IGCSE History

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• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
    • The impact of the First World War
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  • 1929 - 1941
    • The Wall Street Crash
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• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
    • The Versailles Settlement
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  • Appeasement
    • Manchuria
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    • Appeasement in action
• Revolution in China 1949 - 1996 (A14)
  • 1949 - 1976
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    • The reasons for the Cultural Revolution
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    • China 1971 - 1976
  • 1976 - 1996
    • The defeat of the Gang of Four
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• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
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    • The struggle for control of Malaya
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• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
    • The Palestinian Liberation Organisation
    • Lebanon and the occupied territories
    • Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo
• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
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  • The defeat of Germany
• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
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  • Prohibition
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• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
• Links

The Six Day War

After the Suez crisis, the UN peacekeeping force was in Egypt for ten more years. During that time there were many border disputes between Israel and her Arab neighbours. In fact, between 1949 and 1967 more than 100,000 clashes were reported. It was clear that a major conflict was going to take place at some point. The trouble started in May 1967.

The Egyptian government began to make claims that the Israelis were building up forces for an attack. President Nasser made a series of speeches in which he appeared to threaten Israel with war. He also sent Egyptian forces into Sharm el Sheikh close to the Israeli border and ordered the UN forces (UNEF) to leave Egypt. In fact Nasser was not intending to attack, he was hoping that the tone of his speeches and the increased strength of the Arab states, which were now equipped with modern Soviet Soviet weapons, would force Israel to back down.

The Israeli armed forces already had a plan of attack that had been drawn up by Moshe Dayan, who had commanded the army in 1956. He wanted to attack before the Arab states were ready and catch them unprepared. Fortunately for the Israelis, Nasser began to go even further in his accusations. The Israelis took advantage of Nasser’s statements and accused him of threatening war. President Nasser continued to insist that he was defending the rights of the Palestinian people. He wanted to be the leader of the Arab movement and believed that his aggressive stance would gain him the approval and support of the other Arab nations.

On 5 June 1967 the Israeli armed forces attacked the Arab countries without warning. The Egyptian air force was virtually wiped out on the ground. The Egyptian army was now helpless and Israeli tanks reached the Suez Canal in three days. All of Sinai was occupied by the Israelis. The Jordanian army was pushed back across the Jordan River and the Israelis occupied all of the West Bank, capturing the eastern part of Jerusalem. In the north the Israelis seized the Golan Heights from Syria and began to advance on Damascus. The UN called for a cease-fire, which was accepted by Jordan on 7 June and then by Egypt and Syria. By 10 June the fighting had finished and the Arab states had been devastatingly defeated. The Israelis claimed that they only attacked after planes took off from neighbouring states, but this was not true. The claim that Jewish jets scrambled only after early-warning radar picked up several waves of Arab planes heading straight for Israel has never been proved. It is almost certain that the Israelis planned and then executed an unprovoked attack to knock out their enemies before they could do anything about it.

The Israelis won so easily because they had the best-equipped troops in the Middle East. Not only their weapons, but also their training, was vastly superior to their opponents. By mobilising its reserves, Israel could put 300,000 trained and experienced soldiers into the field. The total troop strength of Egypt, Syria and Jordan was only 180,000. So despite the vast numerical superiority of the populations of the Arab states, Israel had a considerable advantage on the battle-field.

Israel now had fixed boundaries that could be defended much more easily. The Suez Canal, the River Jordan and the Golan Heights were all obstacles that were controlled by Israeli forces. The new boundaries also gave Israel a great deal of new territory. This was important because the population continued to grow and there was comparatively little inhabitable land.

The Israeli government believed that it could use the newly acquired land as a bargaining tool to force their Arab neighbours to make peace. In the future it could exchange territory for concessions, which would guarantee the security of Israel. But there was also a major problem that Israel inherited as a result of the seizure of territory. There were now large numbers of Palestinian refugees living within its borders, and they were crammed into squalid refugee camps.

Internationally, the image of Israel began to decline for the first time. It soon became clear that the Israelis had attacked without warning or provocation and neutral countries were less inclined to support Israel.

The war made also the Palestinian problem more acute. 700,000 refugees left the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They crowded into camps in Egypt and Syria. Both governments forced the Palestinians out for fear of reprisals from Israel. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) left to set up bases in Jordan. This move led to civil war in Jordan in 1970 as the guerrillas tried to take control of the country. Other Arab groups became convinced that the only way of defeating Israel was by international terrorism. This became far more common after 1967. From 1970 onwards there were a series of attacks on civilian and military targets.

International terrorism

Quiz