The Six Days Plus Forty Years War

How else to think of an occupation two-thirds as old as the occupying state? The demarcation between the initial six days and the subsequent forty years seems more than a bit … well silly. Don’t you think? The six days never really ended. Not yet. At least not for the Palestinians nor for the Israelis. One is tempted to quiry as to what exactly in the 6 days is really worth celebration? After all, what was accomplished? Moral degeneration? A taste for the art of oppression? Checkpoint city? Extra-judicial executions? House demolitions? Torture? Jews only roadways? And, of course, land robbing settlements carving up and down the areas occupied.

From what I can discern, the truths about those six days - the precipitating factors, the initiation of war and the war itself - are hotly contested. From what I can tell, the dominant narrative of this war as a pre-emptive war against certain annihilation, is a narrative increasingly viewed as suspect. (Of course, find the right sources and you can have it any way you want it.)

I’ve read it said that the six days secured the 1948 borders. Finally, Israel had won what it only seemed it had won 19 years previous. Funny how once you get what you want, you want more. And did they ever get more. Far more than they wanted (and less also).

It seems that those six days have their meaning elsewhere. Namely, in the subsequent 40 years. The six days plus forty years war. I’m not sure where the glory of those six days is supposed to reside given the forty years. Nothing was accomplished. Perhaps worse, everything was lost? Israel’s destruction brought about by itself? There are speculations along those lines these days. Its the forty years that inevitably fueled such speculations. Had the six days actually accomplished specifiable borders for Israelis and Palestinians, one indeed might be able to speak of the glory of the six days. Instead one can only speak of atrocities all around, of distrust and dispossession, of racism, self-righteousness and brutalities of every sort.

Some recent takes on six days plus forty years (feel free to offer up other takes be they left, center or right):

FAQ on the 1967 War

This June marks the fortieth anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Four decades of control maintained by force of arms have enabled Israel to impose its will on the occupied territories and to remake them in its own image.

Here is FAQ on the 1967 war:

1. How did the 1967 war begin?

2. Which countries were involved in the fighting?

3. What was the outcome?

4. How did Israel justify its attack?

5. Is Israel’s version of the facts universally accepted?

6. If Israel’s claimed reasons for the attack were false, what were its true objectives?

7. What was the chain of events leading up to the war?

8. Why was the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) only on the Egyptian side of the border and not on the Israeli side as well?

9. Where were Egypt’s troops on the day preceding the war?

10. What role, if any, did the United States play in the diplomatic efforts to avert armed conflict?

11. What were the consequences of the 1967 war for Palestinians?

12. What is the legal status of the land Israel seized in 1967?

13. What were the long-term implications of the war for peace and stability in the region, and for the status of international law?

05/31/07 - Sabbah

The Legacy of the 1967 War: Victory or Defeat for Israel?

In the post-1967 debate over the future of the occupied territories, Israeli liberals warned that settlements would corrupt Zionism and bring constant conflict. In a famous letter to Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1980, Israeli historian Jacob Talmon described settlements and occupation as a “time bomb.” He warned that “The effort to hold the conquered territories proves itself to be not the crowning point in our history but rather a trap, a burden, not to be borne without degradation, corruption, and even collapse….Let us not compel the Arabs to feel that they have been humiliated until they believe that hope is gone and they must die for Palestine.”

But the liberals lost the debate and the settlement project flourished. Today, over 450,000 settlers live in 125 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, amidst 2.5 million Palestinians. Although Israel evacuated 8,000 settlers from Gaza in 2005, and its leaders talk vaguely about further withdrawals, in fact it is expanding settlements in the West Bank, together with a massive separation barrier. The route of the barrier, which cuts deeply into Palestinian territory, placing the largest settlements and the best access to water on Israel’s side, appears to define, unilaterally, a new border and belies Israel’s claim that the sole function of the barrier is security

by Philip C. Wilcox, Jr. - 03/05/07 - peacenow.org

Rethinking Israel’s David-and-Goliath past

Israeli and U.S. historians and commentators describe the surprise attack as necessary, and the war as inevitable, the result of Nasser’s fearsome war machine that had closed the Straits of Tiran, evicted United Nations peacekeeping troops, taunted the traumatized Israeli public, and churned toward the Jewish state’s border with 100,000 troops. “The morning of 5 June 1967,” wrote Israel’s warrior-turned-historian, Chaim Herzog, “found Israel’s armed forces facing the massed Arab armies around her frontiers.” Attack or be annihilated: The choice was clear.

Or was it? Little-noticed details in declassified documents from the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, indicate that top officials in the Johnson administration — including Johnson’s most pro-Israeli Cabinet members — did not believe war between Israel and its neighbors was necessary or inevitable, at least until the final hour. In these documents, Israel emerges as a vastly superior military power, its opponents far weaker than the menacing threat Israel portrayed, and war itself something that Nasser, for all his saber-rattling, tried to avoid until the moment his air force went up in smoke. In particular, the diplomatic role of Nasser’s vice president, who was poised to travel to Washington in an effort to resolve the crisis, has received little attention from historians. The documents sharpen a recurring theme in the history of the Israeli-Arab wars, and especially of their telling in the West: From the war of 1948 to the 2007 conflict in Gaza, Israel is often miscast as the vulnerable David in a hostile sea of Arab Goliaths.

by Sandy Tolan - 06/04/07 - Salon

6 Days of War

And now the question was, you’ve won the borders, and now there’s a question of the refugees. It seems pretty clear after ‘67 Arab states — I’m not saying whether it’s right or wrong, I’m just saying it as a fact — the Arab states were open to the resolution of the refugee question which would be compensation instead of return.

So if Israel had been willing to accept the ‘67 borders and compensation — which would’ve been basically paid for internationally, not by Israel — and compensation for the refugees, they could’ve had peace since ‘68.

