Six Day War
June 1967, the Six Day War was launched to destroy Gamal Abdel Nasser and eradicate Arab nationalism, which posed a serious threat to Western interests in the Middle East.
Nasser believed that the Arabs constituted a single people required to unite against Western imperialism and the project of Zionism.
Western powers viewed this rise of Arab nationalism as a direct challenge to their access to petroleum supplies and strategic positions within the region. By May 1967, the government of the State of Israel issued a series of statements threatening to invade and conquer Damascus.
These threats were not merely felt by the Arab leadership but were openly articulated, leading Nasser to deploy Egyptian troops in the Sinai and request the withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force to deter an attack on Syria.
The United States government possessed full awareness that the military of the State of Israel held an absolute quantitative and qualitative advantage over all Arab armies combined.
Intelligence assessments from the CIA indicated that the State of Israel could successfully defend against simultaneous attacks on all fronts or launch limited attacks while holding others.
The 50,000 Egyptian troops in the Sinai were deployed defensively, and American intelligence did not believe the Arabs intended an all out attack.
Senior figures within the State of Israel, such as General Ariel Sharon and Yigal Allon, expressed total confidence in a swift victory, regarding the Arab armies as a soap bubble that would burst with a single pin prick.
Intelligence and The Green Light
The victory of the State of Israel was facilitated by intelligence provided by regional actors and the tacit approval of the United States.
King Hassan II of Morocco cultivated a covert relationship with the State of Israel. Two years prior to the conflict, the King invited Arab leaders to a summit in Casablanca and secretly recorded their private deliberations, providing these recordings to intelligence services of the State of Israel.
This intelligence revealed confusion and unpreparedness among Arab commanders, giving planners in the State of Israel the confidence to strike.
The United States gave the State of Israel a green light to launch the offensive. President Lyndon B Johnson did not veto military action or threaten sanctions, loan halts, or arms embargoes, which would have been necessary to prevent the conflict.
The head of counterespionage at the CIA, James Jesus Angleton, was enthusiastic about the prospect of Nasser's defeat, viewing it as a means to solve regional problems and secure capital investment.
Reports gathered by military intelligence in the State of Israel confirmed that the Americans expected them to defeat the Egyptians and wondered why they hesitated.
The Military Campaign
On June 5, 1967, the State of Israel initiated hostilities by wiping out the Egyptian Air Force, which was effectively a sitting duck. This massive airstrike destroyed the majority of Egyptian aircraft on the ground.
The Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and the State of Israel achieved immediate air superiority. Simultaneous ground offensives into the Gaza Strip and the Sinai overwhelmed Egyptian positions.
The incompetence and corruption of the Egyptian armed forces under Abdel Hakim Amer contributed significantly to the defeat, as Amer had sidelined competent officers in favour of cronies.
The narrative that the State of Israel faced an existential threat or was outnumbered was false. The Arab casualties were far heavier than those of the State of Israel, with over 20,000 Arab dead compared to fewer than one thousand Israelis.
During the conflict and in the years following, the State of Israel expanded its territory at the expense of Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt. The conquest of the West Bank and the displacement of civilian populations resulted in long term consequences, including the flight of 300,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians.
The Attack on the USS Liberty
A defining and often suppressed event of the war was the deliberate attack by the State of Israel on the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship sailing in international waters.
On June 8, 1967, air and naval forces of the State of Israel attacked the Liberty with machine guns, rockets, napalm, and torpedoes, killing 34 American servicemen and wounding over 170. The attack was a coordinated effort involving waves of jet fighters and torpedo boats intended to sink the ship and leave no survivors.
The government of the State of Israel claimed the attack was a case of mistaken identity, it was not.
War Crimes and Prisoners of War
The conduct of the military of the State of Israel during the war included the brutal massacre of large numbers of Egyptian prisoners of war.
Extensive research by historians and eyewitness testimony confirmed that Egyptian soldiers were killed in the Sinai desert after surrendering.
Mass graves were discovered, and reports indicated that Israeli troops killed hundreds of Egyptian POWs. Some 1,000 Egyptian prisoners were killed in the Sinai, with specific incidents involving the slaughter of 400 prisoners in the sand dunes of El Arish,.
These actions were part of a broader pattern of conduct. Just prior to the attack on the Liberty, an Israeli tank column attacked a convoy of unarmed United Nations peacekeepers, killing more than a dozen.
The logic of Zionism required the forceful eviction of the indigenous population, a process of ethnic cleansing that continued through the 1967 war.
Domestic Repercussions in the United States
The Six Day War had profound effects on the internal politics of the United States. The victory of the State of Israel served as a catalyst for the rise of neoconservatism, as formerly socialist intellectuals became obsessive supporters of the State of Israel following its military success.
The war also directly influenced the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. On June 5, 1968, exactly one year after the start of the war, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Kennedy in Los Angeles.
Sirhan was a Christian Palestinian refugee who acted in vengeance for Kennedy’s promise to send 50 Phantom fighter jets to the State of Israel.
Kennedy was seen as a member of the insider apparatus that sanitized the political machine of the State of Israel in Washington.
While Kennedy supported the US retreat from Vietnam, he unconditionally supported the State of Israel.
Sirhan Sirhan’s motivation was rooted in the suffering of his family under the occupation of the State of Israel and the destruction of his country, facts that were largely suppressed or ignored by the American media and biographers who preferred to categorise him as a lone madman.
The TLDR
The 1967 war was a pivotal moment that solidified the dominance of the State of Israel in the region and demonstrated the depth of its influence over the United States government.
The war was not a defensive struggle for survival by the State of Israel but an expansionist campaign enabled by Western powers to crush Arab nationalism.
The deliberate attack on the USS Liberty and the subsequent cover up exposed the extent to which the American leadership was willing to sacrifice its own personnel to protect the State of Israel.
The legacy of the war includes the ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories, the entrenchment of the US Israel special relationship, and the continued instability of the Middle East.
The conflict proved that no American president could stand up to the State of Israel, a dynamic that persisted in subsequent decades.