Israeli troops in
Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War
The
Six Day War
(1967)
This
page deals with the Six-Day War of 1967. Please use the
following information, links and sources to learn more
about the war in which Israel captured East Jerusalem,
the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan
Heights.
A brief summary of the
campaign:
Following the short Suez
War of 1956 between Israel and Egypt resolved nothing,
and only set the stage for a future war between the
Jewish nation and its Arab neighbors. In the 1956 war,
Israeli forces fairly easily defeated the Egypian
military and occupied the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip,
only to give it back to Egyptian control in the
ceace-fire agreement. In the years after 1956, Egypt and
the other Arab powers, Syria and Iraq, more closely
became aligned with the Soviet Union, which supplied them
with large amounts of modern military weaponry and Soviet
advisors and trainers. Likewise, Israel moved closer to
the United States in those years, to the point where the
Arab-
Israeli Conflict became
a part of the larger and very dangerous Cold
War between the
U.S. and its allies on one side, and the Soviets and
their allies and satellites on the other side.
As the underlying
tensions between the Arab nations and Israel remained
unchanged since the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949,
the outbreak of a third major war was expected. The
introduction of the American-Soviet competition and arms
sales in the region only accelerated the likelihood of a
Middle Eastern war evolving into a Cold War
confrontation. the immediate cause of war in 1967 came
out of Egypt's decision to expel United Nations (UN)
troops from the Sinai peninsula and blockade Israel's
port of Eilat. The UN forces were intended to form a
buffer between the border separating Israel and Egypt,
and their expulsion led the Israeli government to fear an
imminent attack by Egypt.
It should be pointed out
that ever since the start of the first war in 1948,
Israel had existed in a continued legal state of war with
all of its Arab neighbors, including Iraq and Saudi
Arabia. The first two wars were ended with cease-fires,
but with no lasting peace, not unlike the concusion of
the 1950-1953 Korean War, in which an armistice ended the
fighting, but did not bring a legal end to war. Thus,
when the military forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, as
well as Iraq, began to mobilize and make obvious
preparations for war, Israel felt forced to act in
self-defence.
On June 5, 1967, Israel
launched a pre-emptive ground attack on Egypt, along with
coordinated air strikes that effectively destroyed the
air forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq on the
ground.
Six
Day War - An Introduction
- Including pages on the Egyptian, Jordanian, and
Syrian fronts, as well as a map. From the Israel
Defense Forces website.
Six
Days in June -
Essay on the Six Day War by William C.
Varner.
