It’s very hard, four decades later, to imagine the fear, followed by euphoria, that spread through Israel and the Jewish world as the Middle East was plunged into war in 1967.
But now, with the help of the Internet, you can get a taste of the six days of fighting whose effects are still being felt after 40 years. As we approach Yom Yerushalayim and the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, you can relive coverage of that war through a variety of online sources.
Although the war was covered in depth by world media, the primary sites noted in this column are Time and the BBC. That’s because Time is one of the few major publications that has made its entire archive accessible online, for free.
Under the banner “Israel: The Struggle to Survive,” Time’s June 9, 1967 issue features Israeli Premier Levi Eshkol on its cover (http://tinyurl.com/2xvwkn). Introducing the story, Time wrote: “Last week, 19 years after the diaspora dream of return to Zion became a reality in the first Jewish state in almost 2,000 years, Levi Eshkol and his people found themselves besieged and threatened as few nations have ever been in their history” (http://tinyurl.com/239j65).
The following week, Time devotes another 5,000 words to “How Israel Won the War,” including extensive coverage on “new Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, the dashing, one-eyed ‘Hero of Sinai,'” who appears on the cover (http://tinyurl.com/2h3g6x). Other personalities featured prominently that week include Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jordan’s King Hussein (http://tinyurl.com/25wvx6).
That same issue contains a shorter but, in some ways, more telling article. Given the pain and loss of life suffered over the years since then, it’s eye-opening to read an article that retells the “chutzpah-laced jokes about the Middle East conflict.” Titled “Blintzkrieg,” it epitomizes the headiness felt by Israelis and supporters around the world right after the war. One selection reads:
“Reports from the second day of fighting indicated that the Egyptians had destroyed four Jeeps, a kosher mobile kitchen and 14 air-conditioned Cadillacs. The Israelis claimed 400 MIGs and 24 flying carpets.
“‘It’s unfair,’ said a UAR [Egyptian] spokesman. ‘They have 2,300,000 Jews on their side. And we have none.’
“At one point in the campaign, an Arab division spotted a lone Israeli sniper on a sand dune. The commander dispatched three men to get him. When they did not return, he sent a dozen. None of them came back. So he finally sent an entire company. Two hours later, one blood-splattered Egyptian soldier crawled back. ‘It was an ambush,’ he explained. ‘There were two of them'” (http://tinyurl.com/28cboj).
If you want a break from online reading, go to the BBC site and watch a few reports from the war. On June 6, correspondent John Bierman was stationed with Israeli troops at Khan Younis on the Gaza Strip. “It would appear from a military briefing that we’ve just been given that the Israeli plan in this part of the front to cut off the Gaza Strip from the rest of Egypt. The Gaza Strip — which has been described by Israeli strategists as ‘a pistol pointing straight at the heart of Tel Aviv'” (http://tinyurl.com/yrn93d).
Don’t miss the timeline at the center of the page, which links to more BBC audio and video clips from this and other Mideast wars.
Finally, over at YouTube, you can find a vintage newsreel complete with dramatic narration and over-the-top background music (http://tinyurl.com/2bf9mh).
As you listen to the report and pore over the articles, it’s hard to believe that some of them were written 40 years ago, because they seem so current. Two weeks after the war. Time wrote: “In a rational world, Israel’s terms would not seem overly harsh. What it asks in exchange for the land it has conquered is not a return to its dangerous existence before the war but a guarantee that it can live in peace.
“‘Our watchword is not backward to belligerency, but forward to peace,’ explained its ever-eloquent Foreign Minister Abba Eban” (http://tinyurl.com/ywy5ar).