:
“The second Arab-Israeli war, also known as the six-day war, began when Israel launched a massive pre-emptive strike on three fronts.
Israeli forces took land from Syria, Egypt and Jordan, hoping to create a security buffer zone, and thus changed the whole nature of the Middle East conflict.
Here is a selection of your memories from that time.”
Scrolling down I saw this comment:
Israel converted the multi-cultural city into a city for one “good” race with occasional access to other “not so good races”.
Omar, Occupied Territories
Really?
‘On May 28, 1948, the Jewish quarter of the Old City fell to the Jordanians. After 10 months of fighting, an armistice agreement was signed on April 3, 1949, dividing Jerusalem along the November 1948 ceasefire lines of Israeli and Transjordanian forces, with several areas of no-man’s land. The armistice line served as a temporary border between what had formerly been two mixed communities.
Upon capturing eastern Jerusalem, Jordan killed or expelled its Jewish residents and desecrated and destroyed Jewish holy sites.
During the Jordanian occupation of eastern Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, Jews were forbidden access to their holy sites•including the Western Wall of the Temple Mount—and to the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, in use from ancient times to the present. Christians were subject to many restrictions, both during pilgrimages to their holy places and in administering their institutions. When the city was recaptured and reunited by the Israelis in 1967, Israel annulled the discriminatory laws, allowing access for all religions to their holy sites, and granted the Islamic Wakf (religious trust) civil authority on the Temple Mount’
The source for rebutting the lie that Jordan allowed free access to Jews in Jerusalem:
http://www.camera.org/index.asp
Oooh, this looks rather like a prompt for the usual obsessives on all sides to unleash some highly subjective ‘historical facts’ to enlighten us on the fine, finer and very very very fine points of the Middle Eastern situation. What fun in prospect.
A pre-emptive strike followed by the establishment of a security buffer zone with no opining on the rightness or otherwise of any faction sounds refreshingly uncontroversial, unhysterical and bland from where I’m sitting…
What else can one expect from “Omar” of the “Occupied Territories”, or “Robbiekeane” for that matter.
Those “memories” do bear out, by and large, what I said here:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/2959682555847920330/#358533
More on the desecration of Jewish places of worship in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem under Jordanian occupation:
After the Arab Legion captured the Jewish Quarter, the destruction, desecration, and systematic looting of Jewish sites continued. 57 ancient synagogues, libraries and centers of religious study were ransacked and 12 were totally and deliberately destroyed. Those that remained standing were defaced, used for housing of both people and animals. Appeals were made to the United Nations and in the international community to declare the Old City to be an ‘open city’ and stop this destruction, but there was no response. This condition continued until Jordan lost control of Jerusalem in June 1967. (Terence Prittie, Whose Jerusalem? Frederick Muller Limited: London 1981; Peter Schneider and Geoffrey Wigoder, Jerusalem Perspectives 1976.)
So will the BBC mention this?
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 2:23 pm |
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 2:49 pm |
I’ve been to the old walled city and seen the shrines at the locations in the Jewish Quarter that commemorate the slaughter in 1948 of its inhabitants by the Jordanians and Palestinians.
Not being Jewish I also went into the Dome of the Rock. I have to say that the Islamic Wakf are amonst the rudest and most objectionable people I have ever come across.
In addition to the authors you mention, also read Martin Gibert’s works.
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 2:49 pm
Well thanks for those extracts from the ‘Israeli narrative’.
But an impartial reporter has to take account of the ‘Palestinian narrative’ too.
It’s funny how each ‘narrative’ tends to leave out inconvenient facts.
You describe how the Jordanians behaved in Jerusalem.
More relevant to 1967, is what the Israelis did when they took the city:
In Jerusalem the {Arab} inhabitants of the former Jewish Quarter were ordered to leave their houses within 24 hours. This district, which is near to the Wailing Wall, was then flattened by bulldozers. 400 Palestinian families • about 6000 people • lost their homes and everything they possessed…….
…A large proportion of the inhabitants of Kalkiliya were refugees from 1948. With the aid of UNRWA they had built new homes and started a new life….The Israeli army used tanks and bulldozers to destroy two thirds of the town. Foreign correspondents were not allowed to visit. After the destruction, an Israeli officer said: “That was Kalkiliya. Now it’s Kfar Saba.”….
