Debunking Mahmoud Abbas's Lies On Israel And The Balfour Declaration

As a 'recognition' of the centennial of the issuing of the Balfour Declaration (November 2nd, 1917) the notoriously anti-Israel UK Guardian decided to give Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas an op-ed entitled "Britain must atone for the Balfour declaration – and 100 years of suffering" (no link,but you can find it if you like). It contains a number of outright lies. And while Abbas, a Soviet trained apparatchnik and agent is pretty good at manufacturing this propaganda, someone from the Guardian obviously helped him concoct this, based on the language, much of it drawn verbatim drawn from past anti-Israel screeds from, of course, The Guardian.

As ludicrous as the thing is, Mahmoud Abbas's lies rates a serious debunking.Walk with me awhile in the Valley of Truth...

For starters, the op-ed refers to Abbas as the 'President of Palestine'. That's a hilarious title, considering that he's an unelected dictator now serving in year 12 of what was supposed to be a 4 year term! But let's continue...

 Lord Balfour as having 'signed a letter promising the land of Palestine to the Zionist Federation, a recently established political movement whose goal was the creation of a Jewish state. He promised a land that was not his to promise, disregarding the political rights of those who already lived there.'

What the Balfour declaration actually said was that Britain was in favor of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. And contrary to Abbas's nonsense, it specifically mentioned safeguarding the civil and religious rights of non-Jews living there, and of Jews living in other countries. Not only that, but the Balfour declaration meant nothing by itself. It was the League of Nations that created a Palestine Mandate under British control that was designated specifically to create a state that gave  rights of  sovereign specifically to Jews. And as we'll see, Britain bent over backwards when it came to Arab political rights.

It's also worth mentioning that Lord Balfour didn't create this on his own. It was the British cabinet that signed off on this. And they did it to reward the Jews for their help in WWI. Without Chaim Weismann, a skilled chemist discovering a process to enable fixing nitrogen out of the air, British troops would almost certainly have run out of ammo and artillery shells on the Western Front because of the success of German U-Boat attacks. Jews living in Palestine aided General Allenby's conquest of the Levant considerably with espionage and sabotage against the Ottomans at considerable personal risk, and an entire unit of British Jews fought alongside the Anzacs at the debacle in Gallipolli, something Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull pointed out in his visit to Jerusalem last week.

While most of the Arabs fought for their Ottoman masters, the few who didn't as part of the desultory Arab Revolt by the Sharif of Mecca received almost the entire Arabian Peninsula and ultimately 78% of the Palestine Mandate as their reward for taking a weak garrison in Aqaba well behind the fighting lines and sabotaging Turkish railways. Certainly the League of Nations rewarding the Jews with rights of sovereignty in their ancient homeland where a number of them already lived should have been no problem, since the land in the Palestine Mandate didn't belong to the Arabs either. It belonged to the Ottomans, who ceded it to the Allies under the Treaty of Sevres. So 'Palestine' like the rest of the ceded Ottoman lands belonged to the victorious allies, to do whatever they wished with it.

  'British policy, to support Jewish immigration into Palestine while negating the Arab-Palestinian rights created severe tensions between European Jewish immigrants and the native Palestinian population.'

Oh boy.

Chaim Weismann, representing the Zionist movement and Emir Faisal, the third son of the Sharif of Mecca met and made an agreement to accede to a Jewish State in part of the Palestine Mandate. Faisel and Hussein were more than willing, since the British promised as a sweetener to create an Arab state out of most of the Mandate for his second son, Abdullah and give his first son Ali what became Iraq.  So on 23 March 1918, in Al Qibla, the daily newspaper of Mecca, Feisel  urged the Arabs to to welcome the Jews as brethren and cooperate with them for the common welfare.

The British then went back to the  League of Nations to negotiate borders for an Arab state in Palestine, thus fulfilling their agreement with Emir Feisal. In the 1923 San Remo Accords, an agreement the Arabs were happy to sign off on, the Arabs received 78% of the Palestine Mandate for a state governed by Abdullah. It was called  Trans-Jordan, later Jordan. The border the Arabs agreed to accept was the Jordan River. And accordingly, British removed a number of Jewish families who had settled east of the Jordan River to the other side, although no Arabs were removed from the 22% promised to the Jews.

The proof of this is the fact that so many of the 'settlements' like Ariel and the  Gush Etzion bloc were first built in the 1920's after San Remo, on land legally purchased from the local Arab Muktars. 

The tension was caused by the Arabs, led by the British appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The British did little to stop it, and Arab violence became endemic. 

The British also responded by repeatedly limiting or even cutting off Jewish migration entirely to what was supposed to be the Jewish part of the Mandate while allowing in unlimited Arab migration.  The worst example of this was the White Paper of 1939, which cut off all Jewish migration and denied Jews desperate for a haven from the coming Holocaust a refuge.That was something the League of Nations planned to take up as a violation of the conditions of the Mandate, until WWII erupted and made the League irrelevant. The death toll of the Holocaust was vastly increased as a result.

'Palestine (the last item on the decolonisation agenda) led to our greatest catastrophe – in Arabic the Nakba.'

 In 1948 Zionist militias forcibly expelled more than 800,000 men, women and children from their homeland, perpetrating horrific massacres and destroying hundreds of villages in the process. I was 13 years old at the time of our expulsion from Safad.

Let's compare this with what Abbas has said on other occasions, shall we?

The Wall Street Journal on June 5th, 2003 made reference to an article penned by Abbas (AKA Abu Mazen) in an article entitled “Abu Mazen Charges that the Arab States are the Cause of the Palestinian Refugee Problem" ( emphasis mine) :

"Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) wrote an article in March 1976 in Falastin al-Thawra, the official journal of the PLO in Beirut: ‘The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny, but instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe.’”

But wait, there's more. Here's Mahmoud Abbas's own version of his family's 'expulsion' in 1948.

  In an interview with Al-Palestinia TV in 2009, Abbas admitted that his family was not expelled or driven out, but rather left voluntarily out of fear that the Jews might take revenge for the slaughter of 20 Jews in the city during the Arab pogroms of 19 years earlier:

“I am among those who were born in the city of Tzfat (Safed). We were a family of means. I studied in elementary school, and then came the naqba [calamity, namely, the founding of the State of Israel – ed.]. At night, we left by foot from Tzfat, to the Jordan River, where we remained for a month. Then we went to Damascus, and then to our relatives in Jordan, and then we settled in Damascus.

“My father had money, and he spent his money systematically, and after a year, the money ran out and we began to work.

So embarrassing when one's lies are contradicted from one's own mouth isn't it...and Abbas and his family aren't the only ones who left voluntarily.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was allowed back into mandatory Palestine in spite of his work for Hitler and the Nazis during WWII is on record as actively encouraging Arabs to leave what became Israel so that the Arab armies could massacre the Jews. The idea was that afterwards, these Arabs could return home again and have the pick of the dead Jew's wealth, property and women.  Al-Husseini was joined in that by that by other Arab media. Which is exactly why the Arabs who left took those house keys with them. And at this link, you'll find a number of quotations from the Arab press admitting it.

You see, the 'Nakba' Abbas is talking about was actually a failed attempt at genocide, only three years after Auschwitz was liberated. To Abbas (and apparently his morally delinquent pals at the Guardian) the fact that it failed is cause for mourning and sorrow.The Arabs knew that genocide was their goal. And so did the British, who armed, trained and in the case of Jordan officered that attempt. If the Brits need to atone for anything, it's not the Balfour Declaration but their collaboration in trapping desperate Jews in Europe seeking refuge in what was supposed to be their land  on the eve of the Holocaust to appease the Arabs. And collaborating actively with the next attempt by the Arabs in 1948  to massacre the Jews of Israel. 

Oh, and those numbers Abbas cites? According to the last British census in 1947, there were 700,000 or so Arabs in the part of Palestine west of the Jordan. The ones who lived in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem were never expelled by anyone, because the Jordanian Arab Legion illegally occupied those areas and ethnically cleansed every Jew living there. Only about 600,000 Arabs or less lived in what became Israel. This included Druse, Bedouin and Christians. We also know that 120,000 Arabs stayed in Israel and later became Israeli citizens with full rights. Now the last time I checked, that would mean that about 480,000 or so Arabs left Israewl when the Arabs attacked, not '800,000.'

I'm not suggesting that some of these Arabs weren't forcibly driven out by the exigencies of what was, after all, a war of survival. But th elarge number who stayed shows that there were obviously many instances where those Arabs who wanted to  simply stayed put, and decided not too listen to what Haj Amin al-Husseini and the Arab countries were telling them to do.

Now, if you want to see real ethnic cleansing in action, all you need do is examine the behavior of the Arab world after 1948. Almost a million Jews were thrown out of Arab countries they had lived in for decades forcibly simply because they were Jews,  after everything they owned was plundered. Israel took in most of them, and the property, bank accounts and businesses stolen  from them in today's money is conservatively estimated at a trillion dollars U.S.

There's a bit more nonsense about 'occupation' that's too ridiculous to even need a rejoinder. (Fun Question...which country's territory is Israel supposedly 'occupying?' It can't be 'Palestine,'  which doesn't exist as a country. Even the UN hasn't signed off on that one just yet. And it can't be Jordan, since Jordan relinquished all claim to Judea and Samaria as part of the peace deal with Israel.)

But one thing that bears looking at who's writing this and what he and the PLO have created. Here we have Soviet trained dictator  who actively supports terrorism,  pays convicted murderers out of donor aid based on how many Jews they've murdered, and  holds them up as heroes and 'holy martyrs.'

Abbas is a Holocaust denier who's book on the matter,written when he was being trained by the Soviets  in Moscow is required reading in the Palestinian schools and used as a standard text in what passes for Palestinian education.

And human rights? Here's what someone who formerly lived under Abbas and Fatah's rule had to say about them:




And speaking of human rights, do you notice that the regimes shown here attacking Israel have a little something in common in terms of their own human rights situation? 

I could also mention that 'honor killings' still occur in Abbasistan with distressing regularity, that journalists dare not voice any criticism of the regime and that homosexuals are persecuted and even killed there. I could also get into how Abbas became a billionaire and why he and his Fatah cronies live so well while his people struggle, but I digress.

You see, there's  no reason, really, to expect anything better from Abbas. Like his former boss Yasser Arafat, he is always going to lie, cheat, and steal. He's always going to foment violence and murder. It's what he was trained to do by the Soviets, it pays really well and at this point, his main objective is to keep  the status quo going, since actual peace would get a lot of people thinking about why they need parasites like Abbas and Fatah any more. They might even start asking awkward questions about where all that donor aid money went and try to do something about it.

The really interesting question is why so many people seem interested in being his enablers and  collaborators. Especially people who claim to care about human rights, democracy and justice.

Could it be, just maybe, that it's because helping a thug like Abbas and his friends is a fashionable and acceptable 'Anti-Zionist'  cover up for the real agenda... attacking Israel, the only Jewish State?

Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose...the more things change...you know the rest I assume.

Hanukkah..The Festival Of Lights And Freedom

Tonight marks the first night of Hannukah, the Festival of Lights .

