Six-Day War & Arab-Israeli War

The Six-Day War was an armed conflict in June 1967 between Israel and the Arab nations of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, which were aided by Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Algeria.

The war grew out of the general Arab-Israeli struggle, which in the early months of 1967 led to an increasingly bellicose stance on both sides; by mid-May all parties were mobilizing. Egypt subsequently blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba, a vital transportation route, to Israeli shipping. Israel took that move as an act of aggression. Hostilities began on June 5th when Israel struck with a massive preemptive strike that crippled the Arabs' air capacity. Israeli forces then quickly moved to occupy the Gaza Strip and push into the Sinai. At the same time Israelis fought Jordanians in Old Jerusalem and advanced into Syria. By June 10, when the fighting was halted, Israel controlled the entire Sinai Peninsula and all Jordanian territory west of the Jordan River, as well as the strategic Golan Heights of Syria. One result of the war was the idling of the Suez Canal until 1975.

The Arab-Israeli War is sometimes called the Yom Kippur War by the Israelis because it began on one of their holiest holidays, Yom Kippur. The Arabs call it the Ramadan War after the month in the Muslim calendar. It was an armed conflict between Israel and the two Arab countries of Egypt and Syria which totally took Israel by surprise.

On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria, frustrated by Israel's refusal to give up Arab territory take during the Six-Day War, joined to launch a surprise attack on Israeli occupation forces. The Syrians attacked in the Golan heights and the Egyptians in the Sinai. The Syrians, aided by troops from Jordan and Iraq, initially made some gains in the north, but by October 11 they had been turned back, and the Israelis advanced into Syria. In the south, the Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal and penetrated about 10 kilometers (about 6.2 miles) into the Israeli-occupied Sinai before they were stalled. On October 16 the Israelis counterattacked and invaded Egypt itself. A cease-fire arranged by the United Nations took effect on Syrian front on October 22 and in Egypt two days later.

Although it was militarily won by Israel, Egypt by the initial performance of its army, managed to turn the war into a psychological victory. In Israel, Prime Minister Golda Meir was blamed for un-preparedness and was forced to resign the following June. The war marked the beginning of the use of oil as a weapon in the Middle East struggle. From October 1973 to March 1974, the Arab countries maintained an embargo on oil exports to Western nations friendly to Israel.