According to Chaim Herzog:. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Search for:. The Six-Day War Key Points Relations between Israel and its neighboring Arab nations had never fully normalized following the Arab—Israeli War, fought immediately after the Israel declared itself an independent nation-state. Issues such as the Palestinian refugee crisis and the Suez Crisis of created an antagonistic stance toward Israel throughout the Arab world, and by June , tensions were at their height.
In reaction to the mobilization of Egyptian forces along the Israeli border in the Sinai Peninsula, Israel launched a series of preemptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields, which destroyed nearly the entire Egyptian air force. Egypt, pretending they won the initial battles, convinced Jordan and then Syria to enter the war, which also resulted in Israeli victories.
Israeli morale and international prestige was greatly increased by the outcome of the war, but their over-confidence may have contributed to future military losses against Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of The fighting mostly took place in the Sinai and the Golan Heights, territories that had been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of Neither specifically planned to destroy Israel, although the Israeli leaders could not be sure of that. The ongoing civil war between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine transformed into an interstate conflict between Israel and the Arab states following the Israeli Declaration of Independence the previous day.
A combined invasion by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, together with expeditionary forces from Iraq, entered Palestine. Mobs attacked Jewish neighborhoods in Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Morocco, burning synagogues and assaulting residents. The record is well-documented. The record is equally clear 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. His forces were defeated by Israel, and he lost control of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.
He later acknowledged that he had made a terrible error in entering the war. Shamefully, without even the courtesy of consulting Israel, the UN complied. That left no buffer between Arab armies being mobilized and deployed and Israeli forces in a country one-fiftieth, or two percent, the size of Egypt — and just nine miles wide at its narrowest point. This step was understandably regarded as an act of war by Jerusalem.
The United States spoke about joining with other countries to break the blockade, but, in the end, regrettably, did not act. 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. 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 for a land-for-peace accord. Feelers were sent out. Underscoring the point, in , the Saudi Ambassador to the U. Then we say yes. Then we have to deal with something less. 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 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. They successfully captured the Golan the next day. It was later estimated that some 20, Arabs and Israelis had died in just hours of fighting. The leaders of the Arab states were left shocked by the severity of their defeat.
Egyptian President Nasser even resigned in disgrace, only to promptly return to office after Egyptian citizens showed their support with massive street demonstrations. In Israel, the national mood was jubilant. Victory in the war led to a surge of national pride in Israel, which had tripled in size, but it also fanned the flames of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Several hundred thousand Palestinians later fled Israeli rule, worsening a refugee crisis that had begun during the First Arab-Israeli War in and laying the groundwork for ongoing political turmoil and violence.
Since , the lands Israel seized in the Six-Day War have been at the center of efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in as part of a peace treaty and then withdrew from the Gaza Strip in , but it has continued to occupy and settle other territory claimed in the Six-Day War, most notably the Golan Heights and the West Bank.
The status of these territories continues to be a stumbling block in Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. The Arab-Israeli War. Department of State Office of the Historian. The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
Edited by Spencer C. Tucker and Priscilla Mary Roberts. By Michael B. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. On October 6, , hoping to win back territory lost to Israel during the third Arab-Israeli war, in , Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a coordinated attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
Taking the Israeli Defense Forces by The nation of Israel—with a population of more than 9 million people, most of them Jewish—has many Palestine is a small region of land that has played a prominent role in the ancient and modern history of the Middle East. The history of Palestine has been marked by frequent political conflict and violent land seizures because of its importance to several major world Syria is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world, with a rich artistic and cultural heritage.
0コメント