The 50th anniversary of the Six Day War

Written By: - Date published: 8:44 am, June 6th, 2017 - 55 comments
Categories: International, war - Tags: ,

June 5th is the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War. Following Egypt’s military closure of the Straits of Tiran, the armed forces of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon were defeated by Israel, pretty comprehensively.

Israel then occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. Israel withdrew from the Sinai through the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

A broad peace was formed in 1993 through the Oslo Accords.

And it could have continued pretty positively there.

Where I struggle with next is where many struggle. In the years after its independence, Israel became a rare success story in the postcolonial world. Israel managed to absorb hundreds of thousands of immigrants from around the world, foster economic growth, and build a powerful military. It was a flawed democracy but it was real.

These achievements were made possible in part because until 1967, Israel’s borders appeared to be settled. The 1949 armistice lines were confirmed within a series of bilateral agreements with its Arab enemies. But those 18 years of progress were undone in six days through a war that Egypt instigated and then accelerated with all the states surrounding Israel.

Since then, the question of what to do with Israel’s hard-won occupied territories has turned Israel’s previously idealistic and progressive politics into a dark, sect-riven code that looks harder and harder to unwind.

As a result of Israel’s response to the 1967’s Six Day War we now have a wall.

Actually there are really three. One major barrier, hardly noticed by the international community, secures Israel’s border from the spread of Syria’s chaos as the latter descended into a devastating civil war. Another, a ‘border fence’ with Egypt completed in 2013, had the effect of completely stopping unwanted African immigration.

But it’s the West Bank Separation Wall that has the highest profile. Israel began considering building a fence along the Green Line of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s. At the time, the Oslo Accords promised a negotiated peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad had begun to send suicide bombers into Israeli cities. The walls, from the point of view of greatly lowering terrorist attacks on Israeli towns and stopping illegal immigration, have been successful. Here’s a list of pro’s and cons.

But these walls are also a moral scar on all who live there. While Israel won the 1967 war, its military and democratic responses since the 1990s to the territories that it occupied have damaged it. Its party politics and its leadership have become more divided, more ethnic and sect based, more prone to very difficult deals, just sicker. A long, long way from the idealistic state borne of such hard-won struggle.

Of course, Israel cannot end the occupation alone. A stable peace requires Palestinian partners who will persuade their people to accept negotiated borders as final, relinquish the dream of a return to their ancestral homes, and acknowledge that Israel is not a temporary interloper but a permanent presence. Such Palestinian leadership has too often failed to materialize.

But the result of the Six Day War, from 1967 to now, is very safe for Israel, but very dark for everyone including Israel.

55 comments on “The 50th anniversary of the Six Day War ”

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  1. Adrian Thornton 1
    6 June 2017 at 8:53 am

    Norman Finkelstein discusses the Six day War on The Real News..Six-Day War, 50-Year Occupation: What Really Happened in June 1967?

  2. Rightly or wrongly 2
    6 June 2017 at 9:31 am

    I would disagree with the OP asertion that from 1949 – 1967 Israel existed with stable agreements with their Arab neighbours.

    In fact these were the worst years of Israel’s existence.

    Regular fedayeen terrorist incursions from the Gaza strip and Jordan’s West bank occurred on a regular basis murdering Israeli civillians.

    Syrian artillery dug in to the Golan height thought nothing of firing salvos at Israeli kibutzm. (farmland)

    And I won’t mention Jordanian snipers in East Jerusalem killing Israelis from time to time.

    No this was the most difficult time indeed for Israel – their ability to survive and to grow a modern democracy is testament to the tenacity and skill of the founding generation.

    It is a pity some of Israel’s neighbours don’t copy their example.

    • Ad 2.1
      6 June 2017 at 9:39 am

      Agree with that.
      I didn’t want to niggle the detail of armistice lines when stability is a pretty relative term at that juncture.

