(HOST) This week marks the Fortieth Anniversary of the 1967 Arab Israeli War. This morning, commentator Barrie Dunsmore, who covered the war from the Israeli side, reflects on what has come to be seen as one of the most important events of contemporary Middle East history.
(DUNSMORE) Exactly forty years ago today, on the fourth day of the Six Day War, I was in the Sinai Desert, following the Israeli Army that at that point was chasing a disintegrating Egyptian army of 100,000 men in full retreat.
In previous days, the Egyptians had made some efforts to stop the Israeli advance. But as Israel had wiped out almost the entire Egyptian Air Force of three hundred and fifty planes in the early hours of the war, the outcome was no longer in doubt.
Even so, for a young reporter it was an assault on the senses: the sounds of artillery thumping, machineguns chattering and low flying jets screaming past; the sights of soldiers trapped within burning tanks and trucks and countless other bodies strewn like rag dolls along the desert roads and wadis; all this amid the sweet stench of death that quickly permeates a desert battle field. It was my first real war and it both excited and frightened me.
Brief as it was, it was a war with great strategic and political consequences – probably as significant as any modern conflict other than the two World Wars.
But not journalists on the scene, not the Israeli or Arab populations – nor any of their top political or military leaders – would ever have predicted that forty years later, much of the Arab territory captured in those six short days, would still be the focus of bloody dispute.
At the time, what I remember most was Israeli euphoria, especially over the capture of East Jerusalem which restored Jewish access to the Western Wall of the second Temple of Solomon – better known as the Wailing Wall.
There was also great pride that Israel had convincingly defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Back then, no one considered that in doing so, Israel may have reversed its role in the David and Goliath biblical narrative – because no longer would the Jewish state be seen as the under-dog.
It was my impression, based on interviews in the ensuing days with men such as General Moshe Dayan, that ultimately Israel would use the captured lands to bargain for recognition and a peace agreement with the Arabs. About a decade later, that bargain was actually reached with Egypt. But for the next almost thirty years, both Israelis and Palestinians would suffer grievously because the West Bank and Jerusalem continued to defy political solution. That neither side is blameless in this does not lessen the tragedy for both peoples.
How ironic it is, then – that recently declassified Israeli Government documents reveal that just six months before the six day war – a strategic study by Israel’s defense and intelligence agencies concluded that if Israel were to take over the West Bank it would weaken the relative strength of Israel’s Jewish majority, encourage Palestinian nationalism and ultimately lead to violent resistance.
In June of 1967, Israeli leaders caught up in the fever of war, ignored those warnings by their intelligence agencies. Somehow, that sounds familiar.
Barrie Dunsmore is a veteran diplomatic and foreign correspondent for ABC News, now living in Charlotte.