“Har ha-bait be-yadenu”-The Temple Mount is in our hands, 1967
"No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on…the right of the Palestinian people in their own country." The Khartoum Resolutions declared in September 1967.
What kind of story is this you may wonder? It’s a moral - life’s victories don’t last, but neither do set backs. The Six Day War victory felt like an explosion of a blocked window that permitted in fresh, pure air and light. The perpetual little down trodden David of the world became 100 feet tall, regaining its ancient land and the touch of the ancient stones of the Wailing Wall. So the old grave stones on the Mount of Olives were used for latrines, they would be restored. The ancient Kotel looked unkempt. That would be fixed. But there was living space. Suddenly the cities and villages were not three seconds away from a bomb.
For weeks afterwards Israelis scraped the needles off their record players blaring the song “Jerusalem of Gold” out of every open window. And yet, despite all this, what good would it be without peace? So Israel extended its hand for peace. Land for peace, with some modifications. Who would not want peace?
Lesson one: The Arabs could care less about peace. The Khartoum conference proved that the Arabs thrive not on life, economic stability and peace but on victory over the Jews, whose presence in the Middle East they wish to wipe out.
Egypt with Russia’s assistance initiated the War of Attrition, hoping that a prolonged war would collapse the Israeli economy and their morale.
Simultaneously, terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians increased. In 1972 the Olympic team of Israel was massacred in Munich in cold blood, exposing the Arabs proclivity to use innocent lives as bombs.
Lesson Two: The media and the UN became the Arabs’ propagandists as they increasingly accepted the fantasies the Arabs propagated that they were the victims and Israel the aggressor. The fact that the Six Day War occurred because the Arabs planned to wipe out Israel, a UN recognized nation, was forgotten. Despite verbiage to the contrary, pressure on Israel grew indicating the existence of a double standard for the Jewish State and other countries in matters of the right for self defense.
Lesson Three: Compassion, growth and creativity despite the thorns. Israel introduced electricity, health care, education, and roads into the new territories. It devised plans to relocate the Palestinians’ refugees out of their camps, but the Arab league forbade it to them.
Also, the Israeli eonomy thrived despite the Arab countries’ continued boycott of firms wanting to conduct business with Israel. Zim, today the tenth largest container shipping company in the World, weaned Israel from dependence on foreign freighters. Kibbutzim supplied agricultural needs. 263,000 immigrants settled in Israel from the West during that period, excited to be part of the Israeli dream. Jewish and Christian tourists visited in droves the previously inaccessible holy places.
Lesson Four: Complacency is dangerous. On Yom Kippur October 6, 1973, a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria threw Israel into a near loss. With an infusion of USA weapons, Israel rallied, managed a counter attack, and eventually regained land lost and more. Two Egyptian divisions were cut off from their supply line. The war rattled the Israelis and changed their perspective. If they intended to stay in the Middle East, they’d better brace for the long haul. And they did.
