The Six-Day War took place in June 1967. The Six-Day War was fought between June 5th and June 10th. The Israelis defended the war as a preventative military effort to counter what the Israelis saw as an impending attack by Arab nations that surrounded Israel. The Six-Day War was initiated by General Moshe Dayan, the Israeli’s Defence Minister.
The war was against Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Israel believed that it was only a matter of time before the three Arab states co-ordinated a massive attack on Israel. After the 1956 Suez Crisis, the United Nationshad established a presence in the Middle East, especially at sensitive border areas. The United Nations was only there with the agreement of the nations that acted as a host to it. By May 1967, the Egyptians had made it clear that the United Nations was no longer wanted in the Suez region. Gamal Nasser, leader of Egypt, ordered a concentration of Egyptian military forces in the sensitive Suez zone. This was a highly provocative act and the Israelis only viewed it one way – that Egypt was preparing to attack. The Egyptians had also enforced a naval blockade which closed off the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping.
The U.N. Security Council called for a withdrawal from all the occupied regions, but Israel declined, permanently annexing East Jerusalem and setting up military administrations in the occupied territories. Israel let it be known that Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai would be returned in exchange for Arab recognition of the right of Israel to exist and guarantees against future attack. Arab leaders, stinging from their defeat, met in August to discuss the future of the Middle East. They decided upon a policy of no peace, no negotiations, and no recognition of Israel, and made plans to zealously defend the rights of Palestinian Arabs in the occupied territories.
Egypt, however, would eventually negotiate and make peace with Israel, and in 1982 the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in exchange for full diplomatic recognition of Israel. Egypt and Jordan later gave up their respective claims to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to the Palestinians, who beginning in the 1990s opened “land for peace” talks with Israel. The East Bank territory has since been returned to Jordan. In 2005, Israel left the Gaza Strip. Still, a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement remains elusive, as does an agreement with Syria to return the Golan Heights
The Palestine Authority has welcomed the initiative as a “flicker of hope”. But the Israeli government has slammed it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position is that Israel will hold direct talks with “a demilitarised Palestinian state that recognises Israel as a Jewish state and a national homeland for the Jewish people”. This appears more like a delaying tactic than a genuine demand for resuming talks for various reasons.
First, the Jewishness of the state of Israel is a matter of contention at least till the fate of the Palestinian refugees is settled. Second, there’s no level playing field between Israel and Palestine. One is the mightiest military power in West A
The problem in the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict is that there’s a pro-Israel bias among the Western powers which stops them from putting real pressure on Tel Aviv to deliver. Israel knows that it can get away with anything. It’s the only nuclear armed nation in West Asia, though it hasn’t officially declared that. It faced allegations of war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. It continues occupation of the West Bank in violation of the UNSC resolutions. Despite criticisms even from its allies in the West, Israel’s settlement policy remains intact. Still, were there any meaningful international efforts to hold Israel accountable for its actions or to put pressure on its leaders to change their policies?
The international community could actually take a lesson out of the Iran example. World powers were on the same page in putting pressure on Iran, through a mix of international sanctions and threats of isolation, over its nuclear programme. Even Iran’s allies such as Russia and China joined hands with the U.S. and Britain to build a global pressure regime which eventually worked in forcing Tehran to compromise. What was one of the most contentious global issues till a few years ago was settled amicably in a rare case of the triumph of public diplomacy. Why can’t a similar method be adopted in dealing with Israel, which is also a violator of accepted global norms? This is unlikely to happen immediately. But unless the Israeli exceptionalism is broken, there won’t be peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict. To break that, there has to be both carrots and sticks. Right now, there are only carrots in the kitty, plenty of them.
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