The Six Day War

By 1967, the state of Israel had been in existence for nearly twenty years. The violence of Israel's creation, and the animosity it created between it and its neighbors in the region, had remained just below the surface. In fact, Israel had had invaded Egypt (with the support of the British and French) in 1955 to prevent the Egyptians from nationalizing the Suez Canal. Though unsuccessful, the adventure proved how volatile and violent the region could be.

Though divided by competition and disagreement on many issues, all of Israel's neighbors - Egypt, Jordan and Syria (Lebanon remained politically less involved in the region's conflicts than its neighbors until the 1980s) were united in their desire to restore Palestine to the Palestinians, and erase what they saw as an illegitimate Zionist state from the map. While avoiding direct military confrontation, the rhetoric of the three states' leaders was often inflammatory.

By the summer of 1967, the Israeli military and political leadership was convinced that the Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Jordan) were preparing for an imminent attack, whose goal was nothing other than the eradication of the Jewish state. Since Israel is very small territorially, its leadership decided that its only real hope of survival was a pre-emptive strike, destroying the Arab armies before they had a chance to drive the Israelis "into the sea."

As a result, on the morning of June 5, 1967, the Israeli Air Force initiated hostilities by attacking the Egyptian Air Force as it sat on the ground. The assault was devastating: nearly the entire Egyptian Air Force was destroyed that morning. Following the air assault, the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) invaded the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip (Egyptian territory), the Golan Heights (Syrian territory), and the West Bank (Jordanian territory). The Arab armies were defeated soundly on all fronts, and within 6 days all the above mentioned territories were in Israeli control. With the exception of the Sinai - which Israel returned to Egypt in return for a peace treaty and recognition of the state of Israel by the Egyptian president - Israel still controls these territories to this day.

This war was extremely influential because it defined the current debate and dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) over the possibility of a future Palestinian state. The PA claims all of the West Bank and Gaza (the pre-1967 borders) as the the boundaries of the Palestinian state. Israel is reluctant to return the territory because it includes part of Jerusalem, and because thousands of Jewish settlers moved into the West Bank after the war.