THE SIX DAY WAR 1967

If you ever needed any proof of conflict in the Middle East these days, you need only turn on the news. Recent events have shown that there is still a lot of unresolved tension within the region, some of which dates back decades or even centuries. In most cases, these issues are caused by some form of religious discord – which is especially true in the case of Israel. Despite having roots in antiquity with the Kingdom of Israel, Israel as a modern state only popped up in 1947, taking over the region after an inglorious retreat of British forces from Palestine. Although flawed, this process was in fact devised by the United Nations in the form of a ‘partition plan’, determined to find a home for the thousands of Jews displaced after WW2.

Yet not everyone thought this was such a brilliant idea, and that happened to include pretty much all of Israel’s prospective new neighbours. As a result, the traditional house warming party was replaced by the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, in which the Arab League of Egypt, Jordan and Syria (among others) attempted to oust the new nation before they could get too settled in the neighbourhood. Israel, as it happened, would not only survive the invasion, but go on to claim even more territory originally allocated to the Arabs.

Just shy of twenty years later, the situation was far from resolved and the passage of time only served to crank up the mutual hostility. In an attempt to keep the fragile peace, the UN had been drafted in as a sort of awkward middle man, trying not to take sides by standing in the middle - something that would only be possible as long as it got the thumbs up from the nations it operated within. So when Egypt’s Gamal Nasser told them to pack up and get lost, Israel may have been somewhat suspicious of what was coming next. It was also probably hard to ignore the sudden concentration of Egypt’s military in the Suez region – just to the south of Israeli territory. Seeing that the writing was basically on the wall, Israel decided not to hang about and figured that if there was going to be a throw down, it might as well be on their terms. What followed was highly unexpected by pretty much everyone.

In pre-empting Egypt’s attack, the Israeli forces caught their foes napping. On June 5th the Syrians and Egyptians were probably quite alarmed to find that there was now just smouldering wreckage where their Air Forces used to be. Needless to say, without any effective air support, the odds were now heavily stacked against the Arab nations and just as in 1948 they began to lose valuable ground to the enemy advance. By the 7th June, the Israeli’s smashed their way to the Suez Canal and captured the West Bank from Jordan, while taking the Golan Heights from Syria two days later.

This smash and grab was a stunning victory for the Israelis, who while surrounded and outnumbered, proved themselves as the dominant military force in the region. The Arab world on the hand was stunned by their dramatic defeat. To be forced into a ceasefire after less than a week was humiliating enough, but for the league to be so decisively beaten by a single nation was crushing for their collective morale. What’s more, Israel’s newly conquered gains meant that over half a million Arabs were now under their administration. This new state of affairs was rather unwelcome for said Arabs, some of whom would go on to fight in the recently formed PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation). This all contributed to a seismic shift in the political spectrum and set the tone for decades of further conflict and border disputes.