Changes

Since this war, Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab nations to enter into peace agreements with Israel.

Since this war, Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab nations to enter into peace agreements with Israel.

==A Turning Point==

==A Turning Point==

The 1967 War: A Turning Point.<ref>Golan, A., Azaryahu, M., Brenner, M., Dowty, A., Makovsky, D., Troy, G., Stern, Y., Divine, D. R., Bayme, S., Ellenson, D., Ariel, Y., Stillman, N., Harris, R. S., Omer-Sherman, R., Troen, C. (2017). ''Essential Israel: Essays for the 21st Century''. United States: Indiana University Press, [https://books.google.com/books?id=0OQ6DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA161 p.161]</ref>

The 1967 War: A Turning Point.<ref>Golan, A., Azaryahu, M., Brenner, M., Dowty, A., Makovsky, D., Troy, G., Stern, Y., Divine, D. R., Bayme, S., Ellenson, D., Ariel, Y., Stillman, N., Harris, R. S., Omer-Sherman, R., Troen, C. (2017). ''Essential Israel: Essays for the 21st Century''. United States: Indiana University Press, [https://books.google.com/books?id=0OQ6DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA161 pp.159-161]</ref>

{{quotebox-float|Americans in particular thrilled to the pioneering, romantic Israel that had defended civilization against what many then viewed as the Arab hordes. Over the next decade, some Israeli leaders were almost as admired and well known as American pop stars. Moshe Dayan, the one-eyed general who was credited with the lightning-quick Six-Day War victory in 1967, was the real-life Jewish superman, transforming the Jews' image from poor bent victims in the dark European ghetto to suntanned and macho Middle Eastern war heroes. Abba Eban, the eloquent diplomat, was the Jeffersonian scholar-statesman, articulating Israel's cause before the United Nations with Oxonian precision brim- ming with democratic idealism. And Golda Meir, a rare female prime minister during a prefeminist age, was the Yiddishe mama leading the nation, combining a reassuring Eastern European maternal image with an American accent and Israel's cutting-edge pioneering kibbutz spirit.

{{quotebox-float|Americans in particular thrilled to the pioneering, romantic Israel that had defended civilization against what many then viewed as the Arab hordes. Over the next decade, some Israeli leaders were almost as admired and well known as American pop stars. Moshe Dayan, the one-eyed general who was credited with the lightning-quick Six-Day War victory in 1967, was the real-life Jewish superman, transforming the Jews' image from poor bent victims in the dark European ghetto to suntanned and macho Middle Eastern war heroes. Abba Eban, the eloquent diplomat, was the Jeffersonian scholar-statesman, articulating Israel's cause before the United Nations with Oxonian precision brim- ming with democratic idealism. And Golda Meir, a rare female prime minister during a prefeminist age, was the Yiddishe mama leading the nation, combining a reassuring Eastern European maternal image with an American accent and Israel's cutting-edge pioneering kibbutz spirit.

Despite his affinity for Israel, Lyndon Johnson discouraged Israel from launching a preemptive strike during the tense spring of 1967. Nasser had united the military commands of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. He followed his bellicose threats to destroy the Jewish state with actions, removing the UN troops serving as a buffer force in the Sinai, and then blocking the international waterways toward the southern port of Eilat, the Straits of Tiran. After a tense May, when Jews in Israel and abroad feared an- other Holocaust, an Israeli air raid one early June morning destroyed the Egyptian and Syrian air forces. The ensuing six days of war expanded the Jewish state by adding the Sinai desert to the south, the Golan Heights to the north, and Jerusalem as well as the West Bank to the east.

Despite his affinity for Israel, Lyndon Johnson discouraged Israel from launching a preemptive strike during the tense spring of 1967. Nasser had united the military commands of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. He followed his bellicose threats to destroy the Jewish state with actions, removing the UN troops serving as a buffer force in the Sinai, and then blocking the international waterways toward the southern port of Eilat, the Straits of Tiran. After a tense May, when Jews in Israel and abroad feared an- other Holocaust, an Israeli air raid one early June morning destroyed the Egyptian and Syrian air forces. The ensuing six days of war expanded the Jewish state by adding the Sinai desert to the south, the Golan Heights to the north, and Jerusalem as well as the West Bank to the east.