    • dukeofurl 2.2
      6 June 2017 at 10:54 am

      Dont forget the terrorist attacks on Egyptian cinemas and libraries in 1954 by israeli agents

      The Lavon Affair refers to a failed Israeli covert operation, code named Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the Summer of 1954 As part of the false flag operation, a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence to plant bombs inside Egyptian, American, and British-owned civilian targets, cinemas, libraries and American educational centers.
      After Israel publicly denied any involvement in the incident for 51 years, the surviving agents were officially honored in 2005 by being awarded certificates of appreciation by Israeli President Moshe Katzav.       Wikipedia

    • exkiwiforces 2.3
      6 June 2017 at 12:35 pm

      You forgot about the nasty tank duels during the early 60’s between the Syrian tankies and the Israeli tankies. The Syrian tankies out gun, out fought the IDF tankies and to quite frank kicked their bloody ass. The Syrian tankies were using the long barrelled 75mm gun panzer 4’s against the more Modern Israeli tanks.

      I hear a story some years ago, that just after the West Bank fell into Israeli hands Moshe Dayan his Chief of Staff and one other general while overlooking the western wall. Dayan said now we know why Jordan went war, Dayon his chief of staff said yes the Palestine problem is no longer Jordans problem but ours and I wonder if our politicians know this and general said this will requires a political solution not a military one.

      Any guess who Dayan CoS and the General were?

  3. dukeofurl 3
    6 June 2017 at 9:38 am

    Interesting back story on Israels possible first use of atomic bomb as a ‘warning’ in 6 day war

    “Israel ‘planned to detonate nuclear bomb in Egypt if it risked losing Six Day War

    The idea, never before publicly disclosed, was told to Avner Cohen, an Israeli author, by Itzhak Yaakov, a retired Brigadier General responsible for the development of nuclear weapons.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/world/middleeast/1967-arab-israeli-war-nuclear-warning.html

    There must have been input from western scientists and companies experienced with some of the technologies to make the bomb and refine the uranium. I dont think it would be officially sanctioned but the usual Israeli way of using its friends in the west and takeovers of companies that can become useful.

    This is an example, although the nuclear material was non fission grade
    http://triblive.com/local/valleynewsdispatch/12353176-74/apollos-numec-allegedly-supplied-nuclear-batteries-to-israel-in-six-day-war

    And to the more speculative end this book has the opinion that the 6 Day war came about as the Soviets and Egyptians knew about how advanced nuclear weapons program was and war with Israel would provide cover for the destruction of the nuclear centre at Dimona
    https://www.amazon.com/Foxbats-Over-Dimona-Soviets-Nuclear/dp/0300136277

    • Rightly or Wrongly 3.1
      6 June 2017 at 9:57 am

      The French supplied the Israelis with a nuclear reactor in the early 1960’s and it is likely they sourced Uranium etc. from South Africa.

      • dukeofurl 3.1.1
        6 June 2017 at 10:39 am

        Obtaining weapons grade uranium is a massively more difficult exercise

        ‘fissile uranium in nuclear weapon primaries usually contains 85% or more of 235U known as weapons-grade’
        ‘in commercial light water reactors (LWR), the most prevalent power reactors in the world, uranium is enriched to 3 to 5% 235U.’

        Yellow cake is just a concentrated form of natural uranium
        ‘ Natural uranium is 99.284% 238U isotope, with 235U only constituting about 0.711% of its mass.’

        As you can see getting uranium from other sources doesnt mean you are getting the critical isotope 235U

        • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.1
          6 June 2017 at 11:05 am

          Obtaining weapons grade uranium is a massively more difficult exercise

          So difficult in fact that no one can do it at all ever.

          /sarc

          • dukeofurl 3.1.1.1.1
            6 June 2017 at 1:26 pm

            Who helped Israel get as far as it did?

            They didnt just develop and aircraft industry overnight either after France stopped shipments of Mirage fighters.
            There was a national program to build them in Israel. Fortunately a major US military aircraft builder North American, was taken over by an obscure machinery builder Rockwell Standard, whos management led by Willard Rockwell decided to provide Israel with the required expertise/machine tools if they could get the plans from France.

            Rockwell takeover of NAA was in 1967, production of the Mirage copy (Nesher) began in 1967 and first flight was in 1969.
            Various other Rockwell- NAA planes ended being made in Israel, Aero Commander
            Rockwell was also involved in the US nuclear weapons industry

            • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.1.1.1
              6 June 2017 at 2:08 pm

              Who helped Israel get as far as it did?

              Probably either the US, UK or both but it wasn’t needed.

              The point I was making is that it’s not really all that hard and that anybody can do it. If not then nobody could have built a viable nuclear bomb.

              Even North Korea is making nuclear weapons but I doubt if they imported the weapons grade uranium.

