Publications

The results of the Six Day War substantially changed Israel’s strategic situation. Prior to the war, Israel was a small democracy with Western values. The Israeli economy was in a recession due to the ideological positions of its socialist leadership, which was slow to adapt a modern economy to the rapid growth in the private sector. The country identified as part of the Western world, and its hostile Arab neighbors had not accepted its existence as a Jewish state in the heart of the Arab-Muslim region. Israel was secular in character but respected its religious sectors.

The war broke out on the morning of June 5, 1967, following a gradual process of deterioration on three fronts. On the Syrian border, territorial issues and the struggle over water sources had been left unresolved since 1948, together creating mounting tension. In the West Bank, which was under Jordanian control and responsibility, hostilities with Palestinian Fedayeen— guerilla fighters who operated against the Israeli territories—were increasing and reached a peak with the IDF retaliation operation in Samu in November1966. On the southern front, Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser—then considered the leader of the Arab world—had threatened to close the Straits of Tiran. The rapid process of deterioration caused the Israeli public and its leadership to have a renewed sense of an existential threat.