The 1967 Arab-Israeli War, which was also known as the Third Arab-Israeli War, took place between 5th and 10th June. The battles were fought on Israel’s borders with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Before the war, Jordan ruled the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip was under the control of the Egyptian military. After the Six Day War, the military superiority of the Israeli Defense Forces allowed for the capture of the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The June War did not begin suddenly; it was a continuation of the 1948 war and part of the ongoing struggle between the Arabs and Israel. For the Arab states, this was the time to relinquish what had been lost in 1948. For the Israelis this turned out to be a continuation of where they had left off nineteen years earlier. Moreover, several actions on behalf of both sides contributed to intensifying the tensions. For instance, Israel started implementing the policy of diverting water and it also attacked the artillery position in Golan, while the PLO was launching missiles and attacking Israel from the West Bank. However, the Six Day War was mainly triggered by the deployment of Egyptian troops in Sinai after Egypthad ordered the UN troops to leave that had been present there since 1956.

The first clash took place on the Egyptian front where Egypt forced a naval barricade on Israel’s southern port and positioned a huge number of troops in Sinai. In return Israel launched a preemptive strike against Egypt destroying its air force and defeating its army. The second encounter Israel engaged in took place in Jerusalem and the West Bank against the Jordanians. The capture of Jerusalem was something that Israeli generals had been specifically training for. The fight lasted for three days and ended by the defeat of the Jordanians. The final confrontation was on the Syrian front. After an air attack against Israel, the latter responded by damaging the Syrian air force and removing Syrian troops from the Golan.

After merely 6 days of fighting, Israel emerged victorious and occupied territories that had never before been under its sovereignty. It captured the Gaza Strip along with the Sinai Peninsula, which had been under Egyptian autonomy, and gained control over the West Bank and the entire city of Jerusalem. Furthermore, Israel occupied the Golan, thus tightening its grip on significant water resources.

This war forced a huge number of Arabs in addition to Jews living in the Arab world to flee. The Arab inhabitants of the West Bank mainly fled to Jordan and Jews living in the Arab countries started to leave after they were exposed to the frustrations and mistrust of their fellow citizens.

The Six Day War was an important landmark in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The defeat of three Arab nations by Israel ruled out the possibility of any advancement on the Arab front. This dealt a blow to Arab nationalism, which had been the prevalent ideology at the time, with Jamal Abdel Nasser at its forefront. For the Palestinians, the defeat meant that they could no longer expect Arab countries to take the lead in the fight against Israel, and that they would now have to assume the struggle by themselves.

The Khartoum Arab Summit was held in the aftermath of the 1967 war to reiterate their belligerency toward the Zionist state. The summit became famous for its slogan of “No peace, no recognition and no negotiation with Israel”. The war also cemented the way for the UN resolution 242- the “land for peace”- which has formed a basis for negotiations between the Arabs and the Israelis. Despite the attempts made by the UN in order to establish a common ground for peace in the region, the shame and ghost of the Six Day War did not escape the memory of the defeated parties. As a result, what is commonly known as the October War was launched in 1973 in an attempt to regain what was lost in 1967.