By Richard Norman

This month marks the fortieth anniversary of the Six Day War, the Arab-Israeli engagement of 1967 (the third major conflict following those in 1948 and 1956). I thought I would provide an outline of it, then follow-up with some continuing controversies and a discussion of what many observers believe to be its special significance. (For more background, I recommend this new BBC documentary.) By most accounts this was one of the most important wars of the twentieth century. First to the aftermath of the Suez Crisis of 1956. Following the withdrawal of French, British, and Israeli forces from Egypt, UN forces were placed in the Sinai desert to ensure its demilitarization and to prevent cross-border guerrilla raids on Israel. What followed was more than a decade of uneasiness, piqued by Israeli skirmishes with Jordan on the West Bank, and with Syria on the Golan Heights and northeastern border. Casus Belli In the months before June 1967, Egypt, under the leadership of General Nasser, expelled the United Nations Emergency Force from the Sinai Peninsula, proceeded to build up military units near the Israeli border, blockaded the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships, and called for unified Arab action against Israel. There are many who would agree that the blockade of a country’s ports (in the case of Israel, its only port on the Red Sea) constitutes a crime of aggression and a Casus Belli. Indeed, Israel had gone on the record in 1957 (following its first withdrawal from the Sinai) that it would consider the restriction of oil imports to its Red Sea port to be a cause for war. The international community, especially the major powers who had guaranteed Israeli access, did little to quell the crisis over the Straits. On May 30th, Egypt and Jordan signed a military pact (complementing the accord signed in recent months between Egypt and Syria). In the midst of these agreements between Israel’s Arab neighbours, the BBC records General Nasser as declaring "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight." Despite these statements, contemporary historians believe Nasser’s goals were quite ambivalent. For example, the Egyptian general staff changed their operational plan four times in May 1967, each change requiring the redeployment of troops. Meanwhile, across the border, Israeli generals were preparing to implement a plan that had been in place for more than a decade and that had been carefully rehearsed. Above photo: Israeli soldiers at the Western Wall after its capture. -Richard