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Why the 1967 Six-Day War Still Matters

(Times of Israel) David Harris - The Six-Day War broke out 53 years ago on June 5. In June 1967, there was no state of Palestine. It didn't exist and never had. Its creation, proposed by the UN in 1947, was rejected by the Arab world because it also meant the establishment of a Jewish state alongside. The West Bank and eastern Jerusalem were in Jordanian hands. Violating solemn agreements, Jordan denied Jews access to their holiest places in eastern Jerusalem, and desecrated and destroyed many of those sites. Gaza was under Egyptian control, with harsh military rule imposed on local residents. The Arab world could have created a Palestinian state in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and Gaza any day of the week. They didn't. There wasn't even discussion about it. The boundary at the time of the 1967 war was nothing more than an armistice line dating back to 1949. They weren't formal borders. They couldn't be. The Arab world refused to recognize Israel's very right to exist. The PLO was established in 1964, three years before the Six-Day War. It was created with the goal of obliterating Israel, at a time when the only "settlements" were Israel itself. Today, there are those who wish to rewrite history. They want the world to believe the 1967 war was a bellicose act by Israel. It was an act of self-defense in the face of blood-curdling threats to vanquish the Jewish state, not to mention the maritime blockade of the Straits of Tiran, the abrupt withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces, and the redeployment of Egyptian and Syrian troops. The Six-Day War is proof positive that the core issue is, and always has been, whether the Palestinians and larger Arab world accept the Jewish people's right to a state of their own. If so, all other contentious issues have possible solutions. The writer is CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
2020-06-09 00:00:00
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