While many of you may be familiar with the story of the Miracle of the Oil, what is frequently overlooked is that Hannukah celebrates another miracle - the miracle of a group of farmers and tradesman utterly defeating the professional armies of the Seleucid Empire, a victory for freedom that belongs to all of us alike, Jew and Gentile.

Hanukkah celebrates one of the important miracles in Jewish history and reminds us of the triumph of faith. It takes place every year,usually in mid to late December. While its date varies if you go by the western calendar, in the Hebrew calendar Hanukkah always falls on the 25th day of Kislev.

Hanukkah celebrates the victorious Jewish war for independence in the second century B.C. E. The story is told in the First Book of Maccabees, and retold in the Second Book of Maccabees. A contemporary military history of the war can be found in Battles of the Bible, coauthored by Chaim Herzog and Mordechai Gichon.

After his death, Alexander the Great's empire broke into several parts, and Israel was under the control of the Seleucid empire, based in Syria. Israel had lived peacefully under the Persian Empire and under the Ptolemic empire (of Egypt), both which tolerated Judaism; but the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus Epiphanes was an arrogant, bigoted Hellenizer, who attempted to force the Jews to abandon their religion and to adopt the Seleucid's Greek customs and worship,which included idolatry. And his efforts were not without success in some quarters.

There were those Jews who considered themselves `modern' and `assimilated' who were willing to go along with this, even to the extent of having surgical operations to reverse circumcision.

Others did not, and they were prosecuted vigorously and brutalized by the Seleucid Greeks.

The start of the Maccabean Revolt sprang from a single spontaneous act of resistance. In the foothills village of Modiin in 167BCE, a Greek army unit set up an altar, and ordered the local Jewish rabbi, Mattathias, to sacrifice a pig and eat it. He refused, as did his five sons. When a Jewish collaborator came forward to offer the sacrifice, a furious Mattathias "ran and killed him on the spot, killed the king's officer who was forcing them to sacrifice, and tore down the altar" (1 Mac. 2:15-25).

Mattathias, his sons and their followers then headed for the Judean hills, to launch a guerrilla war. They were farmers who had no military training,fighting a professional army. There had not been a Jewish army since Babylon had destroyed the Judean kingdom four centuries before. Their only weapons were farming tools and whatever simple weapons they could construct, such as maces or slings. During this first year, Mattathias died, and his middle son Judah took over command as his successor.

Nicknamed "the hammer" ("Maccabee," in Hebrew), Judah constructed a guerrilla army that staged daring nighttime raids on the Greek outposts, then melted back into the countryside. His successes attracted more supporters, and the revolt spread.

The war went on for 25 years, one of the most singular wars for independence in history. The miracle, perhaps is that it was fought at all, let alone won.

The Seleucids and Antiochus sent huge, well equipped armies into Israel to subdue the Jews. They were all defeated, at odds that seem miraculous even today. Judah Maccabee turned out to be a tactical genius, using unheard of tactics, leading the Greek phalanxes into the hills where they could not maneuver and destroying them.

To give you an idea of how essential the Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria was and is to Israel's survival then and now, the map below shows where the major battles of the war took place.(hat tip, Carl) Click on it to enlarge it:



One thing that is seldom mentioned about the war is the fact that a significant part of it took place against the Hellenized, `modern',`assimilated' Jewish traitors I mentioned earlier, who were more than willing abandon the Jewish way of life and supported their Seleucid masters against their fellow Jews.

As Ecclesiastes famously said in the Megillot, there's nothing new under the sun.

In 164 BCE, the Jews defeated a force commanded by the Viceroy Lysias that outnumbered them two to one. That battle took place six miles north of Hebron, near the Jewish fortress of Beth-zur. The victory allowed Judah and his army to retake Jerusalem.

When they entered Jerusalem, Judah and his followers entered the Holy Temple on the Temple Mount. The Temple had been wrecked and horribly desecrated, with profanities scrawled on the walls and the Ark by the Seleucids.

The Maccabees built a new altar. When the time came to light the N'er Tamid, the Eternal Light of the Temple, the Jews could find only one sanctified jar of oil marked with the seal of the High Priest. It was only enough to last one evening. On the 25th of Kislev, in the year 164 BCE,the lamp was lit with this small jar of oil and, miraculously, stayed lit for eight days, until more oil suitable for the temple was made. The eight days of Hanukkah celebrate that miracle, as well as the divine intervention that had led the Jews to amazing victories over well-equipped professional armies far superior in numbers. "Therefore, carrying ivy-wreathed wants and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to Him who had given success to the purifying of His own holy place" (2 Mac. 10:7).

The war itself continued. In 160 BCE, near modern-day Ramallah, Judah was killed, but Judah's brother Jonathan, and then his brother Simon took command of the Jewish army, finally winning complete independence in 142 BCE. At last, "All the people sat under their own vines and fig trees, and there was none to make them afraid" (1 Mac. 14:12).

That verse, by the way, was the one quoted by George Washington in his famous letter to the Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island's Truro synagogue, assuring them the the new American government welcomed them as citizens and countrymen. Considering the history of Jewish persecution and expulsion in Europe, that letter of welcome meant a great deal to the Jews of 1790.

President Washington obviously was familiar with the Book of Maccabee, and knew exactly what that war was fought over.

You see, the War of the Maccabees was the first war ever fought for religious freedom. Somehow, a group of farmers with no military training who refused to bow to their oppressors defeated a mighty empire and its immense standing armies. There seems to be no plausible explanation for the victory of the Jews except that it was a miracle...as was the American Revolution itself.

Towards the end of the war, Antiochus and the Seleucids became so obsessed with defeating the Israelites that they sacked their own cities and sold their own citizens into slavery to get money to pursue the war against the Jews. The war bankrupted and destroyed their empire.

Hanukkah reminds us that with G-d's help, victory over evil is assured, that light conquers darkness and no miracle is impossible. Modern Israel and the survival of the Jewish people against all odds are proof of that.


Symbols in Hanukkah

Aside from the Hanukkiah (candlesticks), the other great symbol of Hanukkah are those small spinning tops known as dreidels.


The four letters which appear on the four corners of a dreidel allude to the miracle of Hanukkah. They spell out: Nes (N-miracle), Gadol (G-great), Haya (H-happened) and Sham (S-there, meaning in Israel). Or, `a great miracle happened there.'

Indeed it did.

Chag Sameach! Happy Hanukkah!

An Awesome Quote On Israel That Sheds Real Light By Robert F. Kennedy

I remember working on Bobby Kennedy's campaign as a very, very young teenage precinct captain in California. He was by far the most able and intelligent of all the Kennedys, and I've always felt it was a national tragedy that he never made it into the White House.There's a lot more I could say about his assassination, which occurred while I was attending the victory party over his winning the California primary,but I'm going to censor myself. Suffice it to say that had certain members - one in particular- of Kennedy's security team been doing the job they were getting paid for that night, Robert Kennedy wouldn't have been killed.

Let it be noted however that current leftist darling and Obama ally Bill Ayers dedicated his book, 'Prairie Fire' to Kennedy's murderer.

I never saw this quote before, but it's typically insightful. The Ottoman sultan encouraged Jewish migration to Palestine because he wanted tax revenues out of the villayat, and he saw that the only two even marginally successful areas in what was mostly a depopulated barren wasteland were Jerusalem and Safed, Jewish majority cities. It was Jewish migration, starting in the1880's that created the farms and commerce that drew Arabs from the Hejaz, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon to the region. And in the period Kennedy mentions, there was further migration from Arabs in these areas because over one third of Palestine's Jews were in uniform fighting the Nazis and the British allowed unlimited Arab migration to deal with the resulting labor shortage. At the same time, to its eternal shame, Britain  prohibited  any Jews from coming to Palestine and doomed them to the Nazi death camps.

Now you know where most of the Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinians came from. That includes Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian.

Anniversary Of A Miracle - Israel's Victory In The Six Day War

Today is the anniversary of a modern miracle, the Israeli victory of the Six Day War, מלחמת ששת הימים, or Milhemet Sheshet Ha Yamim in Hebrew. It saw an outnumbered Israel beat back an attempt at destruction and genocide, reunite Jerusalem, bring the strategic Golan and the historic Jewish homelands of Judea and Samaria back under Israeli sovereignty. It's worth recounting 47 years later, when Israel's mortal enemies once again gather to attempt to destroy her.

Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser had formed a military alliance with Syria, the United Arab Republic (UAR) and with the aid of the Soviet Union, both countries had built up a substantial military force, vastly outnumbering Israel in tanks, planes and manpower.

After the 1956 war,the Israelis had agreed to withdraw from Sinai based on President Eisenhower's guarantees that provided for a UN peacekeeping force to be stationed there to prevent feydayeen terrorist raids on Israel, the main cause (at least from the Israeli standpoint) of the '56 war.

Another part of the ceasefire agreement that ended the 1956 war concerned the Straits of Tiran, a waterway connecting the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea and Israel's sole Red Sea outlet for the port of Eilat.



According to the ceasefire ratified by the UN, the Straits of Tiran were to be considered an international waterway with full access to Israeli shipping.

On May 17th, 1967, after a huge amount of rhetoric about annihilating every Jew in Israel, Nasser demanded an immediate withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping troops from the Sinai. Secretary General U Thant immediately complied in less than 24 hours without informing the Israelis until Egyptian forces had already reentered the Sinai.

Nasser subsequently deployed a huge force of troops,tanks and artillery in the Sinai. The Egyptians massed over 100,000 troops in the Sinai, including all of its seven divisions (four infantry, two armored and one mechanized), four independent infantry brigades and four independent armored brigades. At least one third of them were veterans of Egypt's intervention into the Yemen Civil War, and the Egyptian forces included 950 tanks, 1,100 APCs and more than 1,000 artillery pieces, many of them of the latest Soviet models.

On May 23rd, Nasser announced a blockade of the Straights of Tiran, saying in a speech to his troops in Sinai:

... Yesterday the armed forces [of Egypt] occupied Sharm el-Sheikh. What does this mean? It is an affirmation of our rights, of our sovereignty over the Gulf of Aqaba, which constitutes Egyptian territorial waters. Under no circumstances can we permit the Israeli flag to pass through the Gulf of Aqaba. The Jews threaten war. We say that they are welcome to war, we are ready for war, our armed forces, our people, all of us are ready for war, but under no circumstances shall we abandon our rights. These are our waters ...

At the same time, the Syrians began massing 75,000 troops, artillery and armor on the Golan Height to the north of Israel, where they held the high ground and were dug in.

Jordan, to Israel's east signed a mutual defense pact with the UAR on May 30th and moved 55,000 troops and 300 tanks to the border.

Documents captured by the Israelis from the Jordanians show that contrary to popular belief, the Jordanians always intended to go to war against Israel - it was by no means a last minute decision. The Arab Legion's Hashemite Brigade had orders to capture the Israeli town of Ramot Burj Bir Mai'in in a night raid, codenamed "Operation Khaled". This was to be the base of operations for the capture of Lod and Ramle. The "go" codeword to be was "Sa'ek" and end was "Nasser". The Jordanians also planned for the capture of Motza and Sha'alvim in the strategic Jerusalem Corridor. Motza was the target of Infantry Brigade 27 camped near Ma'ale Adummim: "The reserve brigade will commence a nighttime infiltration onto Motza, will destroy it to the foundation, and won't leave a remnant or refugee from among its 800 residents"

Along with these forces, at Jordan's invitation the Iraqi army sent 100 tanks and an infantry division to join in the fighting along with two squadrons of fighter aircraft.

