411

1967

An Israeli soldier
prays at the Western
Wall after Israel's
capture of the Old City
of Jerusalem

The Six-Day War

Much of the
Arab-Israeli
conflict is linked
to a brief but
critical war that
took place
45 years ago
this June
BY SAM ROBERTS

An Arab woman
outside the wreckage of
her home, June 1967

16 FISON'outilorkEirrito UPFRONT WWW.UPFRONTMAGAZINE.COM

 he war lasted less than a week.
T But the six days of fighting
that began on June 5, 1967,
between Israel and the Arab
nations of Egypt, Syria, Jordan,
and Iraq had dramatic consequences
for the Middle East and the rest of the
world. Israel more than tripled the terri-
tories under its control, igniting a bloody
dispute over some of that land that con-
tinues today.
"This war changed everything," says
Anthony Wanis-St. John of American
University in Washington, D.C. "Every
peace effort since that time had as its cen-
tral purpose the reversal of [Israel's] main
gains" of that war.
Prelude to the War
Israeli-Palestinian tensions can 'be
traced back to the end of World War II
(1939-'45) and the Holocaust, in which
6 million Jews were killed in Europe.
After the war, many nations embraced the
idea of creating a Jewish state in British-
ruled Palestine, the historical homeland of
the Jewish people.
In 1947, a year before British rule
over Palestine was set to end, the United
Nations voted to divide the area into an
Arab state and a Jewish state (see timeline,
p. 18). The Jews accepted the partition
plan; but the Arabs, who outnumbered
Jews in much of Palestine, rejected it.
When the British left and Israel declared
independence in 1948, the Arab states
attacked. Israel survived, but the fight-
ing displaced 700,000 Palestinians, whose
fate is still an issue today.
In the spring of 1967, hostilities reached
a new boiling point, with Israel periodical-
ly under attack by Palestinian guerrillas in
the Gaza Strip and the West Bankruled
by Egypt and Jordan, respectivelyand
Syrian troops lobbing artillery fire down
from the Golan Heights.
In April, Israel downed six of Syria's
Soviet-made fighter planes. After the
Soviet Union spread rumors that Israel
was planning to attack Syria, the Egyptian
army mobilized 100,000 troops and 1,000
tanks in the Sinai Peninsula. The following
month, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel
Nasser, whose stated goal was the destruc-
tion of Israel, ordered U.N. observers to
leave the area and blockaded the Strait of
Than, cutting off Israel's access to the Red
Sea, a vital shipping route.
With war appearing inevitable, Israel
struck first. On the morning of June 5
while most Egyptian pilots were eating
breakfast and their commanders were
stuck in Cairo's rush-hour trafficthe
Israeli Air Force destroyed more than 300
of Egypt's 340 combat planes, most before
they had a chance to leave the ground.
Israeli troops then swept into Gaza and
Sinai.
Jordan and Iraq soon began shelling
the Israeli sector of Jerusalem, and Syria
attacked from the Golan Heights.
By June 7, Israel had captured the
West Bank and East Jerusalem, including
the Old City, home to many sites sacred
to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. By the
fourth day, June 8, with the Egyptians in
retreat, Israeli forces had reached the Suez
Canal. Two days later, after Israel cap-
tured the Golan Heights, Israel and Syria
declared a cease-fire.
In six daysactually, a little less
Israel had redrawn the map of the Middle
East, demonstrating its military supe-
riority but settling little: In the face of a
humiliating defeat, Arab leaders remained
committed to Israel's destruction. And
Israel's occupation of Arab areas led to
new disputes, most of which remain unre-
solved 45 years later.
LEBANON
1967 Mediterranean
-- Galan
Heights
Israel before
the Six-Day War
Sea
SYRIA
:i) Under Israeli
control after Tel Aviv
the Six-Day War
Jerusalem
Gaza
art Said
JORO
SAUDI
ARABIA
I. Red Sea
Indeed, even before the war ended, as
the Israeli government debated trying to
capture the West Bank town of Hebron,
another city with a rich biblical history,
Israel's prime minister asked his colleagues:
"Have you already thought about how we
can live with so many Arabs?"
Arafat & the P.L.O.
The answer would soon become dear.
A few months after the war ended, a
West Bank revolt led by Palestinian guer-
rilla leader Yasir Arafat failed but would
nonetheless have a lasting impact. The
revolt "catapulted the general Palestinian
public into the arms of the guerrillas,"
according to Yezid Sayigh of the Carnegie
Middle East Center in Beirut, "because
they'd seen that the people they'd hinged
their hopes onthe Arab leaders and
the armies they'd believed inhad been
swept aside in a matter of days."
Two years later, Arafat's Fatah move-
ment took control of the Palestine
Liberation Organization (P.L.O.), a group
founded by Arab leaders to represent
Palestinian interests. With Arafat as chair-
man, the P.L.O. began a decades-long
guerrilla war against Israel.
Since then, attempts to forge peace
between Israel and its Arab neighbors
have in some cases succeeded, but hope
has often given way to more violence.
In November 1967, the U.N. endorsed
Resolution 242, a "land for peace" formu-
la that has so far been only partly fulfilled:
LED AN
2012 Mediterranean
Israel Sea
,a, Full or partial
W Palestinian
Tel Aviv
control
. Occupied
by Israel Jerusalem
Gaza
ort Said
Gaza
Strip
EGYPT
Red
APRIL 2, 2012 17
 Anwar Sadat, Jimm Carter, Menachem Begin

