The 1967 Six Day War -- Things I Didn't Know

I was 17 in June of 1967 when Israel's Six Day War with the surrounding Arab nations took place. I remember the tension and the triumph, but I don't remember a lot of details. I knew that Israel knocked out the Arab air forces very quickly, determining the eventual outcome of the war on the first day. I remember the joy when Israeli troops captured the Temple mount.

Here are a few things about the war which I learned in the process of writing a paper for my course about Israel at Gratz College. As debate continues about Israel's occupation of the West Bank, these facts may be helpful in putting the current situation in perspective. The information comes from Israel, A History, by Sir Martin Gilbert, published in 1998 by William Morrow, NY.

1. After knocking out Egypt's air force and launching a ground assault in the Sinai, Israel contacted the Jordanians via multiple channels, asking them not to enter the war and offering to honor fully its existing armistice with them. If Jordan had agreed, Israel would not have been able to capture the Old City of Jerusalem or the West Bank.

2. While the war was still on, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told Chaim Herzon, Military Governor of the West Bank "...see that everything returns to normal...But don't try to rule the Arabs. Let them rule themselves....I want a policy where an Arab can be born, live and die in the West Bank without ever seeing an Israeli official."

3. Dayan thought this "non-interfering occupation" would last for only two to four years.

4. The Israeli cabinet's immediate postwar position was a willingness to withdraw to the prewar borders in return for "full peace", essentially what UN Security Council Resolution 242 called for. Unfortunately, the Arab nations, at a summit in Khartoum, not long after the war, flatly rejected Israel's peace proposals, saying "No peace. No negotiation. No recognition."

5. In the early post-war years, Israel invested "large sums" in the West Bank and Gaza, for roads, schools, agricultural improvements and even Arab homes. This was long before the surge in settlement in those areas by religious Jews.

P.S. Israel didn't attack Syrian forces in the Golan Heights until the final days of the war, in spite of the demands of the embattled Israelis in the area, partly due to concern that the Soviet Union might enter the war.