The Turning Point of the June, 1967 War: a Genuine Critique

Abstract

The June, 1967 War was a turning point in the modern history not only of Palestine and the Zionist state but also the wider region. The defeat of the Arab armies was a pivotal moment for the modern and contemporary histories of the Arab world, and has consequences which continue to reverberate today. That fact remains unchanged despite attempts by Arab governments to gloss over the severity of what happened during the war, first by employing the euphemism of Naksa (or "setback") to describe what happened and later to celebrate the fact that "progressive" Arab regimes were not toppled by the Israeli army. Despite the significance of these events, the Arabic academic literature continues to lack a serious analysis of the events of June, 1967, in stark contrast to the hundreds of academic works published by Israeli and western authors. This reality necessitates a rereading of the war, and the formulation of a new Arab narrative about it, which the author attempts in this paper.