel in the lightning war of 1967 was followed by a deeper failure, says Hazem Saghieh. www.opendemocracy.com
Six Day War Established Israel's Place In Middle East - Abraham Rabinovich www.courant.com "...For American Jews it marked the beginnings of Israel as a major communal concern and made it a central part of the communal agenda. Prior to 1967, Israel largely had been the concern only of a small cadre of Zionist activists.
"The Six-Day War made us all Zionists, if not literally then psychologically," Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a recent article. "The American Jewish connection to Israel was sealed. Even today, when one hears a lot about disaffection, the pride and depth of the continuing connection owe many of their roots to 1967."
The enduring power of those six days draws in part from the roller-coaster of emotions it inspired among Diaspora Jewry.
In the war’s opening hours there was a widespread sense that the young experiment in Jewish sovereignty might be snuffed out before its 20th birthday. Jewish leaders across the country organized prayer vigils and rallies, where they sounded dire warnings of a second Holocaust. Synagogues drew crowds comparable to the High Holy Days, and thousands descended on Israel’s diplomatic missions offering to stand in for Israeli soldiers deployed to the front.
War put Israel on communal map for a proud American Jewry "While Israel celebrates 40 years of a reunited Jerusalem and what many still see as a miraculous victory that reversed Nasser's threat to "push the Jews into the sea", the Palestinians are celebrating 40 years of "occupation" slogans."
Professor Gerald Steinberg This rhetoric has provided them with a political victory that has significantly offset the defeat of the Arab armies on the battlefield. And by erasing everything that came before the 1967 war, including the years of warfare, terror following the violent Arab rejection of the 1947 UN partition resolution, Israel's enemies have managed to rewrite history.
Melanie Phillips's Diary "...De-classified documents have shown that Egypt, Jordan and Syria were planning to cut Israel in half; Jordan was planning to take out whole populations from Israeli towns and shoot them. Plans for the destruction of Israel had been laid to the smallest detail.
Israel, however, planned for no more than a 48-hour surgical strike, explicitly resolving not to enter Gaza or the West Bank. What Israel had not expected was that King Hussein of Jordan, who had hitherto been signalling covertly that he had no hostile intent, would launch a serious attack, but Egypt told him falsely, after Israel had destroyed its entire air force on the ground in the space of one hour, that Egypt was on course for victory. So Jordan started firing on Israel from the West Bank, and Israel was accordingly sucked in, as it was into Gaza after attacks were launched from there." -
Then as Now David Warren, Ottowa Citizen"...How many people living in Israel today can personally remember not only the Six Day War, but the events leading up to it? I, and so many my age and older, can personally remember a sequence of events, that has been distorted and recast to fit ideological fantasies."
Wisdom of Waiting - Michael Oren analysis in Ynews 20th May 2007 "...instead of merely marking the Six-Day War's 40th anniversary, we should examine the Israeli government's decision-making process in the pre-war period and learn the appropriate lessons" -
Prelude to the Six Days - Charles Krauthammer Washington Post Friday May 18th 2007 "There has hardly been a Middle East peace plan in the past 40 years - including the current Saudi version - that does not demand a return to the status quo of June 4, 1967. Why is that date so sacred? Because it was the day before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in which Israel scored one of the most stunning victories of the 20th century. The Arabs have spent four decades trying to undo its consequences..."
"Soviets engineered Six Day War"- David Horowitz - Jerusalem Post 16th May 2007
Did Israel want the Six Day War? - Michael Oren "Great wars in history eventually become great wars about history. Only a few years after the last soldier leaves the battlefield, accepted truths about the nature of a military conflict and the motivations for it invariably come under assault by revisionists and counter-revisionists, whose vehemence can rival that of the original combatants. Few of these historiographical struggles are as bitter as the one now being waged over the Arab-Israeli wars, in which a force of self-proclaimed "new historians" has laid siege to previously unassailable descriptions of the creation and survival of the Jewish state. The unusual ferocity of the debate over Arab-Israeli history is directly related to the singularly high stakes involved. The adversaries are not merely vying for space on university bookshelves, but grappling with issues that have a profound impact on the lives of millions of people: Israel's security, the rights of Palestinian refugees, the future of Jerusalem. The new historians make no attempt to disguise their agenda.." Jerusalem Post 15th May 2007
"In 1967, it was still okay for an army to achieve an absolute victory. Subsequent to that date, Israel has not been allowed to defeat its enemy. In future wars and conflicts Israel would unbelievably be pressured by world powers not to accomplish a full military victory, to neglect enemy aggressions, and to even provide the enemy with guns and ammunition.
