Fifty-seven years ago this week and against all odds, Israel won the Six-Day War against the united Arab nations. It was a modern-day miracle and an example of successfully using military strategy as a last resort. To really understand the politics of the Middle East today, it is worth remembering what really happened then and seeing how this anniversary reminds us of what needs to be done.
The 1967 war did not just happen. The heads of the Arab states had been clear since the Suez war in 1956 that the goal was to destroy Israel entirely. In his 1964 speech to the United Nations, Egyptian President Nasser made it clear that the problem of Israel is not Palestinian refugees, but “the very existence of Israel” itself. In 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organization was created with the express purpose of destroying Israel and under the leadership of Yasser Arafat proceeded to be the terrorist arm of the Arabs.
In the two years prior to the Six-Day War, the PLO committed 113 attacks on Israeli civilians, not military, but specifically civilian men, women, and children (sound familiar?). In 1965, Arab leaders met in Morocco to discuss their detailed plans to destroy Israel. King Hassan II of Morocco did not trust these Arab leaders, and so he secretly taped the meetings, which allows us to see the insidious evil intentions of Nasser and his cronies. Hassan was so disturbed that he gave those tapes to the Shin Bet Mossad, allowing Israel to be prepared for the upcoming aggressions.
On May 18, 1967, Nasser ordered the UN to withdraw its peacekeeping forces, and without even bringing it up to the Security Council or General Assembly, UN Secretary-General U Thant did what Nasser told him. With the UN forces no longer there as a buffer between Egypt and Israel, the Egyptian forces had massed at Israel’s border by the end of the month, and Syria was moving its military to the northern border. On May 23, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran, creating a blockade that entirely cut Israel off from the Suez and any shipping to or from its port city of Eilat.
Despite repeated attempts by Israel for a peaceful negotiation to prevent a war that could destroy Israel, the Arabs were clear in their intent on never sitting down to talk with the Israelis. UNEF, the Arab radio station said it clearly: “The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence.”
This call for genocide was echoed by the Arab leaders. Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad (father of the current Syrian President Bashar Assad) exemplified the rhetoric, saying that “the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.” Nasser was clear: “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel”, and “We will not accept any coexistence with Israel.” A commitment of alliance was signed between Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan, and Iraq, whose President Araf said, “Our goal is clear: to wipe Israel off the map.”
On June 4, 1967, Israel knew what was coming. Surrounding Israel directly at her borders were 465,000 troops, over 2,800 tanks, and 800 aircraft. Israel knew that within a day or two it would be attacked, outnumbered, and outgunned and that there was a distinct possibility that Israel would be destroyed and 2 million Jewish citizens killed. The government even made preparations for tens of thousands of mass temporary graves in Tel Aviv parks.
And so, in a “hail Mary” move, Israel mobilized its air force on the morning of June 5 to preemptively attack the Egyptian planes while the pilots were eating breakfast. It was successful in destroying the Egyptian aircraft, and the war had started. Syria, Jordan, et al attacked Israel; 325,000 Arab citizens in the West Bank who preferred to live in an Arab state fled deeper into Jordan to avoid the crossfire; and the war was fully blazing. Through a combination of the Egyptian air force being decimated and a plethora of miraculous military victories, Israel won the war in six days.
One of the first things Israel did was to welcome any and all refugees from the war back into Israel as citizens. Only 20%, about 65,000 refugees, chose to reenter Israel. The descendants of those 9,000 families have been and are still full citizens of Israel, with all the same privileges that are enjoyed by all Israeli citizens.
Miracle after miracle occurred, which allowed this victory to happen 57 years ago this week. The multiple military victories, the unification of the Israeli government with ALL members of the government unanimously supporting each other, even the opposition parties, the ability for Israel to win even though both France and President Lyndon B. Johnson stopped supplying arms to Israel, and especially the miracle of the successful victory over the Egyptian air force. All of these factors coalesced into a victory against evil.
It was and continues to be evil. The Arabs pledged to create a genocide of the Israelis, a pledge reiterated today by Hamas, Hezbollah, the P.A., and their supporters. Then, like now, the enemies of Israel were committed to destroying Israel. And as it was true then with Arafat, Nasser, and the PLO, it is still true that the charters, documents, and rhetoric of the Arab leadership in Hamas, Hezbollah, Qatar, and the Muslim Brotherhood is committed to destroying the Western world.
Since Oct. 7, Western culture has been in a war for its survival, with the front line being the war in Israel. Biden has repeatedly betrayed Israel in the hope of getting Muslim and far-left votes in swing states, and the world’s Jew-hatred has been clear in the actions of the United Nations, ICJ, and throughout the media.
While this biased media continues to promote the idea that the Arabs only want to live in peace, intelligent people who have actually read the Charter of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood’s manifesto and subsequent documents know differently. These documents make it clear in their own words that the goal of the Arabs is not just the destruction of Israel — not only the “obliteration of all Jews” but the destruction of Western culture in favor of an Islamic theocracy of Sharia law.
As it was in 1967, Israel is still the buffer between that worldwide caliphate goal and the survival of the West. In a direct parallel to 1967, the enemies of Israel still do not seek a peaceful coexistence with Israel but are pledged to destroy her. And like in 1967, we are again at war, but this time the world is actively supporting the terrorists who want Israel and America destroyed.
There are many lessons from 1967 that we can use in today’s situation. The absolute and unbreakable unification of the Israeli government of 1967 during war is the opposite of today, where we see Israeli politicians like Lapid jockeying for their own personal power instead of unifying with each other.
The willingness of Israel (and the world) to call out the evil intentions and actions of the PLO, Muslim Brotherhood, and petty tyrants like Nasser has been replaced with a tacit acceptance of the evil of Hamas and Hezbollah. (Why are we even treating kidnappers as if taking hostages is a legitimate action or the rapes and murders of Oct. 7 as anything but demonic evil?) Fifty-seven years ago, Israel did what was necessary for its survival, and now we all too often see the government capitulating to external countries and organizations instead of being more concerned with taking care of the country.
Golda Meir, who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1967, famously said, “If we have to have a choice between dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image; we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”
Meir’s words are not just true for Israel now but for all of Western Culture. If we keep succumbing to the alliance of Hamas/Marxist/terrorist/Palestinian values, we may find that all of Western culture is destroyed and pitied, replaced by the worldwide caliphate of Sharia law that Hamas and its predecessors have always sought… and continue to work towards.
Israel is the front line in a much bigger war. As Israel did in 1967, may we speedily win this war for the West.
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