The Israeli troops even with their available reserves were out numbered by more than two to one, and in tanks and combat aircraft by more than three to one.

Efforts to try and resolve the crisis in the UN came to absolutely nothing as the Soviets and the European nations who found Arab oil far more valuable than Jewish blood combined to torpedo any meaningful settlement as Israel's economy began to falter and the Arabs continued to mass troops and equipment for an obvious coming attack meant to wipe out every Jew in Israel, a goal the Arabs made no secret of.

The final push towards war came when Israel chief arms supplier, President DeGaulle of France abruptly informed the Israelis on June 1st that he would no longer sell them arms or spare parts for French-made equipment like Israel's Dassault Mirage and Super Mystère jets or even fill existing orders.



Surrounded and outnumbered, the Israelis now also had to contend with the problem of resupply in a combat situation. They literally had no choice but to throw the dice and gamble on a quick and decisive victory before their equipment broke down for lack of spare parts and components.

So the decision was made to launch Operation Focus ( in Hebrew, Moked), a massive attack on the Egyptian Air Force.

The Egyptians had by far the largest and best air force among the Arab armies. They had 420 combat aircraft, all of them Soviet-built and many of them the latest MiG-21s capable of attaining Mach 2 speed. The Egyptians also had 30 Soviet Tu-16 "Badger" bombers,which were a particular target of Operation Focus because of the danger to Israeli civilian areas.

The IAF had been training for this mission for quite some time. In particular, they had become adept in training their ground crews to rapidly refit planes returning from combat so that multiple sorties per day could be flown. The IAF had things wired to the point that their combat aircraft were capable of flying four sorties per day while the Arab pilots were only able to fly one or two at most.

The Israelis also had excellent intel on their targets and trained their pilots to memorize them until they were second nature, and every contingency that could be taken into account was planned for.

But in the end,it still came down to a roll of the dice, with the Israelis sending all but 12 of their 200 combat aircraft into the skies and gambling their lives on the outcome.

On the morning of June 5th, 1967, the Israeli planes attacked their targets. Most of them evaded the Egyptian radar by flying in low over the Mediterranean, well below the point where the Egyptian SA-2 surface-to-air missile batteries could hit them and then hooking left to hit the Egyptian air bases, while the rest flew in over the Red Sea.

They caught the Egyptians completely by surprise with most of their planes on the ground. The Israelis attacked in successive waves. Some 338 of the Egyptian aircraft were destroyed and over 100 pilots killed, while the runways were made unusable by bombing runs utilizing special explosives designed to penetrate and fragment tarmac. The Egyptians lost all 30 the Tu-16 bombers, 27 out of 40 Il-28 bombers, 12 Su-7 fighter-bombers, over 90 brand new MiG-21s, 20 MiG-19s, 25 MiG-17 fighters, and around 32 assorted transport planes and helicopters, plus the Egyptian radar and SAM missile bases. The only Egyptian planes that survived were the handful that were in hangers being serviced and a small contingent based at El Arish in Sinai, which the IAF decided not to attack because they wanted it as a strategic base.The Israelis lost just 19 planes, including two destroyed in air-to-air combat and 13 hit by anti-aircraft fire.

The victory in the air was so devastating that at first no one in the western press, particularly in Europe believed it. They continued to cite the Egyptian propaganda reports of 70 Israeli planes downed. It only became apparent that Egypt's Soviet supplied air force had been destroyed when Egyptian planes failed to make any appearance during the rest of the war.

Retaking Sinai

The Egyptian forces in Sinai were deployed based on Soviet tactics of massed depth. In addition they were tied to dugouts and fortresses, a mistake the IDF themselves would make 6 years later in the Yom Kippur War with the Bar-Lev line.

The Israelis had deployed to the border the night before the war,  camouflaged themselves and remained hidden until they advanced. Rather than attack the fortified Egyptian positions head on, the IDF attacked the Egyptian positions from the flanks



The Israelis understood that if the Egyptians suffered a military defeat that the UN would move quickly to implement a cease fire to protect Nasser's armies. Therefore, a primary objective was to make as many strategic gains as possible in the shortest time period, especially when it came to Sharm al-Sheikh, the choke point for shutting down Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran.

Because of the need for speed,  the initial battles involved attacking entrenched positions in Sinai without air support, because the IAF was still involved in dealing with Egypt's air armada.

The IDF attacked with three divisions. The first, under General Israel Tal had the mission of attacking the fortified Rafah/El Arish sector, near the Mediterranean coast. The Egyptians had large minefields in place in front of well dug in infantry, anti-tank weapons in reinforced bunkers and over 100 tanks and supporting artillery at the ready.

Tal's solution was to avoid the mine fields entirely,  and swing around and attack from the rear through Khan Unis. After Khan Unis was taken, General Tal launched a pincer attack on Rafah from the rear, commanding one arm personally while the other was commanded by the brilliant then-Colonel Rafael Eitan, later the IDF's Chief of Staff. The Egyptians, with most of their defensive positions facing the wrong way, were taken by surprise and routed. By June 6th, El Arish was in Israeli hands and the race to the Canal along the Mediterranean coast was on.

The second division under General Arik Sharon had the job of breaking through the center and assaulting the heavily fortified Kusseima/Abu Agheila strongholds.This was a particularly difficult mission because the Egyptians expected the IDF to concentrate on attacking this area head on, as they had in 1956. However, General Sharon's modus operandi, as usual,  was to do the unexpected, Here's what he did, in his own words:

Since 1956 the Egyptians had completely rebuilt the Abu Agheila fortifications according to the latest Soviet concepts of linear defense. About fifteen miles from the Israeli border the Ismalia road crossed a long swell of sand known as Um Cataf. There the Egyptians had constructed three parallel trench systems intersecting the road. Anchored in the north by high soft dunes and in the south by jagged ridges and broken foothills, each line was several miles long and each encompassed an array of gun positions, storage depots, and lateral communications trenches. In the front of the first line was a thickly laid mine field. With the trench system manned by a full infantry brigade and with its flanks secured on either end by the terrain, this position itself constituted a major defensive obstacle.

A mile or so behind the trenches the Egyptians kept a mobile reserve of over eighty tanks ready to move in any direction, the sword that complemented their defensive shield. Just to the south of the tanks was their artillery deployment – eighty 122- and 130-mm guns whose range far outmatched my own guns. Perimeter outposts screened this concentration of forces on the approaches to the east and especially in the north, where the flank was guarded by an infantry battalion supported by tanks and artillery in a fortified position which we code-named Oakland.

To destroy Abu Agheila it would be necessary to identify and exploit the position’s inherent vulnerability. Here we would be up against good defensive fighters whose numerical strength was not much less than ours, and whose firepower was in some ways greater than ours – a far cry from the offensive-defensive ratio of three to one usually considered minimal for an attack against prepared positions. So the plan of battle would have to emphasize concentration of forces, surprise, and maneuver. And the action would have to take place at night, our traditional method of reducing the odds and negating the advantages of prepared fortifications …

What I had in mind was a closely coordinated attack by separate elements of our forces on the Egyptian trench lines, tanks and artillery … [with the attacks developing] from the north, from the west (at the rear of Abu Agheila), and from the east (at the front of the position) in a continuous unfolding of surprises, each force securing the flank of its neighbor …

In my overall approach the first order of business would be to create a deception against Kusseima with a brigade under Uri Baidatz. Then I would isolate the battlefield. In the south a screening force of tanks, half-tracks and mortars under Arie Amit would block any reinforcements from Kusseima. This force would also give us a lodgement once we were ready to move in that direction. In the north I would launch a reinforced armored battalion, including my best tanks, the British Centurions under Natke Nir, against Oakland, the position that guarded Abu Agheila’s northern flank. Once Natke took Oakland, he would then circle around to the rear of Abu Agheila, setting up blocking forces as he went on the road to Jebel Libni, where the Egyptian reserves were. The Centurions would then be in a position to assault the base from behind.

Once the field was isolated, we would attack the entire depth of the Egyptian positions simultaneously. That would be the “taboulah,” the shock that would unbalance the defenders. Kuti Adam’s infantry brigade would come down on the northern end of the trench lines through the ostensibly secure dunes. At the same time my artillery commander, Yakov Aknin, would concentrate all the division’s artillery fire on the trenches just in front of Kuti’s attack, making life hell for the defenders as they tried to respond to the unexpected assault. To the right of Kuti’s brigade, helicopters would land Danny Mat’s paratroop brigade, which would strike into the artillery positions, preventing the Egyptian long-range guns from hitting our own forces. Once the infantry had disrupted the trenches, our tank brigade under Mordechai Zippori would move through the mine fields in a narrow frontal assault. At the same time, Natke’s Centurions would hit the Egyptian tanks from behind and come in on the rear of the trenches. And all of this would happen at night, compounding the Egyptians’ confusion as they struggled to piece together what was happening to them. (Warrior, Ariel Sharon, p. 188-190)

That's pretty much exactly what happened. Many of the Egyptian troops were so anxious to retreat that they actually took their shoes off to be able to run more effectively in the desert sand.The Israelis even captured a number of Soviet tanks in perfect condition with the keys still in the ignitions. Sharon's losses were limited to 40 killed and 140 wounded, and by June 6th the way forward for Sharon's forces to the Canal was wide open.

 

The third IDF division was under Brigadier-General Avraham Yoffe. Their target was Egyptian forces near Bir Lahfan junction, who were attempting to aid the Egyptian forces at Rafah and Abu Agheila.

There was a point between Rafah and Abu Agheila called Wadi Haridin, large sand dunes that were supposedly impassible to vehicles. Because of that, Wadi Haridin was left completely undefended by the Egyptians.

But the Israelis had scouted the area during the 1956 war and discovered that the Wadi was a rough slog, but it was passable. General Sharon had remembered an old report on this during the run up to war that had been filed away and decided to make use of it.

Yoffe's division split into two, each with 100 tanks. The first half trekked over the Wadi and took the Egyptian forces by surprise who were attempting to come to the aid of the Egyptians at Rafah and Abu Agheila. After making short work of them, Yoffe's troops linked up with General Tal's forces to attack the Egyptian Third Division, who were attempting to hold the Egyptian line near Bir Lahfan.

The other half of Yoffe’s division went through Sharon’s lines while fighting was still going on at perimeter of Abu Agheila, and attacked the rest of  Third Egyptian Division who were dug in at high ground of Jebel Libni, southwest of Bir Lahfan. This was another pincer attack that caught the Egyptians between the hammer blows of Tal and Yoffe. The Third division collapsed and by sundown on June 6 all of the Jebel Libni bases and the surrounding areas had fallen.

The Egyptian state media at this point was still broadcasting that Egyptian forces were advancing into Israel and that Tel-Aviv had been bombed, In fact, Nasser had already given King Hussein this same information,pressing him to bring his forces into the war.