              • dukeofurl …
                6 June 2017 at 7:31 pm

                Not that hard?
                Its extremely difficult to go from refined Uranium to weapons grade enriched uranium. Then design a bomb even with the knowledge of how they were made in end of WW2
                It does require enormous resources, which were thought to be beyond a small state like Israel, in the early 60s. – without help.

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  6 June 2017 at 8:13 pm

                  Its extremely difficult to go from refined Uranium to weapons grade enriched uranium.

                  It’s time consuming – not hard:

                  Isotope separation is difficult because two isotopes of the same element have very nearly identical chemical properties, and can only be separated gradually using small mass differences. (235U is only 1.26% lighter than 238U.) This problem is compounded by the fact that uranium is rarely separated in its atomic form, but instead as a compound (235UF6 is only 0.852% lighter than 238UF6.) A cascade of identical stages produces successively higher concentrations of 235U. Each stage passes a slightly more concentrated product to the next stage and returns a slightly less concentrated residue to the previous stage.

                  It does require enormous resources,

                  No it doesn’t.

              • exkiwiforces …
                6 June 2017 at 8:09 pm

                I remember reading somewhere that South Africa and Israel worked together on joint nuclear weapons program along other weapons programs that they developed before apartheid ended. When apartheid ended the South African nuclear program was very quietly dismantled without peep from the world press. There was unconfirmed rumours / confirmed reports (depending on where you source your information from) that South Africa had 5 to 6 or maybe more nukes at time prior to the nuclear weapons program being dismantled and this is where it’s gets real hazy some say the the nukes were dismantled in location, some say Israel grab them before apartheid ended or South Africa handed them over Israel, or handed over to UK or the US for dismantling in own countries and again without a peep from the worlds media.

                I’m sorry that can’t provide any links or references as I’m away from home aka my library and mylaptop as I’m using my iPad atm.

            • McFlock 3.1.1.1.1.2
              6 June 2017 at 2:49 pm

              Nice wee summary of Mirage/Nesher development and manufacturing oddities over at war is boring. The french did an embargo, but the Israelis never stopped payment and somehow turned up with 50 Nesher that had french manufacturing plates attached 🙂

  4. Draco T Bastard 4
    6 June 2017 at 9:42 am

    A long, long way from the idealistic state borne of such hard-won struggle.

    Israel was always an abomination and always will be.

    It was formed by the invasion of Palestine which the Zionists got through the use of duplicity and terrorism. Since then it’s been ongoing war of oppression and theft against Palestinians.

    It is a racist and theological nation which we should not condone.

    • Rightly or Wrongly 4.1
      6 June 2017 at 10:08 am

      So what DTB do you think the Jews should have done?

      Keep doing what they had done for the previous 19 centuries – wander from country to country facing persecution and slaughter where ever they tried to settle?

      Or maybe you think the Jews should just ‘die out’; their existence is just too much of an ‘abomination’?

      ‘Palestine’ as a country never existed in its own right. Since the time of the Maccabees it has been nothing more than an isolated, swamp ridden backwater alternatively ruled by the Romans, Saladins, Crusaders, Turks, and more recently the English.

      If it wasn’t for the city of Jerusalem there would be no interest in the land whatsoever.

      The Jewish ‘right’ to form a homeland there was first affirmed by the English Balfour declaration and then later approved by the United Nations.

      The UN specified certain areas to be given to Israel and others to be given to the Palestinian Arabs.

      Israel accepted these terms – the Arabs rejected them and vowed to push the Jews into the sea.

      Unfortunately for the Arabs the Israelis had (literally) nothing to lose and managed to defeat several Arab armies in 1948-1949 and thus forged their country out of the foment of war.

      Now you may not like the result but it is hard to argue that Israel’s right to exist is illegitimate.

      • Cinder 4.1.1
        6 June 2017 at 10:36 am

        “So what DTB do you think the Jews should have done?
        Keep doing what they had done for the previous 19 centuries – wander from country to country facing persecution and slaughter where ever they tried to settle?
        Or maybe you think the Jews should just ‘die out’; their existence is just too much of an ‘abomination’?”

        Nice way of putting words into other peoples mouths.

        “Palestine’ as a country never existed in its own right. Since the time of the Maccabees it has been nothing more than an isolated, swamp ridden backwater alternatively ruled by the Romans, Saladins, Crusaders, Turks, and more recently the English.”

