Kira Stoyko

              The Six Day war was fought between the Israelis, Jordanians, Syrians and Egyptians in June of 1967. There were a lot of events that led up to the conflict. In 1966 there was a leftist coup in Syria and it joined Egypt in the ranks of the USSR having stakes in the region. In April of the next year there was an air battle over Damascus and six Syrian MiGs were shot down. Later on in May Damascus postured against Israel, claiming Israel was showing aggression towards them and alerted Egypt that Israel was transferring troops to the Syrian border and Egypt began massing troops in the Sinai. These moves are questioned by the UN, claiming there were no mass troop movements in Israel and it was a rumor fed by the Soviets to heat up the region. UN Emergency Force (UNEF) was stationed in the Sinai since the Suez Canal Crisis and Egypt called for their withdrawal and then on May 21 occupied Sharm al-Shaykh. Cairo then closes the Strait of Tiran to Israeli ships the next day. Both the US and Soviets plea with Israel and Egypt to find a peaceful solution, having meetings between diplomats around the 27^th. May 30^th Jordanian King Hussein flies to Egypt and signs mutual defense agreement, promising to act if the other is attacked. A similar treaty had been signed with Syria, but with border disputes Syria and Jordan were not set against each other, something that would later hurt them both. June 1^st Israel forms a defense cabinet, handing the defenses to Moshe Dayan, on the 4^th the reshuffled right wing cabinet votes to go to war and they do the next day.

              There’s an interesting article by William Quandt discussing the US’s role in the beginnings of this war, examining “what color was the light” for Israel to go to war. The US wanted to work through a peace process and a clear “red light” was given. There is a conspiracy theory that the US and Israel were trying to topple Nassir and in that case it was interpreted that there was a green light. Tied up in Vietnam, it was fairly certain that the US did not want to fight a war on another front, but had promised to back Israel in any conflict if ships were blocked at the Suez or Tiran as it was a UN Charter Article 51 that gives them the right to use force should the shipping lanes be closed. This can be interpreted as a “yellow light” was given. The US acknowledged that Israel might have to resort to force, but again wanted to deter war, but still gave them $70 million in defense aid. Johnson tried to stall by saying giving direct forces to Israel would have to go through congress and reminded Israel that it is a sovereign state and can act alone. Once the war started Johnson stepped up his support of Israel for either the pro-Israeli lobby in the US or personal connection to the state. US reconnaissance aircraft was sent to Israel on the eve of the war and remained there for the duration of the war. With sites as far as Damascus and all of the Sinai being threatened by the complete rush of Israeli troops on both fronts the USSR and the US jumped in and called for a ceasefire. There was also the “accidental” attack on the USSR Liberty by Israeli aircraft that made the US step up to end the conflict. There was a ceasefire called after merely six days of fighting in which Israel took all of the Sinai Peninsula, the entire West Bank and significant parts of Syria and Jordan. This led to the UN Resolution 242 which was offering back much of the territory, but many of the Arab nations did not think it was enough. Much of the territory was later negotiated back and the Yom Kippur War of 1973 also took back some of the territory and Arab nations embraced that resolution, UN resolution 338, than UN Resolution 242.