Egypt's President Nasser constantly threatened Israel with a war of annihilation, so Israel prepared for war on three fronts,
reluctantly taking on pro-western King Hussein of Jordan. Inevitably, the Six Day War commenced on 5th June 1967, when Israel launched a series of pre-emptive air strikes against Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian forward air bases, thereby destroying more than 400 fighter planes. The land war continued for a further 5 days until the 10th June 1967. The Arab armies lost vital air cover and Israel captured the Sinai desert, the Gaza strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. Israel claimed a biblical
right to Palestine and its people. The Arabs refused to make peace. The Khartoum conference August 1967 crucially condemned the Palestinians to live in squalid refugee camps thereby denying them the right to citizenship whilst enduring oppression and grinding poverty.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict complicates Western and Arab relations. Iran finances Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, Hamas and Fatah are fighting a civil war in Gaza, the US intervention in Iraq has destabilised the entire region.
40 years on, the Palestinian refusal to accept the 1947 UN partition plan; the Israeli refusal to allow a Palestinian state in 1967; Palestinian suicide bombers ensured Israelis fully rejected a Palestinian state despite President Clinton’s Camp David 2000 mediation for a Palestinian state which was rejected due to the Israeli 25 metre wall and illegal settlements which destroyed a struggling Palestinian independent economy and society.
2007 presents a solution due to a resurgent Iran because the moderate Sunni Arab League nations wish to counter a militant Shi’ite threat led by Hezbollah and Iran. The Arab League proposes peace with Israel in exchange for withdrawal from the 1967 occupied territories; and a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and a resolution of the refugee crisis. Israel needs a strong government and leadership, currently lacking, willing to give up the West Bank; evacuate illegal settlements; allow the return of many refugees and share Jerusalem as the capital of the new Palestinian state. The new Palestinian government must recognise the right of Israel to exist in
peaceful co-existence and must impress the returning refugees they return to a new Palestinian state and cannot reclaim their former homes because they no longer exist. Most Israelis acknowledge Palestinians deserve a viable state and most Palestinians prefer to live in peace with Israel. This is the way forward together to ensure peaceful co-existence in the region.