For Egypt, the 1956 Suez War was a military defeat but a political victory.

Heavy diplomatic pressure forced Israel to withdraw its military from the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. After the 1956 war, Egypt, although not Israel, agreed to the stationing of a UN peacekeeping force in the Sinai, UNEF, to keep that border region demilitarized, and prevent guerrillas from crossing the border into Israel. As a result the border between Egypt and Israel quieted for a while.

The war's aftermath saw the region return to an uneasy balance without any real resolution of the region's difficulties. At the time, no Arab state had recognized Israel.

On April 7, 1967, a minor border incident escalated into a full-scale aerial battle over the Golan Heights, resulting in the loss of six Syrian MiG-21s to Israeli Air Force (IAF) Dassault Mirage III, and the latter's flight over Damascus. Other border incidents in which Israel and Syria exchanged artillery, tank and aircraft fire increased the tensions along this front. The Israeli government was under heavy pressure to put an end to Syrian shellings of border villages.

On 18 May, 1967, Egypt formally requested the withdrawal of UNEF from Sinai. UN Secretary-General U Thant complied, thus removing the international buffer which had existed along the Egyptian-Israeli border since 1957. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser then began the re-militarization of the Sinai, and concentrated tanks and troops on the border with Israel.

On 23 May, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to all Israel-bound ships, thus blockading the Israeli port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel viewed the closure of the straits with alarm and demanded the US and UK open the straits as they guaranteed they would in 1957. Harold Wilson's proposal of an international maritime force to quell the crisis was adopted by US President Johnson, but received little international support. The Israeli cabinet met on 23 May and decided to launch a pre-emptive strike if the Straits of Tiran were not re-opened by 25 May, later agreeing to a delay of another two weeks at US request. It should be noted that blockade, even partial blockade, is generally defined as an act of war.

In his speech to Arab trade unionists on 26 May, Nasser announced:

"If Israel embarks on an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle will be a general one.. and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel".

On May 30, Jordan signed a mutual defense treaty with Egypt, thereby joining the military alliance already in place between Egypt and Syria. Jordanian forces were placed under the command of Egyptian General Abdul Munim Riad. This put Arab forces just 17 kilometers from Israel's coast, a jump-off point from which a well coordinated tank assault would likely cut Israel in two within half an hour. Such a coordinated attack from the West Bank was always viewed by the Israeli leadership as a threat to Israel's existence. On the same day, Nasser proclaimed: "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel .. while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq (see also: Iraq Maps), Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world."

At the same time, several other Arab states not bordering Israel, including Iraq, Sudan, Kuwait and Algeria, also began mobilizing their armed forces.

Newly declassified documents reveal that the Johnson Administration worked feverishly behind the scenes attempting to "hold the Israeli tiger" in the days leading up to war. The US received guarantees from Egypt that it would not strike first, and had arranged a diplomatic visit from Egyptian envoy Mohieddin on June 3, 1967. The diplomatic cable stated "we hope it will be possible for him to come without delay" and there were high hopes in the Johnson Administration that the visit would lead to the end of the crisis.

On June 4, Iraq joined the military alliance with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

The US received promises from Egypt that it would not strike first. On the evening of 1 June minister of defense Moshe Dayan called Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin and the GOC, Southern Command Brigadier General Yeshayahu Gavish to present plans to be implemented against Egypt. Rabin had formulated a plan in which Southern Command would fight its way to the Gaza Strip and then hold the territory and its people hostage until Egypt agreed to reopen the Straits of Tiran while Gavish had a more comprehensive plan that called for the destruction of Egyptian forces in the Sinai. Rabin favored Gavish's plan, which was then endorsed by Dayan with the caution that a simultaneous offensive against Syria should be avoided.

In May 1967 the Egyptian Army had a nominal strength of around 150,000, but 50-70,000 of its troops, including its elite units, were fighting in the Yemen civil war, leading some of Nasser's commanders to the belief that Egypt was in no position to fight. Nasser's ambivalence about his goals and objectives was reflected in his orders to the military. The general staff changed the operational plan four times in May 1967, with each change requiring the redeployment of troops to a new location, with the inevitable toll on both men and vehicles. Towards the end of May, Nasser finally forbade the general staff from proceeding with the Qahir ("Victory") plan, which called for a light infantry screen in forward fortifications, and the bulk of Egyptian forces held back to conduct a massive counterattack against the main Israeli advance, instead ordering a forward defense of the Sinai. In the mean time, he continued to take actions intended to increase the level of mobilization of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in order to bring unbearable pressure on Israel.

Jordan's army had a total strength of 55,000, but it too was embroiled in the fighting in Yemen. Syria's army had 75,000 troops.

The Israeli army had a total strength, including reservists, of 264,000. James Reston, writing in the New York Times on May 23, 1967 noted, "In discipline, training, morale, equipment and general competence his [Nasser's] army and the other Arab forces, without the direct assistance of the Soviet Union, are no match for the Israelis.. Even with 50,000 troops and the best of his generals and air force in Yemen, he has not been able to work his way in that small and primitive country, and even his effort to help the Congo rebels was a flop."

Israel's first and most important move was a pre-emptive attack on the Egyptian Air Force. It was by far the largest and the most modern of all the Arab air forces, consisting of about 450 combat aircraft, all of them Soviet-built and relatively new.