1947-49 sixVI7War 1973 -1 1979 1987-90

Partition & War
After the U.N. votes to
partition British-controlled
Palestine into Arab and
Jewish states, Arab leaders
reject the partition. Israel
declares independence in
1948, and its Arab neighbors
attack. Israel survives and
enlarges its territory.
Yom Kippur War
On the Jewish holiday of
Yom Kippur, Egypt and
Syria attack Israeli forces in
Sinai and the Golan Heights.
Israel repels both armies
and a cease-fire is declared.
Israel later withdraws from
parts of Sinai and the Golan
Heights.
Israel/Egypt Peace
After U.S. President Jimmy
Carter brokers peace
between Egypt and Israel,
Egypt becomes the first
Arab nation to recognize
Israel, and Israel withdraws
from the rest of Sinai.
First Intifada
1=.111111 .
Angered by Israel's ongoin
occupation of the West Ba
and Gaza, Palestinians bec
an uprising. It progresses
from Palestinian youths
throwing stones at Israeli
soldiers to suicide bomber
targeting Israeli civilians.

Israel would withdraw from territories it
captured in return for peace with its Arab
neighbors and secure borders.
Six years later, in 1973, Egypt and
Syria launched surprise attacks on Israel
on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur,
pushing into Sinai and the Golan Heights.
Israel largely repelled the attacks, though
the Arabs considered the war a success.
Overall, it restored some of the Arab
pride that had been so wounded in 1967,
arguably enabling some of the peace
efforts in the decades that followed.
Egypt & Jordan
In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat shocked the world by traveling to
Jerusalem to meet with Israeli leaders. A
year later, U.S. President Jimmy Carter
brought Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin to Camp David, the
presidential retreat in Maryland, where
the three men broke a 30-year stalemate
in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Camp David Accords led to a peace
treaty in 1979 between Israel and Egypt:
Israel returned the rest of Sinai, and Egypt
became the first Arab state to recognize
Israel. (Others denounced the treaty, and
Sadat was assassinated in 1981.)
Jordan signed a peace treaty with
Israel in 1994, but Israel and the
Palestinians have remained locked in
conflict. Thousands on both sides have
died in two intifadas, or uprisings; in
Israeli military campaigns in the occu-
pied territories; and in suicide bombings
and other attacks on Israeli civilians.
Israel wants the Palestinians to
renounce terrorism and genuinely accept
its existence, and the Palestinians seek
statehood, a capital in Jerusalem, and
the right of Palestinian refugees displaced
by the 1948 war to return to Israel.
In 2000 at Camp David, President Bill
Clinton brought the two sides to the brink
of an agreement: Israel would return near-
ly all the land it still controlled from the
1967 war and the Palestinians would get
an independent state with a capital in East
Jerusalem in return for dismantling all
terrorist groups. But Arafat, to the conster-
nation of Clinton and even Arafat's Arab
allies, walked away from the negotiations.
According to Leslie Gelb, a former
State Department official, the Camp
David failure demonstrates the difficulty
of bringing the two sides together.
"Israelis said if the Palestinians won't
buy this great deal, they don't want
peace," Gelb says. "The Palestinians said
this was an Israeli trick. The result is
what we've seen all these years."
Within months of the failed talks, the
second, more violent intifada began.
Militants carried out dozens of suicide
bombings in Israel, and Israel responded
with a harsh military crackdown.
In the past few years, Israel has been
trying to unilaterally "disengage" from
the Palestinians. It constructed a contro-
versial security barrier to keep suicide
bombers from entering Israel and, in
2005, shiittered its settlements in Gaza
and withdrew its forces, leaving all of
Gaza under Palestinian control. In the
West Bank, different areas remain under
Israeli, Palestinian, or joint control.
In 2006, Hamas, a radical funda-
mentalist group that calls for Israel's
destruction, won a majority in the

