1967 Coverage of the Six Day Way

Spread the love

Loading

Given Obama’s obsession with the 1948 borders, this seemed like an appropriate day to resurrect some contemporary coverage of the Six Day War, culled from a commemorative issue that Life Magazine published back in 1967.  (For those with long memories, I first published these excerpts back in 2006.  It’s a shame Obama wasn’t reading my blog then.)

The commemorative issue opens by describing Nasser’s conduct, which presented such a threat that Israel had no option but to react. It makes for interesting reading, in part because it assumes a legitimacy to Israel’s 1967 preemptive strike. After describing how Pres. Abdel Gamel Nasser, speaking from Cairo, demanded Israel’s extermination, the Life editorial board goes on to say this:

The world had grown accustomed to such shows [of destructive hatred towards Israel] through a decade of Arab-Israeli face-offs that seasonally blew as hot as a desert sirocco. Since 1948, when Israel defeated the Arabs and won the right to exist as a nation, anti-Zionist diatribes had been the Arab world’s only official recognition of Israel. Indeed, in the 19 years since the state was founded, the surrounding Arab states have never wavered from their claim that they were in a state of war with Israel.

But now there was an alarming difference in Nasser’s buildup. He demanded that the U.N. withdraw the 3,400-man truce-keeping force that had camped in Egypt’s Sinai desert and in the Gaza Strip ever since Egypt’s defeat in the Suez campaign of 1956 as a buffer between Egyptians and Israelis. A worried United Nations Secretary-General U Thant agreed to the withdrawal, then winged to Cairo to caution Nasser.

He found him adamant. Plagued by economic difficulties at home and bogged down in the war in Yemen, Nasser had lately been criticized by Syrians for hiding behind the U.N. truce-keeping force. With brinksmanship as his weapon, Nasser had moved to bolster his shaky claim to leadership of the divided Arab world.

In contrast to the fevered, irrational hatred on the Arab side, the Life editors are impressed by the Israelis. Under the bold heading “Israel’s cool readiness,” and accompanied by photographs of smiling Israeli soldiers taking a cooling shower in the desert, listening to their commander, and attending to their tanks, Life has this to say:

With the elan and precision of a practiced drill team, Israel’s largely civilian army — 71,000 regulars and 205,000 reservists — began its swift mobilization to face, if necessary, 14 Arab nations and their 110 million people. As Premier Levi Eshkol was to put it, “The Jewish people has had to fight unceasingly to keep itself alive…. We acted from an instinct to save the soul of a people.

Can you imagine a modern publication pointing out the vast disparity in landmass and population between Israel and the Arabs, or even acknowledging in the opening paragraph of any article that Israel has a right to exist?

Read more

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

3 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Interesting language POTUS Obama used during his speech on May 19th when he said “Israel has a right to defend it’s self, BY IT’S SELF” This is Street code for the forces aligned against Israel that the U.S. A., during the Obama administration will NOT come to the defence of Israel Militarily or through honest diplomacy. This it a truly dangeous time for Israel and her people. He made many demands on Israel but only suggestions to the PLO/Hamas dictatorship.

In the very beginning of Israel the english sold the Israeli’s to the Nasser, the embryonic PLO and arafart…There is a nice review of the milatry movment to secure Israel in Quarterly Journal of Miliatry History. The british conspired to destroy the establishment of the counrtry of Israel with it enemies. boy idiot “pres”. thinks he will lease the Isreal out to dry..true..he is a terrorist, make no mistake about that and whore hillary is no one of the worse examples of ssos. Returing to pre 1967 borders is a joke. Have you ever seen what has been done to this area. Do not be suprised if on day you hear that Israel has made a pre-empted nuclear strike. Being Jewish has always been tough. Thanks ” boy idiot” if not only got tougher, but more dangerous. But why should he care when the plo/hamas killing starts..Not going to affect him or his cabinet. The compounding of collateral damge is going to be high. Smile America, “boy idiot” has just buried more Americans.

Obama seems to have borrowed his anti-Israel stance from the Carter administration. At least that is what we are led to think, because the MSM (including FOX) continue to proclaim that Obama is a Christian and refuse to accept that Obama’s Muslim upbringing might have anything to do with it. Simply attending services at your wife’s church does not automatically make you of that religion. In this last week, Obama has unmasked his true feelings and has thrown off any pretense of being an ally of Israel. Yet his followers still want to lie to themselves, or simply keep quiet about it his betrayal of the trust given him byJewish voters.