        Oh, the “people without a land a for a land without people” argument, Sorry, but you will have to do better than that…

        “The Jewish ‘right’ to form a homeland there was first affirmed by the English Balfour declaration and then later approved by the United Nations.
        The UN specified certain areas to be given to Israel and others to be given to the Palestinian Arabs.
        Israel accepted these terms – the Arabs rejected them and vowed to push the Jews into the sea.”

        Strangely, when the residents of a territory are not consulted in the slightest about how their country will be carved up, they may reject that plan. That includes the sizable Christian community who used to inhabit the area and opposed the Balfour declaration.

        “Unfortunately for the Arabs the Israelis had (literally) nothing to lose and managed to defeat several Arab armies in 1948-1949 and thus forged their country out of the foment of war.”

        Along with lashings of terrorism, murder and ethnic cleansing followed by apartheid and occupation.

        • dukeofurl 4.1.1.1
          6 June 2017 at 10:48 am

          The British also made declarations that the Arab part of the Middle east would become ‘their homeland too’.
          This was done to gain support from the Hashemite rulers of the Hejaz and other tribal entities.
          Lawrence of Arabia wasnt a fictional character.

      • garibaldi 4.1.2
        6 June 2017 at 10:40 am

        Rightly or Wrongly…..unbelievable propaganda. Why don’t you mention the American based Jews/Zionist role in the underhand backing of the takeover of Palestine ? And the on-going guarantees provided by the same arseholes.
        I get utterly sick of the excuses Israeli supporters come up with for its deplorable inhumane behaviour. Israel wouldn’t last ten minutes without Wall St. funding it.

        • Ch_Ch Chiquita 4.1.2.1
          6 June 2017 at 10:48 am

          And yet, none of you have answered the question – in light of the multitude of evidence that Jews were unwelcome around the world, what would have been your solution?

          • Draco T Bastard 4.1.2.1.1
            6 June 2017 at 10:57 am

            There was, and is, only one.

            That they stop being Jews and become citizens of the nation that they’ve immigrated to, adopting it’s customs rather than rejecting them.

            • Rightly or Wrongly 4.1.2.1.1.1
              6 June 2017 at 11:24 am

              Well DTB – a nice simple final solution you have I see.

              And if the pesky Jews decide that they don’t want to give up their culture and customs and ethnicity what then?

              Enforce it?

              That was tried through the centuries – think Pogroms, Inquisition, Medieval slaughters, Hitler etc.

              So I see that you are not against Israel – you are simply against Jews altogether – at least you are honest.

              Straight up question:
              Why do you hate Jews?

              Did a Jewish person do you wrong at some point in your life?

              • Draco T Bastard …
                6 June 2017 at 2:16 pm

                And if the pesky Jews decide that they don’t want to give up their culture and customs and ethnicity what then?

                Then I suspect that they’ve got a problem. You really can’t have people living in the same geographic area living under different rules as it causes all sort of tension and strife.

                Of course, what I’d really expect is that the two cultures would mix and you’d see a third culture emerge as the previous two died.

                So I see that you are not against Israel – you are simply against Jews altogether – at least you are honest.

                And that’s a lie on your part.

                I couldn’t careless about the Jews. I do care about the atrocities that they perpetrate against the Palestinians including their invasion of the Palestinian homeland.

            • Ch_Ch Chiquita 4.1.2.1.1.2
              6 June 2017 at 11:28 am

              By adopting its customs you mean adopting the religion? because Jews have adopted customs of the nations they immigrated to. They didn’t adopt the religion.
              The religious Jews were (and some still) against the Zionist movement as they believed only the Messiah has the power to return the Jews to their land.
              Many of the Jews were secular and did not practice their religion. Didn’t help them one little bit when Hitler checked generations back to see who qualifies for the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Birkenau.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                6 June 2017 at 2:28 pm

                By adopting its customs you mean adopting the religion? because Jews have adopted customs of the nations they immigrated to. They didn’t adopt the religion.

                Wrong.

                One of the reasons Jews were hated by the other people around them because they would lend at interest while those around them were banned. Those cultural conditions were based around the respective religions.

                religion = customs/culture.

                • Ch_Ch Chiquita …
                  6 June 2017 at 5:57 pm

                  Yes, sure, ban Jews from most professions and from ownership of land, then blame them for making a living from money lending and kill them because they are not willing to adopt the customs (eg. give up their religion).

