1967: The 6 Day War
The Six-Day War (1967) according to Grokipedia: occurred from June 5 to June 10, 1967, pitting Israel against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, with limited involvement from Iraq and other Arab states providing expeditionary forces. Israel achieved a swift and overwhelming victory, capturing the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank including East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria, thereby quadrupling its territorial control. The conflict stemmed from heightened regional tensions, including Syrian-Israeli border clashes and Palestinian fedayeen incursions, but the immediate triggers were Egypt's mobilization of approximately 100,000 troops in the Sinai Peninsula in May 1967, the expulsion of United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) peacekeepers from the area, and the imposition of a naval blockade on the Straits of Tiran on May 22, which denied Israel access to the Red Sea and was regarded by Israel as a casus belli under international law.[23] [24]
The Six-Day War (1967) according to Wikipedia: or the 1967 Arab-Israeli war (5-10 June 1967), was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the war, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. In the months before June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.
On 26 September 1962, a a pro-Nasserist coup d' état in Sanaa disposed of the Yemeni monarchy. Thus began Nasser's imperial settler-colonialist project in Yemen, with 70,000 Egyptian soldiers, administrators, doctors, technicians, and teachers attempting to build an illegal state in the occupied-territories of Yemen. However, the resistance of the Yemeni masses turned Nasser's imperial adventure into his Vietnam. Only hypcrisy can explain the lack of any Post-Colonial Studies critiques of this imperialist and colonial attempt to conquer Yemen. Financing this massive campaign severely drained Egypt's economy, widespread starvation was only prevented by a rationing system and food imports. Meat, oil, and bread became scarce. Egypt relied heavily on U.S. wheat through the Food for Peace (PL 480) program.
Nasser, the Arab Socialist Saint, was also president of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). He pranced and preached for anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination everywhere, condemning all old and new colonialism, all military terror and all the capitalist crimes against the daily struggle of the masses. The man could talk and like Hitler to the Germans was Nasser to the Arabs leading them to disaster:
"Our path to Palestine will not be covered with a red carpet or with yellow sand. Our path to Palestine will be covered with blood… In order that we may liberate Palestine, the Arab nation must unite, the Arab armies must unite, and a unified plan of action must be established. - Nasser election speech, 1965.
Obviously he was not referring to his own blood, he meant the 300,000 soldiers he sent to war knowing the Israeli Air Force would decimate them.
On May 13, 1967, Soviet officials informed the Syrian and Egyptian Governments that Israel had massed troops on Syria's border. General Mohamed Fawzi, the Army Chief of Staff, went there and saw it was not true. Yet, Nasser carried on, mobilising the army, expelling the UNO peacekeepers and closing the Tiran straits.
On June 5, 1967, at 07:45 Israeli time, a massive surprise airstrike targeted Egyptian air bases and destroyed the majority of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground. Later that day, Nasser phoned King Hussein of Jordan and told him that the Israeli Air Force had been entirely wiped out and the Egyptian Army was launching a massive attack on Israel. He also personally called Syrian President Noureddine al-Atassi and Field Marshal Hafez al-Assad and told them the same.
The overall story is simple. Israeli Air Force destroys the Egyptian Air Force on the ground and the Israelis have a dazzling week long victory. Israeli casualties totaled around 776 killed and 2,563 wounded, terrible for Israel but far less than the 20,000 or so Arab dead and the total defeat and destruction of their armies.
Why did Nasser carry on? He had already come up with the story of United States' collusion with the Israelis in destroying his air force. He couid have used that as an excuse not to attack. He just cared more for himself than for his followers. The Unholy Triumvirate of Palestine were Hajj Amin al-Husayni, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Yasser Arafat. Nasser was possibly the least heinous personally but did far more harm to his followers as he had more power over more people, the Palestinians just suffered as a side effect.
This a translation of the beginning of his resignation speech aired on Egyptian radio:
Brothers, at times of triumph and tribulation, in the sweet hours and bitter hours, we have become accustomed to sit together to discuss things, to speak frankly of facts believing that only in this way can we always find the right path however difficult circumstances may be. We cannot hide from ourselves the fact that we have met with a grave setback in the last few days, but I am confident that we all can and, in a short time, will overcome our difficult situation, although this calls for much patience and wisdom as well as moral courage on our part… Accurate calculations were made of the enemy's strength and showed us that our armed forces, at the level of equipment and training which they had reached, were capable of repelling the enemy and deterring him. We realized that the possibility of an armed clash existed and accepted the risk … In the morning of last Monday, 5th June, the enemy struck. If we say now it was a stronger blow than we had expected, we must say at the same time, and with complete certainty that it was bigger than the potential at this disposal. It became very clear from the first moment that there were other powers behind the enemy-they came to settle their accounts with the Arab national movement. Indeed, there were surprises worth of note
It begins with an outrageous lie. Nasser hasn't discussed anything with the Egyptian pubic, nor has he ever spoken frankly to them. Then he reveals the Big Lie, that it was the abject and wicked concealed imperialist collusion with the enemy i.e. American and British aircraft carrier planes that did the damage. The Egyptians to a man refuse to allow him to resign.
Surrounding countries that literally treated Israel as a mortal enemy and whose populations and religious leaders regularly called for its obliteration were massing for an invasion on multiple fronts. Who would have acted differently from Israel in seizing the opportunity to deal with them. Who would have won that astounding victory and then returned the captured territory?. Who wouldn't take control of the population's holy places. Knowing what Israel faced at the time, its actions were entirely rational and eminently defensible.