1967 was a time that Israelis were not told that they are “tired of fighting and tired of winning battles”. Jews at that time understood that when their enemy says that they are going to kill them, the enemy means what it says and Israel does not wait to be attacked.
The 1967 Six Day War Remembered - Daryl Temkin The Conservative Voice May 15th 2007 During that time, no one believed that the enemy could be appeased or that, if victorious, the enemy would responsibly stop fighting at the original 1947 UN lines. It was understood throughout Israel that there was only one thing that the Arabs had hoped to achieve, and now after 40 years, that goal of the destruction of Israel has not been relinquished."
America and the Six Day War - Rachel Neuwirth May 15th 2007"...John Loftus, in his book The Secret War Against the Jews devotes an entire chapter to the Liberty incident. Israel wanted to demonstrate good faith towards America: "Realizing the danger of a massed Arab attack, the Israelis informed the United States of their intention to launch a preemptive strike, which the CIA promptly betrayed to the Arabs. (page 259 of Loftus' book)" But the Egyptians distrusted America and discounted the information. ... According to Loftus, the USS Liberty, a super high-tech intelligence ship, would spy on Israeli forces fighting in the Sinai while providing secret real-time battlefield intelligence to the Egyptian military. This would significantly increase Israeli casualties and conceivably affect the outcome of the war. Israel was not supposed to discover this secret American betrayal, but they did and decided to only disable, but not to sink, the 'enemy' ship..."
The war that created the outlines for peace - Eli Podeh, Ha'Aretz "The Arab side, not surprisingly, marked the day on which the war ended as a day of mourning, but soon started taking action to wipe out the war's memory from the collective consciousness of its public..."
Michael Carroll reviews the role of the United Nations leading up to the Six Day War in 1967 - Middle East Review of International Affairs 2005 Issue 2
How Six Day war almost led to Armageddon: New evidence of 1967 Soviet plan to invade Israel shows how close the world came to nuclear conflict
- Isabella Ginor Saturday The Guardian June 10, 2000
- Isabella Ginor Saturday The Guardian June 10, 2000
History
How Six Day War changed Jewish history - John O'Neill Detroit News 5th June 2007 - "Israel never had a better friend in the White House than Lyndon B. Johnson. But this made Israel all the more frustrated and somber in the spring of 1967, when LBJ urged restraint in the face of an obvious attack being prepared by the surrounding Arab states.
When pressed by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban about what Israel was to do if the Arab states attacked first, Johnson's reply was blunt: You'll lick 'em. Though intelligence estimates in both the United States and Israel supported this assessment, LBJ was disingenuous to admonish Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol about the importance for the Jewish state not to initiate hostilities."
In the event, the entire battalion crossed safely. But in a fierce battle that continued well after sunrise, 24 paratroopers died in the trenches of Ammunition Hill together with 80 Jordanians..." City Under Siege - Abraham Rabinovich Jerusalem Post 14th May 2007
Chronology
War without end - Ned Temko The Observer Magazine Sunday May 6th 2007
The Six Day War - YNet feature from IsraelNews 16th May 2007 - a useful and succinct analysis, particularly of the war itself, with interesting archive photos.