                  • Draco T Bastard …
                    6 June 2017 at 7:04 pm

                    Which came first?
                    The oppression or the Jews refusal to join the community that they just moved into?

                    See, I figure it was the latter. People won’t hold on to traditions and cultural norms for generations if they join the community. That will only happen if they hold themselves apart from it. And when that happens, when they insist that they’re different from everyone else then everyone else will resent it and encourage them to move on.

                    Can’t really blame the locals either considering the effort that the Jews went to to insist that they’re not them.

                    • Ch_Ch Chiquita …
                      6 June 2017 at 9:14 pm

                      Maybe what came first was that the Jews didn’t choose to immigrate; they were either killed, sold to slavery or forced to flee by the Roman Empire.

                      You look at the Jewish diaspora as if these people are 21 century high skill migrants looking to better their life and choosing a country to immigrate to. Well, this was just slightly different.
                      And yes, their religion was important to them. It was important enough for Christianity to try and force it upon them why would the Jews be any different?

                      “People won’t hold on to traditions and cultural norms for generations if they join the community.” So you think that Muslims immigrating to NZ should leave their faith and…. what exactly? Become Christians? Or maybe secular as a large proportion of NZers identified as having no religion. You think one can not be part of a community whilst holding a different religious faith?

                    • marty mars …
                      6 June 2017 at 9:26 pm

                      “See, I figure it was the latter”

                      based on what? the fluff in your belly button?

                      Your comments are idiotic – change your religion? – buy a fucken REM song.

                      Why don’t YOU change YOUR offensive beliefs eh?

                      The sentiment exposed never ceases to amaze me in its base thickery and bigotry.

            • marty mars 4.1.2.1.1.3
              6 June 2017 at 11:38 am

              Draco that is outrageous. Thank the gods you are nothing more than a low commenter on a blog down the bottom of the world.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                6 June 2017 at 2:32 pm

                Draco that is outrageous.

                Nope, just the way things work. When the English got here and signed Ti Tiriti we should have taken up Māori culture rather than trying to force Māori to forego their culture and take up English culture.

                Bit late for that now of course but the intermingling is still happening and, IMO, in 100 years or so the culture of NZ will be more Māori than English.

                • marty mars …
                  6 June 2017 at 2:49 pm

                  It is not the way it works obviously otherwise that would have happened.

                  • Draco T Bastard …
                    6 June 2017 at 3:14 pm

                    It is the way things work. It just got delayed in NZs’ case.

                    When two or more cultures mix in the same geographic area none can be saved. All will change until there is only one left and it will not be the same as any of the ones before it but an amalgam of all of them.

                    This is why Māori names for our mountains and other areas are coming back, why the haka is now a part of our national identity.

                    Such amalgamation is both a welcome to the new members of the nation and an acceptance by those new members that they are a part of that nation.

                    In the case of the Jews they tried very hard not to amalgamate and suffered the inevitable consequences.

                    • McFlock …
                      6 June 2017 at 3:24 pm

                      But “amalgamation” into a third, blended, culture is different to “stop being Jewish”.

                      Where the zionists went wrong was in their insistence on doing unto the Palestinians as the Russians and Nazis had done unto them, and creating a religiously-based state rather than a geographically-based state.

                      Sooner or later that’s going to kick them in the arse.

                    • marty mars …
                      6 June 2017 at 5:46 pm

                      No drac – the only reason the names have changed is the fightback from the indigenous culture not some made up amalgamation rubbish – it is just another name for destruction, desecration, denial and dismal.

                    • Mr Nobody …
                      8 June 2017 at 7:24 am

                      But at least we’ve been able to preserve the proud violent traditions of Maori domestic Violence and child abuse. If only we could have maintained their slave and cannibalism traditions.

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      8 June 2017 at 8:51 am

                      But at least we’ve been able to preserve the proud violent traditions of Maori domestic Violence and child abuse.

                      Actually, those were British imports.

                      TRADITIONAL MAORI PARENTING

      • dukeofurl 4.1.3
        6 June 2017 at 10:44 am

        “‘Palestine’ as a country never existed in its own right.” Neither did Israel

        Neither did Australia till 1901, nor Germany till 1871.
        Italy didnt exist till 1860.