No question about it.

But, like most States, they just had this big victory, they are intoxicated by it, the Arabs are humiliated and the famous line by Moshe Dayan, we’re standing by the telephone, waiting for your call, and if you don’t call, too bad, we’re not leaving. And that’s why I think The Economist, this past week, it had an article on the 40th anniversary, and the title was not bad, I didn’t really agree with the content, but the title was not bad, it was called “The Wasted Victory,” because they could’ve gotten the ‘48 borders and the resolution of the refugee question. But they didn’t want it, they wanted more. They got greedy.

And the greediness, I think, history will show, destroyed the country. I don’t think pesonally any longer — and I don’t say it with any kind of satisfaction — I don’t think Israel has a future there anymore. It’s turned into a, you could call it, it’s turned into a crazy State because when you listen to the language of Israel, it’s totally out of sync with the rest of the world. You take the last war in Iraq. There’re only 2 countries in the world that supported the war, Kuwait, for reasons you can understand, and Israel — 70% of the population. Now, the war with Iran. There’s literally only 1 country in the world, you know, look at the polls — Israel. The population, the government pushing hard — war, war, war. Attacking Lebanon, attacking Gaza, it’s become a kind of crazy State and a lot of the craziness came out of this June ‘67 war. It could’ve had a relatively, you know, you can’t say it’s gonna be perfect, it’s not gonna be Scandinavia, but they could’ve resolved the major problems 40 years ago.

Two things. They got intoxicated with their power and secondly, they got entangled in ways which I think were very detrimental to them in this relationship with the United States.

Norman Finkelstein Interviewed - 06/06/07 - Chicago Public Radio

Outing Israeli Crimes: June 1967

It was not in Israel’s interest nor in US interest to have its aggression against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan revealed to the world. Early in the afternoon of June 8, 1967, Israeli jets and missile boats opened fire on the USS Liberty, an American surveillance ship operating off the coast of Gaza. Struck by rockets, cannons and torpedoes, the vessel suffered extensive damage and over 200 casualties including 34 dead. Israeli forces were then engaged in the fourth day of what would soon be called the Six Day War, and, as Bamford shows, the Liberty was hit repeatedly by waves of Israeli airforce fighters loaded with 30 mm cannon ammunition, rockets, and even napalm, then assaulted from the sea by torpedoes (200-201). Though Israel claimed the attack was a “tragic mistake,” the incident has never been officially revealed to the public.

In spite of earlier exposés like that of Arthur Forrest and interviews with survivors of the USS Liberty, few people in the West even today know what Israel was doing. In subsequent investigations, however, it has emerged that those directly connected to the attack on the Liberty rejected Israeli claims the ship was attacked by accident. In his biography of President Lyndon Johnson, for example, Robert Dallek says “The highest officials of the [Johnson] administration, including the President, believed it ‘inconceivable’ that Israel’s ’skilled’ defense forces could have committed such a gross error” Dallek. 430-31). If Israeli intention was to cover up their criminal napalm attacks on Palestinian civilians in order to drive them out of Palestine, it seems to have been a success. What Israel was covering up, by trying to sink the USS Liberty was the crime of genocide.

by Clare Brandabur - June 07 - cosmos.ucc.ie

Secret memo shows Israel knew Six Day War was illegal

A senior legal official who secretly warned the government of Israel after the Six Day War of 1967 that it would be illegal to build Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories has said, for the first time, that he still believes that he was right.

The declaration by Theodor Meron, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser at the time and today one of the world’s leading international jurists, is a serious blow to Israel’s persistent argument that the settlements do not violate international law, particularly as Israel prepares to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the war in June 1967.

The legal opinion, a copy of which has been obtained by The Independent, was marked “Top Secret” and “Extremely Urgent” and reached the unequivocal conclusion, in the words of its author’s summary, “that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

Judge Meron, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia until 2005, said that, after 40 years of Jewish settlement growth in the West Bank - one of the main problems to be solved in any peace deal: “I believe that I would have given the same opinion today.”

Judge Meron, a holocaust survivor, also sheds new light on the aftermath of the 1967 war by disclosing that the Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, was “sympathetic” to his view that civilian settlement would directly conflict with the Hague and Geneva conventions governing the conduct of occupying powers.

05/27/07 - Independent

Living Without A Solution - Forty Years of Occupation and Settlement

If the campaign to re-settle Homesh is meant to evoke the “golden era” of pioneering settlement, the battle over property in Hebron betrays a grimmer reality. Only 500 Israelis live in Hebron. Most of them are young children and teenagers, many the offspring of what even Prime Minister Begin described at the time as the “invaders” (see Lessons from the Conquest of Hebron) of 1979. Yet this small vanguard has, during the last 40 years, transformed the look and life of the city. Their intent has always been to make life in the city unbearable for its Arab residents, and to transform Hebron, revered as site of the tomb of Abraham and until a massacre by Palestinians in 1929, home to a small Jewish community, into a Jewish city. Hebron is the ugly, fanatical, and hateful face of Israel’s settlement enterprise, and those settlers who rule it make no apologies for their dominion. (See B’Tselem report)

Recent video recordings have captured the complicity of the IDF in this ongoing campaign. One video, according to a March 3 report on YNET, “reportedly shows girls from Hebron pelting eggs at Palestinians in the presence of an IDF soldier and Border Police officers who make no move to stop them.” Another dramatic video, now posted on YouTube, shows a young woman, Ifat Elkobi, taunting a young member of the Abu Aisha family (“You are a whore,” she says repeatedly) who lives in what can only be called a cage built around her house to protect the family from settlers.

May-June 2007 - Foundation for Middle East Peace