Of particular concern to the Israelis were the 30 TU-16 Badger medium bombers, capable of inflicting heavy damage to Israeli military and civilian centers. On 5 June at seven forty five Israeli time, as civil defense sirens sounded all over Israel, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched Operation Focus (Moked). All but four of its 197 operational jets left the skies of Israel in a mass attack against Egypt's airfields. Egyptian defensive infrastructure was extremely poor, and no airfields were yet equipped with armoured bunkers capable of protecting Egypt's warplanes in the event of an attack. The Israeli warplanes headed out over the Mediterranean before turning towards Egypt. Meanwhile, the Egyptians hindered their own defense by effectively shutting down their entire air defense system: they were worried that rebel Egyptian forces would shoot down the plane carrying Field Marshal Amer and Lieutenant-General Sidqi Mahmoud, who were en route from al Maza to Bir Tamada in the Sinai to meet the commanders of the troops stationed there. In this event it did not make a great deal of difference as the Israeli pilots came in below Egyptian radar cover and well below the lowest point at which its SAM-2 surface-to-air missile batteries could bring down an aircraft. The Israelis employed a mixed attack strategy; bombing and strafing runs against the planes themselves, and tarmac-shredding penetration bombs dropped on the runways that rendered them unusable, leaving any undamaged planes unable to take off, and therefore helpless targets for later Israeli waves. The attack was successful beyond its planners' wildest dreams, destroying virtually all of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground with few Israeli casualties. Over 300 aircraft and 100 combat pilots were lost. The Israelis lost 19 of their planes, mostly to operational losses. The attack guaranteed Israeli air superiority during the rest of the war.

Before the war, Israeli pilots and ground crews trained extensively in rapid refitting of aircraft returning from sorties, enabling a single aircraft to sortie up to four times a day (as opposed to the norm in Arab air forces of 1-2 sorties per day). This enabled the IAF to send several attack waves against Egyptian airfields on the first day of the war, overwhelming the Egyptian Air Force. This has also contributed to the Arab belief that the IAF was helped by foreign air forces (see below).

Following the success of the initial attack waves against the major Egyptian airfields, subsequent attacks were made later in the day against secondary Egyptian airfields as well as Jordanian, Syrian and even Iraqi fields. Throughout the war, Israeli aircraft continued strafing airfield runways to prevent their return to usability.

Israeli forces concentrated on the border with Egypt included 6 armored brigades, one infantry brigade, one mechanized infantry brigade, 3 paratrooper brigades and 700 tanks giving a total of around 70,000 men, organized in three armored divisions.

The Israeli plan was to surprise the Egyptian forces in both timing (i.e., pre-emptive attack exactly coinciding with the time the IAF was due to strike the Egyptian airfields), location (attacking via northern and central Sinai routes, as opposed to the Egyptian expectations of a repeat of the 1956 war, when the IDF attacked via the central and southern routes) and method (using a combined-force flanking approach, rather than direct tank assaults).

The central division (Maj. Gen. Avraham Yoffe) and the southern division (Maj. Gen. Ariel Sharon), however, entered the heavily defended Abu-Ageila-Kusseima region. Egyptian forces there included one infantry division (the 2nd), a battalion of tank destroyers and a tank regiment.

At that moment, Sharon initiated an attack, precisely planned, coordinated and carried out. He sent out two of his brigades to the north of Um-Katef, the first one ordered to break through the defenses at Abu-Ageila to the south, and the second to block the road to El-Arish and to encircle Abu-Ageila from the east. At the same time, a paratrooper force was heliborne to the rear of the defensive positions and destroyed the artillery, preventing it from engaging Israeli armor and infantry. Combined forces of armor, paratroopers, infantry, artillery and combat engineers then attacked the Egyptian disposition from the front, flanks and rear, cutting the enemy off. The breakthrough battles, which were in sandy areas and minefields, continued for three and-a-half days until Abu-Ageila fell.

Many of the Egyptian units remained intact and could be scrambled to prevent Israeli units from reaching the Suez Canal or engage in combat in the attempt to reach the canal. However, when the Egyptian Minister of Defense, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer heard about the fall of Abu-Ageila, he panicked and ordered all units in the Sinai to retreat. This order effectively meant the defeat of Egypt.

Israel's blocking action was only partially successful. Only the Gidi pass was captured before the Egyptians approached it, but at other places Egyptian units did manage to pass through and cross the Canal to safety.

Nevertheless the Israeli victories were impressive. In four days of operations, Israel defeated the largest and most heavily equipped Arab army, leaving numerous points in the Sinai filled with hundreds of burning or abandoned Egyptian vehicles and military equipment.

Several tactical elements made the swift Israeli advance possible: first, the complete air superiority the Israeli Air Force had achieved over its Egyptian counterpart; second, the determined implementation of an innovative battle plan; and third, the lack of coordination among Egyptian troops. These would prove to be decisive elements on Israel's other fronts as well.

Jordan was reluctant to enter the war. Some claim that Nasser used the obscurity of the first hours of the conflict to convince Hussein that he was victorious; he claimed as evidence a radar sighting of a squadron of Israeli aircraft returning from bombing raids in Egypt which he claimed to be Egyptian aircraft en route to attacking Israel. One of the Jordanian brigades stationed in the West Bank was sent to the Hebron area in order to link with the Egyptians. Hussein decided to attack.

