Mention the word "history" and it can trigger a roll of the eyes.
Add "Middle East" to the equation and folks might start running for the hills, unwilling to get caught up in the seemingly bottomless pit of details and disputes.
But without an understanding of what happened, it's impossible to grasp where we are -- and where we are has profound relevance for the region and the world.
Forty-four years ago this week, the Six-Day War broke out.
While some wars fade into obscurity, this one remains as relevant today as in 1967. Many of its core issues remain unresolved and in the news.
Politicians, diplomats, and journalists continue to grapple with the consequences of that war, but rarely provide context. Yet without context, some critically important things may not make sense.
First, in June 1967, there was no state of Palestine. It didn't exist and never had. Its creation, proposed by the UN in 1947, was rejected by the Arab world because it also meant the establishment of a Jewish state alongside.
Second, the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem were in Jordanian hands. Violating solemn agreements, Jordan denied Jews access to their holiest places in eastern Jerusalem. To make matters still worse, they destroyed many of those sites.
Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control, with harsh military rule imposed on local residents.
And the Golan Heights, which were regularly used to shell Israeli communities far below, belonged to Syria.
Third, the Arab world could have created a Palestinian state in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip any day of the week. They didn't. There wasn't even discussion about it. And Arab leaders, who today profess such attachment to eastern Jerusalem, rarely, if ever, visited. It was viewed as an Arab backwater.
Fourth, the 1967 boundary at the time of the war, so much in the news these days, was nothing more than an armistice line dating back to 1949 -- familiarly known as the Green Line. That's after five Arab armies attacked Israel in 1948 with the aim of destroying the embryonic Jewish state. They failed. Armistice lines were drawn, but they weren't formal borders. They couldn't be. The Arab world, even in defeat, refused to recognize Israel's very right to exist.
Fifth, the PLO, which supported the war effort, was established in 1964, three years before the conflict erupted. That's important because it was created with the goal of obliterating Israel. Remember that in 1964 the only "settlements" were Israel itself.
Sixth, in the weeks leading up to the Six-Day War, Egyptian and Syrian leaders repeatedly declared that war was coming and their objective was to wipe Israel off the map. There was no ambiguity. Twenty-two years after the Holocaust, another enemy spoke about the extermination of Jews. The record is well-documented.
The record is equally well-documented that Israel, in the days leading up to the war, passed word to Jordan, via the UN and United States, urging Amman to stay out of any pending conflict. Jordan's King Hussein ignored the Israeli plea and tied his fate to Egypt and Syria. His forces were defeated by Israel, and he lost control of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.
Seventh, Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser demanded that UN peacekeeping forces in the area, in place for the previous decade to prevent conflict, be removed. Shamefully, the UN complied. That left no buffer between Arab armies being mobilized and deployed and Israeli forces in a country one-fiftieth the size of Egypt -- and just nine miles wide at its narrowest point.
Eighth, Egypt blocked Israeli shipping lanes in the Red Sea, Israel's only maritime access to trading routes with Asia and Africa. This step was regarded as an act of war by Jerusalem. The United States spoke about joining with other countries to break the blockade, but did not act.
Ninth, France, which had been Israel's principal arms supplier, announced a ban on the sale of weapons on the eve of the June war. That left Israel in potentially grave danger if a war were to drag on and require the resupply of arms. It was not until the next year that the U.S. stepped into the breach and sold vital weapons systems to Israel.
And finally, after winning the war of self-defense, Israel hoped that its newly-acquired territories, seized from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, would be the basis of a land-for-peace accord. Feelers were sent out. The formal response came on September 1, 1967, when the Arab Summit Conference famously declared in Khartoum "No peace, no recognition, no negotiations" with Israel.
Today, there are those who wish to rewrite history.
They want the world to believe there was once a Palestinian state. There was not.
They want the world to believe there were fixed borders between that state and Israel. There was only an armistice line between Israel and the Jordanian-controlled West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.
