Echoes of the 1967 Six-Day War: Enduring Consequences in Arab-Israeli Relations

Introduction

The consequence of the 1967 war is still living with the world to date. Ideally, all the events that have occurred within the Arab-Israeli context are considered the consequences of that war. Whereas there are many consequences to that war, this essay will only concentrate ion a few that are considered significant.

First, the war was a foundation to the Israeli-US diplomatic affairs that was formalized through the UN Security Council Resolution 242 (Six-Day War, n.d.). The main aim of the resolution was to facilitate the exchange of territory for peace as opposed to the earlier armistice agreements that the parties agreed to but never worked. Consequently, the agreement became a significant element of the future agreements held between Israel and Arabs. For instance, the Sinai desert that was taken over by Israel in 1967 was traded for a peace treaty with Egypt almost a decade later despite resolution 242 not having any significant endorsement by many of the parties involved immediately after it was signed (Six-Day War Comprehensive Timeline, n.d.). Typically, on June 19th 1967, the Israeli authorities developed a document proposing the exchange of most of their territorial after-war gains for peace at the Arab Khartoum Summit, a document that most of the Arab leaders rejected. While this rejection signified a considerable loss of opportunity for both sides, the Arabs later realized the importance of such proposals as highlighted in the case of Beirut initiative of 2002 where it is documented that one Arab leader, Moshe Dayan was eagerly waiting for the proverbial phone call to sign a similar treaty (Gradstein, n.d.).

The war also had an impact on the regional Arab political system. The defeat by Israelis in the 1967 war was a significant moment of defeat that Arabs would never come over for a long time. The defeat further solidified the Arab political system despite the lack of self-criticism from Arab leaders. For instance, the war had a significant impact on Pan-Arab nationalism by giving the Islamism an upper hand considering that they were already critics of Nasserism and Arab nationalism (Amos, 1979).

According to Barnett (1990), the Islamist that had earlier been exiled under Nasser’s regime were later allowed to return as a force against the Nasserists. The Islamists perceived the Arab defeat as God’s punishment for their lack of Muslim faith and this was further reinforced by a lack of any Arab liberal critique of the Islamist’s assumption. Consequently, as observed by Barnett (1990), the Arab defeat prevented the emergence of reforms and questioning of the political system at the expense of increased dictatorship. Championing Palestinians and take over Jerusalem as the only way to get back victory (Bowen, 2004).

The war not only had significant consequences on the Palestinians but also to other regional players. After the war, Palestinians who lived in the areas historically regarded as Palestinian territory reunite although under the Israeli control. Upon uniting for the first time since 1948 though, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would continue. Thus, as observed by Bregman (2010), the war led to the re-emergence of Palestinian nationalism as a strategy to extricate the Arab state control. Incidentally, the Palestinian display of disillusionment with Arab control after the war was evident in the conflict between Fateh and Ahmed Shukari (Brenchley, 2005).

In his analysis of the war, Brown (1988) writes that during 1948 and 1967, the Palestinians were already submerging their nationalism amid the Arab nationalism considering that war was the most practical way through which they could jointly achieve their country’s liberation. While some elements of this assertion may have been true, some elements to it might have been understatements because ideally, the Arab nationalism was viewed by both Palestinians and Arabs as an instrument for defeating Israel (Efrat, 2006).

Regional territories such as Syria, Jordan and Israel were also impacted by the War. Despite the Palestinian efforts to be in control of their affairs, other Arab states (e.g. Havez Assad) were making efforts to take control of Palestinian affairs and oppose the idea of the national Palestinian movement. Consequently, Jordan’s King Hassen viewed Assad as a significant threat to his rule (Elon, 2000).

According to Haddad (1992), the Palestinian armed conflict destabilized Syria and Jordan. While the author does not explain this into details, these claims might be referring to unrests in Jordan during 1970s and the Lebanese civil wars that begun in 1975 and ended in 1990 (Harris, 1978). Due to the 1967 defeat, Palestinians developed the perception that they were the frontline leaders of the Arab revolution (Halliday, 2005). This belief signified the begging of Lebanon and Jordan destruction.