Prior to the war, Jordanian forces included 11 brigades totaling some 55,000 troops, equipped by some 300 modern Western tanks. Of these, 9 brigades were deployed in the West Bank and 2 in the Jordan Valley. The forces were organized in 4 divisions, one of them being the elite armored 40th. The Jordanian ground army was relatively well-equipped and well-trained. Furthermore, Israeli post-war briefings claimed that the Jordanian staff acted professionally as well, but was always left "half a step" behind by the Israeli moves. The Royal Jordanian Air Force, however, consisted of only about 20 Hawker Hunter fighters, obsolete by all standards.

Israeli Central Command forces consisted of five brigades. The first two were permanently stationed near Jerusalem and were called the Jerusalem Brigade and the mechanized Harel Brigade. Mordechai Gur's 35th paratrooper brigade was summoned from the Sinai front. An armored brigade was allocated from the General Staff reserve and brought to the Latrun area. The 10th armored brigade was stationed north of Samaria. The Israeli Northern Command provided a division (3 brigades) led by Maj. Gen. Elad Peled, which was stationed to the north of Samaria, in the Jezreel Valley.

The IDF's strategic plan was to remain on the defensive along the Jordanian front, to enable focus in the expected campaign against Egypt. However, on the morning of 5 June, Jordanian forces made thrusts in the area of Jerusalem, occupying Government House used as the headquarters for the UN observers and shelled the Israeli (western) part of the city. Units in Qalqiliya fired in the direction of Tel-Aviv. The Royal Jordanian Air Force attacked Israeli airfields. Both air and artillery attacks caused little damage. Israeli units were scrambled to attack Jordanian forces in the West Bank. In the afternoon of that same day, Israeli Air Force (IAF) strikes destroyed the Royal Jordanian Air Force. By the evening of that day, the Jerusalem infantry brigade moved south of Jerusalem, while the mechanized Harel and Gur's paratroopers encircled it from the north.

On June 6, the Israeli units attacked: The reserve paratroop brigade completed the Jerusalem encirclement in the bloody Battle of the Ammunition Hill. The infantry brigade attacked the fortress at Latrun capturing it at daybreak, and advanced through Beit Horon towards Ramallah. The Harel brigade continued its push to the mountainous area of north-west Jerusalem, linking the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University with the city of Jerusalem. By the evening, the brigade arrived in Ramallah. The IAF detected and destroyed the 60th Jordanian Brigade en-route from Jericho to reinforce Jerusalem.

On 7 June heavy fighting ensued. Gur's paratroopers entered the Old City of Jerusalem via the Lion's Gate, and captured the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. The Jerusalem brigade then reinforced them, and continued to the south, capturing Judea, Gush Etzion and Hebron. The Harel brigade proceeded eastward, descending to the Jordan River.

In Samaria, one of Peled's brigades seized Nablus; then it joined one of Central Command's armored brigades to fight the Jordanian forces which held the advantage of superior equipment and were equal in numbers to the Israelis.

Again, the air superiority of the IAF proved paramount as it immobilized the enemy, leading to its defeat.

One of Peled's brigades joined with its Central Command counterparts coming from Ramallah, and the remaining two blocked the Jordan river crossings together with the Central Command's 10th (the latter crossed the Jordan river into the East Bank to provide cover for Israeli combat engineers while they blew the bridges, but was quickly pulled back because of American pressure).

During the evening of 5 June, Israeli air strikes destroyed two thirds of the Syrian Air Force, and forced the remaining third to retreat to distant bases, without playing any further role in the ensuing warfare. A minor Syrian force tried to capture the water plant at Tel Dan (the subject of a fierce escalation two years earlier). Several Syrian tanks are reported to have sunk in the Jordan river. In any case, the Syrian command abandoned hopes of a ground attack, and began a massive shelling of Israeli towns in the Hula Valley instead.

7 June and 8 passed in this way. At that time, a debate had been going on in the Israeli leadership whether the Golan Heights should be assailed as well. Military advice was that the attack would be extremely costly, as it would be an uphill battle against a strongly fortified enemy. The western side of the Golan Heights consists of a rock escarpment that rises 500 metres (1700 ft) from the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River to a more gently sloping plateau. Moshe Dayan believed such an operation would yield losses of 30,000, and opposed it bitterly. Levi Eshkol, on the other hand, was more open to the possibility of an operation in the Golan Heights, as was the head of the Northern Command, David Elazar, whose unbridled enthusiasm for and confidence in the operation may have eroded Dayan's reluctance. Eventually, as the situation on the Southern and Central fronts cleared up, Moshe Dayan became more enthusiastic about the idea, and he authorized the operation.

The Syrian army consisted of about 75,000 men grouped in 9 brigades, supported by an adequate amount of artillery and armor. Israeli forces used in combat consisted of two brigades (one armored led by Albert Mandler and the Golani Brigade) in the northern part of the front, and another two (infantry and one of Peled's brigades summoned from Jenin) in the center. The Golan Heights' unique terrain (mountainous slopes crossed by parallel streams every several kilometres running east to west), and the general lack of roads in the area channeled both forces along east-west axes of movement and restricting the ability of units to support those on either flank. Thus the Syrians could move north-south on the plateau itself, and the Israelis could move north-south at the base of the Golan escarpment. An advantage Israel possessed was the excellent intelligence collected by Mossad operative Eli Cohen (who was captured and executed in Syria in 1965) regarding the Syrian battle positions.