…According to reports in The New York Times and Le Monde, columns of refugees were repeatedly bombarded and burnt by napalm……
(A. Frangi, PLO & Palestine, Fischer Verlag, London 1983. Pp 106-7)
As the advertisement used to say: What makes John West salmon so tasty isn’t the fish they put in. It’s the fish they leave out.
A. Frangi
Would that be “A” for “Abdallah” JR?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/01/31/spiegel/index_np.html
Fatah leader Abdallah Frangi talks about the violent power struggle raging between his party and Hamas — “the worst we’ve experienced in Palestinian history.”
…
Abdallah Frangi, the highest-ranking Fatah official in Gaza, talks about his hopes for an end to the violence, the responsibility of Hamas and the role of Saudi Arabia .
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-7438(198605)18%3A2%3C254%3ATPLO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I
Frangi, a Palestinian representative of the PLO in West Germany, has written a more comprehensive though less detailed account, keeping in mind that the …
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,424106,00.html
Abdallah Frangi, Gaza’s highest-ranking Fatah official, made a decisive contribution to the Palestinian agreement on a two-state solution. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE he said Hamas has now recognized Israel and that relations between Hamas and Fatah will improve.
Please see TPO’s and my guidlines for assesing intelligence and news reports.
It’s the fish they leave out.
John Reith | 05.06.07 – 3:39 pm
Quite!
😆
John Reith,
The point I’m making is that the ‘Israeli’ narrative is more often than not concealed by the BBC.
The Palestinian narrative is salivated over.
The point of the whole exchange is to point out that Israel has allowed free access to the Moslem holy sites even in the midst of a war situation. This did not happen under Jordanian rule prior to 1967.
Following your argument JR, the BBC should have mentioned that Colvin’s source about Entebbe was a member of an Arab lobby group.
What makes the BBC so biased, ain’t (only) the stuff they put in but the stuff they leave out.
In Jerusalem the {Arab} inhabitants of the former Jewish Quarter were ordered to leave their houses within 24 hours. This district, which is near to the Wailing Wall, was then flattened by bulldozers. 400 Palestinian families • about 6000 people • lost their homes and everything they possessed…….
John Reith | 05.06.07 – 3:39 pm |
And why do you think they did that jr?
Oh and by the way I’ve just got round to posting on the wretched way that the Beeb reported the Entebbe ‘revelation’
Following your argument JR, the BBC should have mentioned that Colvin’s source about Entebbe was a member of an Arab lobby group.
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 3:59 pm
That was exactly my beef, not that they ran the story, but that unlike all the other news organisations that ran it they omitted that detail which would have allowed the reader to take the story with the appropriate dose of salt.
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 3:59 pm & Biodegradable | 05.06.07 – 3:56 pm
BioD – yes the very same Frangi. He’s a Palestinian. That’s why it’s a ‘Palestinian narrative’.
South Chelsea:
The Palestinian narrative is salivated over.
aww come off it!
Where in Mr Bowen’s recent reports did you hear him dwelling upon the deliberate napalming of women and children as reported by Le Monde and the NYT?
Did I miss the extended reports of Israeli war crimes such as those mentioned above?
As for the ’causes of the war’….the ‘Palestinian narrative’ according to Fatah goes roughly like this:
In April 1967 Israel started threatening Syria, saying it refused to countenance the new Baath Party regime as a neighbour. It also made some military incursions.
Nasser had a mutual defence pact with Syria. He decided to try to scare Israel off starting a war with Syria by using bloodcurdling rhetoric.
Nasser’s threats and military build-up were meant as a deterrent and to secure peace. Closing the straits ditto.
It all backfired.
Have you ever seen that reported, let alone ‘salivated over’?
This is what passes for BBC analysis:
1967 Middle East War
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457035/html/default.stm
I particularly like this insertion:
Some historians question whether Nasser planned to go to war
I haven’t seen any of the latest BBC coverage on it, but I bet it won’t compare with what they broadcast on BBC2 in, I think, 1997.