However, Egypt's military chief, Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer had seen first hand what was happening to his army. According to eyewitness accounts, after the fall of Abu Agheila he issued immediate orders for a wholesale retreat across the Suez Canal to Egypt rather than trying to get his army to regroup and shore up a new line of defense.

What was left of the Egyptian forces engaged in what was essentially a race for the Mitla and Gidi passes through the the mountainous area of West Sinai and the retreat turned into a rout.

By this time, the Israeli air force had finished with decimating Egypt's Soviet supplied air force, had total control of the skies and were able to devote attention to the Egyptian ground forces as they fled for the passes.

The Egyptian tanks and fleeing infantry units were caught between massive bombardment from the air and ground attacks from Sharon's forces and those belonging to the 8th Armored Brigade under Colonel Albert Mandler, fresh from taking out the fortified areas of Kuntilla. The entire Egyptian Sixth Division was trapped what amounted to a box and soon ceased to exist as a cohesive unit.

At the same time, Yoffe and Tal's forces were racing towards the Sinai passes in an attempt to cut off the Egyptian units fleeing for the Canal. Sharon's division advanced southward then westward via An-Nakhl to Mitla Pass, where it hooked up with parts of Yoffe's division, while other units under Yoffe's command blocked the Gidi Pass. These passes became killing grounds for the Egyptians, who ran right into the waiting Israeli positions and suffered heavy losses.

While Egyptian casualties were heavy, the blocking of the passes was only partially successful and many got through to the Canal, (especially through the the Khatmia pass) although they abandoned literally tons of armaments and equipment along the way. Many died in the desert from hunger, thirst and raids by hostile Bedouins.

Others surrendered to the victorious Israelis, but about four days into the Sinai offensive Israel's capacity for holding prisoners was exceeded and the Israelis concentrated on high ranking officers, disarming the other, giving them aome food and water and and pointing them in the direction of the Canal.

At the same time, an Israeli naval force launched an attack on Sharm el-Sheik, the Egyptian base used to enforce the blockade on the Straits of Tiran. When they landed, the base was deserted,because its garrison had fled. Sharm el-Sheik fell without a shot being fired, the Israeli flag once more flew over ships in the Straits of Tiran and after 96 hours the war in Sinai was over.

The Fight For Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria

The battle for Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria was very different from the war in Sinai.Instead of open country suitable for mobility and tank battles, the area of Judea and Samaria that abuts what was then the 1948 ceasefire lines between Israel and Jordan are mountainous and densely populated, especially in the Old City of Jerusalem, and the large cities of Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron. And the Jordanian Arab Legion held the high ground.Aside from fortifying the area, they had an army of 11 brigades on Israel's borders, plus an Iraqi infantry division, 100 Iraqi tanks and Iraqi Soviet supplied aircraft at their disposal.The Israelis opposite them had only three infantry brigades and an armored brigade.

Jordan's Arab Legion were the most competent soldiers among the Arab armies.They were a professional force armed and trained by the British, equipped with over 300 modern Western tanks and a force of 24 British-made Hawker Hunter fighters, six transports, and two helicopters.

The Israelis, who were concentrating on the Egyptians and Syrians made a concerted effort to avoid a war with Jordan. They had signaled previously to King Hussein via the UN and Norwegian General Odd Bull, commander of the UN observer force that Israel had no hostile intentions towards Jordan. As King Hussein himself related in his book Hussein of Jordan: My War with Israel:

It was now 9 A.M. on Monday, June 5, and we were at war.

Riad [the Egyptian general who commanded Jordanian forces] increased our fire power against the Israeli air bases by directing our heavy artillery – long-range 155's – on the Israeli air force installations within our line of fire. Our field artillery also went into action, and our Hawker Hunters [British-supplied fighter jets] were ready to take part in the combined operation with the Iraqi and Syrians.

At this point the Jordanians were actually shelling civilian and military targets within Israel. But the Israeli government was still hopeful that the Jordanian attacks were just a demonstration of solidarity and held off any retaliation. In the King’s own words:

... we received a telephone call at Air Force Headquarters from U.N. General Odd Bull. It was a little after 11 A.M.

The Norwegian General informed me that the Israeli Prime Minister had addressed an appeal to Jordan. Mr. Eshkol had summarily announced that the Israeli offensive had started that morning, Monday June 5, with operations directed against the United Arab Republic, and then he added: “If you don’t intervene, you will suffer no consequences.”

By that time we were already fighting in Jerusalem and our planes had just taken off to bomb Israeli airbases. So I answered Odd Bull:

“They started the battle. Well they are receiving our reply by air.”

Three times our Hawker Hunters attacked the bases at Natanya in Israel without a loss. And our pilots reported that they destroyed four enemy planes on the ground, the only ones they had seen.

On their side, the Iraqis bombed the airport at Lydda. And a little later, the Syrians finally headed for the base at Ramad David and the refineries in Haifa.

At 11:15 am, Jordanian howitzers began a 6,000-shell barrage at the Israeli half of Jerusalem. The Jordanians initially targeted kibbutz Ramat Rachel in the south and Mount Scopus in the north, then began firing into the city center and outlying neighborhoods. The Prime Minister's Residence, and the Knesset compound were also targeted. Israeli civilian casualties totaled 20 dead and about 1,000 wounded.Among the many buildings fired on by Jordan was Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.The Jordanian Arab Legion also launched an offensive on the ground and occupied Government House, the UN headquarters on the Biblical “Hill of Evil Counsel” in the no-man’s land between the two countries, a direct threat to threatening Israeli positions in southern Jerusalem.

Finally, realizing that Jordan had no intention of merely sitting out hostilities the Israelis struck back. It is one of the ironies of history that those Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians have never blamed King Hussein for what followed. If not for him, East Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria would have remained Jew free and under Arab control, just the way they liked it.

The Israelis quickly moved to deploy additional forces into the area. They took a division under Major General Elad Peled from the Northern front and a paratroop brigade under Colonel Motta Gur from Sinai, and moved them to the new front in Jerusalem.

But first, the Israeli air force went into action.They caught all of King Hussein's Hawker Hunters on the ground at their bases in Amman and Mafraq refueling for another raid on Israel and destroyed all of them, including the helicopters and transport aircraft as well as taking out the runways. Jordan effectively no longer had an air force.

Jordan's radar facility at Ajloun was also destroyed.

The IAF also flew sorties against H-3, the Iraqi Air Force base in western Iraq where raids had been flown against Israel. During the attack, 12 MiG-21s, 2 MiG-17s, 5 Hunter F6s, and 3 Il-28 bombers were destroyed on the ground or shot out of the air.

In the meantime, the Arab Legion had attacked Ramat Rachel, where  four civilians including the wife of the director defended their homes,  armed with old Czech-made weapons from WWII, remnants from the 1948 War.

The Israelis immediate objective was to retake Government House and its strategic ridge.

Lieutenant-Colonel Asher Dreizin and the Jerusalem Brigade's Reserve Battalion 161were given the task. Dreizin had two infantry companies and eight tanks under his command, five of which broke down or became stuck in the mud at Ramat Rachel, leaving three for the attack. The entrenched Arab Legion troops knocked out two more.

Nevertheless, the Israeli reservists somehow broke through. They continued to advance, taking out Jordanian trenches held by the Hittin Brigade. At the evening's end, the Arab Legion had retreated to Bethlehem, all but ten of Dreizin's soldiers were killed or wounded and Dreizin himself was wounded three times.

During that same day, the armored Harel Division under Col. Uri Ben-Ari together with Gur's paratroopers moved down from Latrun and headed for Jerusalem from the north.

The Harel Division fought for control of the Ramallah Ridge, a strategic area known throughout history as a key point for control of Jerusalem. The Arab Legion had done a professional job of fortifying the ridge, including laying a minefield in front of their positions.

Because a tank couldn't be spared, Israeli sappers cleared a path through that minefield by hand while they were under fire. The cost was high, but somehow they managed it. Ben-Ari's tanks rumbled up the ridge, taking the Jordanian strong points of Radar Hill, Sheikh Abed El-Aziz, and Beit Iksa, then taking the fortified village of Biddu and Nehi Samuel to the east.

The next morning, the village of Sur Baher fell, giving the IDF control of the main road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Hebron. The Jordanian forces to the south near Hebron were now cut off.

A combined force of tanks and paratroopers entered Jerusalem near the Mandelbaum Gate. One of Gur's paratroop battalions attacked the Arab Legion troops in the heavily fortified Police Academy, using explosives to blast their way through barbed wire while exposed and under heavy fire. With the aid of two tanks borrowed from the Jerusalem Brigade, they captured the Police Academy. They then received reinforcements and fresh ammunition and mounted a fierce assault up Ammunition Hill.




It was a bloody fight.The Jordanians were heavily dug in and had the advantage of high ground. The battle lasted 4 hours, and was mainly fought at close quarters in trenches and bunkers.During the battle, 36 Israeli and 71 Jordanian soldiers were killed, including all of the Israeli officers except for two company commanders.

To this day in Israel, Ammunition Hill is one of the focal points of the ceremonies on Yom Yerushalyim, the day Israel celebrates the re-unification of Jerusalem and remembers what it cost.

By mid morning on June 6th, the battle for Ammunition Hill was over, and Gur's paratroopers linked up with another force that had taken the Jordanian positions around the American Colony near the northern edge of the Old City. But Gur’s paratroopers were not yet able to enter the Old City because the Arab Legion still held the Augusta Victoria Hill, a position on high ground that overlooked  the city from the east.

General Moshe Dayan had originally ordered the IDF not to enter the Old City. While of course there had been no 'international reaction' to Jordan illegally occupying East Jerusalem nineteen years before and ethnically cleansing it of Jews, Dayan was fearful of the reaction both at the UN and in Israel if Israelis had captured the Old City and then were faced with demands to turn it back over to the Jordanians.

However, sometime on the night of June 6th, he reversed himself and gave the order to take the Old City back.

Gur's paratroopers attacked 8:30 in the morning on June 7 – one battalion attacked August Victoria Hill from Israeli-held Mount Scopus, another battalion attacked August Victoria by climbing up the valley between it and the Old City, and a third battalion, led by General Gur himself,  broke into the Old City proper via the Lion's Gate. Arriving at the gate, Gur’s halftrack plowed through and into the Old City. The Jordanians were defeated, and Gur made for the holiest site in Judaism, the Temple Mount. When he got there he famously radioed to his commanders, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.”



Afterwards, the paratroopers proceeded to the Western Wall, the Kotel...where the Shofar was blown for the first time in years.



The Jerusalem Brigade continued on, capturing Judea and Gush Etzion and Hebron. In Hebron , where the Arabs were afraid that the IDF would behave the way their own soldiers would have and take revenge for the horrific 1929 massacre of the city's Jews, Hebron's Arab residents flew white sheets from their windows and rooftops, and voluntarily surrendered. The Harel Brigade proceeded eastward, continuing to the Jordan River. The Arab Legion attempted to regroup with battles in Jenin and Nablus, but facing Jewish armor and air power rather than unarmed civilians they crumpled and fled across the river. Israeli sappers blew up the Abdullah and Hussein bridges on the river with captured Jordanian mortar shells while elements of the Harel Brigade crossed the river and occupied positions along the east bank to cover them, but the Israelis quickly pulled back afterwards to the other side of the Jordan, reportedly due to pressure from Dean Rusk and the Johnson Administration.