      • Draco T Bastard 4.1.4
        6 June 2017 at 10:53 am

        ‘Palestine’ as a country never existed in its own right.

        And that means that they can’t have the land that they’ve occupied for millennia because…?

        They are a nation and have been for millennia. Just because others have forced themselves upon them and removed their Right of Self-Determination hasn’t removed that from them. If anything, it’s probably strengthened it.

        If it wasn’t for the city of Jerusalem there would be no interest in the land whatsoever.

        Really?

        It seems that Israel wants all the rest of it as well.

        The Jewish ‘right’ to form a homeland there was first affirmed by the English Balfour declaration and then later approved by the United Nations.

        Interestingly enough, the English had also promised Palestine for Palestinians.

        The UN specified certain areas to be given to Israel and others to be given to the Palestinian Arabs.

        Israel accepted these terms – the Arabs rejected them and vowed to push the Jews into the sea.

        You seem to be getting your history wrong.

        Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine
        1940-1949 The ethnic cleansing of Palestine

        Now you may not like the result but it is hard to argue that Israel’s right to exist is illegitimate.

        Actually, it’s very easy to prove that Israel has no right to exist.

        1. Palestine was inhabited by Palestinians for millennia thus making them a nation state.
        2. Israel is an invasion of that nation state.
        3. Thus Israel is an illegitimate state.

        Why should a nation state be destroyed for a bunch of people who no longer even lived there?

  5. dukeofurl 5
    6 June 2017 at 11:01 am

    “So what DTB do you think the Jews should have done?
    Keep doing what they had done for the previous 19 centuries – wander from country to country facing persecution and slaughter where ever they tried to settle?”

    At the end of the Ottoman period, there were far more Jews in the big cities of the Ottoman empire, Baghdad, Damascus, Constantinople and even Cairo than were in the area now called Israel. They werent interested in this ‘idea called Zionism’

    • Ch_Ch Chiquita 5.1
      6 June 2017 at 12:24 pm

      Really? My father was born in Tel Aviv in 1938 to parents from Cairo. I guess they were not interested in this idea called Zionism.
      Just like with the Jews in Europe, those who lived in the Ottoman empire were also divided between those who thought Jews should continue doing what they did for centuries and those who thought the only way for Jews to be protected is for them to have a place of their own under the sun.

  6. adam 6
    6 June 2017 at 12:17 pm

    Many of the Africans are Jews, it is quite depressing that a country that is suppose to be for Jews, excludes them.

    Just one example – wikipedia for a broad basic analysis only.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel

    • Draco T Bastard 6.1
      6 June 2017 at 7:07 pm

      Many of the Africans are Jews, it is quite depressing that a country that is suppose to be for Jews, excludes them.

      Well, if they’re that concerned about being Jews then they should simply open up their country for other Jews. Then the Jews wouldn’t have to take the land from Palestinians and they’d have a homeland.

      Or is it that they’re looking for a legal way to emigrate from Africa and take even more land from the Palestinians?

  7. Brigid 7
    6 June 2017 at 3:37 pm

    Consider the testimony of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, a member of the cabinet in June 1967:

    “In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”
    http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/perpetuates-fighting-survival/#sthash.u5pPeDEH.dpuf

    It wouldn’t hurt to read Leslie Bravery’s article either
    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/03/israels-six-day-war-objective/

  8. 808state 8
    6 June 2017 at 10:41 pm

    “Israel managed to absorb hundreds of thousands of immigrants from around the world”

    Jews only. Israel is an ethno-nationalist state. Easy to “absorb” your own tribal members – in fact its pivotal to the Jews’ successful colonial project.

    “One major barrier, hardly noticed by the international community, secures Israel’s border from the spread of Syria’s chaos as the latter descended into a devastating civil war. Another, a ‘border fence’ with Egypt completed in 2013, had the effect of completely stopping unwanted African immigration.”

    But Trump’s plan to build a wall to stop unwanted Latino immigration into the USA is “crazy” and “racist”?

