Our war of defense
We all know the term "fake news," but there is also "fake history." A notable example of that is the twisted way the Six-Day War is addressed in certain quarters, especially among the Palestinians.
In the opinion of most of the Israeli public, the war is justifiably seen as one of the most significant milestones in the brief history of the modern state, whether because of ideology or reasons of security and diplomacy. The result of the war also strengthened Israel's international standing immeasurably, and in the eyes of the U.S. in particular it was transformed from what had mainly seemed to be a security burden to a strategic asset.
But in recent years, there are those who have been presenting a distorted image by speaking up about the "curse," the "disaster" and the "unnecessary war," referring both to the war itself and the situation of victory that Israel created with it. Here we must point out that no Israeli official intended to initiate a war or plan ahead of time to exploit the war's results for purposes unrelated to security considerations. In fact, at the end of the war, Israel offered to leave all the territory it had taken if Egypt and Syria would sign a peace deal with it, but the proposal was rejected by the "Three No's" of the Khartoum Resolution of September 1967.
Here are the facts: On May 15, Egyptian ground forces crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Sinai Peninsula. Two days later, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser demanded that the U.N. boot all emergency forces out of Sinai and the Gaza Strip, where they had been deployed after the Sinai Campaign of 1956. A few days later, Nasser announced that he was closing the Straits of Tiran -- an act of war and open aggression that justified an Israeli military response. Despite the reports that the Egyptian army was preparing to cut off the Negev Desert, Israel still preferred diplomatic action. The hasty acquiescence of then-U.N. Secretary General U Thant to the Egyptian demand to remove U.N. forces peaked the Egyptians' appetite and caused them to double down, and Nasser declared that Egypt would "restore the situation to what it was in 1948 [prior to the establishment of Israel]." In another speech, on May 26, he stressed that "the battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel." Ahmad Shukeiri, head of the PLO, called to wipe out Israel, as did various mouthpieces in Syria.
Israel warned Jordan repeatedly, even in one-on-one meetings, not to take part in the war, but King Hussein, who placed his army under Egyptian command, was lured in by the Egyptian's fictitious reports about victories in imaginary battles in Sinai and responded to the conquering talk that he would "take part in the plunder" after Israel was defeated. Jordanian forces fired on west Jerusalem and Mount Scopus, occupied Armon Hanatziv and started moving toward the Israeli city itself. The rest is history.
The capture of territory beyond the arbitrary Green Line, drawn in 1949, whether it is termed "occupation" or "liberation," was, therefore, the clear result of a defensive action within the scope of international law, not an act of aggression or an "imperialist" act, as Israel is being accused of. None of this is meant to point out any diplomatic direction or solutions -- it is a political issue on which the people, through their elected leaders, will decide when the time is right -- but merely to state the facts.
And one last observation: For some reason, the idea of an exchange of territory as part of a peace deal has become something that is supposedly obvious, with the debate focusing on percentages rather than the principle. U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, passed at the end of the war, does not discuss an exchange of territory, but rather setting "secure and recognized boundaries." In 1967, Israel was clearly the victim of aggression, and the authors of the resolution and the various U.S. presidents since then have understood that Israel must not be forced to return to its former shaky borders, which encouraged aggression.
By the way, there is no precedent for this anywhere else -- where is it written that the victim of aggression must "compensate" the aggressor by conceding territory because of what it cost the aggressor? Did Germany receive Polish land in 1945 for the territory it had lost to Poland during World War II? Moreover, as leftist Shaul Arieli explained in a piece in Haaretz, an exchange of territory of the extent that is being discussed would require giving up land in dozens of Israeli communities within the Green Line. Will we support that, too?
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