The series was entitled ’The Fifty Years War’ • ‘Israel and the Arabs’ and interviewed participants in the event. These participants ranged from senior military and diplomatic figures in Israel and Egypt to those in the US and USSR
In the series they stated that during a visit to Moscow in May 1967, the speaker of the Egyptian Parliament, Anwar Sadat, was approached by the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister and told that Israel was secretly massing troops on the Syrian border with the intention of carrying out a pre-emptive strike on Syria.
Soviet ambassadors in Arab capitals were instructed to reinforce the message and did so throughout the rest of May indicating that Soviet Intelligence (satellite imagery) had re-confirmed the original assessment.
This was not the case. There were no massed concentrations of Israeli forces on the border with Syria.
The USSR had gauged that, with the USA being preoccupied in Vietnam, they would be able to destabilise the Middle East. Having massively rearmed Egypt and Syria their assessment was that were hostilities to break out, Israel’s military capabilities would be seriously degraded and possibly overrun. They had warned Nasser not to attack first, making the assumption that the combined Arab forces would be able to recover from an Israeli first strike.
Interestingly, for the first 48 hours of the war, the USSR warned the US not to interfere. When it dawned on them that their plan had horribly backfired they were almost hysterical in their demands that the US intervene to curb Israel.
Armed with the false information about Israeli troop concentrations the Arabs had the excuse that they had always wanted. Jordan even placed all their armed forces under Egyptian command in preparation for an attack.
I do believe that the assessments in the West differed from the USSR in as much that Israel would prevail in any conflict because of better training, discipline and a will to win. However, reading between the lines there was no love lost between the US Secretary of Defence Bob McNamara and Walt Rostow the National Security Advisor at the time. Both appeared to be briefing against each other to sway Lyndon Johnson with differing assessments.
One thing is sure, the recollections of McNamara and the head of Mossad, Meir Amit, concerning their meeting at the Pentagon are diametrically opposed with Amit categorical that McNamara gave Israel the green light whilst McNamara denies it.
Just prior to the end of the conflict when the USSR thought that Israeli troops were about to enter Damascus they painted Syrian markings on the aircraft of four bomber squadrons based in the Ukraine and were getting ready to launch an attack on Israel.
So what do we get now? Jeremy Bowen. Pity because the 1997 screening was about one of the most objective offerings I’d ever seen from the BBC
JR, when Bowen talks about the Israeli public’s hysteria in the build up to war he refrains from bringing facts that could justify such well founded fears of being annihilated. For example, you never hear Bowen talk of the Egyptian use of Chemical weapons against royalist forces in Yemen prior to the six day war.
All Bowen does is mention the fear of the fear of the Holocaust somehow removing it from time and space. There is a direct link between the Egyptian use of chemical weapons in Yemen and the memories of the Holocaust.
Yet Bowen, by ommission does not make this link.
BioD – yes the very same Frangi. He’s a Palestinian. That’s why it’s a ‘Palestinian narrative’.
Fine. Leading member of PLO and Fatah. I take his version of events with a whole packet of Saxa
Robbiekeane:
A pre-emptive strike (on three fronts) followed by (hoping to create) the establishment of a security buffer zone with no opining on the rightness or otherwise of any faction sounds refreshingly uncontroversial, unhysterical and bland from where I’m sitting…
Even by BBC reporting the introduction is historically false. Is this just sloppy research, projection, politics or what?
on three fronts: No, Israel attacked Egypt and Syria. Jordan attacked Israel.
hoping to create: Confuses cause and effect. Hoping to preempt an Arab attack is much more accurate.
Do you have an independent source for Israel’s alleged use of napalm in 1967 against civilians in the Territories or are you merely quoting ‘A.Frangi’?
Just wondering…
deegee | 05.06.07 – 4:47 pm |
If memory serves me right, Israel was at great pains to let the Jordanians know that they would not attack them.
Make that Saxa
TPO, you absolutely right. Israel warned King Hussein not to get involved in the war and he didn’t listen, he went along and put his army under Egyptian command just prior to the war.
Not to mention his firing of the first shots in that sector of the war.
By the outbreak of war in 1973 he had learned his lesson.
The BBC have now given prominence to another version of Personal accounts of the war of 1967 heavily weighted towards Arab accounts.
Note that Josephine Bacon’s account has been drastically edited from the original:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/june/10/newsid_2976000/2976542.stm
No mention on the new version of this, for example:
For the first couple of days there was shelling from the United Nations building [captured by the Jordanians on the first day of the war] which landed around our house.
the 6 day war – as reported by Time magazine back in the 1960s
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,843937,00.html
surprisingly objective and unbiased.