  9. swordfish 9
    6 June 2017 at 11:04 pm

    You’re very much regurgitating the highly romanticised Official Israeli narrative, Ad

    It’s a self-serving nationalist mythology that’s been comprehensively demolished over the last 35 years by a range of (mainly Israeli and Jewish Diaspora) scholars

    Haven’t got time to correct all the misinformation you’ve cheerfully repeated so I’ll just link to some of my past comments

    But let me just say first that the core fallacies of your – let’s be frank – hopelessly partisan outline involve the following assertions

    (1) That Israel was an idealistic and progressive State Pre-1967

    (2) That Israel was content to remain within its borders 1949-67

    (3) That Israel was subject to regular terrorist incursions from the Gaza strip and the West Bank 1949-67

    (4) That the 1967 Six Day War was instigated by Egypt and then accelerated with all the states surrounding Israel.

    (5) That post-67 Israel simply found itself occupying Palestinian land by accident

    (6) That the 1993 Oslo Accords represented a genuine good faith Peace Process by Israel and the US

    (7) That Israel’s illegal Annexation Wall represents some sort of defensive response to the Six Day War and to unprovoked one-sided violence by
    Hamas and Islamic Jihad

    (8) That Israel is genuinely interested in ending the Occupation-Annexation but too often peaceful Palestinian leadership has failed to materialize.

    I mean, Christ, that might as well have been penned by the Israeli Embassy !

    Core Zionist aims

    I think the first thing to understand is that the Zionism on which Israel was established emerged from precisely the same deeply reactionary, anti-Enlightenment ideological mix (German/East European Romantic Nationalism and Imperialism) that so greatly inspired and animated the Nazis. ‘Blut und Bone’. Violent Ethnic-cleansing has always been implicit in that sort of extreme ethno-nationalist ideology where the emphasis is on membership of the prescribed ‘Race’ / ‘Blood’ / ‘Culture’ over universalist ideas of Equality and Citizenship. The aim was always to militarily carve-out an ethnically-pure (or failing that, overwhelmingly Jewish) ‘Greater Israel’ on Palestinian land (before Zionist colonisation got fully underway in the early 20C, Palestinian Arabs had comprised well over 90% of the population for more than 1300 years, with the tiny, indigenous Jewish community making up less than 5%.

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-06082014/#comment-861468

    1967 Six Day War

    The fact is: Israel was desperately seeking a useful pretext that would allow them to attack Syria. Israeli elites had been contemplating an invasion and ultimate annexation of Sinai, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights for many years and meticulously planning for it for at least a decade..

    https://thestandard.org.nz/israel-threatens-sanctions-against-new-zealand/#comment-1280624

    https://thestandard.org.nz/palestine/#comment-848660

    https://thestandard.org.nz/palestine/#comment-848545

    1973 War and Israel finally conceding Sinai at Camp David

    Sharon’s real goal in pulling settlers out of Gaza

    https://thestandard.org.nz/imperatorfish-a-statement-from-the-israel-defence-force/#comment-861146

    https://thestandard.org.nz/palestine/#comment-849412

    https://thestandard.org.nz/davidson-detained-by-israeli-navy-protesting-blockade-of-gaza/#comment-1241258

    https://thestandard.org.nz/palestine/#comment-849429

    Israel and Holocaust survivors

    Hamas

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-30042014/#comment-807069

    https://thestandard.org.nz/hard-left-corbyn-receives-public-backing-from-41-economists/#comment-1062297

    https://thestandard.org.nz/the-attack/#comment-1070790

    US as “honest broker”

    As ambassadors and so-called “peace negotiators”, Ross and Indyk were viewed by everybody on the Palestinian side (and indeed by many neutral journalists and observers) as hopelessly biased in favour of the Israeli position … in fact they apparently adopted positions more extreme than those of most of the Israeli delegates themselves.

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-29122016/#comment-1280545

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13102016/#comment-1244313

    https://thestandard.org.nz/security-council-seat/#comment-912808

    https://thestandard.org.nz/i-protest-against-gaza-offensive/#comment-851601

    The occupation

    careful, methodical, academic study that showed conclusively that whenever there are extended periods of quiet for Israel / lulls in violence, Israel actually extends its occupation at a more rapid pace.