As of 8 PM on June 7th both sides accepted a ceasefire, leaving Israel in complete control of Judea and Samaria.And Jerusalem was united again.

The Syrian Front

Like the Jordanians, the Syrians believed Nasser's propaganda about a crushing Egyptian victory. From their positions in the Golan Heights, the Syrians began shelling Northern Israel and sent a dozen of their Soviet Mig fighters to attack Israeli towns in the Galilee.

The Israeli Air Force scrambled and went after the Migs, shooting down three of them and driving off the rest. Later that day, June 5th, the IAF launched a major raid on Syria' air bases, destroying 32 MiG 21s, and 23 MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighters, and two Ilyushin Il-28 bombers. The few Syrian planes that were left retreated to bases far from the border and were not seen again during the war.

The Syrians also attempted an offensive aimed at Kibbutz Tel Dan, which was repulsed with heavy losses. The Syrians stayed put after that, counting on the larger Egyptian forces to do heavy work of defeating Israel's forces and reckoning that their built up defensive positions on the Golkan Heights would be enough to deter any Israeli attack.

The Syrians accepted a UN ceasefire on June 8th. It lasted all of 5 hours, after which the shelling of Israel began again and Hafez Assad's state radio announced that Syria was no longer bound by the cease fire.

On the morning of June 9 the Israeli air force began an intensive bombing of the Syrian positions in the Golan, and Israeli forces under the command of Major General David Elazar crossed the cease fire line into Syrian territory.

The Syrians held the Golan with around 75,000 men grouped in nine brigades, They were  supported by artillery and armor.

The Israeli forces were led by Colonel Albert Mandler's 8th Armored Brigade and the Golani Brigade who were to attack from one point near Givat HaEm in the north, and another two infantry brigades and and one of General Peled's brigades summoned up from Jenin to the central Golan.

Elazer decided to launch a number of coordinated attacks, starting with an armor assault on the town of Q’ala, where the terrain most favored the Syrians, the Israelis were not expected to attempt an attack and where the defenses were least fortified.Another advantage is that if Q'asla could be taken, it was a mere two and a half miles from there to the strategic Quneitra Road, which would allow the Israelis to attack the Syrian defensive positions from the rear. Not only that, but Quneitra was the regional HQ of Syria's army and a depot through which all roads passed, including the one to Damascus.

First, the IAF launched waves of attacks on the Syrian positions, which caused heavy casualties and some desertions, but still left much of the defenses in place.Then the Israeli offensive began.

It is still chilling to read of how the attacks were made and imagine what it was like to participate.

The Q’ala attack was led by sappers under fire to clear the mine fields by hand, followed by armored bulldozers to create a road up the mountain, because there wasn't one. Immediately following were tanks and infantry. The Israeli armored brigade moved up in single file, which meant that the Syrian guns took a horrible toll. But foot by foot, the Israeli armor continued to attack, and moved up the mountain. When they were about half way up, the brigade split its forces, half moving to flank the Syrian defenders, the rest continuing directly upwards towards the target. After five and a half hours of bloody fighting the brigade had covered the three miles to the Syrian positions  and assaulted the actual bunkers and trenches, with the tanks firing at what amounted to point blank range.

At the same time as the armored assault, the Israeli infantry brigade with some supporting tanks attacked about a mile to the north, aiming to protect the flanks of the armored attack by taking Syrian positions on and around the fortified  hill position of Tel Fakhir.

That fight raged for more than seven hours In the end, the Israelis won through sheer guts and determination, taking Tel Fakhir.The first Israelis to reach the perimeter of laid their bodies down on the barbed wire to allow their fellow soldiers to vault over them. Much of the fighting at that point was hand to hand and at close quarters. The Syrian positions in Dardara and Tel Hilal also fell after hard fighting and the entire Syrian position became untenable, causing entire units to abandon their positions and simply disappear.

The Israelis continued to advance, and on June 10th fresh IDF brigades approached Quneitra. To their surprise, Syrian government radio announced that the city had fallen while the IDF was still en route. There's some speculation that this was designed to provoke Soviet intervention to protect their client, but it backfired. Hearing from their own radio that Quneitra had fallen, the remaining Syrian defenders panicked and fled, afraid they would be cut off and unable to escape.

That was the end of both the Syrian campaign and the war.

The Aftermath

The Six Day War was unique in that it was one of the few wars fought since WWII that had definite goals and a definite conclusion. Democracies are noted for not seeking out war,and Israel was no exception in 1967. It was a war they did not want that was forced upon them, and a war they had to win if they were going to continue as a nation.

Israel's victory over such overwhelming odds without a major power 'sponsor' meant that they were there to stay, that they would prevail. Less than three years after the victory of the Six Day War, President Richard Nixon dropped the American stance of neutrality and formally embraced Israel as an ally, defying the Europeans and bringing them into the camp of free nations.

Israel's Labor government made what many would consider a foolish gesture after Israel's victory. They openly offered the Arab nations back the territory taken in the war...and all they wanted in exchange was recognition of Israel's right to exist as a nation and a real peace.

The Arab response was the famous Three No's of Khartoum, the site of the next Arab League conference - no peace, no recognition and no negotiation.

In spite of all the concessions by the Israelis in the ensuing years, the Arab position remains essentially the same, even in the two countries that supposedly have a peace treaty with Israel. Israel's relations with the Arab world are clandestine and tinged with hostility where they exist at all.

This proves something that I've had occasion to say many times...that real, lasting peace comes from victory.

After the Six Day War, The Israeli government's willingness to cede some of the fruits of that victory sent a signal to the Arab world that it was worth trying aggression again. In the Arab mentality, only losers cede territory after a war. To this day, the Egyptian government continues to tell its people that Egypt defeated Israel in 1973, because Israel yielded to pressure from the US and the UN  to allow the trapped Egyptian Third Army to go free with its weapons intact and survive to march through Cairo to a hero's welcome. The subsequent ceding of Sinai by Israel to Egypt in exchange for what amounted to a temporary armistice underlined that lesson for the Egyptians and the Arab world, although there are signs that the relationship between Israel and some Sunni states may be thawing, at least superficially under the shadow of a major threat from Iran.

But there is this. In 1967, a besieged, outnumbered free people only a generation removed from the reeking ovens of Auschwitz drew a line in the sand and said 'no further'. They prevailed against huge odds over totalitarian barbarism and provided an example to the world of what heroism is made of.

It was indeed a modern miracle, just as Israel itself is.

And that is no small thing to reflect on in these times.

(reposted by request)

The Serpent's Tongue - An Open Letter To Catherine Ashton, EU Policy Chief

Dear Lady Ashton,
I noted with interest your remarks and your concerns about what you called "recent events in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, which are not conducive to the climate of trust and cooperation needed for the current peace negotiations to succeed."

Your remarks were exclusively addressed to Israel. You were 'concerned' about Israel declaring something like 2.5 square miles (1 square KM) of vacant land near the Israeli community of Gush Etzion - which you, of course, call a 'settlement' - as Israeli state land. You're also concerned about what you referred to as the authorization of a 'new settlement' in Hebron, and you "particularly deplore the recent confiscation of EU Humanitarian Assistance provided to vulnerable civilians in the Jabal Al Baba Community in the E1 area."

First off, just between us...don't you think your use of language is somewhat suspect? One might almost think you were biased. You refer to Gush Etzion as a 'settlement' when after all, it's an established Jewish community that dates back to 1924 on land legally purchased by Jews from Arab landowners. Jews continually inhabited it and worked the land except for a 19-year period between 1948 and 1967. And when you speak about vulnerable civilians, may I remind you of how the residents were ethnically cleansed in 1948 by Jordan's Arab Legion, and that almost 200 able bodied Jewish males were executed in cold blood after they surrendered and were guaranteed safe conduct to the Israeli lines with their women and children? May we recall who commanded the troops who committed that atrocity and who oversaw the ethnic cleansing of all the communities in Judea and Samaria as well as East Jerusalem? It was British officers, Lady Ashton, under your own Colonel John Glubb. Project much?

Then you say you particularly deplore what you refer to as "confiscation of EU Humanitarian Assistance provided to vulnerable civilians in the Jabal Al Baba community in the E1 area." That 'community', as you call it, refers to a handful of Arab squatters living for a matter of a few weeks in EU-funded caravans in a contested vacant hillside within the city limits of the Israeli city of Maale Adumim, a city that Israel isn't going to give up in any peace agreement. And as we both know, E-1 is necessary to Israeli security needs in order to connect Maale Adumim to the rest of the Jerusalem area, so it doesn't become surrounded on all sides by those extraordinarily peaceful Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians.

So in your world, Gush Etzion is a 'settlement' after decades of existence on legally purchased land, while a few caravans parked illegally for a matter of weeks on Israeli land with the EU's connivance that you give the name of 'Jabal Al Baba' is a 'community'? It seems obvious that you have one set of rules for Jews and quite another for everyone else,and there's a word for that, isn't there Lady Ashton? And isn't it more than just a little hypocritical to 'especially deplore' the Israelis confiscating what was obviously an attempt by the EU to unlawfully create facts on the ground in what at best can be considered a 'disputed' area? If 'humanitarian aid' was the purpose, why not put those caravans somewhere in Area A, where the Palestinian Authority controls things? Again, one might almost suspect you of - heaven forbid - bias.

 Hebron? Ah yes, another one of those awful 'settlements'. This one amounts to Jews being allowed to move into a property they legally purchased, one four story house. Although to be honest, it could probably be more accurately described as a 'repurchase'. You see, Hebron had a sizable Jewish community that lived there for centuries until 1929, when the Arab residents of the town turned on their neighbors on orders of the British appointed Grand Mufti and began raping and murdering them - while the British troops who were supposed to be keeping order did absolutely nothing to stop them.



Even if Hebron were entirely given to Israel, it would not compensate for the blood of the men, women and children  murdered there. And you have a problem with Jews moving into one house? Is there anywhere in the world, let alone the Middle East you don't mind them living, Lady Ashton?

You devoted one sentence in your remarks to "the recent killing of an Israeli man in the West Bank" and called for "an immediate end to all acts of violence."

Once again, I must admit I find your use of language interesting. Let's look at what actually happened to Baruch Mizrachi (HY"D) and his pregnant wife and children and see if we can't find a more appropriate word than 'killing', shall we?

The Mizrachi family was driving from the Israeli town Modi'in to Kiryat Arba and was ambushed by a Palestinian terrorist who had situated himself by the roadside and deliberately fired on a car filled with a man, his pregnant wife and five children. The other members of the family survived by sheer chance. They were deliberately targeted, Lady Ashton, and their 'crime' was simply driving a car with an Israeli license plate on it. Hadassah Mizrachi, who was wounded in the attack may lose the child she was carrying as well as her life's companion and will have to raise her children on her own.