Israel’s Miracle Victory - by David Vejil - Philadelphia Trumpet newsmagazine, June 2007
Archive commentary:
How The Times (UK) reported the outbreak of hostilities
How The Times (UK) reported the refugee crisis
The Times (UK) reports on The isolation of victory
How The British Press Reported '67 War - www.totallyjewish.com (published online 29th May 2007)
"The Quickest War"- Time Magazine Friday 16th June 1967
"A Nation Under Siege"- Time Magazine Friday 9th June 1967
Egypt closes Gulf of Aqaba to Israel Ships: Defiant move by Nasser raises Middle East Tension - The Times, 23rd May 1967
How the Arabs rallied to the support of Egypt - The Times, 6 June 1967
Was it a bitter victory? - Daily Telegraph June 1968 (extract)
Personal
In January 1968 Levi Eshkol travelled to the US President's ranch to plead for support...an account by "The heart of my mission, Mr. President," he said, "is how to create peace in the Middle East at a time when the Syrian and Egyptian armies are being rebuilt by the Soviets at a menacing pace - so fast that the Arab leaders are contemplating renewed war." [more] 'On the seventh day'- Yehuda Avner, The Jerusalem Post (Yehuda Avner was on the staff of five prime ministers, including Levi Eshkol).
"In the early morning hours of Monday, June 5, 1967, the sun was already heating everything up around the Tel Nof airbase. Some of us were making our way to the mess hall of the base as Jordanian artillery shells shook the earth. Fragments reached our barracks, puncturing the outer walls with significant holes. Located in central Israel, the airbase was just a few miles away from a Jordanian base." [more] - Joseph Puder
One single iconic image depicting the moment of reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 has remained in the world's collective psyche. Three battle-weary paratroopers gazing at their suroundings seemingly in stunned amazement. With the fortieth anniversary of the Six Day War, Conal Urquhart of The Observer located and interviewed both the photographer and the three soldiers.
"One morning, as we sent our children off to school, we confided our fears to a neighbor: "What if there is bombing while they're in school?"
"Not to worry," came the not reassuring reply, "They have excellent air raid shelters at school." - "The road from Euphoria" - Emanuel FeldmanJerusalem Post May 15th 2007
Life On the Seam Peggy Cidor Jerusalem Post May 10th 2007 "We used to have a very regular Shabbat schedule," he recalls, while pointing to highway No. 1, which was the no-man's land between Jordan and Israel from 1948 to 1967. "The morning would start with an encounter with the Arab Legion snipers. They shot at us out of sheer boredom."
"When the barrage lifted, the paratroop battalion opposite Ammunition Hill started forward. On nearby Rehov Shmuel Hanavi, a Jerusalem Brigade intelligence officer was transfixed by a keening sound. It was a moment before he recognized it with a chill as the sound of men charging into battle.
The paratroopers had to cross 150 meters of no-man's-land, parts of it sown with mines. The intensive shelling had been intended in part to detonate them, but the results could not be known. The men were to run forward in single file. If someone stepped on a mine, those behind were to pass over him and continue forward.
In the event, the entire battalion crossed safely. But in a fierce battle that continued well after sunrise, 24 paratroopers died in the trenches of Ammunition Hill together with 80 Jordanians..." City Under Siege - Abraham Rabinovich Jerusalem Post 14th May 2007
Historical Documents
CIA Analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War - First page of the draft of the “special estimate” that predicted the outcome of the war. (National Archives and Records Administration)
Report of the UN Secretary-General on the Withdrawal of the Emergency Force, - A/6730/Add. 3, 26 June 1967
Foreign Relations, 1964-1968 Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967(Official declassified documentation from US Government)
The Khartoum Resolutions
Official Sites
JAFI Israeli Song Finder - Songs from Six Day War
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Speech at the Special Knesset Session Marking 40 Years Since the Reunification of Jerusalem 14th May 2007
State of Israel National Photo Collection - many images on this site come from this comprehensive collection.
General Uzi Narkiss - Historic radio interview with General Uzi Narkisstaken on June 7th, describing the battle for Jerusalem. - from www.isracast.com
Position of Arab Forces - May 1967 (Jewish Agency for Israel)
Exchange of Letters Kosygin-Eshkol- 26 May and 1 June 1967 - Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Book/periodical and online list of reference books relating to Six Day War for military strategy study - US Air Force
Levi Eshkol - biography (Israel's Prime minister's office)
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