In 1967 I was still naïve enough to buy the Guardian every weekday. A few days before the war I remember their Middle East correspondent being interviewed on the radio. He was asked why have many dozens of reporters recently flocked to the area. His reply was that he had come to witness the destruction of the State of Israel by the Arab armies!
archduke | 05.06.07 – 5:28 pm
Thanks for that link. A reminder of what real journalism looks like – it informs, entertains and educates.
Gordon | 05.06.07 – 5:31 pm
Doesn’t sound like Eric Silver to me. Maybe he came along a bit later?
Ah yes….Eric became the Guardian’s correspondent a fortnight afterwards:
I was there: The Jew:
I arrived in Tel Aviv on June 18, 1967, to relieve The Guardian’s war correspondent. After checking into my hotel, I took a stroll in the sweltering heat down Ben-Yehuda Street, where I bumped into Harry Levy, a childhood neighbour, who had made aliyah almost 20 years earlier.
Over coffee, I explained what ….
http://www.thejc.com/
Battersea | 05.06.07 – 4:48 pm
As you can see – he cites the New York Times and Le Monde.
The expulsions stuff he attributes to Nathan Weinstock and Paul Gauthier.
John Reith:
As you can see – he cites the New York Times and Le Monde.
Unfortunately the BBC is not unique in treating Arab claims as ‘fact’ without troubling to authenticate. They haven’t improved much since 1967 as the reporting of the Lebanese War showed.
“WITH war forced upon it 40 years ago, Israel’s outnumbered forces fought a stunning lightning campaign and shattered its enemies on three fronts. The victory enabled Israel to survive. But now revisionist historians are re-inventing the Six-Day War as the source of Israel’s problems.
Their nonsense makes it sound as if, prior to June 1967, Israelis had lived in an Age of Aquarius, eating lotus blossoms amid friendly Bedouin neighbors who tucked them in at night. The critics also imply that, by some unexplained magic, Israel might have avoided war and its consequences.
Let’s remember the facts:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06052007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/six_day_war__40_years_on_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm
“Nasser’s threats and military build-up were meant as a deterrent and to secure peace. Closing the straits ditto.”
And presumably his frequent rants on anihillating Israel were just “diplomatic feelers”.
Oh and by the way, the closure of the straits and thus shipping access is not only an act of war recognised as such for hundreds of years, it is also an act of war as defined by your precious United Nations.
“But now revisionist historians are re-inventing the Six-Day War as the source of Israel’s problems.”
Presumably, it would have been better for the Jews of Israel to have been defeated, slaughtered en masse, and the land on which they live be allowed to revert to the wasteland which the arabs had made of it.
It is a matter of historical record that arab armies were massing to invade Israel, and then dismember it. Goodness knows the fate awaiting the Jews. Did the governments of Egypt, Syria and Jordan intend to free ‘Palestine’, or was it an invention following their defeat?
What say ye, JR?
I think we can see the way the consensus is heading, can’t we.
At the very least we should demand that schedules be cleared on main TV and radio channels for the B-BBC authorised version of the 1967 war.
Could I suggest we get Peter Snow back with his sand-pit, too?
Topics which simply must be included, culled from above:
1948, Battles in the Old City
Age of Aquarius, Israeli (lotus blossoms etc)
Aircraft, Russian, Got up to look Syrian (in the Ukraine)
Arab claims, treated as BBC fact
Bowen, Jeremy, devil, spore of
Chemical weapons, Egyptian, in Yemen
Christians, Jordanian restrictions of
Defacing of synagogues, by Arab Legion
Discriminatory laws, Israeli annulment
Egypt, massive Russian re-arming of
Entebbe, Colvin’s source
Frangi, Palestinian, taken with salt
Great pains, Israeli, to let Jordan know it would not be attacked
Holocaust, fear of (or not • more of Bowen’s bile)
Holy Sites, Jordanian Desecration of
Hysteria, Israeli public’s, war, fear of
Jewish Quarter, Arab inhabitants + bulldozers, who to blame?
