Why Did Israel Go To War? | Six Day War Project
By Jerusalem U
Military Provocation and Terrorism
In May of 1967, the state of Israel was only 19 years old. At its inception in 1948, five Arab armies had coordinated a military invasion to prevent the creation of the small Jewish country. But Israel’s War of Independence succeeded in repelling the forces bent on Israel’s destruction. Israel reclaimed sovereignty over the ancient Jewish homeland, making way for the establishment of a Jewish country after 2,000 years of statelessness and periods of persecution.
Yet despite Israel’s success in creating a new country, it did not enjoy peace with its neighbors. Terrorism and frequent attacks on three borders kept Israel in a perpetual state of alert.
To the north, from the Golan Heights, Syria shelled Jewish communities below on a regular basis. In the South and East, Arab terrorists from Egyptian-controlled Gaza and the Jordanian-controlled West Bank infiltrated and perpetrated attacks on Israeli civilians, killing 400 in the 19 years since Israeli independence.
Surrounded by enemy neighbors and only nine miles wide at its narrowest point, Israel was vulnerable. The attacks reached the point that they were condemned as “deplorable” by then-Secretary General of the United Nations U Thant.
Although the Jewish state had been welcomed into the United Nations and hailed by the international community, its Arab neighbors rejected its very right to exist, preparing to resume a war for Israel’s destruction which they had halted 19 years earlier. The Arab buildup for all-out war was very near.
In this video – the first in a 12-part commemorative series – you will learn about the regional atmosphere leading up to the 1967 Six Day War, and find out about the early steps that led to the war that changed the future of Israel.
Egypt Expels UN Observers
In mid-May 1967, Arab hostility toward Israel was about to take a dramatic turn for the worse. On May 14, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser began moving troops and military equipment into the demilitarized zone in the Sinai Peninsula between Israel and Egypt.
Nasser’s move was fueled, in part, by misinformation he had received from the Soviet Union – Egypt’s ally and sponsor – claiming that Israel was on the verge of invading Syria. However, though Nasser learned these reports were false just a day later, he continued moving tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks toward the Israeli border.
On May 16th, goaded on by other Arab countries and Egyptian public opinion, Nasser ordered the immediate evacuation of all UN troops and termination of the UN presence on the Egyptian-Israeli border. The UN complied, leaving the buffer zone under total Egyptian control. Israel now lay exposed on its southern border, as Egypt continued amassing its troops in the Sinai. By the end of the week, Egypt had placed 80,000 troops, 550 tanks, and 1,000 artillery pieces on the Israeli border.
This week, in the second of our 12-part video series, witness Egyptian President Nasser’s aggressive move to amass tens of thousands of troops along Israel’s border, and the surprising action of the United Nations.