The IAF, which had been attacking Syrian artillery for four days prior to the attack, was ordered to attack Syrian positions with all its force. While the well-protected artillery was mostly undamaged, the ground forces staying on the Golan plateau (6 of the 9 brigades) became unable to organize a defense. By the evening of 9 June, the four Israeli brigades had broken through to the plateau, where they could be reinforced and replaced.

On the next day, June 10, the central and northern groups joined in a pincer movement on the plateau, but that fell mainly on empty territory as the Syrian forces fled. Several units joined by Elad Peled climbed to the Golan from the south, only to find the positions mostly empty as well. During the day, the Israeli units stopped after obtaining maneuver room between their positions and a line of volcanic hills to the west. To the east the ground terrain is an open gently sloping plain. This position later became the cease-fire line known as the "Purple Line".

During the Six-Day War, the IAF demonstrated the crucial importance of air superiority during the course of a modern conflict. Following the IAF's preliminary air attack, it was able to thwart and harass the Arab air forces and to grant itself air superiority over all fronts; it then complemented the strategic effect of their initial strike by carrying out tactical support operations. Of particular interest was the destruction of the Jordanian 60th armored brigade near Jericho and the attack on the Iraqi armored brigade which was sent to attack Israel through Jordan.

In contrast, the Arab air forces never managed to mount an effective attack: Attacks of Jordanian fighters and Egyptian TU-16 bombers into the Israeli rear during the first two days of the war were not successful and led to the destruction of the aircraft (Egyptian bombers were shot down while Jordan's fighters were destroyed during the attack on the airfield).

On June 6 the second day of the war, King Hussein and Nasser declared that American and British aircraft took part in the Israeli attacks. This announcement was intercepted by the Israelis and turned into a media frenzy. This became known as "The Big Lie" in American and British circles.

War at sea was extremely limited. Movements of both Israeli and Egyptian vessels are known to have been used to intimidate the other side, but neither side has ever engaged the other at sea. The only moves that yielded any result were the unleashing of 6 Israeli frogmen in Alexandria harbor (they were captured, having sunk a minesweeper), and the Israeli light boat crews capturing the abandoned Sharm El-Sheikh on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula on June 7.

On June 8 the USS Liberty, a United States Navy electronic intelligence vessel sailing 13 nautical miles off al-Arish (just outside Egypt's territorial waters), was attacked by Israeli air and sea forces, nearly sinking the ship and causing heavy casualties. Israel claimed the attack was a case of mistaken identity, apologized for the mistake, and paid restitution to the victims or their families. The truth of the Israeli claim is still debated to this day.

By June 10, Israel had completed its final offensive in the Golan Heights and a ceasefire was signed the following day. Israel had seized the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank of the Jordan River (including East Jerusalem), and the Golan Heights. Overall, Israel's territory grew by a factor of 3, including about one million Arabs placed under Israel's direct control in the newly captured territories. Israel's strategic depth grew to at least 300 kilometers in the south, 60 kilometers in the east and 20 kilometers of extremely rugged terrain in the north, a security asset that would prove useful in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War six years later.

The political importance of the 1967 War was immense; Israel demonstrated that it was not only able, but also willing to initiate strategic strikes that could change the regional balance. Egypt and Syria learned tactical lessons, but perhaps not the strategic ones, and would launch an attack in 1973 in an attempt to reclaim their lost territory.

According to Chaim Herzog,

On June 19, 1967, the National Unity Government [of Israel] voted unanimously to return the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria in return for peace agreements. The Golans would have to be demilitarized and special arrangement would be negotiated for the Straits of Tiran. The government also resolved to open negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan regarding the Eastern border.

The Israeli decision was to be conveyed to the Arab nations by the United States. The US was informed of the decision, but not that it was to transmit it. There is no evidence of receipt from Egypt or Syria, who thus apparently never received the offer.

Later, the Khartoum Arab Summit resolved that there would be "no peace, no recognition and no negotiation with Israel." However, as Avraham Sela notes, the Khartoum conference effectively marked a shift in the perception of the conflict by the Arab states away from one centered on the question of Israel's legitimacy toward one focusing on territories and boundaries and this was underpinned on 22 November when Egypt and Jordan accepted Resolution 242.

The June 19 cabinet decision did not include the Gaza Strip, and left open the possibility of Israel permanently acquiring parts of the West Bank. On June 25-27, Israel incorporated East Jerusalem together with areas of the West Bank to the north and south into Jerusalem's new municipal boundaries.

Yet another aspect of the war touches on the population of the captured territories: of about one million Palestinians in the West Bank, 300,000 (according to the US State Department) fled to Jordan, where they contributed to the growing unrest. The other 600,000 remained. In the Golan Heights, an estimated 80,000 Syrians fled. Only the inhabitants of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights were allowed to receive Israeli citizenship, as Israel annexed these territories in the early 1980s. See also Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both Jordan and Egypt eventually withdrew their claims to West Bank and Gaza (the Sinai was returned on the basis of Camp David Accords of 1978 and the question of the Golan Heights is still being negotiated with Syria). After Israeli conquest of these newly acquired 'territories' a large settlement effort was launched to secure Israel's permanent foothold. There are now hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers in these territories.

