Articles

Six-Day War of 1967 in the light of new data

Vostok/Oriens '2018, №3

DOI: 10.31857/S086919080000046-7

 
In 2017, ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 war, the Israeli government declassified thousands of documents from political and government meetings before, during, and following the Six-Day War. For the first time in fifty years it makes possible to trace the dynamics within the government regarding the Six-Day War. The documents reflect the government’s thinking during the war and euphoria after the destruction of the Egyptian air force and the Israeli victories on the Jordanian and Syrian fronts. The declassified documents reveal that Jerusalem was conquered almost by accident; Israel’s National Religious Party, forerunner to the settler movement, lobbied for military de-escalation at every turn; and nobody in Israel’s security cabinet seems to have seen the country’s most momentous war coming; not a single one of them foresaw its outcome.

Keywords: Israel, Six-Day War, Occupied territories, National Unity Government, National Religion Party

Pages: С. 84–93