By December 22 the last British and French Troops had left Egypt, Israel,
however, delayed withdrawal, insisting than it receives security guarantees
against further Egyptian attack. After several additional UN resolutions calling
for withdrawal and after pressure from the United States, Israel’s forces left
in March 1957. Relations between Israel and Egypt remained fairly stable in the
following decade. The Suez Canal remained closed to Israeli shipping, the Arab
boycott of Israel was maintained, and periodic clashes occurred between Israel,
Syria, and Jordan. However, UNEF prevented direct military encounters between
Egypt and Israel. By 1967 the Arab confrontation states-Egypt, Syria, and
Jordan-became impatient with the status quo, the propaganda war with Israel
escalated, and border incidents increased dangerously. Tensions culminated in
May when Egyptian forces were massed in Sinai, and Cairo ordered the UNEF to
leave Sinai and Gaza. President Nasser also announced that the Gulf of Aqaba
would be closed again to Israeli shipping. At the end of May, Egypt and Jordan
signed a new defense pact placing Jordan’s armed forces under Egyptian command.
Efforts to de-escalate the crisis were of no availability Israeli and Egyptian
leaders visited the United States, but President Lyndon Johnson’s attempts tp
persuade Western powers to guarantee free passage through the Gulf failed.
Believing that war was inevitable, Israeli Premier Levi Eshkol, Minister of
Defense Moshe Dayan, and Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin approved preemptive
Israeli strikes at Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi airfields on June 5,
1967. By the evening of June 6, Israel had destroyed the combat effectiveness of
the major Arab air forces, destroying more than 400 planes and losing only 26 of
its own. Israel also swept into Sinai, reaching the Suez Canal and occupying
most of the peninsula in less than four days. King Hussein of Jordan rejected an
offer of neutrality and opened fire on Israeli forces in Jerusalem on June 5.
But a lightning Israeli campaign placed all of Arab Jerusalem and the
Jordanian west bank in Israeli hands by June 8. As the war ended on the
Jordanian and Egyptian fronts, Israel opened an attack on Syria in the north. In
a little more than two days of fierce fighting, Syrian forces were driven from
the Golan Heights, from which they had shelled Jewish settlements across the
border. The Six-day War ended on June 10 when the UN negotiated cease-fire
agreements on all fronts. The Six-day War increased severalfold the area under
Israel’s control. Through the occupation of Sinai, Gaza, Arab Jerusalem, the
West Bank, and Golan Heights, Israel shortened its land frontiers with Egypt and
Jordan, removed the most heavily populated Jewish areas from direct Arab
artillery range, and temporarily increased its strategic advantages. Israel was
the dominant military power in the region for the next six years. Led by Golda
Meir from 1969, it was generally satisfied with the status quo, but Arab
impatience mounted. Between 1967 and 1973, Arab leaders repeatedly warned that
they would not accept continued Israeli occupation of the lands lost in 1967.
After Anwar al-Sadat succeeded Nasser as president of Egypt in 1970, threats
about “the year of decision” were more frequent, as was periodic massing of
troops long the Suez canal. Egyptian and Syrian forces underwent massive
rearmament with the most sophisticated Soviet equipment. Sadat consolidated war
preparations in secret agreements with President Hafez al-Assad of Syria for a
joint attack and with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to finance the operations.
Egypt and Syria attacked on October 6, 1973, pushing Israeli forces several
miles behind the 1967 cease-fire lines. Israel was thrown off guard, partly
because the attack came on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the most sacred
Jewish religious day (coinciding with the Muslim fast of Ramadan). Although
Israel recovered from the initial setback, it failed to regain all the territory
lost in the first days of fighting. In counterattacks on the Egyptian front,
Israel seized a major bridgehead behind the Egyptian lines on the West Bank of
the canal. In the north, Israel drove a wedge into the Syrian lines, giving it a
foothold a few miles west of Damascus. After 18 days of fighting in the longest
Arab-Israeli war since 1948, hostilities were again halted by the UN. The costs
were the greatest in any battles fought since World War 2. The Arabs lost some
2,000 tanks and more than 500 planes; the Israeli’s, 804 tanks and 114 planes.
The 3-week war cost Egypt and Israel about $ 7 billion each, in material and
losses from declining industrial production or damage. The political phase of
the 1973 war ended with disengagement agreements accepted by Israel, Egypt, and
Syria after negotiations in 1974 and 1975 by U.S. Secretary of State Henry A.
Kissinger. The agreements provided for Egyptian reoccupation of a strip of land
in Sinai along the east bank of the Sues canal and for Syrian Control of a small
area around the Golan Heights town of Kuneitra, UN forces were stationed on both
fronts to oversee observance of the agreements, which reestablished a political
balance between Israel and the Arab confrontation states.
