By Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON, D.C. — At the anniversary of the Six Day War, we are reminded of the existential threat Israel faced. Egypt was massing troops in the Sinai after closing the Straits of Tiran and expelling the UN peacekeeping force. Syria was massing troops on the Golan after years of shelling Israelis in the Huleh Valley and trying to divert the sources of the Kinneret. Jordan had parked its 100 U.S.-made main battle tanks just over the West Bank ridgeline where Israel couldn’t see them, despite promises that they would keep them east of the Jordan River. Israelis were watching frenzied mobs threatening to throw the Jews into the sea on Egyptian television while rabbis were discussing the Halacha of mass graves for the thousands of Israelis expected to be killed less than a generation after the Holocaust.
There were no “Palestinians” and no “occupied territories” in 1967, except those illegally occupied by Jordan and Egypt after the 1948 war in which the Arabs strangled the putative Palestinian state. “Arab East Jerusalem,” made so by the siege and expulsion of the Jews, was also illegally in Jordanian hands. UNRWA had been established only 17 years earlier and the resettlement of Arab refugees was still a manageable proposition – particularly as the Israelis had already assimilated an equal or greater number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands. The simple fact of Jews in a Jewish country was enough to drive the main belligerents – Egypt, Jordan and Syria – plus the partners who wanted to help dismember Israel – Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Kuwait, Tunisia and Sudan – to war.
They lost.
This is not 1967. The constellation is different and, at least for now, Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel. Most of the Arab expeditionary forces wouldn’t be involved today – Iran being the focus of their concerns, not Israel. And the Syrian regime is busy killing its own people, including children.
On the other hand, Israel still faces an existential threat in two forms:
- The rockets and missiles that can reach all of Israel from southern Lebanon, Gaza and Syria. There is no “home front” in Israel; all its civilians live “in theater.”
- Iran’s ongoing quest for nuclear weapons capability to match its missile capability and its material support for Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.
Israel also faces the threats of delegitimization, the BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement, flotillas of terrorists masquerading as humanitarians (if they were, they would be headed to Libya and Syria, not Gaza), border breeches by organized bands masquerading as civilians, including people who are the fifth generation born in UNRWA “camps”; the hostility of a generation of Palestinians raised on anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism in both Hamas-supported and Fatah-supported schools; and fallout from the economic, political and social meltdown of Egypt, particularly as regards security in Sinai.
But the JINSA Flag and General Officers participants heard time and again on a visit to Israel that Israel will rise to meet the challenge as a free and democratic state in a difficult region.
- IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, when asked what message we could take back, said, “I don’t know what our neighbors will do or what they will be in the future. I do know that Israel will be here and be a democratic country.”
- Minister for Public Security Moshe Yaalon told them, “Despite our problems, we have a good life in Israel. We have a good economy, arts and culture. We have brains, heart, knowledge and spirit. No one can take that from us. What we need are allies in the Western world.”
We believe that.
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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member. She may be contacted at shoshana.bryen@sdjewishworld.com