Six fateful days in 1967 fundamentally altered the map of the Middle East and shaped the course of history in the region for decades to come. On the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, Moment reached out to an eclectic group to ask: which event most defined the last half-century of the Israeli experience?
Click a name to jump to their answer:
Mustafa Barghouti / Avraham Burg / Yael Dayan
Matti Friedman / Yossi Klein Halevi /Fida Jiryis / Daniel C. Kurtzer
Dov Lipman / Sherri Mandell / Eilat Mazar
Yisrael Medad / Aaron David Miller / Benny Morris
Mark Podwal / Dorit Rabinyan / Meir Shalev
Raja Shehadeh / Ksenia Svetlova / Ayelet Waldman
Symposium Editor Marilyn Cooper
Interviews by Marilyn Cooper, Dina Gold,
George E. Johnson, Ellen Wexler, Laurence Wolff
Meir Shalev
Meir Shalev is an Israeli author and journalist. he writes a column for the daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot. His novels include A Pigeon and a Boy and, most recently, Two She-Bears.
I was recruited into the Israeli army in 1966; I was dismissed from service in 1968 because of an injury. I always felt I was recruited into the army of one country and left the army of a completely different country. I fought in the Six-Day War in the Golan Heights in an elite group, the reconnaissance unit of the Golani Brigade. We fought in fierce battles over the Golan Heights. We were very eager to fight. The fighting itself was very intense; I lost some good friends in it. Back then I felt like a victorious soldier; now I look at it with very different eyes.
Before 1967, Jerusalem was a wounded city; it was divided in two halves. Jerusalem had a frightened and reserved feeling. People on the west side felt disconnected from the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount. It was a very cultured city with the only university in Israel and the seat of the government. The first years after the Six-Day War were the most beautiful years in Jerusalem. Young people came from Europe and the United States. We didn’t have television or internet and very few people could afford to go abroad, but suddenly abroad came to us. Everyone admired Israel. Young people came from around the world and they brought us two new toys, the Pill and grass. We had not known them before; suddenly Jerusalem became very happy! This was only for a few years, and slowly it went back to what it used to be. Today Jerusalem is a vulgar city with religious fanatics, the way it has been for most of its history.
My father, the right-wing poet Yitzchak Shalev, was in a state of complete euphoria after the war. About a month and a half after it ended, I spent a weekend leave from the army with my family. My father and I got into a big fight, I told him that with this victory Israel had taken a bite that we would suffocate on; he kicked me out of the house. I wasn’t speaking from political or ideological reasons but practical ones. I thought that a nation of three million people couldn’t rule a nation of one million people. It’s impossible unless you dedicate all your resources to it. That’s what’s happened for the last 50 years. It’s a tragedy for the State of Israel.
Yael Dayan
Yael Dayan is an Israeli politician and author. She served as a member of the Knesset between 1992 and 2003, and from 2008 to 2013 was the chair of the Tel Aviv city council.
I got married the July after the 1967 war; I had been a reserve officer in the war, a lieutenant in the unit under the command of General Ariel Sharon. I married a colonel I had met during the war; he was Ariel Sharon’s right-hand man, Sharon was my husband’s best man. My father, Moshe Dayan, was minister of defense, and the wedding was in my parents’ house in the Tzahala neighborhood of Tel Aviv. We invited family and friends, and my father added as invitees all the mayors of the West Bank and the Gaza cities. They all came to the wedding; this was pre-Palestinian Authority. It was a marvelous feeling, like a promo for peace. Here we were, the bride and groom, the chief rabbi of the army, David Ben-Gurion, and all the big Palestinian West Bank and Gazan families. It was an unforgettable event coming immediately after the war; it showed our belief that we were now on the road to peace.