Jordanian Forces, Egyptian command, under
King Hussein, Leave Him, He ain’t worth it
LBJ, contradictory briefings
McNamara, Robert, no love lost with NSA
Middle East destabilisation, Russian plans thereto
Napalm, Israeli use (or not)
Nasser, threats and military build-up
Nasser, threats to anihilate Israel
Pentagon, Mossad contradicted by
Perfidious Guardian, predictions of destruction of Israel (or not)
Personal accounts of the war, BBC, weighted towards Palestinians (heavily)
Revisionist historians (as loved by the BBC)
Sadat, Anwar, misinformed by Russians
Straits, closure of
Stunning lightning campaign allows Israel to survive
Syria, massive Russian re-arming of
Syrian Border, Israeli forces massing on, or not
Time Magazine, surprisingly unbiased and objective
UN Building, captured by Jordan
UN Building, shelling from
United Nations definition of act of war
USA, warned to stay out of conflict by USSR
Bowen, Jeremy. Check out that 666 tattoo
Feel free to chip in!
For JR & Hillhunt
for you who like the BBC jump at every chance to whitewash islamic injustice ….
here is an example of what things would have turned out if Israelis had not won the six day war …
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2ed_1177657581
this victim is a non Arab, an Iranian Kurd who has had Islamic justice
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180960612056&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
On the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, renowned historian and senior fellow at Shalem Center’s Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies answers questions sent by JPost.com readers on those six remarkable days in June 1967.
Michael Oren: I was indeed able to acquire Jordanian diplomatic and military documents from 1967. Among these were the plans for Operation Tariq, the planned Jordanian attack against West (Jewish) Jerusalem and the Latrun Quarter. These plans provided for the execution of the civilian populations of several Jewish communities, such as Moza, which lies just west of Jerusalem. Some of these documents fell into Israeli hands during the war and were later presented to King Hussein in the secret meetings he held with Israeli representatives in London. The King denied having any knowledge of Tariq.
It is important to demonstrate that not only the Jordanians but also the Egyptians and the Syrians had planned the conquest of Israel and the expulsion or murder of much of it Jewish inhabitants in 1967. Many of the so-called “revisionist historians” today are claiming that the Arabs never had aggressive intentions toward the Jewish state and that Israel precipitated the Six-Day War in order to expand territorially. The documentary evidence refutes this claim unequivocally.
Read the whole thing
deegee:
It’s on the list already.
Looks like we’re going to have to commandeer BBC3 and BBC4 to cram it all in. But needs must!
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink
Question: The BBC’s Martin Asser suggests the origin of the Six Day War was a water dispute Your response?
Michael Oren: Water indeed played a principle role in precipitating the Six-Day War. The Egyptians closed the Straits of Tiran to all shipping bound for Israel’s vital southern port of Eilat. The Syrians attempted to divert the Jordan River before it flowed into Israel, and attempted to obstruct Israel’s effort to convey water from the Sea of Galilee to the parched Negev Desert. All of these efforts, whether Egyptian or Syrian, originated in the Arab refusal to accept the existence of the permanent and legitimate Jewish state in the Middle East. That, and not water, was the cause of the Six-Day War.
deegee:
Water’s on our agenda, too, and we’ll try to ignore the IDF’s line that it played a significant part.
http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?clr=1&sl=EN&id=5&docid=18924
What’s it matter? They only fought the war…
“At the very least we should demand that schedules be cleared on main TV and radio channels for the B-BBC authorised version of the 1967 war.”
Sorry, already all booked up with the revisionista/Guardianista authorised version, hillhunt.
(Note that for your joke to work, you are forced to fantasize…)
.
I confess that I didn’t find what I expected the end of Natalie’s link – the pro-Israeli view was pretty well represented in the comments. The BBC’s summary may have been a little blunt but it summarised what happened (if not why.) But what I have noticed about the BBC’s radio coverage of the anniversary of the 6 day war ( I haven’t been watching the telly) is an absolute insistence in its analysis and general chattering that the problems that needs addressing are those created by the result of the 1967 war. It’s true that the 1967 war changed the overall military balance, and created the “occupied territories” (ie territories occupied by Israel as opposed to territories occupied by Egypt and Jordan), but unfortunately there was a problem to solve before 1967. Indeed that’s why there was a war in 1967 in the first place. Trying to solve the problems created by the 1967 result is treating the symptoms of the previous problem – the Israeli insistence on having a state, and the unwillingness of the Arabs to accept such a state. The BBC seems determined that these symptoms are the real disease.
