Causes Of 1967 War Essay

In April 1967, Syria shot at an Israeli tractor ploughing in the demilitarized zone, which escalated to a prewar aerial clash.In May 1967, following misinformation about Israeli intentions provided by the Soviet Union, Egypt expelled UN peacekeepers who had been stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since the Suez conflict, and announced a blockade of Israel's access to the Red Sea (international waters) via the Straits of Tiran, which Israel considered an act of war.Nasser began massing his troops in the Sinai Peninsula on Israel's border (May 16), expelled the UNEF force from Gaza and Sinai (May 19) and took up UNEF positions at Sharm el-Sheikh, overlooking the Straits of Tiran.

In April 1967, Syria shot at an Israeli tractor ploughing in the demilitarized zone, which escalated to a prewar aerial clash.In May 1967, following misinformation about Israeli intentions provided by the Soviet Union, Egypt expelled UN peacekeepers who had been stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since the Suez conflict, and announced a blockade of Israel's access to the Red Sea (international waters) via the Straits of Tiran, which Israel considered an act of war.Nasser began massing his troops in the Sinai Peninsula on Israel's border (May 16), expelled the UNEF force from Gaza and Sinai (May 19) and took up UNEF positions at Sharm el-Sheikh, overlooking the Straits of Tiran.

The Suez Crisis of 1956 represented a military defeat but a political victory for Egypt, and set the stage leading to the Six-Day War.

In a speech delivered to the Knesset, David Ben-Gurion said that the 1949 armistice agreement with Egypt was dead and buried, and that the armistice lines were no longer valid and could not be restored.

There is no room for imperialism and there is no room for Britain in our country, just as there is no room for Israel within the Arab nation." In 1965 he asserted, "We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood." Even after nearly two decades of its existence, no neighboring Arab country of Israel was willing to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel or accept its existence.

Tunisian President Habib Bourgiba suggested in a speech in Jericho in 1965 that the Arab world should face reality and negotiate with Israel, but this was rejected by the other Arab countries.

According to Moshe Shemesh, a historian and former senior intelligence officer in the IDF, Jordan's military and civilian leaders estimated that Israel's main objective was conquest of the West Bank.

They felt that Israel was striving to drag all of the Arab countries into a war.

They were later reinforced by an Egyptian contingent.

On June 1, Israel formed a National Unity Government by widening its cabinet, and on June 4 the decision was made to go to war.

Moshe Dayan, the Israeli defense minister at the time of the Six Day War, recounted in a 1976 interview that Israeli policy in the Demilitarized Zone between 19 was "to seize some territory and hold it until the enemy despairs and gives it to us", thus changing "the lines of the ceasefire accord with military actions that were less than a war".

Publicly, Syria claimed that the escalating conflict was the result of Israel attempting to increase tension in order to justify a large-scale military operation against Syria, and to expand its occupation of the Demilitarized Zone by dispossessing the remaining Arab farmers.