    Another scholarly study came out shortly after Israel’s previous mass murder in Gaza (early 09) that found Israel was responsible for the overwhelming majority of breakdowns of both formal and informal ceasfires and lulls in violence. More than 80% if I remember rightly.

    https://thestandard.org.nz/guest-post-gaza/#comment-859373

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-14122014/#comment-939946

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-17122013/#comment-746427

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-01082014/#comment-858863

    Israel’s Occupation = the New Apartheid

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-04012014/#comment-753477

    https://thestandard.org.nz/hypocrisy-watch/#comment-741008

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-17122013/#comment-746393

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-09012014/#comment-755440

    “Peace Process” – Israeli Rejectionism

    Both saw the Oslo “Peace Process” as a Palestinian surrender. As Peres told a gathering of ambassadors in Jerusalem during the second stage of the Oslo process, the permanent settlement envisaged by Oslo would categorically not involve any establishment of a functioning Palestinian state. In other words: no meaningful departure from the long-standing Likud-Labor consensus that there was to be no “additional Palestinian state in the Gaza district and in the area between Israel and Jordan” (“additional” because Israeli leaders and propagandists like to portray Jordan as the Palestinian State).

    As Israeli political scientist, Meron Benvenisti, described the bounds of the mainstream Israeli spectrum during Oslo: at one extreme, “a peace which imposes an unconditional surrender on the Palestinians,” at the other, “a peace with somewhat more generous terms of surrender.”

    Like all other Israeli leaders, then, Peres was a Rejectionist when it came to the two-state settlement predicated on International Law

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-02102016/#comment-1239622

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-24032015/#comment-990474

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15032016/#comment-1147132

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-03012014/#comment-753070

    https://thestandard.org.nz/imperatorfish-a-statement-from-the-israel-defence-force/#comment-861064

    https://thestandard.org.nz/israel-threatens-sanctions-against-new-zealand/#comment-1280642

    https://thestandard.org.nz/imperatorfish-a-statement-from-the-israel-defence-force/#comment-860825

    Israeli Massacres – Palestinian men, women and children killed and maimed on a daily basis by both Israeli military and Settlers since the Occupation began in 1967 VASTLY outnumbering Israeli deaths and going almost entirely unpunished.

    https://thestandard.org.nz/well-done-murray-mccully/#comment-1279628

    https://thestandard.org.nz/hard-left-corbyn-receives-public-backing-from-41-economists/#comment-1062297

    https://thestandard.org.nz/davidson-detained-by-israeli-navy-protesting-blockade-of-gaza/#comment-1240751

    https://thestandard.org.nz/well-done-murray-mccully/#comment-1280015

    Israel – not the victim so much as the beneficiary of a global double standard

    https://thestandard.org.nz/well-done-murray-mccully/#comment-1279476

    International Public opinion

    All of the international polls carried out over the last 8 years suggest a major swing against Israel. There’s even been swing in the US, despite the uber-Israeli nuttiness of their mainstream media.

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-03082014/#comment-859779

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13052016/#comment-1173452

    https://thestandard.org.nz/uk-council-elections/#comment-1169406

    • Ad 9.1
      7 June 2017 at 6:32 am

      Re: point 1, it’s an essay all by itself.
      But you went all Godwin, so I can’t see much point arguing with you there.

      Didn’t claim 2.

      Didn’t claim 3.

      Re: 4. Your point re pretext could be interesting. There’s a discussion to be had on the ethics of pre-emptive attack.
      I confined the first bit to the facts of who attacked whom. Those are cited in Wikipedia.
      But if you think Jordan didn’t attack, or Syria didn’t, or Lebanon didn’t, you should show that.

      Didn’t claim 5.

      I made no comment on what Israel did in occupied lands.

      Re: 6. Both parties signed and agreed.

      7. I was careful to list pro’s and cons of the wall.

      8. On leadership, I think my comments were fair.

      My links are mostly Wikipedia, which in turn have multiple cited and moderated sources. Yours are mostly links to your own thoughts.

      It’s clearly wrong to view my little piece as a defence of Israel as you have done.
      But obviously it was therapeutic for you.

      It’s primarily a comment on the long term political consequences of it for Israel.

      • swordfish 9.1.1
        8 June 2017 at 1:41 pm

        Cheers for the laugh ! 😀 😛 😀

        When I have time, I’ll demonstrate just how much you’ve (inadvertently) faithfully regurgitated the Official Israeli mantra – almost word for word (albeit the self-serving Israeli Labour Party version of the mythology rather than the somewhat cruder Likud incantation)

        Like I say – comprehensively demolished over the last 35 years by a range of scholars – but obviously you’re not going to know that by relying entirely on Wikipedia for your knowledge of Middle East History – I mean Jeez-Louise !!!

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