18 ariNcl.ellarkTIMCS UPFRONT WWW.UPFRONTMAGAZINE.COM

cabin, Bill Clinton, Yasir Arafat

1993-94
Oslo Accords
Under the 1993 Oslo
Accords, brokered in
Norway, Israel turns over
parts of the West Bank and
Gaza to the Palestinians as
a step toward statehood.
Israel and Jordan sign a
peace treaty in 1994.
2000-05 -1 2005-06
Second Intifada
After negotiations on a final
Israeli-Palestinian peace
deal fail, a second uprising
begins. Dozens of suicide
bombings in Israel and an
Israeli crackdown in the
West Bank and Gaza kill
more than 1,000 Israelis
and 4,000 Palestinians.
Israel Leaves Gaza
Israel evacuates its
settlements in Gaza and
withdraws troops from
there. Today, President
Mahmoud Abbas heads the
Palestinian Authority in the
West Bank while Hamas
controls Gaza.
I
2011-12 -1
Arab Spring/Iran
0
Whether post-Arab Spring
governments will have
friendly relations with
Israel remains to be seen;
Israel is threatening to
attack Iran over its nuclear
weapons program.

Palestinian parliament, leading the U.S.

and other nations to temporarily cut off
most aid to the Palestinians and to refuse
to deal with Hamas members of the gov-
ernment. Divisions within the Palestinian
leadership led Hamas to splinter off and
take control of Gaza, with President
Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party rul-
ing the West Bank.
Jerusalem is holy to
Jews, Christians, and
Arab Spring
Muslims.
Talks between Israeli and Palestinian
leaders have gone nowhere in recent
years, and new challenges have aris-
en. For one, the Arab Spring uprisings,
which toppled autocratic regimes in For Israel at the moment, the nucle- Israel and the Palestinians will eventually
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, ar threat from Iranwhose leader, reach an agreement, but only with effec-
may complicate already-tense relations Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for tive leadership on both sides.
between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Israel's destructionis seen as the big- "I'm hopeful that people with vision
Though Israel and Egypt have been at gest threat. The U.S. and the U.N. have and creativity can devise a grand strategy
peace for three decades, it isn't yet clear responded to Iran's suspected nucle- that gets as many of the parties involved
whether the government that eventually ar weapons program with sanctions; in conflict there as possible satisfied with
replaces that of ousted Egyptian President Israel considers the nuclear program an a just and lasting peace," says Wanis-St.
Hosni Mubarak will be as friendly to "existential threat" and has been talking John of American University. "It could
Israel. Israel is also keeping a close eye on about attacking Iran, a move that could happen today, it could happen tomor-
Syria's revolution (seep. 14), which could further destabilize the region. row, it could happen anytime there's
further upend Middle East politics. Most Middle East experts believe that political will to do it."

APRIL 2, 2012 19