I remember when my father declared the reunification of Jerusalem. People my age and older had a tremendous feeling at that time that this was the war that would end all wars. We believed that the extent of this tremendous victory would mean a ticket to peace. There was a huge difference between one month after the war, one year after the war, ten years after the war, the 1973 war and this current landmark—all of which were a series of disappointments as a result of all that was not achieved by the 1967 war. Today, we are at the peak of the disappointment. Rather than planting a seed leading to a peaceful coexistence and a solution to the conflict, the war sowed a seed which has grown into a great catastrophe that is endangering the existence of the State of Israel: the rise of extreme religious elements, the rise of the far right and a kind of imperialism which has come to endanger our democracy. Instead of Israel meaning a homeland for the Jews, we Israelis have become an occupier of another people’s homeland.
It’s unbelievable after 50 years not to have found a solution for such a minor problem as the little Palestinian-Israeli conflict; it’s really very small when you think of huge global problems. But then we have become some kind of monster. I say this as a patriot—don’t misunderstand me. I live here; I have children, grandchildren here. My father and mother fought for peace, they believed in the importance of cooperation and coexistence. Their hopes have been disappointed.
Raja Shehadeh
Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian author and lawyer living in the West Bank. He founded the human rights organization Al-Haq. His most recent book is Where the Line is Drawn: A Tale of Crossings, Friendship and Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel-Palestine.
For me, the most pivotal moment for the State of Israel in the past 50 years took place very soon after the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. On Saturday, June 10, 1967—literally the last day of the 1967 war—my father, Aziz Shehadeh, approached the Israeli government with a written plan for peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The core of the plan was the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip alongside Israel with its capital in East Jerusalem and an equitable solution for the Palestinian refugees. It had the support of some 50 Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. I helped my father by typing the plan on my manual typewriter.
Over the past 50 years there were a number of other opportunities for peace that Israel squandered. But perhaps that first one, which took place before the occupation had become entrenched and a large number of Israelis were moved into Jewish settlements in the West Bank, was the most decisive and could have changed the course of the history of Israel, Palestine and the Middle East region as a whole. Had this plan been seriously considered by the Israeli government, we Palestinians would have been spared 50 years of suffering under a brutal occupation, and the Israelis would have been rid of what Gideon Levy, the Haaretz columnist, has recently described as “the greatest Jewish disaster since the Holocaust.”
It was only years later, after reading The Bride and the Dowry by Avi Raz, that I learned that the Israeli government did not even bother to discuss the plan. Israeli leaders were so drunk with victory that the then Israeli minister of defense, Moshe Dayan, declared soon after the end of the war: “We are now an empire.” I was then a 16-year-old who had little interest in politics, yet I could see how disappointed my father felt when, three weeks after the occupation, he learned that “the empire” passed a law on June 27, 1967, annexing East Jerusalem, which he had proposed should be the capital of the Palestinian state.
Yisrael Medad
Yisrael Medad is an American-born Israeli journalist. He was the editor of Counterpoint and the founding editor of Yesha Report. He is currently the Director of Educational programming and Information Resources at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem.
The reunification of Jerusalem was a key moment in the continuing battle for the soul of Jewish national identity. The official decision for reunification on June 27, 1967 by the Knesset came after 19 years in which most of the world had been very critical of Israel for moving its capital to Jerusalem. The reunification created a strong connection between Jewish history, Jewish culture, the Jewish religion and Zionism. Jerusalem is at the heart of who we are as Jews and Zionists. I remember crossing over the Green Line with friends and celebrating the reunification at the Western Wall. I felt I was a foot and a half off the ground. It was an exuberant time.
Today, I live in Shiloh and consider myself to be an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The settlements are all suburbs of Israel, but Shiloh is a special case because that is where the Tabernacle was erected; for hundreds of years Jews came from all over to worship here. When I greet visitors at Tel Shiloh I tell them, “Remember that to get to Jerusalem, you have to come through Shiloh first.” Archeological digs at Shiloh have proven that Jews lived there in biblical times and much later. This refutes the notion that Jews were physically exiled. We only lost political and military power; we always continued to be in this land and the idea of Jerusalem kept us alive and sustained us for centuries.
There has been an Arab usurpation of the Jewish patrimony of Jerusalem. The framework of this argument, what I call Palestinianism, is basically, “Who cares that you were here 2,000 years ago, we’ve been here for 1,300 years.” Arab political propaganda claims that Jerusalem is an “Arab city” and that it has been a holy Islamic city for centuries. This is false, Jerusalem as a city has no significance for Islam; it is not mentioned even once in the Quran.