Israel emerged as a winner just as the international community was becoming enamored with losers. In this context, its increasingly close ties with the United States and the surge in the number of Palestinian refugees under Israel's control complicated Israel's relations with Europe and the developing countries. Israel lost its David status and became a Goliath overnight, able to defeat Arab armies with ease-and an oc- cupier responsible for more than one million angry Palestinians. As in 1956, Israel's control of the Sinai-territory they considered part of Af- rica despite being in Asia-had infuriated many postcolonial Africans. Now the thorough shellacking Israel administered to the Arab armies humiliated and enraged their Soviet patrons.

Israel emerged as a winner just as the international community was becoming enamored with losers. In this context, its increasingly close ties with the United States and the surge in the number of Palestinian refugees under Israel's control complicated Israel's relations with Europe and the developing countries. Israel lost its David status and became a Goliath overnight, able to defeat Arab armies with ease-and an oc- cupier responsible for more than one million angry Palestinians. As in 1956, Israel's control of the Sinai-territory they considered part of Af- rica despite being in Asia-had infuriated many postcolonial Africans. Now the thorough shellacking Israel administered to the Arab armies humiliated and enraged their Soviet patrons.

As Israel's position vis-à-vis the Arab states grew stronger, the con- flict shifted: Palestinians took the initiative to advance their rights and launched an independent armed struggle. Various guerrilla movements from the 1950s merged together into the Palestine Liberation Organiza- tion (PLO) in 1964. In January 1965 the PLO's main strike force, Fatah, attacked Israel's national water carrier, its first target. The PLO founding covenant called Zionism “a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for libera- tion and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods."

As Israel's position vis-à-vis the Arab states grew stronger, the con- flict shifted: Palestinians took the initiative to advance their rights and launched an independent armed struggle. Various guerrilla movements from the 1950s merged together into the Palestine Liberation Organiza- tion (PLO) in 1964. In January 1965 the PLO's main strike force, Fatah, attacked Israel's national water carrier, its first target. The PLO founding covenant called Zionism....

The wording of the charter was deliberately chosen. The charismatic and ruthless PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, and his allies understood that beyond terror attacks and diplomatic power plays, they were fighting an ideological war. Rhetoric was important. Targeting world opinion, they played to a Third World, postcolonial solidarity and what would be called a postmodern world glorifying the underdog, especially if the conflict could be cast as people of color opposing Western whites. Exploiting the rise of a global mass media and what the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said referred to as the twentieth century's "generalizing tendency," the Palestinians linked their local story to what Said called “the universal struggle against colonial and imperialism,” including “Vietnam, Alge- ria, Cuba, and black Africa." Well-funded think tanks and publishers publicized this interpretation. Said's 1978 book Orientalism built what became the dominant intellectual edifice in the postmodernist academy and among anti-imperialist progressives. It blamed Westerners automatically and took their guilt as a given, even as his postcolonial revolution decried the "Eurocentric" prejudice against Arabs and Islam.

The wording of the charter was deliberately chosen. The charismatic and ruthless PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, and his allies understood that beyond terror attacks and diplomatic power plays, they were fighting an ideological war. Rhetoric was important. Targeting world opinion, they played to a Third World, postcolonial solidarity and what would be called a postmodern world glorifying the underdog, especially if the conflict could be cast as people of color opposing Western whites. Exploiting the rise of a global mass media and what the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said referred to as the twentieth century's "generalizing tendency," the Palestinians linked their local story to what Said called “the universal struggle against colonial and imperialism,” including “Vietnam, Alge- ria, Cuba, and black Africa." Well-funded think tanks and publishers publicized this interpretation. Said's 1978 book Orientalism built what became the dominant intellectual edifice in the postmodernist academy and among anti-imperialist progressives. It blamed Westerners automatically and took their guilt as a given, even as his postcolonial revolution decried the "Eurocentric" prejudice against Arabs and Islam.