A 'killing' Lady Ashton? How about using the word murder instead, since that's exactly what it was? How about calling it terrorism? And would it interest you at all to know that  the killer is still at large and that the Palestinians reportedly know his identity and location but refuse to turn him over to Israeli authorities or jail him themselves? When he's apprehended by the Israelis, tried in an Israeli court and imprisoned, the Palestinians you're so enamored of will pay him a salary for murdering a Jew that will be funded in part by EU taxpayers, just like hundreds of other sitting in Israeli jails for the same crime. And Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader will insist on him being freed as a 'holy martyr' in any peace agreement, to return to a hero's welcome just like all the other murderers the Israelis have freed,

Does that bother you at all, Lady Ashton, to be a part of providing an incentive for all those murders? In legal terms, Lady Ashton, doesn't that make you and the EU accessories to those murders? Have you even once forcefully condemned the Palestinian Authority's practice of rewarding and making heroes out of those who murder innocent men, women and children? Has the EU ever once threatened to end the cash flow unless it stopped?

And to add insult to injury, in your remarks, the murder of Baruch Mizrachi barely rates a sentence, almost an afterthought. And you equivocate by calling for 'an immediate end to all acts of violence', as though Israelis were likewise targeting Arab families for murder on the highways. And then you call on Israel and Israel alone to mend its ways and reverse these so-called punitive actions that you deplore so much.

Are you that dead to shame, Lady Ashton? Are you that blind to justice?

Do you sleep well at night?

The Anniversary Of A Miracle - Israel's Victory In The Six Day War

Today is the anniversary of a modern miracle, the Israeli victory of the Six Day War, מלחמת ששת הימים, or Milhemet Sheshet Ha Yamim in Hebrew. It saw an outnumbered Israel beat back an attempt at destruction and genocide, reunite Jerusalem, bring the strategic Golan and the historic Jewish homelands of Judea and Samaria back under Israeli sovereignty. It's worth recounting 46 years later, when Israel's mortal enemies once again gather to attempt to destroy her.

Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser had formed a military alliance with Syria, the United Arab Republic (UAR) and with the aid of the Soviet Union, both countries had built up a substantial military force, vastly outnumbering Israel in tanks, planes and manpower.

After the 1956 war,the Israelis had agreed to withdraw from Sinai based on President Eisenhower's guarantees that provided for a UN peacekeeping force to be stationed there to prevent feydayeen terrorist raids on Israel, the main cause (at least from the Israeli standpoint) of the '56 war.

Another part of the ceasefire agreement that ended the 1956 war concerned the Straits of Tiran, a waterway connecting the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea and Israel's sole Red Sea outlet for the port of Eilat.



According to the ceasefire ratified by the UN, the Straits of Tiran were to be considered an international waterway with full access to Israeli shipping.

On May 17th, 1967, after a huge amount of rhetoric about annihilating every Jew in Israel, Nasser demanded an immediate withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping troops from the Sinai. Secretary General U Thant immediately complied in less than 24 hours without informing the Israelis until Egyptian forces had already reentered the Sinai.

Nasser subsequently deployed a huge force of troops,tanks and artillery in the Sinai. The Egyptians massed over 100,000 troops in the Sinai, including all of its seven divisions (four infantry, two armored and one mechanized), four independent infantry brigades and four independent armored brigades. At least one third of them were veterans of Egypt's intervention into the Yemen Civil War, and the Egyptian forces included 950 tanks, 1,100 APCs and more than 1,000 artillery pieces, many of them of the latest Soviet models.

On May 23rd, Nasser announced a blockade of the Straights of Tiran, saying in a speech to his troops in Sinai:

... Yesterday the armed forces [of Egypt] occupied Sharm el-Sheikh. What does this mean? It is an affirmation of our rights, of our sovereignty over the Gulf of Aqaba, which constitutes Egyptian territorial waters. Under no circumstances can we permit the Israeli flag to pass through the Gulf of Aqaba. The Jews threaten war. We say that they are welcome to war, we are ready for war, our armed forces, our people, all of us are ready for war, but under no circumstances shall we abandon our rights. These are our waters ...

At the same time, the Syrians began massing 75,000 troops, artillery and armor on the Golan Height to the north of Israel, where they held the high ground and were dug in.

Jordan, to Israel's east signed a mutual defense pact with the UAR on May 30th and moved 55,000 troops and 300 tanks to the border.

Documents captured by the Israelis from the Jordanians show that contrary to popular belief, the Jordanians always intended to go to war against Israel - it was by no means a last minute decision. The Arab Legion's Hashemite Brigade had orders to capture the Israeli town of Ramot Burj Bir Mai'in in a night raid, codenamed "Operation Khaled". This was to be the base of operations for the capture of Lod and Ramle. The "go" codeword to be was "Sa'ek" and end was "Nasser". The Jordanians also planned for the capture of Motza and Sha'alvim in the strategic Jerusalem Corridor. Motza was the target of Infantry Brigade 27 camped near Ma'ale Adummim: "The reserve brigade will commence a nighttime infiltration onto Motza, will destroy it to the foundation, and won't leave a remnant or refugee from among its 800 residents"

Along with these forces, at Jordan's invitation the Iraqi army sent 100 tanks and an infantry division to join in the fighting along with two squadrons of fighter aircraft.

The Israeli troops even with their available reserves were out numbered by more than two to one, and in tanks and combat aircraft by more than three to one.

Efforts to try and resolve the crisis in the UN came to absolutely nothing as the Soviets and the European nations who found Arab oil far more valuable than Jewish blood combined to torpedo any meaningful settlement as Israel's economy began to falter and the Arabs continued to mass troops and equipment for an obvious coming attack meant to wipe out every Jew in Israel, a goal the Arabs made no secret of.

The final push towards war came when Israel chief arms supplier, President DeGaulle of France abruptly informed the Israelis on June 1st that he would no longer sell them arms or spare parts for French-made equipment like Israel's Dassault Mirage and Super Mystère jets or even fill existing orders.



Surrounded and outnumbered, the Israelis now also had to contend with the problem of resupply in a combat situation. They literally had no choice but to throw the dice and gamble on a quick and decisive victory before their equipment broke down for lack of spare parts and components.

So the decision was made to launch Operation Focus ( in Hebrew, Moked), a massive attack on the Egyptian Air Force.

The Egyptians had by far the largest and best air force among the Arab armies. They had 420 combat aircraft, all of them Soviet-built and many of them the latest MiG-21s capable of attaining Mach 2 speed. The Egyptians also had 30 Soviet Tu-16 "Badger" bombers,which were a particular target of Operation Focus because of the danger to Israeli civilian areas.

The IAF had been training for this mission for quite some time. In particular, they had become adept in training their ground crews to rapidly refit planes returning from combat so that multiple sorties per day could be flown. The IAF had things wired to the point that their combat aircraft were capable of flying four sorties per day while the Arab pilots were only able to fly one or two at most.

The Israelis also had excellent intel on their targets and trained their pilots to memorize them until they were second nature, and every contingency that could be taken into account was planned for.

But in the end,it still came down to a roll of the dice, with the Israelis sending all but 12 of their 200 combat aircraft into the skies and gambling their lives on the outcome.

On the morning of June 5th, 1967, the Israeli planes attacked their targets. Most of them evaded the Egyptian radar by flying in low over the Mediterranean, well below the point where the Egyptian SA-2 surface-to-air missile batteries could hit them and then hooking left to hit the Egyptian air bases, while the rest flew in over the Red Sea.

They caught the Egyptians completely by surprise with most of their planes on the ground. The Israelis attacked in successive waves. Some 338 of the Egyptian aircraft were destroyed and over 100 pilots killed, while the runways were made unusable by bombing runs utilizing special explosives designed to penetrate and fragment tarmac. The Egyptians lost all 30 the Tu-16 bombers, 27 out of 40 Il-28 bombers, 12 Su-7 fighter-bombers, over 90 brand new MiG-21s, 20 MiG-19s, 25 MiG-17 fighters, and around 32 assorted transport planes and helicopters, plus the Egyptian radar and SAM missile bases. The only Egyptian planes that survived were the handful that were in hangers being serviced and a small contingent based at El Arish in Sinai, which the IAF decided not to attack because they wanted it as a strategic base.The Israelis lost just 19 planes, including two destroyed in air-to-air combat and 13 hit by anti-aircraft fire.

The victory in the air was so devastating that at first no one in the western press, particularly in Europe believed it. They continued to cite the Egyptian propaganda reports of 70 Israeli planes downed. It only became apparent that Egypt's Soviet supplied air force had been destroyed when Egyptian planes failed to make any appearance during the rest of the war.

Retaking Sinai

The Egyptian forces in Sinai were deployed based on Soviet tactics of massed depth. In addition they were tied to dugouts and fortresses, a mistake the IDF themselves would make 6 years later in the Yom Kippur War with the Bar-Lev line.

The Israelis had deployed to the border the night before the war,  camouflaged themselves and remained hidden until they advanced. Rather than attack the fortified Egyptian positions head on, the IDF attacked the Egyptian positions from the flanks



The Israelis understood that if the Egyptians suffered a military defeat that the UN would move quickly to implement a cease fire to protect Nasser's armies. Therefore, a primary objective was to make as many strategic gains as possible in the shortest time period, especially when it came to Sharm al-Sheikh, the choke point for shutting down Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran.

Because of the need for speed,  the initial battles involved attacking entrenched positions in Sinai without air support, because the IAF was still involved in dealing with Egypt's air armada.

The IDF attacked with three divisions. The first, under General Israel Tal had the mission of attacking the fortified Rafah/El Arish sector, near the Mediterranean coast. The Egyptians had large minefields in place in front of well dug in infantry, anti-tank weapons in reinforced bunkers and over 100 tanks and supporting artillery at the ready.

Tal's solution was to avoid the mine fields entirely,  and swing around and attack from the rear through Khan Unis. After Khan Unis was taken, General Tal launched a pincer attack on Rafah from the rear, commanding one arm personally while the other was commanded by the brilliant then-Colonel Rafael Eitan, later the IDF's Chief of Staff. The Egyptians, with most of their defensive positions facing the wrong way, were taken by surprise and routed. By June 6th, El Arish was in Israeli hands and the race to the Canal along the Mediterranean coast was on.

The second division under General Arik Sharon had the job of breaking through the center and assaulting the heavily fortified Kusseima/Abu Agheila strongholds.This was a particularly difficult mission because the Egyptians expected the IDF to concentrate on attacking this area head on, as they had in 1956. However, General Sharon's modus operandi, as usual,  was to do the unexpected, Here's what he did, in his own words:

Since 1956 the Egyptians had completely rebuilt the Abu Agheila fortifications according to the latest Soviet concepts of linear defense. About fifteen miles from the Israeli border the Ismalia road crossed a long swell of sand known as Um Cataf. There the Egyptians had constructed three parallel trench systems intersecting the road. Anchored in the north by high soft dunes and in the south by jagged ridges and broken foothills, each line was several miles long and each encompassed an array of gun positions, storage depots, and lateral communications trenches. In the front of the first line was a thickly laid mine field. With the trench system manned by a full infantry brigade and with its flanks secured on either end by the terrain, this position itself constituted a major defensive obstacle.

