1967The Six Day War

Preemptive WarYou live in a house with your family, consisting of your father, mother, two brothers and two sisters. You have the following resources available to you: your voice, a phone, a computer, assorted pots and pans, a baseball bat, knives and guns. It is late at night and everyone is asleep.

You hear strange noises from both the front and back doors—noises that sound like people trying to break in. You cautiously walk down the stairs to see what is going on without being seen. Your fears are realized—people are surrounding the front and back of the house.

WHAT DO YOU DO? 1. Would you go back to sleep, hoping this was all a bad dream?2. Would you quickly gather your valuables and leave the house?3. Would you try to reason with the intruders? 4. Would you gather the family to attack the intruders, making your best effort to

save yourselves and your house?

Now, they are carrying weapons and shouting, “We want this house. We will take it and we will kill you.” Does your response change?

Preemptive WarPreemption. The Bush Doctrine favors preemption, or striking first, over the old ideas of containment and deterrence. In a world of terrorist organizations, dangerous regimes, and weapons of mass destruction, the National Security Strategy document warns that the United States “cannot let [its] enemies strike first.”

Do you believe pre-emptive can be justified?

“Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict.”

-Dorothy Thompson (American Journalist)

Put Thompson’s quotation into their own words. Do you agree with the quotation? Why or why not?

ISRAELYou have emerged as the military superpower of the Middle East. You have repeatedly defeated threats and aggression from your Arab neighbors. You are attacked frequently by irregular forces like the Fedayeen in the Gaza Strip .These forces are supported by your Arab neighbors, especially Egypt. After the Suez Crisis, Western nations have left you largely on your own to deal with military threats (other than military support). Border raids by militant Palestinian groups Fatah and the PLO from Jordan and Syria have taken Israeli lives.

Egypt recently moved troops into the Sinai peninsula, removed the UN force in Sharm al-Sheikh, and closed the Straits of Tiran . Egypt and Syria have signed a defensive alliance.

EGYPT and SYRIAYou have been brought together in an Arab alliance after the rise of Israel as the region’s military superpower. Israel has failed to restore its borders to the lines of the UN partition, despite condemnation for the UN and international pressure to do so. Recently Israel shot down several Syrian fighter jets. Israel, with US aid, has amassed the strongest military in the Middle East.

You have just learned from the Soviet Union that Israeli was mobilizing troops and sending them to their borders.

On June 5, 1967, Israel launched a surprise attack against Egypt, Syria and Jordan and captured the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, and West Bank. Israel proclaimed a united Jerusalem as its capital, which outraged Arabs and Muslims, for whom Jerusalem is the third holiest city. More than 300,000 Palestinian refugees fled into neighboring Arab countries. Another 1.5 million remained in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, known since as the Occupied Territories. Immediately after the war, Israel destroyed three Arab villages. Soon thereafter, Israel began confiscating Arab lands to build Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in the conquered areas.

How should the UN respond?

A. Support Israel against its hostile Arab neighbors by recognizing Israel’s capture of the Occupied Territories

B. Pass a resolution condemning the acquisition of land through military conquest, refuse to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and demand the return of the Occupied Territories.

C. Send peacekeeping forces into the Occupied Territories to act as a buffer between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, as well as to guard the borders against further fighting.

D. Establish an international commission to study the situation in Israel/Palestine and devise a plan to bring peace to the region.

The U.N. chose option B

On November 22, 1967 the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 242 which condemned the Israeli invasion and occupation, and refused to acknowledge Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. It also called for the Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the war and for a “just settlement of the refugee problem”.

Moshe Dayan

The headline: “Israel killed the Egyptian prisoners in 1967 war.” The soldiers are saying to each other: “We are not killers. We are Nazis.”

Outcomes of the 1967 War • Jews flooded into “Occupied Territories” (Sinai, West Bank,

Jerusalem)• 300,000 Palestinians displaced • Less than 1000 Israelis dead• 15,000 Arabs dead• Israel triples in size• Israel is the regional superpower• Decline in pan-Arabism, increase in Palestinian nationalism• 590,000 Palestinians under military control in the West Bank• 380,000 Palestinians under military control in the Gaza Strip• A US Cold War victory a Soviet loss