The casualties of the war, far from Israel's anticipated heavy estimates, were quite low, with 338 soldiers lost on the Egyptian front, 300 on the Jordanian front, and 141 on the Syrian front. Egypt lost 80% of its military equipment, 10,000 soldiers and 1,500 officers killed, 5,000 soldiers and 500 officers captured, and 20,000 wounded. Jordan suffered 6,000-7,000 killed and probably around 12,000 to 20,000 wounded. Syria lost 2,500 dead and 5,000 wounded, half the tanks and almost all the artillery positioned in the Golan Heights were destroyed. The official count of Iraqi casualties was 10 killed and about thirty wounded.

The 1967 War also laid the foundation for future discord in the region - as on 22 November 1967, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242, the "land for peace" formula, which called for Israeli withdrawal "from territories occupied" in 1967 in return for "the termination of all claims or states of belligerency."

The framers of Resolution 242 recognized that some territorial adjustments were likely and deliberately did not include words all or the in the English language version of the text when referring to "territories occupied" during the war, although it is present in other, notably French, Spanish and Russian versions. It recognized the right of "every state in the area" - thus Israel in particular - "to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1982, after the Camp David Accords, returned captured East Bank territory to Jordan in the mid-1990s and disengaged completely from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005.

The dramatic events of the Six Day War have given rise to a number of accusations of atrocities and controversial claims and theories.

In a 16 August 1995 interview for Israel Radio, Aryeh Yitzhaki of Bar-Ilan University, who had worked previously in the IDF history department, accused IDF units of killing up to 1,000 Egyptians who had abandoned their weapons and fled into the desert during the war. The allegations received widespread attention in Israel and throughout the world. However, It emerged subsequently that Yitzhaki was a member of Rafael Eitan's Tsomet Party and former employer Meir Pa'il speculated that Yitzhaki had an ulterior motive in seeking to divert public attention away from revelations by retired general Arye Biro concerning his involvement in the killing of 49 PoWs in the 1956 war.

Although Yitzkhaki’s claim that up to 1,000 prisoners had been killed was not substantiated, in an ensuing highly-controversial national debate in Israel, more soldiers came forward to say that they had witnessed the execution of unarmed prisoners and a long-suppressed public reckoning began. Israeli military historian Uri Milstein was reported as saying that there were many such incidents in the war: "It was not an official policy, but there was an atmosphere that it was okay to do it. Some commanders decided to do it; others refused. But everyone knew about it".

A June 11, 1967 general-command IDF order specifically forbade killing prisoners, apparently indicating such practices had indeed existed. However, no official Israeli documents that would allow the scale of the killings to be accurately assessed have been released.

According to a New York Times report of 21 September 1995 the Egyptian government announced that it had discovered two shallow mass graves in the Sinai at El Arish containing the remains of 30-60 Egyptian prisoners shot by Israeli soldiers during the 1967 war. Israel reportedly offered compensation to the families of victims.

According to Israeli sources, 4,338 Egyptian soldiers were captured by IDF. 11 Israeli soldiers were captured by Egyptian forces. PoW exchanges were completed on 23 January 1968.

Some Arabs believe that the United States and Britain provided active support for the Israeli Air Force. Claims of American and British combat support for Israel began on the second day of the war. Radio Cairo and the government newspaper Al-Ahram made a number of claims, among them: that U.S. and British carrier-based aircraft flew sorties against the Egyptians; that U.S. aircraft based in Libya attacked Egypt; and that U.S. spy satellites provided imagery to Israel. Both Syria and Jordan broadcast similar reports on Radio Damascus and Radio Amman. These claims were also repeated by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in his 9 June resignation speech (his resignation was not accepted).

Both London and Washington strongly denied these claims, and no evidence has ever corroborated them.

Nonetheless, these claims, that the Arabs were fighting the Americans and British rather than Israel alone, took hold in the Arab world. A British guidance telegram to Middle East posts concluded: "The Arabs' reluctance to disbelieve all versions of the Big Lie springs in part from a need to believe that the Israelis could not have defeated them so thoroughly without outside assistance." In reaction to these claims, Arab oil-producing countries announced an oil embargo.

In a 1993 interview, U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara revealed that the U.S. 6th Fleet Carrier battle group, on a training exercise near Gibraltar was re-positioned towards the eastern Mediterranean to defend Israel, causing a crisis between the US and USSR. McNamara did not explain how the crisis was resolved.

In his book Six Days, BBC journalist Jeremy Bowen claims that during the crisis, Israeli ships and planes carried British and American military arms reserves from British soil.

There are theories that the entire 1967 War was a botched attempt by the Soviet Union to create tensions between West Germany and Arab countries by highlighting West Germany's support for Israel.

In her September 2003 article in the Middle East Review of International Affairs, Isabella Ginor detailed Soviet GRU documents proposing such a plan and further detailing faulty intelligence fed to Egypt claiming troop buildups near the Golan Heights in Syria.