Moreover, there are specific actions by Jordan and Syria that contributed to significant consequences. For example, when Jordan and Syria shelled Israeli civilian areas, Israel moved swiftly to conquer land from the two countries (Kass 1978). Kass (1978) reports that there were varying motives for Syrian and Jordanian leaders to provoke Israel. For instance, King Hussein believed that he had no choice in Arab politics both nationally and internationally despite the results being the same. Upon losing the West Bank, Jordan had no option but to protect its national integrity. Consequently, according to Khalidi (1973), there was a continuous joint effort by both Israeli and Jordanian officials to ensure the rising Palestinian nationalism did not affect their stability. This explains why Syria took advantage of the 1967 and 1973 wars to build close relationships with Moscow from both economic and military perspective. Lebanon’s decision to stay away from the 1967 war significantly contributed to their warm relationship with Palestinians shortly after the war (Liden, 1979).

While the war had significant impacts on individual Arab countries, it also led to significant changes in the Arab regional order. For instance, according to Oren (2003), the war weakened Egyptian control over the Arab world. Interestingly, Egypt was the last to join Pan-Arabism and the first to exit. To date, according to Pedatzur (1995), the control held by Egypt over Arab in 19650s and 1960s has never been rivalled.

Regionally, Israel also experienced several impacts of the war. In the wake of the war, close ties between Israel and the US grew due to a combination of factors such as the consideration that Israel would become a regional superpower if it won the war, as well as the fact that the American Jews factor would be an organizing principle of in the US-Israeli coalition (Brenchley, 2005).

Meanwhile, Israeli’s lack of confidence in international guarantees deepened based on the perception it had on the shifting interests of international states (Bowen, 2004). For instance, Israel was not happy by the fact that Eisenhower, in support of other countries such as France did not honor their guarantee of free access to the Straits of Tiran. While it is not clear whether the US also did not honour the letter of Eisenhower’s pledge, the Israeli’s perception was that the US failed to enforce free passage when the UN peacekeeping force was expelled by Nasser (Brenchley, 2005). However, according to Barnett (1990), the US was more focused on Vietnam and did not have any incentive to force open the Straits, which was much to Israeli’s disappointment considering that they needed it at that time. These events remind of the Israeli’s isolation because the Israeli-US ties had not become as strong as it is today.

The war also revealed the extent to which France’s interest in the region had changed. There was a difference in the France in the 1950s when it had a closer relationship with Israel compared to France after Algeria. When DeGaulle was reminded by Abba Eban about its US guarantee endorsement just before the Sox Day War, DeGaulle claimed that those were the events of 1957 and not 1967. This implies that the DeGaulle admitted that they had endorsed the guarantee but also revealed that they would not obey it. Thus, Israeli’s suspicion of the international guarantee deepened, and this had a significant influence on its attitude towards future international guarantees.

An exploration of how the war impacted the region also reveals that Israeli experienced certain domestic impacts. A significant impact of the war was that religion seized to be a moderating force on Israeli politics (Bowen, 2004). Beforehand, the Israeli’s National Party was among the major force that insisted on holding out on the war. However, the war derailed this mindset. Typically, there was an emergence of a new generation of leaders who opposed the perceived knowledge of old leaders and instead supported a religious messianism that reunited under the auspices of biblical patrimony. Consequently, they perceived victory as a miracle and attributed it to the divine hand of history (Brenchley, 2005).

The war also had two interesting consequences on the Israeli’s army generals. First, the victory transformed them from the abject vulnerability to considerable levels of invincibility (Brenchley, 2005). Before the Six-Day War, Israeli cities were much more under Arab’s radar. The Generals did not believe that Egypt would start a war in 1973 in which Israel would be caught off-guard at the beginning of the war. Politically though, the war signified the beginning of Yitzhak Rabin’s rise as a victorious general. Indeed, Yitzhak Rabin would become Israeli’s Prime Minister seven years later even though he retained his position with little success albeit returning to the position after signing the Oslo accord.

Nonetheless, it is important to make several observations that would help to further understand the consequences of the 1967 war. First, it must be noted that the enmity between Israel and Arabs began earlier than the 1967 war and therefore the war’s consequences cannot be solely attributed to the war (Bowen, 2004). Observably, Arab antagonists could not have any military victory while Israel could not impose peace. But, the increase in terror and human suffering on both sides was largely witnessed by the Israeli’s control of the West Bank. If Israeli would have lost the Six-Day War, its existence would have been jeopardized and this would have caused severe diplomatic consequences to Israel. It is also important to note Eshkol’s efforts to avoid conflicts with Jordan.

In conclusion, the 1967 war is historically considered the briefest, yet its consequences were arguably long-term. The debate on the extent to which the war was considered a turning point in the Middle East is still on-going, but the answer lies on the definition of ‘turning-point.’ Nevertheless, the war revealed a significant outlook of the region especially regarding Israeli’s security situation as well as concerning the internal Arab-Israeli societies.

References

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