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The June 1967 Arab-Israeli War
Advancing Israeli troops pass by the wreckage of an Egyptian warplane near El Arish Airport, during the Six-Day war.
What you need to know:
Birth of a power. The Six-Day War would establish Israel as the military power of the Middle East. Plenty of mythology grew around that spectacular victory, from Evangelical Christians believing even more that the Jews were God’s Chosen People to military strategists stating the need for careful planning as key to military victory, writes Timothy Kalyegira.
Early on Monday morning June 5, 1967, 50 years ago this week, one of the strangest wars of modern times erupted in the Middle East.
Soviet intelligence had told the Egyptians on May 13 that the Israelis were mobilising troops near Israel’s border with Syria.
On May 20, Israeli military intelligence learnt that the Egyptian president, Col Gamal Abdel Nasser, had recalled three Egyptian armoured brigades deployed in Yemen back home.
King Hussein of Jordan, whose country had for several years been on hostile terms with Egypt, flew to Cairo on May 30 and signed a defence agreement with Egypt that would put Jordanian troops at the disposal of and under Egyptian military command.
Nasser said on May 30, 1967, that “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight.”
Israeli treated this as a declaration of war and decided to take pre-emptive action.
Israeli Air Force jets, 200 in total, flew quietly over the Mediterranean Sea out of range of Egyptian air defence radar that morning of June 5.
The planes flew in the direction of Europe, then turned around in an anti-clockwise arch and headed straight toward 18 Egyptian Air Force bases and airfields.
The Israeli planes arrived over Egypt at exactly 7.45am local time.
Egyptian radar had been anticipating an Israeli attack and so were beamed in the direction of Israel.
Israel knew this, which is why the 200 planes flew toward Europe, then attacked Egypt from the back of the radar range. By mid-morning two hours later, they had destroying 304 out of Egypt’s 419 air force planes.
Egyptian state radio in Cairo reported that the Israeli raid had aborted, encouraging Syria, Iraq and Jordan to join the fighting in support of an Egypt they thought was gaining the upper hand.
The Israelis had originally planned this to be a war with Egypt but with Jordan and Syria joining in, Israel on the spur of the moment opened a new front against Iraq, Syria and Jordan.
A fresh wave of Israeli fighter planes fanned out to bomb the air force planes of Syria, Jordan and Iraq. They met with the same success as they had with Egypt.
At least 53 of Syria’s 112 air force planes and all 28 Jordanian war planes were destroyed.
Later on, Jordan’s King Hussein would remark: “Their pilots knew exactly what to expect…their pilots had a complete catalogue of the most minute details of each of the 32 Arab air bases, what objectives to strike, where, when and how. We had nothing like that.”
The Six-Day War would establish Israel as the military power of the Middle East. Plenty of mythology grew around that spectacular victory, from Evangelical Christians believing even more that the Jews were God’s Chosen People to military strategists stating the need for careful planning as key to military victory.
The Six-Day War itself was more chaotic and erratically executed than the mythology suggests.
The Arab countries, complacent in their numerical strength, had not anticipated the razor-sharp alertness and motivation of the Israelis who had no margin of error.
To Israel it was win or perish.
But much of the victory by the Israelis arose from the cultural weakness of the Arabs. The Arabs, much like certain people like the Chinese and Africans, culturally had difficulty dealing with public humiliation.
Face-saving is central to the culture. In military and intelligence matters, that made it difficult for them to accurately assess Israel’s military capabilities.
The Israelis on the other hand, came from a European background in which facts, however unpleasant, are treated as facts and acted on accordingly.
The Israelis got away with some of their foolhardy operations, particularly the last-minute decision to add Iraq, Syria and Jordan to their area of combat.
Israel could very easily have suffered a colossal defeat in taking on four countries all on the same day, some much bigger in size than it.
Sometimes, an act of craziness can get a person, company or country to where more cautious planning and action fails.
About Six-Day war
The Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbours ended with a United Nations-brokered cease-fire. The outnumbered Israel Defence Forces achieved a swift and decisive victory in the brief war, rolling over the Arab coalition that threatened the Jewish state and more than doubling the amount of territory under Israel’s control.
