The Six-Day War - 1967 

The Six-Day War – PragerU (Michael Oren)

Few events in modern history were as dramatic as the Six-Day War of June 1967 — the war between Israel and four Arab nations: Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.

Among other things, it changed the nature of the Middle East and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, transferred control of the West Bank from Jordan to Israel, and unleashed modern Islamic extremism.

Origins of the War

The origins of the war were complex.
They began with the rise of Pan-Arabism, which sought to unite the countries created by European powers after World War I — Syria, Iraq, and Jordan — into a single Arab state.

The question was: Who would lead that state?
To claim that leadership, Arab rulers competed to prove who could be most aggressive toward Israel.

Foremost among them was Gamal Abdel Nasser, the charismatic leader of the most powerful Arab country — Egypt.

The Build-Up to War

To establish his dominance, on May 16, 1967, Nasser evicted UN peacekeepers who served as a buffer between Israel and Egypt in the Sinai Desert and Gaza Strip (then under Egyptian control).

He marched his army into the Sinai and threatened to “drive the Jews into the sea.”
He blockaded the Straits of Tiran — Israel’s only access to the Red Sea — choking off the vital southern port of Eilat.

Nasser then forged a military alliance with Syria and Iraq and placed the Jordanian army under Egyptian command.

By the first week of June 1967, Israel was surrounded:

• To the south — the Egyptian army.
  
  
  

• To the east — the armies of Jordan and Iraq.
  
  
  

• To the north — the Syrian army.
  
  
  

• To the west — the Mediterranean Sea.
  
  
  

And to make matters worse, Israel faced these threats virtually alone.

Its ties with Europe were uncertain, and though it had friendly relations with the United States, it lacked a formal alliance.
The IDF fought with French, not American, weapons.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union fully backed Nasser and his allies.

Israel Decides to Strike

The situation was existential.
Israel’s usually divided political parties united to form a national unity government, led by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and the famed one-eyed general Moshe Dayan as Minister of Defense.

The great question facing Israel’s leaders was:
Should Israel wait for the inevitable Arab attack and respond — or strike preemptively?
And if it struck first — what if it failed?

After much debate and soul-searching, Israel decided to act.

At 7:45 a.m. on June 5, 1967, Israel launched one of the largest air strikes in military history.
The Egyptians were completely caught by surprise.
In just a few hours, Israeli planes wiped out three-quarters of Egypt’s air force, most of it still on the ground.
This gave Israel command of the skies — a decisive tactical advantage.

The War Unfolds

Israeli ground forces rushed into the Sinai, aiming to neutralize the Egyptian threat — and by doing so, to discourage other Arab states from joining the fight.

Israel repeatedly urged Jordan’s King Hussein to stay out of the war.
It didn’t work.

Within hours, Israel was fighting a three-front war.
Jordanian forces fired thousands of artillery shells into West Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv area and attacked along the eastern border.
At the same time, Syria rained thousands of shells on Israeli towns and villages in the Galilee.

Israel fought as if its survival depended on it — because it did.

In the open spaces of the Sinai Desert, Israeli jets obliterated Egyptian forces from above, while Israeli ground troops and tanks drove them back toward the Suez Canal.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Israeli paratroopers advanced into the eastern half of the city.

By the third day of the war, the Jordanian and Egyptian armies were in full retreat.
Israeli soldiers conquered all of Sinai up to the Suez Canal.
Responding to Palestinian attacks from Gaza, the IDF captured the Strip as well.

Jerusalem Reunited

Most dramatically, on the morning of June 7, Israeli paratroopers realized a 2,000-year-old Jewish dream — reuniting East and West Jerusalem and liberating the Old City.

“The Temple Mount is in our hands,” reported Commander Motta Gur, as his troops danced before the Western Wall.

Only the Syrian front remained. Syrian artillery continued pounding Israel’s north.

Though fearful that the Soviets might intervene on behalf of their ally, Moshe Dayan decided that the opportunity to secure Israel’s northern high ground — the Golan Heights — could not be missed.

Advancing under furious Syrian fire, Israeli forces achieved their objective.

In six earth-shaking days, it was all over.

Aftermath and Legacy

Israel had defeated multiple Arab armies, convincing American leaders to ally with the Jewish state and begin supplying it with arms.
The world was stunned:
A nation of just 2.5 million people had defeated an Arab world of over 100 million.

A country only 8 miles wide at its narrowest point before the war had quadrupled its territory.

But enormous challenges remained — foremost among them, what to do with over a million Palestinians now under Israeli control.

That question would preoccupy Israeli political, diplomatic, and military thinking for decades to come — and still does to this day.

— Michael Oren, author of “Six Days of War,” for Prager University.

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