They want the world to believe the 1967 war was a bellicose act by Israel. It was an act of self-defense in the face of blood-curdling threats to vanquish the Jewish state, not to mention the maritime blockade of the Straits of Tiran, the abrupt withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces, and the redeployment of Egyptian and Syrian troops. All wars have consequences; this one was no exception. But the Arab aggressors have failed to take responsibility for the actions they instigated.
They want the world to believe post-1967 Israeli settlement-building is the key to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Six-Day War is proof positive that the core issue is, and always has been, whether the Arab world accepts the Jewish people's right to a state of their own. If so, all other contentious issues, however difficult, have possible solutions.
And they want the world to believe the Arab world had nothing against Jews per se, only Israel, yet trampled with abandon on sites of sacred meaning to the Jewish people.
In other words, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, dismissing the past as if it were a minor irritant at best, irrelevant at worst, won't work.
Can history move forward? Absolutely. Israel's peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 prove the point. At the same time, though, the lessons of the Six-Day War illustrate just how tough and tortuous the path can be.
For more information, visit ajc.org.
Palestinians Remember 1967 Six-Day War
Forty-four years later, Liberty attack provokes passions
Refugees in Wihdat camp remember Naksa day
Israeli troops on high alert for Al-Quds Day
Police on high alert in Golan, J'lem after Naksa Day
Two paragraphs alone, just about say it all:
1. "First, in June 1967, there was no state of Palestine. It didn't exist and never had. Its creation, proposed by the UN in 1947, was rejected by the Arab world because it also meant the establishment of a Jewish state alongside."
2. "They want the world to believe post-1967 Israeli settlement-building is the key to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Six-Day War is proof positive that the core issue is, and always has been, whether the Arab world accepts the Jewish people's right to a state of their own."
No anti-Israel mindset wants to accept this truth….
to do so, would be to *accept responsibility* for their own actions….
something they simply refuse to do, hence the revisionist history.
Nasser asked the U.N. for a partial re-deployment of its forces to the Israeli side - UNEF occupied positions vital to Egypt's defence. Despite the U.N. and Israel's allies (US and Canada) supporting this move, Israel refused. At the same time, Nasser urged U Thant to reactivate the Egyptian-Israeli Mixed Armistice Commission (EIMAC). Again Israel refused.
"Egypt blocked...Israel's only maritime access to trading routes with Asia and Africa."
Less than five percent of Israel's trade passed through Eilat. The U.S. did not speak "about joining with other countries to break the blockade", it spoke about referring the dispute to the U.N.
U Thant brokered a diplomatic solution. Nasser agreed to submit the Tiran situation to the World Court and sent his Vice President to Washington to seek a diplomatic solution. Dean Rusk stated that reopening the Straits "was a real possibility". Two days before his arrival, Israel attacked.
That Nasser did not forcibly implement the blockade indicates Eilat's trade was of little strategic importance.
Points to remember. Nasser's army was bogged down in Yemen at the time. He could not afford War.
He was forced into brinkmanship and he lost.
"The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."
-Menachem Begin, (New York Times, August 21, 1982)
But there's one telling detail I unearthed in the LBJ archive in Austin. During the preparations for Mohieddin's visit, Eugene Rostow wrote a memo suggesting that the US notify Israel of the "secret" meeting, since "my guess is that their intelligence will pick it up". And indeed the US did notify Israel of the June 7 meeting, an apparent last-ditch effort by Nasser to avoid war.
But of course Mohieddin never made it to Washington. By the time of the scheduled meeting, it was already day three of the Six-Day War."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/20116781531161171.html
I just worry that if we focus too much on the past (he did this in response to this which was in response to this, and so on and so forth) then people will never move forward.
Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, 3 Demilitarised zones were created by the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Syria.
Israel evicted Arab residents of the demilitarised zones and demolished their homes.
The UN Chief of Staff described how “property changed hands, invariably in one direction”, to the point where Israel was “claiming the right to exploit all the land”. Israel’s “premeditated” policy, he concluded, was “to get all the Arabs out of the way by fair means or foul”.
His successor, Odd Bull (the Norwegian General) also concluded:
“...as the Israelis gradually took control over that part of the demilitarised zones which lay inside the former national boundaries of Palestine (in violation of the armistice agreement) the status quo was all the time being altered by Israel in her favour”. Bull notes, “all the Arab villages disappeared”
There was not one Israeli civilian killed by Syrian action during this period.