A mile or so behind the trenches the Egyptians kept a mobile reserve of over eighty tanks ready to move in any direction, the sword that complemented their defensive shield. Just to the south of the tanks was their artillery deployment – eighty 122- and 130-mm guns whose range far outmatched my own guns. Perimeter outposts screened this concentration of forces on the approaches to the east and especially in the north, where the flank was guarded by an infantry battalion supported by tanks and artillery in a fortified position which we code-named Oakland.

To destroy Abu Agheila it would be necessary to identify and exploit the position’s inherent vulnerability. Here we would be up against good defensive fighters whose numerical strength was not much less than ours, and whose firepower was in some ways greater than ours – a far cry from the offensive-defensive ratio of three to one usually considered minimal for an attack against prepared positions. So the plan of battle would have to emphasize concentration of forces, surprise, and maneuver. And the action would have to take place at night, our traditional method of reducing the odds and negating the advantages of prepared fortifications …

What I had in mind was a closely coordinated attack by separate elements of our forces on the Egyptian trench lines, tanks and artillery … [with the attacks developing] from the north, from the west (at the rear of Abu Agheila), and from the east (at the front of the position) in a continuous unfolding of surprises, each force securing the flank of its neighbor …

In my overall approach the first order of business would be to create a deception against Kusseima with a brigade under Uri Baidatz. Then I would isolate the battlefield. In the south a screening force of tanks, half-tracks and mortars under Arie Amit would block any reinforcements from Kusseima. This force would also give us a lodgement once we were ready to move in that direction. In the north I would launch a reinforced armored battalion, including my best tanks, the British Centurions under Natke Nir, against Oakland, the position that guarded Abu Agheila’s northern flank. Once Natke took Oakland, he would then circle around to the rear of Abu Agheila, setting up blocking forces as he went on the road to Jebel Libni, where the Egyptian reserves were. The Centurions would then be in a position to assault the base from behind.

Once the field was isolated, we would attack the entire depth of the Egyptian positions simultaneously. That would be the “taboulah,” the shock that would unbalance the defenders. Kuti Adam’s infantry brigade would come down on the northern end of the trench lines through the ostensibly secure dunes. At the same time my artillery commander, Yakov Aknin, would concentrate all the division’s artillery fire on the trenches just in front of Kuti’s attack, making life hell for the defenders as they tried to respond to the unexpected assault. To the right of Kuti’s brigade, helicopters would land Danny Mat’s paratroop brigade, which would strike into the artillery positions, preventing the Egyptian long-range guns from hitting our own forces. Once the infantry had disrupted the trenches, our tank brigade under Mordechai Zippori would move through the mine fields in a narrow frontal assault. At the same time, Natke’s Centurions would hit the Egyptian tanks from behind and come in on the rear of the trenches. And all of this would happen at night, compounding the Egyptians’ confusion as they struggled to piece together what was happening to them. (Warrior, Ariel Sharon, p. 188-190)

That's pretty much exactly what happened. Many of the Egyptian troops were so anxious to retreat that they actually took their shoes off to be able to run more effectively in the desert sand.The Israelis even captured a number of Soviet tanks in perfect condition with the keys still in the ignitions. Sharon's losses were limited to 40 killed and 140 wounded, and by June 6th the way forward for Sharon's forces to the Canal was wide open.

 

The third IDF division was under Brigadier-General Avraham Yoffe. Their target was Egyptian forces near Bir Lahfan junction, who were attempting to aid the Egyptian forces at Rafah and Abu Agheila.

There was a point between Rafah and Abu Agheila called Wadi Haridin, large sand dunes that were supposedly impassible to vehicles. Because of that, Wadi Haridin was left completely undefended by the Egyptians.

But the Israelis had scouted the area during the 1956 war and discovered that the Wadi was a rough slog, but it was passable. General Sharon had remembered an old report on this during the run up to war that had been filed away and decided to make use of it.

Yoffe's division split into two, each with 100 tanks. The first half trekked over the Wadi and took the Egyptian forces by surprise who were attempting to come to the aid of the Egyptians at Rafah and Abu Agheila. After making short work of them, Yoffe's troops linked up with General Tal's forces to attack the Egyptian Third Division, who were attempting to hold the Egyptian line near Bir Lahfan.

The other half of Yoffe’s division went through Sharon’s lines while fighting was still going on at perimeter of Abu Agheila, and attacked the rest of  Third Egyptian Division who were dug in at high ground of Jebel Libni, southwest of Bir Lahfan. This was another pincer attack that caught the Egyptians between the hammer blows of Tal and Yoffe. The Third division collapsed and by sundown on June 6 all of the Jebel Libni bases and the surrounding areas had fallen.

The Egyptian state media at this point was still broadcasting that Egyptian forces were advancing into Israel and that Tel-Aviv had been bombed, In fact, Nasser had already given King Hussein this same information,pressing him to bring his forces into the war.

However, Egypt's military chief, Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer had seen first hand what was happening to his army. According to eyewitness accounts, after the fall of Abu Agheila he issued immediate orders for a wholesale retreat across the Suez Canal to Egypt rather than trying to get his army to regroup and shore up a new line of defense.

What was left of the Egyptian forces engaged in what was essentially a race for the Mitla and Gidi passes through the the mountainous area of West Sinai and the retreat turned into a rout.

By this time, the Israeli air force had finished with decimating Egypt's Soviet supplied air force, had total control of the skies and were able to devote attention to the Egyptian ground forces as they fled for the passes.

The Egyptian tanks and fleeing infantry units were caught between massive bombardment from the air and ground attacks from Sharon's forces and those belonging to the 8th Armored Brigade under Colonel Albert Mandler, fresh from taking out the fortified areas of Kuntilla. The entire Egyptian Sixth Division was trapped what amounted to a box and soon ceased to exist as a cohesive unit.

At the same time, Yoffe and Tal's forces were racing towards the Sinai passes in an attempt to cut off the Egyptian units fleeing for the Canal. Sharon's division advanced southward then westward via An-Nakhl to Mitla Pass, where it hooked up with parts of Yoffe's division, while other units under Yoffe's command blocked the Gidi Pass. These passes became killing grounds for the Egyptians, who ran right into the waiting Israeli positions and suffered heavy losses.

While Egyptian casualties were heavy, the blocking of the passes was only partially successful and many got through to the Canal, (especially through the the Khatmia pass) although they abandoned literally tons of armaments and equipment along the way. Many died in the desert from hunger, thirst and raids by hostile Bedouins.

Others surrendered to the victorious Israelis, but about four days into the Sinai offensive Israel's capacity for holding prisoners was exceeded and the Israelis concentrated on high ranking officers, disarming the other, giving them aome food and water and and pointing them in the direction of the Canal.

At the same time, an Israeli naval force launched an attack on Sharm el-Sheik, the Egyptian base used to enforce the blockade on the Straits of Tiran. When they landed, the base was deserted,because its garrison had fled. Sharm el-Sheik fell without a shot being fired, the Israeli flag once more flew over ships in the Straits of Tiran and after 96 hours the war in Sinai was over.

The Fight For Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria

The battle for Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria was very different from the war in Sinai.Instead of open country suitable for mobility and tank battles, the area of Judea and Samaria that abuts what was then the 1948 ceasefire lines between Israel and Jordan are mountainous and densely populated, especially in the Old City of Jerusalem, and the large cities of Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron. And the Jordanian Arab Legion held the high ground.Aside from fortifying the area, they had an army of 11 brigades on Israel's borders, plus an Iraqi infantry division, 100 Iraqi tanks and Iraqi Soviet supplied aircraft at their disposal.The Israelis opposite them had only three infantry brigades and an armored brigade.

Jordan's Arab Legion were the most competent soldiers among the Arab armies.They were a professional force armed and trained by the British, equipped with over 300 modern Western tanks and a force of 24 British-made Hawker Hunter fighters, six transports, and two helicopters.

The Israelis, who were concentrating on the Egyptians and Syrians made a concerted effort to avoid a war with Jordan. They had signaled previously to King Hussein via the UN and Norwegian General Odd Bull, commander of the UN observer force that Israel had no hostile intentions towards Jordan. As King Hussein himself related in his book Hussein of Jordan: My War with Israel:

It was now 9 A.M. on Monday, June 5, and we were at war.

Riad [the Egyptian general who commanded Jordanian forces] increased our fire power against the Israeli air bases by directing our heavy artillery – long-range 155's – on the Israeli air force installations within our line of fire. Our field artillery also went into action, and our Hawker Hunters [British-supplied fighter jets] were ready to take part in the combined operation with the Iraqi and Syrians.

At this point the Jordanians were actually shelling civilian and military targets within Israel. But the Israeli government was still hopeful that the Jordanian attacks were just a demonstration of solidarity and held off any retaliation. In the King’s own words:

... we received a telephone call at Air Force Headquarters from U.N. General Odd Bull. It was a little after 11 A.M.

The Norwegian General informed me that the Israeli Prime Minister had addressed an appeal to Jordan. Mr. Eshkol had summarily announced that the Israeli offensive had started that morning, Monday June 5, with operations directed against the United Arab Republic, and then he added: “If you don’t intervene, you will suffer no consequences.”

By that time we were already fighting in Jerusalem and our planes had just taken off to bomb Israeli airbases. So I answered Odd Bull:

“They started the battle. Well they are receiving our reply by air.”

Three times our Hawker Hunters attacked the bases at Natanya in Israel without a loss. And our pilots reported that they destroyed four enemy planes on the ground, the only ones they had seen.

On their side, the Iraqis bombed the airport at Lydda. And a little later, the Syrians finally headed for the base at Ramad David and the refineries in Haifa.

At 11:15 am, Jordanian howitzers began a 6,000-shell barrage at the Israeli half of Jerusalem. The Jordanians initially targeted kibbutz Ramat Rachel in the south and Mount Scopus in the north, then began firing into the city center and outlying neighborhoods. The Prime Minister's Residence, and the Knesset compound were also targeted. Israeli civilian casualties totaled 20 dead and about 1,000 wounded.Among the many buildings fired on by Jordan was Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.The Jordanian Arab leagion also launched an offensive on the ground and occupied Government House, the UN headquarters on the Biblical “Hill of Evil Counsel” in the no-man’s land between the two countries, a direct threat to threatening Israeli positions in southern Jerusalem.

Finally, realizing that Jordan had no intention of merely sitting out hostilities the Israelis struck back. It is one of the ironies of history that those Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians have never blamed King Hussein for what followed. If not for him, East Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria would have remained Jew free and under Arab control, just the way they liked it.

The Israelis quickly moved to deploy additional forces into the area. They took a division under Major General Elad Peled from the Northern front and a paratroop brigade under Colonel Motta Gur from Sinai, and moved them to the new front in Jerusalem.

But first, the Israeli air force went into action.They caught all of King Hussein's Hawker Hunters on the ground at their bases in Amman and Mafraq refueling for another raid on Israel and destroyed all of them, including the helicopters and transport aircraft as well as taking out the runways. Jordan effectively no longer had an air force.

Jordan's radar facility at Ajloun was also destroyed.

The IAF also flew sorties against H-3, the Iraqi Air Force base in western Iraq where raids had been flown against Israel. During the attack, 12 MiG-21s, 2 MiG-17s, 5 Hunter F6s, and 3 Il-28 bombers were destroyed on the ground or shot out of the air.