Footnotes

• It was twenty minutes after the capture of the Western Wall that David Rubinger shot his "signature" photograph of three Israeli paratroopers gazing in wonder up at the wall [Kaniuk, Yoram. "June 10, 1967 - Israeli paratroopers reach the Western Wall". The Digital Journalist. http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0003/arm01.htm. Retrieved on 2008-12-02. ]. As part of the terms for his access to the front lines, Rubinger handed the negatives to the Israeli government, who then distributed this image widely. Although he was displeased with the violation of his copyright, the widespread use of his photo made it famous [Silver, Eric (February 16, 2006). "David Rubinger in the picture", The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved on 2 December 2008. ], and it is now considered a defining image of the conflict and one of the best-known in the history of Israel [Urquhart, Conal (May 6, 2007). "Six days in June", The Observer. Retrieved on 2 December 2008. ]
• Geoffrey Regan, p.211
• Regan, p.211
• Arab - Israeli Aircraft Losses
• Krauthammer, Charles (2007-05-18). "Prelude to the Six Days", The Washington Post, pp. A23. Retrieved on 20 June 2008.
• Expelled the U.N. force:
  • "In 1967, Egypt ordered the UN troops out and blocked Israeli shipping routes - adding to already high levels of tension between Israel and its neighbours." Israel and the Palestinians in depth, 1967: Six Day War, BBC website. URL accessed December 28, 2008.
  • "Buoyed by the almost universal Arab acclaim he received for his actions, Nasser expelled the UNEF forces and announced the closing of the Straits of Tiran" Robert Owen Freedman. World Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Pergamon Press, 1979, p. 79.
  • "The Israeli attack ended a nerve-wracking three weeks of waiting.. begun when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser expelled the United Nations peacekeepers from the Gaza Strip and the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, blockaded the nearby Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships, and deployed his massive army along the Israeli border." Dan Perry, Alfred Ironside. Israel and the Quest for Permanence, McFarland, 1999, p. 18.
  • "Soon after Nasser expelled UN forces from the Sinai, Secretary of State Dean Rusk directed State Department officials in Washington, New York, and Moscow to urge the Soviets to restrain their Arab friends." Nigel John Ashton. Cold War in the Middle East: Regional Conflict and the Superpowers 1967-73, Routledge, 2007, p. 18.
  • "Nasser.. closed the Gulf of Aqaba to shipping, cutting off Israel from its primary oil supplies. He told U.N. peacekeepers in the Sinai Peninsula to leave. He then sent scores of tanks and hundreds of troops into the Sinai closer to Israel. The Arab world was delirious with support," The Mideast: A Century of Conflict Part 4: The 1967 Six Day War, NPR morning edition, October 3, 2002. URL accessed December 28, 2008.
  • "..a Middle East crisis erupted on May 16, 1967, when Nasser expelled the UN troops that had policed the Sinai since the end of the Suez-Sinai War in 1957." Peter L. Hahn. Crisis and Crossfire: The United States and the Middle East Since 1945, Potomac Books, 2005 , p.50.
  • "In May, 1967 President Nasser expelled UNEF from Egypt and set in train the events that precipitated Israel's blitzkrieg invasion and conquest of the Sinai." J. L. Granatstein. Canadian Foreign Policy: Historical Readings, Copp Clark Pitman, 1986, p. 236.
• Pimlott, John. Middle East Conflicts: From 1945 to the Present, Orbis, 1983, ISBN 085613547X, p. 53.
• • "In 1967, Egypt ordered the UN troops out and blocked Israeli shipping routes - adding to already high levels of tension between Israel and its neighbours." Israel and the Palestinians in depth, 1967: Six Day War, BBC website. URL accessed May 14, 2006.
  • "In June 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan massed their troops on Israel's borders in preparation for an all-out attack." Mideast 101: The Six Day War, CNN website. URL accessed May 14, 2006.
  • "Nasser.. closed the Gulf of Aqaba to shipping, cutting off Israel from its primary oil supplies. He told U.N. peacekeepers in the Sinai Peninsula to leave. He then sent scores of tanks and hundreds of troops into the Sinai closer to Israel. The Arab world was delirious with support," The Mideast: A Century of Conflict Part 4: The 1967 Six Day War, NPR morning edition, October 3, 2002. URL accessed May 14, 2006.
  • "War returned in 1967, when Egypt, Syria and Jordan massed forces to challenge Israel." Country Briefings: Israel, The Economist website. URL accessed March 3, 2007.
  • "After Israel declared its statehood in 1948, several Arab states and Palestinian groups immediately attacked Israel. After a long and bitter war, they were driven back. In 1956 Israel overran Egypt in the Suez-Sinai War. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser vowed to avenge Arab losses and press the cause of Palestinian nationalism. To this end, he organized an alliance of Arab states surrounding Israel and mobilized for war." Six-Day War, Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2007. URL accessed April 10, 2007.
• Pre-emptive strike on June 5, 1967:
  • "..Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Egyptian planes as they stood on the airfields. These events triggered the so-called June war of 1967, but the pre-emptive action of Israel was not condemned by the S.C. - or indeed by the G.A. There appeared to be a general feeling, certainly shared by the Western states, that taken in the context this was a lawful use of anticipatory self-defence, and that for Israel to have waited any longer could well have been fatal to her survival." Antonio Cassese. The Current Legal Regulation of the Use of Force: Current Legal Regulation Vol10, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986, p. 443. ISBN 9024732476
  • "War was inevitable under these conditions. Israel, seeing war as inevitable, decided on a pre-emptive strike, launching its attack on 5 June 1967." Erik Goldstein. Wars and Peace Treaties, 1816-1991, Routledge, 1992, p. 127. ISBN 0415078229