Moshe Dayan said that more than 80% of incidents in the Golan were provoked by Israel.
References:
Bowen, J. Six Days. London: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. 2nd ed. London: Verso, 2003
Bull, General Odd (1973, 1976): War and Peace in the Middle East: The Experiences and Views of a UN Observer, Leo Cooper Ltd
No mention of what drove Hussein into an alliance with Egypt?
On November 13, 1966, Israel mobilised a force of around 3,000-4,000 soldiers, backed by tanks and aircraft, in the attack code-named Operation Shredder which crossed into Jordanian territory and attacked the villages of Samu, Khirbet el-Markas and Khirbet Jimba. They ambushed a small Jordanian force and a battle ensued including fighter jets.
The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 228 unanimously deploring "the loss of life and heavy damage to property resulting from the action of the Government of Israel on 13 November 1966"
President Johnson's Special Assistant Walt Rostow wrote "... This 3000-man raid with tanks and planes was out of all proportion to the provocation and was aimed at the wrong target. In hitting Jordan so hard, the Israelis have done a great deal of damage to our interests and to their own: They've wrecked a good system of tacit cooperation between Hussein and the Israelis... "
He say's "First, in June 1967, there was no state of Palestine. It didn't exist and never had."
Palestine was created by the League of Nations as a British Mandate. The International Court of Justice noted that the Covenant of the League of Nations had provisionally recognised the communities of Palestine as independent nations. The mandate simply marked a transitory period.
The UN Partition Plan called for the creation of 2 States and for International Governance of Jerusalem. The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal.
Britain announced that it would accept the partition plan, but refused to enforce it, arguing it was not acceptable to both sides. In September 1947, the British government announced the Mandate for Palestine would end at midnight on 14 May 1948.
On the date of British withdrawal, the Jewish provisional government declared the formation of the State of Israel. The partition plan required that the proposed states grant full civil rights to all people within their borders, regardless of race, religion or gender.
What followed was a concerted campaign by Israel of ethic cleansing as bad as anything seen in the former Yugoslavia.
One would think that as a Professor at Oxford, David would have some knowledge of the British role in this conflict, or perhaps it is wilful blindness when the facts do not suit his pro Israel narrative.
yet you "refute" nothing…but rather acuse the author of "lies" instead.
NOT a great argument.
I'm guessing you naturally lean Right(emotional) rather than Left(logical). Is that correct?
I fear the Arab Spring is going to result in the blossoming of Islamic fundamentalism. The very existence of Israel to the Islamist is a repudiation of Muslim supremacy. Israel is the immediate target. Conversion by sword of Christian, Hindu and all non-Muslim peoples is the end game. Sacrificing Israel will not appease the beast.
This fact is attested to by Historians Sir Thomas W. Arnold (The preaching of Islam; a history of the propagation of the Muslim faith, 1896), Marshall G. Hodgson in his book, "The Venture of Islam" (1977), Albert Hourani, "A History of the Arab People", Ira Lapidus, "History of Islamic Societies", L.S. Starorianos, "A Global History, the Human Heritage" - among others including De Lacy O’Leary, D.D., Lecturer in Aramaic and Syriac, Bristol University:
“History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.”
“There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong.” (Quran 2:256)
And people like who you try to rewrite not only factual history, but indulge and make excuses for what everyone sees with their own eyes - it makes the problems much much worse.
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/the_generals_son_20110607/
In the video, the Grandson of one of Israel's founders who is also the son of one of her most famous Generals tells the History pretty much as Mr Harris has told it here.
The only difference is that Miko Peled's talk is called "Three Myths’ of Israeli History".
You summed up history perfectly concisely and factually!
It is of paramount importance to not allow the anti Israel crowd to rework and reinvent history. You did just that Sir!
Thank you!
I wouldn't say that the "French" refused (embargoed) military supplies to Israel during the 1967 Six Day War. That was done personally by the late President Charles de Gaulle.
I have read almost all the comments to your article.
I can only add that again, I thank you.