Forty years ago, today’s date (June 8) marked day number four of the Six Day War. In the course of the past week, I have read celebrations of Israel’s victory — and, true enough, it was a tactical marvel. I have also read lamentations of the results, saying this victory actually was a disaster because Israel obtained and established rule over Palestinian Arabs who to this day don’t want it, and Israel thereby went from underdog to oppressor.
I also have read countercharges that if Israel had lost or not responded to the Egyptian-Syrian provocations and threats, it would have been destroyed and its people slaughtered.
I have read arguments about how and why the war started — it was manipulated by the Soviet Union; no, Israel was the real aggressor trying to grab land and was not facing a true threat — all of which historians and propagandists will be fighting over for years.
However, so far I have seen no discussion of how militarily limited that incredible victory was. In fact, my reservations about that victory are that it actually was not, and could not be or have been, complete enough.
Real victory
Like many bookish boys, I grew up reading a lot of books about wars. To this day I still love a well-told war story, fact or fiction — and this remains true even though I hated every millisecond of my own military experience as a U.S. Navy Reservist, where I served as a hospitalcorpsman/combat medic attached to a Marine Corps Reserve infantry unit.
My favorite wars to read about were and still are the American Civil War and World War II. But I also have read fascinating literature about World War I, Napoleon’s wars, Korea and Vietnam, and some ancient wars. And of course, I have read much about Israel’s wars.
I would not dare call myself a military history scholar. But my reading and experience have given me some understanding of one thing especially — a modern war almost never truly ends until one side is thoroughly vanquished, is deprived of the will and means to carry on the struggle, and admits that fact to the world and to itself.
That is what happened in the Civil War. The Union forces didn’t just defeat or capture all the major armies of the Confederate States. The Union conquered nearly the entire territory, including its capital, Richmond; destroyed most of the Confederacy’s agricultural and industrial resources; and overwhelmed the Confederacy’s capacity and will to make war.
But that is not what happened in World War I. Germany may have signed a treaty of surrender; but its territory was not conquered; Berlin was not captured; and many of its military and general populace did not truly feel they had been defeated, or understand how Germany could have lost.
Hence the wide appeal of the German Nazis, who not only compelled Germany’s economic and military recovery, but launched World War II to a great extent to undo World War I. The result, of course, was that Germany finally experienced what the Confederacy had, with the whole country invaded and truly conquered.
In that sense, Israel did not truly defeat the Arab world in June 1967 or at any other time in its history. Israel may have destroyed the Egyptian and Syrian air forces on the ground and maneuvered those countries’ and Jordan’s armies out of the Golan Heights, West Bank, Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula. But it did not conquer these countries’ capitals, destroy their economies, damage their governments and military establishments beyond repair or recovery, or obtain a true surrender.
And no matter how well-trained, well-equipped, well-financed and well-spirited Israel’s defense forces are, I doubt it will ever be able to win a truly total victory over the Arab world, at least not by itself. Israel is too small; the Arab world too big.
Yet I dread that only such a victory will compel the Arab world to accept Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state. The Arab world, meaning both the Arab countries and the Palestinians, strongly reminds me of Germany after World War I. I see there the same straining to understand the tactical losses, the same turning to surreal anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the same readiness and capacity to regroup and rearm, the same refusal to admit having been defeated, the same yearning to undo the defeats.
I have heard Jews on the left say that most of the Arab world actually is ready to make peace with Israel. I would like to believe that they are right and that their evidence — some poll data, a few statements by Arab leaders like the “Saudi initiative” — indicates the truth. And I know enough about history to understand that events never run exactly parallel or congruent. Who would have believed in July 1967 that Israel would ever have treaties of peace with Egypt and Jordan?
Nevertheless, history does show what is possible and maybe likely among people, nations and cultures. What Germany did, the Arabs conceivably could do. I hope for the Arabs’ sake as much as Israel’s that they will stop wanting to destroy Israel. But unlike so many on the left, I perceive no sign that this is happening. And if it doesn’t, how many more glorious but incomplete victories can tiny Israel keep winning?
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