SIX DAY WAR RESULT

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What was the result of the Six Day War?

The Six-Day War ended at 1630 GMT on June 10, 1967 when a cease-fire became effective on the Israel-Syrian front. Israel's casualties amounted to 759 dead and about 3,000 wounded. Arab casualties were never officially tallied, but are believed to be about 15,000. Israel had avoided the threat to its very existence, but also remembered well that there was no peace after the victory in 1948-49. Therefore, Israel was determined to hold the new cease-fire lines until a permanent peace was established.

Israel's victory was devastating to the Arab countries, who had expected a quick and easy victory for themselves. Instead they not only failed to achieve their goal of destroying Israel, but on the contrary Israel gained all of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Sinai, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.

In the United Nations the Security Council had been inert and ineffectual during the emergency that preceded the war. During the war they became active and met each day of the fighting, attempting to arrange a cease-fire. On June 10, the Soviet Union, embarrassed that its Arab client states lost the war, broke off diplomatic relations with Israel, followed by the Soviet puppet regimes in Bulgaria, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary. On June 13, the Soviet Union asked that a special emergency session of the General Assembly be convened. The Assembly was addressed on June 19 by Soviet Premier Kosygin, who called for condemnation of Israel, withdrawal of its forces from all areas occupied in the war, and payment of compensation by Israel for damage inflicted on Egypt, Syria and Jordan. His address was answered by Israel's Foreign Minister.

The discussion in the Assembly went on for a month while a number of draft Resolutions were considered. On July 21, the session adjourned having decided nothing and referred the issue back to the Security Council. The Council, after long discussions, on November 22 unanimously adopted Resolution 242, which became the basis for future United Nations policymaking on the Middle East conflict.

The Arab States had no interest in peace, despite overtures from Israel. Israel advocated direct negotiations between the parties, without prior conditions, aimed at the conclusion of binding peace agreements. Until peace was made, the Israel Defence Forces were deployed on the new cease-fire lines, and the areas occupied in the Six-Day War came to be administered by an Israeli Military Government. Jerusalem was reunified at the end of June 1967, and the whole city was thus brought under Israeli law.

Immediately after the Six Day War many observers believed that the shock of defeat would bring the Arabs to their senses and force them to the conference table where a just and lasting peace might be negotiated for the benefit of the whole region. But the Arab countries were encouraged in their dreams of conquest by the Soviet Union, which embarked on the rebuilding of their shattered armies. At a summit meeting in Khartoum in late August 1967 they established a uniform policy of three nays: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.

As a result of the Israeli victory in the Six Day War, a great spiritual uplift was felt in Israel and among Jews all over the world. The re-unification of Jerusalem made it possible to return to the legacy of Jewish history in the Old City, in Bethleh, in Hebron and more. Israel after the Six Day War stretched from Mt. Hermon to Sharm a-Sheikh, from the Jordan River to the Suez Canal. But the end of the war failed to bring quiet to the new borders. Israel's Arab neighbors did not accept their defeat. Sporadic flare-ups began immediately after the war, including terrorist attacks and static artillery bombardments.

The PLO was forced out of the territories of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza and relocated to Jordan. They proceeded to rebuild, and went on to threaten the regime of King Hussein, who eventually expelled the PLO from Jordan through a bloody 1970 fight with the Jordanian Army.

Michael Adams of the Council for Anglo-Arab Understanding, a pro-Arab lobby, made the claim that the Israeli army had massacred 200 Arabs in Gaza. David Pryce-Jones, an esteemed journalist who in 1973 wrote The Face of Defeat, a book about the Palestinians, was alarmed at the charge of such an atrocity in the territory he was covering. He relates:

• "So I investigated. The story had begun with Gazans themselves. For days on end, they escorted me helpfully through the crowded streets of Gaza City from one house to another in search of families with a missing relative. There was always one more address to be visited, and one more rumor to be explored, but we found neither victims nor burial place for the simple reason that none existed. The story was untrue."

Sources and additional reading on this topic:

• The Six Day War
• The 1967 Six-Day War
• The Six Day War
• The Arabs Will Never Make Peace With Reality
• Aftermath of the War
• Six Days in June
• Did the Israelis Do It?