June 7 1967
Tension rose in the Middle East during the first part of 1967. Egyptian President Nasser threatened battle against Israel: “We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood.” Radio Cairo declared “The existence of Israel has continued too long…The battle has come in which we shall destroy Israel...All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel.”
In May 1967 Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran, Israel’s trading outlet to the Indian Ocean. It ordered the United Nations to remove its peacekeeping force from the Sinai Peninsula. War looked increasingly likely.
Background
The Jewish people lost their independence and the second temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Although some Jews remained in Israel, many scattered in what is commonly called the diaspora. In the late 1800’s, in response to centuries of persecution, Theodore Herzl, a Jew living in Vienna, started the Zionist movement with the goal of establishing a Jewish nation in its historic lands.
Expressing this wish, poet Naftali Herz Imber, living in what is now part of Ukraine, wrote a poem called ‘The Hope’ (Hatikvah).’ Participants at Herzl’s Zionist Congresses in the early 1900’s sang the song to music composed by Samuel Cohen. The song became popular with settlers in Palestine, although Hatikvah was not officially declared the Israeli national anthem until 2004. Click below to listen to the song. Unusual for a national anthem the song is in a minor key, perhaps reflecting the bittersweet historical experience of the Jewish people.
As long as in the heart within,
The Jewish soul yearns,
And toward the eastern edges, onward,
An eye gazes toward Zion.
Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope that is two-thousand years old,
To be a free nation in our land,
The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.
Although Herzl died in 1904, the movement continued. During World War I, the British government endorsed the creation of a Jewish state in a statement from foreign minister Balfour:
“…His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
After World War II, the United Nations divided Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arab states rejected the plan resulting in the Israeli 1948 War of Independence. During that war, the wall of the ancient Jewish temple (the Western or the Wailing Wall) was captured by Jordan. Jordan banned Jewish access to the wall. For the first time in almost 2,000 years, Jews were not allowed to visit or pray there.
Six-Day War
In early June 1967, rhetoric escalated further. A Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) representative, in response to a question about what will happen to Israelis if there is a war responded: “Those who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.” Gamal Nasser of Egypt added: “The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel … to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation.” The President of Iraq stated: “Our goal is clear – to wipe Israel off the map.”
Israel, outnumbered by two or three to one in personnel, tanks, and aircraft launched an attack on June 5, 1967. Six days later the war was over, Israel had won a decisive victory. On the third day of the war, June 7, Israeli troops captured the old city of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall. For the first time in almost 2,000 years, a sovereign Israel now had jurisdiction over the temple site. The diaspora was ending.