  • "In 1967 Israel was aware of an impending attack by Egypt, to be assisted by Jordan, Iraq and Syria, and won a brilliant and total victory in only six days (consequently the fighting is known as the 'Six-Day War'), largely because they launched a pre-emptive attack on the Arab air forces.." David Roberston. The Routledge Dictionary of Politics, Routledge, 2003, p. 22. ISBN 0415323770
  • "On 30 May 1967 Jordan joined the Syrian-Egyptian military pact. Despite US attempts to mediate, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike just days later which destroyed the unprepared Egyptian air force.." Martin S. Alexander. Knowing Your Friends: Intelligence Inside Alliances and Coalitions from 1914 to the Cold War, Routledge, 1998, p. 246. ISBN 0714648795
  • "On 5 June 1967 Israel attacked Egyptian positions in a pre-emptive strike." Sören Zibrandt von Dosenrode-Lynge, Soren Von Dosenrode, Anders Stubkjaer. The European Union and the Middle East, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002, p. 56. ISBN 0826460887
  • "In the end Israel launched a preemptive aerial attack, in which most of the Egyptian airforce was destroyed on the ground within the first three hours of the war, and in six days the war was over." Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, Columbia University Press, 1999, p. 276. ISBN 0231104839
  • "In a pre-emptive attack on Egypt.." Israel and the Palestinians in depth, 1967: Six Day War, BBC website. URL accessed May 14, 2006.
  • "a massive pre-emptive strike on Egypt." BBC on this day, BBC website. URL accessed May 14, 2006.
  • "Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on June 5" Mideast 101: The Six Day War, CNN website. URL accessed May 14, 2006.
  • "Most historians now agree that although Israel struck first, this pre-emptive strike was defensive in nature." The Mideast: A Century of Conflict Part 4: The 1967 Six Day War, NPR morning edition, October 3, 2002. URL accessed May 14, 2006.
  • "a massive preemptive strike by Israel that crippled the Arabs’ air capacity." SIX-DAY WAR, Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2006 World Almanac Education Group via The History Channel website, 2006, URL accessed February 17, 2007.
  • "In a pre-emptive strike, Israel smashed its enemies’ forces in just six days.." Country Briefings: Israel, The Economist website, July 28, 2005. URL accessed March 15, 2007.
  • "Yet pre-emptive strikes can often be justified even if they don't meet the letter of the law. At the start of the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel, fearing that Egypt was aiming to destroy the Jewish state, devastated Egypt's air force before its pilots had scrambled their jets." Strike First, Explain Yourself Later Michael Elliott, Time, July 1, 2002. URL accessed March 15, 2007.
  • "the situation was similar to the crisis that preceded the 1967 Six Day war, when Israel took preemptive military action." Delay with Diplomacy, Marguerite Johnson, Time, May 18, 1981. URL accessed March 15, 2007.
  • "Israel made a preemptive attack against a threatened Arab invasion.." Six-Day War, Encarta Answers, URL accessed April 10, 2007.
  • "Israel preempted the invasion with its own attack on June 5, 1967." Six-Day War, Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2007. URL accessed April 10, 2007.
  • "Following the Israeli conventional pre-emptive operations in June 1967,.." Aronson, Shlomo. "Israel's Nuclear Programme, the Six Day War and Its Ramifications", in Karsh, Efraim. Israel: The First Hundred Years, Routledge, 1999, p. 83. ISBN 0714649627
  • "Israel, seeing war as inevitable, decided on a pre-emptive strike, launching its attack on 5 June 1967." Goldstein, Erik. Wars and Peace Treaties, Routledge, 1992, p. 127. ISBN 0415078229
  • "Thus provoked, the Israelis attacked preemptively and, in what came to be known as the Six-Day War, routed Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian troops.." Cohen, Warren I. The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations Volume IV, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 193. ISBN 0521483816
  • "As Egypt, Syria and Jordan mobilized their forces in spring 1967 for an evident impending attack, Israel launched a preemptive strike." CNN In-Depth Specials: Mid-East, Land of Conflict, Six-Day War, CNN, Website. Accessed January 7, 2007.
  • "Are there good examples of preemptive or preventive war—that is, ones that were proper to fight? Taking the most promising of the two categories—preemption—only one actual case seems clearly right: the Israeli attack on Egypt and Syria in June 1967." Betts, Richard K. "Striking First: A History of Thankfully Lost Opportunities", Ethics and International Affairs, Volume 17, No. 1 (Spring 2003).
  • "While he and I agree that World War I and the Six Day War are preemptive, we code six cases differently." Reiter, Dan. "Exploding the Powder Keg Myth: Preemptive Wars Almost Never Happen", International Security, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 5-34.
  • "Ironically, when the timing, character and success of Israel's pre-emptive strike surprised the Soviets and obviated their planned intervention, it also put a damper on the festive occasion.." Ginor, Isabella. "The Cold War's Longest Cover-up: How and Why the USSR Instigated the 1967 War", Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal, Volume 7, No. 3 (September 2003).
  • "It was also the primacy of Security interests over moral rectitude that prompted Israel, in the opening blow of the 1967 Six-Day War, to preemptively attack Egypt's warplanes on their bases." Brown, Seyom. International Relations in a Changing Global System, Westview Press, 1996, p. 138, footnote 6. ISBN 0813323533
  • "Israel attacked preemptively, destroying the Egyptian and Syrian air forces on the ground, and went to win a decisive victory in six days." Dershowitz, Alan M. Preemtion: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. p. 81. However, others disagree that Israel launched a pre-emptive strike and question the legality of it
