Six Days of War

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael Oren, Oxford University Press, 2002. 

The Straits of Tiran

The Straits of Tiran are located at the southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba, between Sharm al-Sheik in Sinai and Saudi Arabia. Israel has a port, Eilat, at the north end of the Gulf of Aqaba. Gamal Abdel Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships in late May 1967. He ordered the Egyptian navy to sink Israeli ships passing through the Straits of Tiran. This closure of international waters was an act of war. The Straits of Tiran are a seven-mile wide channel between Sinai and Arabia at the southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. The Gulf of Aqaba has Sinai to the west, the ports of Eilat (Israel) and Aqaba (Jordan) at the north end, and Saudi Arabia to the East. Israel imported oil from Iran at its port at Eilat. On May 22, 1967 Egypt’s leader Gamal Abdel Nasser declared the Gulf of Aqaba to be Egyptian territorial water. On May 23, 1967 American president Lyndon Johnson gave a speech where he said that the U.S. considered the Gulf of Aqaba to be an international waterway. Nasser ordered the Egyptian navy to blockade the Straits of Tiran. Egypt sent one destroyer, one submarine and 6 torpedo boats to close the Tiran Straits. The Egyptian army at Sharm al-Sheikh (southern tip of Sinai) was ordered to shoot warning shots at Israeli ships that passed through the Straits of Tiran.

United Nations Emergency Force

Since the end of the 1956 Suez War, the United Nations Emergency Force had men located on Egyptian territory near the border been Israel and Egypt.  Their purpose was to prevent a renewal of hostilities between Egypt and Israel. In mid-May 1967 Nasser ordered the United Nations to evict the UNEF from Egypt, and the UN obeyed. The last UNEF soldier left on June 17. The United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) occupied the Sinai Peninsula since the end of the Suez War in 1956, in order to keep the belligerents apart. On May 16, 1967 Egypt ordered the UNEF out of Sinai. Secretary General U Thant went along with the request. The United States did not bring the issue to the UN Security Council, because it feared a Soviet veto. UN Secretary General U Thant visited Cairo and suggested a compromise: Egypt would not blockade the Straits of Tiran and Israel would not traverse the Straits of Tiran. U Thant was asserting a moral equivalence between restraining Israel from lawful trade and restraining Egypt from an act of war.

Levi Eshkol

Levi Eshkol was Prime Minister during the Six-Day War. He was born near Kiev, and moved to Palestine at age 19. In Palestine, he started as a farmer and later became a water engineer. In fact, he founded Israel’s national water utility, Mekorot. 

Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan served as Israeli Defense Minister during the Six-Day War. Moshe Dayan had served under Orde Wingate, had been a commander in the Haganah, and had served two years in British prison. He lost an eye fighting against Vichy French in Labanon and Syria during World War II. He also fought in the Israeli War of Independence and the 1956 Suez War. 

Yitzhak Rabin

Yitzhak Rabin, Chief of Staff of the IDF, was born in Israel and fought in its War of Independence. He argued in favor of a first strike against Egypt’s air force. The Israeli Air Force already had a long-standing plan, Moked, to destroy the Egyptian Air Force.

Destroying the Egyptian Air Force.

On the morning of June 5 the Israeli Air Force simultaneously attacked 11 Egyptian Air Force bases in Sinai and Egypt in the first wave. In the second wave, the Israeli Air Force attacked 14 bases. Together the two waves destroyed 286 of Egypt’s 420 military aircraft. They also destroyed radar stations and anti-aircraft guns. The Iraqi air force attacked Israel, and Israel responded by destroying most of Iraq’s air force.

Target Priorities

Israel knew the locations of all of Egypt’s planes. Israel’s target priorities were:

1. Runways

2. Long-range bombers

3. Fighters

4. Radar facilities and anti-aircraft guns and missiles

Unprotected

At the time of the Israeli attack, almost none of Egypt’s planes were in the air. In fact, almost all their planes were not in hangers, but out in the open. Egypt lost all their planes that were on the ground.

Golan Heights

After three days of fighting (June 9 - June 11) the IDF captured the Golan Heights from Syria. The Druze and Circassians remained in the Golan, but the Arabs left for Syria.  The Arab world felt completely humiliated by Israel.

No U.S. Carriers Involved

The Arabs claim that British and Americans flew combat operations during the Six-Day War from aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean and from bases in Libya. None of that was true. In the West, we call this the “Big Lie”.

Consequences

Consequences of Israel’s Victory over the Arabs: The IDF captured the whole Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, which it kept until the Camp David accords of the 1970s. After three days of fighting (June 5 - June 7) the IDF captured East Jerusalem from Jordan. East Jerusalem contained historic old  Jerusalem, which had been the capital of the Jewish people for thousands of years before Christ. Israel captured the historically Jewish lands of Samara and Judea on the West Bank of the Jordan River from Jordan.