By Richard Norman

At 7.45 am on 5 June 1967, Israel launched Operation Focus, a preemptive attack on the Egyptian air force, the majority of which sat unsuspecting on defenceless airfields. Methodically rehearsed over the course of several years, the strike (and its second and third waves) was spectacularly successful. By noon of that day, much of the Syrian and Jordanian air force also lay in ruins, a total of more than 450 airplanes. These five hours set the scene for the remaining one hundred and twenty-eight hours of war. Guaranteed air superiority, Israeli infantry and artillery moved through Gaza and into Sinai where it engaged Egyptian forces. In less than two days, the Egyptian army was in retreat from Abu-Ageila, a retreat that rapidly took on a desperate tone as Egyptian Field Marshal ‘Amer, fazed by the speed of Israeli successes, called for a full retreat to the banks of the Suez (‘Amer, like Rommel, would later take poison rather than face trial for treason). In the proceeding confusion vast amounts of Egyptian materiel was captured or destroyed. The Israeli army, under General Sharon (among others), unforgivingly pursued, attempting to cut off the retreating army at several narrow passes before the eastern bank of the canal. The result was large casualties for the Egyptian army and huge losses of equipment. (On 9 June, Nasser would offer his resignation, but mass protests–in his favour–leads him to rescind it.) As the Egyptian army lay in ruins, its government continued to send out misinformation to the world, to the effect that Egypt in fact had scored a stunning victory over Israel. It was this propaganda that in part led Syria and Jordan to commit to the war. Originally, Israel intended to remain on the defensive along the border with Jordan, but deciding to launch an attack he felt necessary, King Hussein ordered his army forward a little later on 5 June. Some of the war’s fiercest fighting occurred in East Jerusalem, where air superiority prevented Jordanian and Iraqi reinforcements from relieving Jordanian units. By 7 June, Israel had captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Temple Mount and Western Wall, and stood about 50 kilometers from Amman (which they had no intention of capturing). They then assumed a defensive position. On the northern front, Syria began shelling Israeli towns in the Hula Valley. After several days of deliberation and debate, and as their victories racked up on other fronts, the Israeli government committed itself to an attempt to take the strategically valuable Golan Heights from Syria. As the fighting concluded on the other fronts, the Syrians are forced to withdraw south of Damascus until a ceasefire on 10 June finished the war, leaving the Golan in Israeli hands. In these six days,

the Egyptians lost between 10 000 and 15 000 men, among them 1500 officers and pilots; thousands more wounded. An additional 5000 Egyptians were listed as missing. Seven hundred Jordanian soldiers had died, and over 6000 were wounded or missing. Syria’s losses were estimated 450 dead and roughly four times that number wounded. Israel admitted to 679 dead and 2563 wounded, though IDF fatalities figures were later placed as high as 800–the equivalent, in per capita terms, of 80 000 Americans. The widest gap of all, however, was not in human but in material terms. All but 15 percent of Egypt’s military hardware, $2 billions worth, was destroyed.

Amid this terrible military humiliation was a massive exodus of refugees from the West Bank, now under Israeli control. Between 175 000 and 250 000 Palestinians fled their homes to Jordan.

After the ceasefire, Israel insisted that the 1967 refugee problem, like that of 1948 before it, would have to be solved within the framework of a comprehensive peace treaty. The Arab states uniformly rejected this demand, and insisted on unconditional repatriation and compensation for the refugees. When later that summer Israel was pressed to permit at least some of the Palestinians back into the West Bank, few in fact availed themselves of the offer. [The above three quotes are from Michael Oren’s Six Days of War, 305-6]

So why was Israel able to win so easily? How did this war figure into the Cold War? And what direct repercussions of the Six Day War are evident today in the Middle East? I’ll talk about some of these questions in the final part of this posting. A day by day breakdown, courtesy of the BBC, can be found here. Above photo: An Egyptian airplane destroyed by the IAF. -Richard