After 1967, the poet Natan Alterman wrote, “This victory effectively obliterated the difference between the State of Israel and the Land of Israel. It is the first time since the Second Temple’s destruction that the Land of Israel is in our hands.” Shiloh and other communities in Judea and Samaria are part of that return to the land.
Daniel C. Kurtzer
Daniel C. Kurtzer is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. From 2001 to 2005 he served as the United States Ambassador to Israel and from 1997 to 2001 as the United States Ambassador to Egypt.
Israel’s victory in the 1967 war changed everything. Israeli power was on display, in sharp contrast to the weakness of surrounding Arab states. The idea of pan-Arabism died, and Palestinians assumed responsibility for their own fate. Relations between the United States and Israel blossomed, ultimately becoming strategic assets for both countries. And Israel’s occupation began amidst indecision on the part of the Israeli government and nascent messianic fervor among segments of the population.
I spent eight weeks in Israel that summer, first as a volunteer helping to clean up the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University and later as a tourist. That visit, and the mixture of unbounded exhilaration felt by the Israeli population and numbing depression in the West Bank and Gaza, stimulated my interest in working toward peace between Israel and its neighbors, something I have pursued professionally and academically for the past 50 years.
Even though the war had ended only ten days before my arrival in Israel in June 1967, the country was wide open. I recall hitchhiking to Gaza, wandering around the town and being invited by IDF officers to join a three-day bus excursion into the Sinai, where the remains of war were still in plain view. I recall meeting my relatives—Holocaust survivors—for the first time and experiencing vicariously the relief they felt in contrast to the fears that had built up in the weeks before the war. I remember the crowds that poured into the Old City of Jerusalem, curious to experience the Western Wall; and I recall the faces of the Palestinians who watched these crowds pass by with a mixture of anxiety, anger, animosity and depression.
Years later, my parents told me that the letters I wrote home that summer (before email was invented and when the price of an international phone call still broke the bank) told of my belief that the euphoria would not last and that the reality of dealing with an unhappy population under occupation would necessitate a peacemaking effort. I don’t recall those letters, and they are now nowhere to be found; however, the feeling that my parents say I expressed in July and August 1967 clearly motivated me to try to do my part to bring peace to Israelis and Arabs. So far, little success, but I have not lost hope.
Ayelet Waldman
Ayelet Waldman is an Israeli-American author of fiction and nonfiction. Most recently, she and Michael Chabon edited Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation.
The Six-Day War plays a critical role in my personal history, despite the fact that I was a very small child at the time. I was born in December of 1964. In 1967 my family was living in Jerusalem. The very first memory I have, a hazy one that I’m not sure is even real, is of being in either a basement or bomb shelter with my mother. My siblings were not there, and my understanding is that my mother didn’t know where they were. We left Israel right after the war. My parents had already planned to leave—my father was back in Canada looking for work when the war broke out—but the war was the last straw.
The Six-Day War catalyzed so much of what has happened since. It allowed not just Israelis but also the Jews of the diaspora to see themselves as heroes rather than merely victims of the Holocaust. And of course, it was the beginning of this period of occupation and colonization. The occupation itself, not enemies on its borders, is the greatest threat Israel faces. I believe that the act of colonization, of being an occupying force, could well lead to the destruction of the State of Israel.
As an adult I’ve traveled in the occupied territories. One of the most horrible and compelling places I visited was the two villages of Susya, the Palestinian village and the Israeli settlement. For decades, perhaps even as long ago as the early 19th century or before, there had been a Palestinian village there, a community living in caves and caverns. The Israeli government used the excuse of the archeological importance of the site to remove the residents. However, once they were gone, a settlement was built. I stood on the barren hill outside the settlement, amidst the hovels to which the Palestinian families have been reduced, without any of the basic human necessities such as running water and electricity. They live in abject poverty. Periodically their shanties are bulldozed and their wells are despoiled as the Israeli military seeks to drive them from their homes. In the distance you can see the pretty little settlement, with its gardens and irrigation, its synagogue and kindergarten. The contrast is nauseating. That’s the legacy of the 1967 war.