slightly offtopic but essential viewing for anyone who wants to understand the biased being spewed on al jazeera and even more so on the BBC …. at least on al jazeera their bias isnt compounded by political correctness which is … on arabic stations its still possible to hear a view oint opposed to islam
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b5ddde973f
Indeed that’s why there was a war in 1967 in the first place. Trying to solve the problems created by the 1967 result is treating the symptoms of the previous problem – the Israeli insistence on having a state, and the unwillingness of the Arabs to accept such a state. The BBC seems determined that these symptoms are the real disease.
Lee Moore | 05.06.07 – 10:32 pm |
Very good point.
And as for John Reith digging up a blatant load of old tosh about Israelis napalming Palestinians after 1967 and trying to pass it off as the ‘history’ we can’t face – it is a sick joke. Yes – Israel did clear the area that was directly in front of the Western Wall. It was the Moroccan quarter and it was redeveloped, rather like housing was redeveloped all over Europe. There was a compulsory order for the residents to move out – they were rehoused nearby. Not nice – but not an uncommon experience in England. My source for this is Paddy Ashdown’s documentary that went out on C4 over the last Bank Holiday. Would you describe Ashdown as some pro-Zionist bigot? In fact Ashdown was scathing about the demolition of the quarter and the worst evidence he came up with was the (disputed) death of one woman who refused to leave. Anyone who’s been to the Western Wall will know how small the forecourt is – which was the space cleared. Before that there was no access at all to the Western Wall. The photographer who took the famous photo of the soldiers in ’67 catching their first glimpse of the wall describes it like this – “The space was very, very narrow between the hovels which were still standing. I had to lie down to get more of the Wall in the frame.”
Interesting debate on World Have Your Say on the Six Day War.
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?scope=all&edition=i&q=World+have+your+say&go.x=23&go.y=11
Click on top right. They had the JPost editor on batting for Israel. Dunno how long the link will last, though. New programme tomorrow.
Gordon:
In 1967 I was still naïve enough to buy the Guardian every weekday. A few days before the war I remember their Middle East correspondent being interviewed on the radio. He was asked why have many dozens of reporters recently flocked to the area. His reply was that he had come to witness the destruction of the State of Israel by the Arab armies!
————–
Well, I was a bit too young in 1967 to fully appreciate the gravity of the situation, but I do clearly remember a brilliant Guardian political cartoon (don’t remember who their cartoonist was at the time) from not long before the war showing a blindfolded Nasser leading a number of other blindfolded Arab leaders in a kind of mad conga (each with a hand on the shoulder of the man in front) across some sort of desert scene, with the simple caption
“Matthew 15, 14”, which when you looked it up was, of course, “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”
Which was quite prescient, in the circs.
And, apart from revealing a level of sophistication generally lacking in modern cartoons, it does also sadly remind us – if we needeed reminding – us how very, very far The Guardian (and its cartoonists) have fallen off since those heroic days.
Cheers
A large proportion of the inhabitants of Kalkiliya were refugees from 1948. With the aid of UNRWA they had built new homes and started a new life….The Israeli army used tanks and bulldozers to destroy two thirds of the town. Foreign correspondents were not allowed to visit. After the destruction, an Israeli officer said: “That was Kalkiliya. Now it’s Kfar Saba.”….
And this is what Martin Gilbert writes about Kalkilya – John Reith I suppose you don’t dispute the rock solid reputation of Martin Gilbert?
” When Dayan learned that a third of the Palestinian homes in Kalkilya had been blown up by Israeli forces as a reprisal for Arab sniping at Israeli soldiers, he ordered the destroyed buildings (800 in all) to be rebuilt, and their inhabitants, who had fled to Nablus and to various villages or were living in the fields, to be allowed back. This was the exact opposite to the policy pursued, including by Dayan, in the War of Independence. The Six Day War was not intended to see a second round of flight and expulsion, or the creation of empty Arab towns which would then be filled by Jews. The West Bank and Gaza Strip were to remain Arab, and to be administered not annexed or settled; but until when they were to be occupied no one knew.
yeah hillhunt
you and the BBC are correct. In 1967 the Arabs never intended to harm Israel and today all that Hamas wants is a peaceful transition to a two state solution as can be seen here in Hamas’ own words
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=72b5ee75eb
we would have peace were it not for radical radical zionists and neo-con jews
The massive pre-emptive strike is a close cousin to gained vast swathes of territory:
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=6444&&edition=2&ttl=20070606062914
Right, toothpick-sized Israel gained a bit around the middle and the top and a lump of desert at the bottom. The BBC should take a look at a map or two of the Middle East. A look without tinted glasses, that is.