  • "After the discovery of the true facts about Israel's aggression, Israel invoked two arguments to justify its launching the war. Its first argument was that it acted by way of a preventative strike which, in its view, is equivalent to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Such argument has no basis in fact or in law. In fact, Israel, as we have seen, created the crisis and attacked its neighbours. In fact, Israel, as we have seen, created the crisis and attacked its neighbors. In law, the Charter recognizes the right of self-defence against an armed attack, but not a pre-emptive strike in advance of any attack. None of the Arab States had attacked or threatened to attack Israel and as D.P. O'Connell observes, the invasion of a neibhoring country's territory is not an exercise of the right of self-defence. Henry Cattan, The Palestine Question, p. 106 Pre-emptive strike by Israel:
  • "I, as an international lawyer, would rather defend before the International Court of Justice the legality of the UAR's action in closing the Strait of Tiran than to argue the other side of the case, and I would certainly rather do so than to defend the legality of the preventive war which Israel launched this week." Roger Fisher, The New York Times, June 11, 1967
  • "Even if Israel had expected Egypt to attack, it is not clear a preemptive strike is lawful. The UN Charter, Article 51, characterizes armed force as defensive only if it is used in response to an "armed attack." Most states consider this language to mean that a preemptive strike is unlawful. India, for one, asserted in General Assembly discussion of the June 1967 hostilities that preemptive self-defense is not permitted under international law. Most authorities agree with that view, though some say force may be used in anticipation of an attack that has not yet occurred but is reasonably expected to occur imminently. Israel did not face such a situation. John B. Quigley, The Case for Palestine: An International Law Perspective
  • Israel's then-Prime Minister, Moshe Sharett, wrote in his memoirs that the Israeli leadership's military strategy aimed at preventing the emergence of any genuine Arab military force capable of confronting Zionist schemes, noting that for this to succeed Israel would have to fight at least one war every decade against the Arabs. In other words, the Israelis were preparing for the 1967 War a decade in advance, putting together the military apparatus and rallying the political support they needed, while the Arabs -- both leaders and nations -- were busy searching for a project, an identity, and a place under the sun. Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 21 - 27 June 2007, Galal Nassar
  • "Nasser had no intention of striking first and the Israeli generals were confident of victory.. For the Israeli hawks, the crisis was less a threat than an opportunity - to smash Nasserish Egypt and the Pan-Arab movement while Israel still had military superiority." Hinnebusch, Raymond. The International Politics of the Middle East. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. p. 169.
  • “Johnson told Eban that it was the unanimous view of his military experts that there was no sign that the Egyptians were planning to attack Israel…” (Shlaim, Avi. Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. London: Penguin Books, 2000. p. 239)
  • “[When meeting with Eban,] Johnson asked Robert McNamara to summarize the findings of US intelligence agencies. McNamara said that the best judgment in Washington was that an Egyptian attack was not imminent: if this assessment was wrong and Egypt did attack, the view in Washington was that Israel would easily prevail” (Bailey, Sydney. Four Arab-Israeli Wars and the Peace Process. London: Macmillan, 1990. p. 211)
• "On June 5, Israel sent a message to Hussein urging him not to open fire. Despite shelling into western Jerusalem, Netanya, and the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel did nothing." The Six Day War and Its Enduring Legacy, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 2, 2002.
• "Israel promised Jordan that if they did not attack Israel first, Israel would not touch Jordanian positions. After asking for 24 hours to think about it, Jordanian troops opened a heavy-artillery barrage on western Jerusalem, as well as targeting the center of the country. In addition, Jordanian troops seized government houses and the headquarters of the U.N. in Jerusalem." 1967-Six Day War, HistoryCentral.com. URL accessed May 14, 2006.
• "In May-June 1967 Eshkol's government did everything in its power to confine the confrontation to the Egyptian front. Eshkol and his colleagues took into account the possibility of some fighting on the Syrian front. But they wanted to avoid having a clash with Jordan and the inevitable complications of having to deal with the predominantly Palestinian population of the West Bank. The fighting on the eastern front was initiated by Jordan, not by Israel. King Hussein got carried along by a powerful current of Arab nationalism. On 30 May he flew to Cairo and signed a defense pact with Nasser. On 5 June, Jordan started shelling the Israeli side in Jerusalem. This could have been interpreted either as a salvo to uphold Jordanian honor or as a declaration of war. Eshkol decided to give King Hussein the benefit of the doubt. Through General Odd Bull, the Norwegian commander of UNTSO, he sent the following message the morning of 5 June: 'We shall not initiate any action whatsoever against Jordan. However, should Jordan open hostilities, we shall react with all our might, and the king will have to bear the full responsibility of the consequences.' King Hussein told General Bull that it was too late; the die was cast." Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0393048160, pp. 243-244.
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• [At Security Council meeting of June 5], both Israel and Egypt claimed to be repelling an invasion by the other…” (Bailey p. 225)
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