Eilat Mazar
Eilat Mazar is a third-generation Israeli archeologist. She specializes in Jerusalem and Phoenician archeology and has worked on the Temple Mount and City of David excavations.
After the Six-Day War, Jerusalem was united again. It was obvious to me that Jerusalem should be one city and the capital of Israel. It is a city that Jews own by historical right. Separating east and west Jerusalem is like cutting off the legs of a person. Ancient Jerusalem started in a place we now call the City of David in the eastern part of the city, which I helped excavate. This is where Jerusalem began and then it developed towards the Temple Mount; that is the heart of the city. Archeology definitely proves that Jews were the first to be in Jerusalem. The most ancient parts revealed by our excavations contained Hebrew. Other languages only appeared much later. Jerusalem later came to be important to Christians and Muslims; they should be part of the city and respected. But first and foremost, it is a Jewish city—that is unquestionable.
I first went to east Jerusalem in 1968 to see my grandfather Benjamin Mazar’s excavation at the foot of the Temple Mount; I was 11 years old (photo above). The western part of Jerusalem was already very developed and beautiful, but until then the eastern part was disgustingly unkempt. It was very dirty and messy, the roads were poor and the whole area had been horribly neglected. You had to tour the site quietly because it was also dangerous. There was worldwide interest in the excavation. Changes were already taking place, people were eager to develop it. Archeology was part of the work of developing east Jerusalem; we made it so you could appreciate and enjoy the heritage of east Jerusalem.
Yossi Klein Halevi
Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. His most recent book, Like Dreamers, took the top prize at the 2013 National Jewish Book Awards.
The first time I visited Israel was as a 14-year-old boy in the summer of 1967, a few weeks after the war. I was on a one-year program at Hebrew University in 1973 when the Yom Kippur War broke out. I moved to Israel in 1982 at the beginning of the Lebanon War. I was drafted during the first intifada. I feel like my life has been on a trajectory with Israel’s wars.
Encountering Israel for the first time in the summer of 1967 was meeting Israel at its most euphoric moment. It was the happy ending of Jewish history. Everyone you spoke to that summer said, “That’s it, it’s over, no more wars.” There was a feeling of completion. Everything was magical; everything was whole. There was the sense that Israel was compensating for everything that we’d lost. My father was a Holocaust survivor, and he came out of the Second World War angry at God. And in the summer of 1967, standing at the Wall, he made his peace with God, and he said to me, “Now I can forgive God.”
Six years later, I returned to Israel as an overseas student and the Yom Kippur War broke out. The experience of being in Israel during the country’s most devastating moment was the exact opposite of how I had first encountered Israel. When I watched my Israeli friends and cousins go off to war while I stayed behind on the home front, I felt ashamed. My generation of Israelis was defending the country, defending the Jewish people, and my American privilege had bought me an exemption from this part of Jewish history. I realized I didn’t understand Israel. I was a well-wisher looking in from the outside.
One incident haunted me for years. I was walking on the streets in Jerusalem when a jeep passed with some soldiers in it and one of them called out to me, “Can I have your scarf?” And I said no, because what I had learned about Israel before the war was, “Don’t be a freier, don’t be a sucker.” What I didn’t realize was that “don’t be a freier” applies only to Israel when it’s not in a state of emergency. When it’s in a state of emergency, everyone is expected to give everything. Afterward, I realized that guy wasn’t trying to rip me off. He was a soldier, and he was reaching out to me because he assumed that I was a fellow Israeli and that I knew the code and that of course, I would give him my scarf—he asked for it. He needed it, and he was going back to the front, and I wasn’t on the front.
That was the moment when I decided that I wasn’t going to be an outsider to this story. Experiencing Israel in 1967 made me want to be a part of Israel, but experiencing Israel in 1973 made it essential for me to be a part of Israel. In retrospect, that was the moment when I decided to make aliyah.