Oscar:
“The space was very, very narrow between the hovels which were still standing. I had to lie down to get more of the Wall in the frame.”
Western Wall before 1967:
http://thumbsnap.com/v/uQhlli8w.jpg
Western Wall today:
http://thumbsnap.com/v/1fPeqPsE.jpg
The Jordanians were not the first to restrict Jewish access to the Western Wall.
In the early 20th century, the Mufti ordered Muslim believers to go to battle to save Haram al-Sharif and “al-Buraq” from being taken over by the Jews. The Arabs would smear the prayer site with excrement, bring their flocks there to litter the place with animal droppings, and use it as a garbage dump. The homes of the Mughrabi neighborhood were built right up to the Western Wall, and some of the toilets actually leaned against it. Such things are not done in places sacred to Islam – which could be seen as further proof that the Western Wall was not a Muslim holy place.
Shragai, Nadav, Ha’aretz, January 19, 2001 based on “The Wars over the Holy Places” by Berkowitz, Shmuel
Clearing the plaza in front of the Western Wall was inevitable and unavoidable. It would have been forced by almost unanimous Israeli and world Jewish public opinion and constant warfare as Palestinian terrorists (not necessarily residents) used the buildings to impede and attack worshipers and visitors to the wall.
In 1967, there was no Israeli plan to seize land. The only plan was to keep the ranting nationalist Nasser and his followers from pushing Israel into the sea. Israel could live with Nasser’s mere ravings, but then Nasser ordered a UN buffer force out of the Sinai Peninsula and moved his army into it, and then he signed a military pact with Jordan. Said another Nasser ally, Iraq: “The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear – to wipe Israel off the map.”
That’s the same language coming today from the death merchants of Hamas and Hezbollah and non-Arab Iran.
Land? Not the issue. Not in 1967, not today. The issue is that there are no Arab peacemakers. Not in 1967. Not today.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/06/05/2007-06-05_six_days_and_40_years.html
Good morning all. Here’s some more history – so better look away now little trolls.
There were around 200,000 Arab refugees as a result of the 6 Day War (Israel says a few less – Jordan says a few more). They moved to Jordan because as Abba Eban said “their propagandists had told them that Israelis were wild beasts with horns and tails. They knew that there would have been a massacre of Jews if there had been an Arab victory. Why should not the opposite be true?”
This is Michael Oren, who a number of posters have cited – widely regarded as the definitive historian of the 6 Days War writing about the refugees.
After the cease-fire, Israel insisted that the 1967 refugee problem, like that of 1948 before it, would have to be solved within the framework of a comprehensive peace treaty. The Arab states uniformly rejected this demand, and insisted on unconditional repatriation and compensation for the refugees. When, later that summer, Israel was pressed to permit at least some of the Palestinians back into the West Bank, few in fact availed themselves of the offer
But the forgotten victims of the war were the Jews who were persecuted in Arab countries across the ME. Oren writes:
With news of Israel’s victory, mobs attacked Jewish neighborhoods in Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Morocco, burning synagogues and assaulting residents. A pogrom in Tripoli Libya, left 18 Jews dead and 25 injured; the survivors were herded into detention centers. Of Egypt’s 4,000 Jews, 800 were arrested, including the chief rabbis of both Cairo and Alexandria, and their property sequestered by the government. The ancient communities of Damascus and Baghdad were placed under house arrest, their leaders imprisoned and fined. A total of 7,000 Jews were expelled, many with merely a satchel. Apart from Tunisia’s Bourgiba and King Hassan of Morocco, no Arab statesman condemned these outrages. Attempts by both the UN and the Red Cross to intercede on the Jews’ behalf were rebuffed.