In the meantime, the Arab Legion had attacked Ramat Rachel, where  four civilians including the wife of the director defended their homes,  armed with old Czech-made weapons from WWII, remnants from the 1948 War.

The Israelis immediate objective was to retake Government House and its strategic ridge.

Lieutenant-Colonel Asher Dreizin and the Jerusalem Brigade's Reserve Battalion 161were given the task. Dreizin had two infantry companies and eight tanks under his command, five of which broke down or became stuck in the mud at Ramat Rachel, leaving three for the attack. The entrenched Arab Legion troops knocked out two more.

Nevertheless, the Israeli reservists somehow broke through. They continued to advance, taking out Jordanian trenches held by the Hittin Brigade. At the evening's end, the Arab Legion had retreated to Bethlehem, all but ten of Dreizin's soldiers were killed or wounded and Dreizin himself was wounded three times.

During that same day, the armored Harel Division under Col. Uri Ben-Ari together with Gur's paratroppers moved down from Latrun and headed for Jerusalem from the north.

The Harel Division fought for control of the Ramallah Ridge, a strategic area known throughout history as a key point for control of Jerusalem. The Arab Legion had done a professional job of fortifying the ridge, including laying a minefield in front of their positions.

Because a tank couldn't be spared, Israeli sappers cleared a path through that minefield by hand while they were under fire. The cost was high, but somehow they managed it. Ben-Ari's tanks rumbled up the ridge, taking the Jordanian strong points of Radar Hill, Sheikh Abed El-Aziz, and Beit Iksa, then taking the fortified village of Biddu and Nehi Samuel to the east.

The next morning, the village of Sur Baher fell, giving the IDF control of the main road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Hebron. The Jordanian forces to the south near Hebron were now cut off.

A combined force of tanks and paratroopers entered Jerusalem near the Mandelbaum Gate. One of Gur's paratroop battalions attacked the Arab Legion troops in the heavily fortified Police Academy, using explosives to blast their way through barbed wire while exposed and under heavy fire. With the aid of two tanks borrowed from the Jerusalem Brigade, they captured the Police Academy. They then received reinforcements and fresh ammunition and mounted a fierce assault up Ammunition Hill.




It was a bloody fight.The Jordanians were heavily dug in and had the advantage of high ground. The battle lasted 4 hours, and was mainly fought at close quarters in trenches and bunkers.During the battle, 36 Israeli and 71 Jordanian soldiers were killed, including all of the Israeli officers except for two company commanders.

To this day in Israel, Ammunition Hill is one of the focal points of the ceremonies on Yom Yerushalyim, the day Israel celebrates the re-unification of Jerusalem and remembers what it cost.

By mid morning on June 6th, the battle for Ammunition Hill was over, and Gur's paratroopers linked up with another force that had taken the Jordanian positions around the American Colony near the northern edge of the Old City. But Gur’s paratroopers were not yet able to enter the Old City because the Arab Legion still held the Augusta Victoria Hill, a position on high ground that overlooked  the city from the east.

General Moshe Dayan had originally ordered the IDF not to enter the Old City. While of course there had been no 'international reaction' to Jordan illegally occupying East Jerusalem nineteen years before and ethnically cleansing it of Jews, Dayan was fearful of the reaction both at the UN and in Israel if Israelis had captured the Old City and then were faced with demands to turn it back over to the Jordanians.

However, sometime on the night of June 6th, he reversed himself and gave the order to take the Old City back.

Gur's paratroopers attacked 8:30 in the morning on June 7 – one battalion attacked August Victoria Hill from Israeli-held Mount Scopus, another battalion attacked August Victoria by climbing up the valley between it and the Old City, and a third battalion, led by General Gur himself,  broke into the Old City proper via the Lion's Gate. Arriving at the gate, Gur’s halftrack plowed through and into the Old City. The Jordanians were defeated, and Gur made for the holiest site in Judaism, the Temple Mount. When he got there he famously radioed to his commanders, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.”



Afterwards, the paratroopers proceeded to the Western Wall, the Kotel...where the Shofar was blown for the first time in years.



The Jerusalem Brigade continued on, capturing Judea and Gush Etzion and Hebron. In Hebron , where the Arabs were afraid that the IDF would behave the way their own soldiers would have and take revenge for the horrific 1929 massacre of the city's Jews, Hebron's Arab residents flew white sheets from their windows and rooftops, and voluntarily surrendered. The Harel Brigade proceeded eastward, continuing to the Jordan River. The Arab Legion attempted to regroup with battles in Jenin and Nablus, but facing Jewish armor and air power rather than unarmed civilians they crumpled and fled across the river. Israeli sappers blew up the Abdullah and Hussein bridges on the river with captured Jordanian mortar shells while elements of the Harel Brigade crossed the river and occupied positions along the east bank to cover them, but the Israelis quickly pulled back afterwards to the other side of the Jordan, reportedly due to pressure from Dean Rusk and the Johnson Administration.

As of 8 PM on June 7th both sides accepted a ceasefire, leaving Israel in complete control of Judea and Samaria.And Jerusalem was united again.

The Syrian Front

Like the Jordanians, the Syrians believed Nasser's propaganda about a crushing Egyptian victory. From their positions in the Golan Heights, the Syrians began shelling Northern Israel and sent a dozen of their Soviet Mig fighters to attack Israeli towns in the Galilee.

The Israeli Air Force scrambled and went after the Migs, shooting down three of them and driving off the rest. Later that day, June 5th, the IAF launched a major raid on Syria' air bases, destroying 32 MiG 21s, and 23 MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighters, and two Ilyushin Il-28 bombers. The few Syrian planes that were left retreated to bases far from the border and were not seen again during the war.

The Syrians also attempted an offensive aimed at Kibbutz Tel Dan, which was repulsed with heavy losses. The Syrians stayed put after that, counting on the larger Egyptian forces to do heavy work of defeating Israel's forces and reckoning that their built up defensive positions on the Golkan Heights would be enough to deter any Israeli attack.

The Syrians accepted a UN ceasefire on June 8th. It lasted all of 5 hours, after which the shelling of Israel began again and Hafez Assad's state radio announced that Syria was no longer bound by the cease fire.

On the morning of June 9 the Israeli air force began an intensive bombing of the Syrian positions in the Golan, and Israeli forces under the command of Major General David Elazar crossed the cease fire line into Syrian territory.

The Syrians held the Golan with around 75,000 men grouped in nine brigades, They were  supported by artillery and armor.

The Israeli forces were led by Colonel Albert Mandler's 8th Armored Brigade and the Golani Brigade who were to attack from one point near Givat HaEm in the north, and another two infantry brigades and and one of General Peled's brigades summoned up from Jenin to the central Golan.

Elazer decided to launch a number of coordinated attacks, starting with an armor assault on the town of Q’ala, where the terrain most favored the Syrians, the Israelis were not expected to attempt an attack and where the defenses were least fortified.Another advantage is that if Q'asla could be taken, it was a mere two and a half miles from there to  the strategic Quneitra Road, which would allow the Israelis to attack the Syrian defensive positions from the rear. Not only that, but Quneitra was the regional HQ of Syria's army and  a depot through which all roads passed, including the one to Damascus.

First, the IAF launched waves of attacks on the Syrian positions, which caused heavy casualties and some desertions, but still left much of the defenses in place.Then the Israeli offensive began.

It is still chilling to read of how the attacks were made and imagine what it was like to participate.

The Q’ala attack was led by sappers under fire to clear the mine fields by hand, followed by armored bulldozers to create a road up the mountain, because there wasn't one. Immediately following were tanks and infantry. The Israeli armored brigade moved up in single file, which meant that the Syrian guns took a horrible toll. But foot by foot, the Israeli armor continued to attack, and moved up the mountain. When they were about half way up, the brigade split its forces, half moving to flank the Syrian defenders, the rest continuing directly upwards towards the target. After five and a half hours of bloody fighting the brigade had covered the three miles to the Syrian positions  and assaulted the actual bunkers and trenches, with the tanks firing at what amounted to point blank range.

At the same time as the armored assault, the Israeli infantry brigade with some supporting tanks attacked about a mile to the north, aiming to protect the flanks of the armored attack by taking Syrian positions on and around the fortified  hill position of Tel Fakhir.

That fight raged for more than seven hours In the end, the Israelis won through sheer guts and determination, taking Tel Fakhir.The first Israelis to reach the perimeter of laid their bodies down on the barbed wire to allow their fellow soldiers to vault over them. Much of the fighting at that point was hand to hand and at close quarters. The Syrian positions in Dardara and Tel Hilal also fell after hard fighting and the entire Syrian position became untenable, causing entire units to abandon their positions and simply disappear.

The Israelis continued to advance, and on June 10th fresh IDF brigades approached Quneitra. To their surprise, Syrian government radio announced that the city had fallen while the IDF was still en route. There's some speculation that this was designed to provoke Soviet intervention to protect their client, but it backfired. Hearing from their own radio that Quneitra had fallen, the remaining Syrian defenders panicked and fled, afraid they would be cut off and unable to escape.

That was the end of both the Syrian campaign and the war.

The Aftermath

The Six Day War was unique in that it was one of the few wars fought since WWII that had definite goals and a definite conclusion. Democracies are noted for not seeking out war,and Israel was no exception in 1967. It was a war they did not want that was forced upon them, and a war they had to win if they were going to continue as a nation.

Israel's victory over such overwhelming odds without a major power 'sponsor' meant that they were there to stay, that they would prevail. Less than three years after the victory of the Six Day War, President Richard Nixon dropped the American stance of neutrality and formally embraced Israel as an ally, defying the Europeans and bringing them into the camp of free nations.

Israel's Labor government made what many would consider a foolish gesture after Israel's victory. They openly offered the Arab nations back the territory taken in the war...and all they wanted in exchange was recognition of Israel's right to exist as a nation and a real peace.

The Arab response was the famous Three No's of Khartoum, the site of the next Arab League conference - no peace, no recognition and no negotiation.

In spite of all the concessions by the Israelis in the ensuing years, the Arab position remains essentially the same, even in the two countries that supposedly have a peace treaty with Israel. Israel's relations with the Arab world are clandestine and tinged with hostility where they exist at all.

This proves something that I've had occasion to say many times...that real, lasting peace comes from victory.

After the Six Day War, The Israeli government's willingness to cede some of the fruits of that victory sent a signal to the Arab world that it was worth trying aggression again. In the Arab mentality, only losers cede territory after a war. To this day, the Egyptian government continues to tell its people that Egypt defeated Israel in 1973, because Israel yielded to pressure from the US and the UN  to allow the trapped Egyptian Third Army to go free with its weapons intact and survive to march through Cairo to a hero's welcome. The subsequent ceding of Sinai by Israel to Egypt in exchange for what amounted to a temporary armistice underlined that lesson for the Egyptians and the Arab world, and it is probably only Egypt's current economic turmoil prevents even further hostility and aggression.

But there is this. In 1967, a besieged, outnumbered free people only a generation removed from the reeking ovens of Auschwitz drew a line in the sand and said 'no further'. They prevailed against huge odds over totalitarian barbarism and provided an example to the world of what heroism is made of.

It was indeed a modern miracle, just as Israel itself is.

And that is no small thing to reflect on in these times.