Page 58 - Hamizrachi #30 USA 2021 Yom Yerushalayim - Shavuot

THE FORGO T TEN FRONT

of the

Rabbi Hanoch Teller
SIX DAY WAR

emories of the Six-Day War the usable land in Israel and consequently ensued resulting in the loss of six Syrian
invariably center upon the bril- result in the influx of more Jews. Accord- planes and no Israeli casualties.
liant military triumph. Forgot- ingly, the Syrians began diverting the Once again, the score on the battlefield
ten was the overriding concern Jordan River tributaries emanating from did not mirror political realities. In diplo-
of the Israeli military and gov- their territory to dry up the carrier. matic circles the world was up in arms, the
ernment that the war would be Tank battles ensued across the border. UN suddenly had no agenda other than
Mdecided more in Washington The Syrians began to move their heavy censuring Israel, the Soviets lost not only
and in the UN in New York, than on the equipment away from the border and out their most advanced fighter jets but also
battlefield. If there was any lesson from the of the range of Israeli tanks. face, and the Arabs threatened the immi-
Sinai Campaign in 1956, it was that Israel There was no question that the diver- nent destruction of the Zionist State with
could win a bloody war and then have it all sion of water would constitute a casus renewed vigor.
vitiated. belli (grounds for war) and there was Egypt, under the leadership of Gamal
And just as the Israeli military was also no question that the intervention of Abdel Nasser, assumed the leadership of
blessed with manifest and more subtle the Israeli Air Force in the water conflict the Arab world by expelling the UN Emer-
miracles at every stage of the war, in the would be the point of no return for actual gency Force (UNEF) from the Sinai Penin-
diplomatic arena Israel was also graced war. Armor wizard Yisrael Tal made some sula and immediately afterward flooding
with industrial helpings of Divine Prov- critical modifications, extending the range it with Egyptian forces. These acts clearly
idence. To better understand this, some of the Israeli tanks so that the Syrian signaled what Nasser was up to, and if any
crucial background. earth-moving equipment was no longer other proof was needed, on May 23, 1967,
Nasser’s closing the Straits of Tiran in safe wherever it was positioned. Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli
May 1967 – which many assume pre- This brought an end to the water diver- shipping, constituting a casus belli for Israel.
cipitated the war – was actually the final sion, commencing the next diversion. The Israel was thrust into the
chapter of what is often referred to as the Syrians began to rain missiles upon the nerve-wracking countdown to war,
“War for the Water.” That war is a more Galilee farms and kibbutzim from the high remembered in the chronicles of Israel
informed starting point to the Six-Day ground of the Golan Heights. Cautious as the Hamtana (the Wait).
War. Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol finally As Egypt had stationed 100,000 troops
In 1964, Israel completed its National authorized the air force to suppress the equipped with hundreds of Soviet tanks in
Water Carrier, consisting of a north- Syrian bombardments. the Sinai Peninsula, the most logical action
to-south conduit of tunnels, canals and If ever there was a reason to be cautious, for Israel would have been a preemptive
pipelines some 130 kilometers long trans- this was it, for this act could easily catalyze strike. But Israel’s (supposed) allies, its arms
ferring Jordan River water to the Negev a regional war involving Soviet interven- suppliers, would not hear of it.
Desert. To the Arab mind this was an tion. The Israeli air strike made Syrian France’s Charles de Gaulle offered no
existential threat, for it would increase Mig-21s take to the air and a dog fight advice how Israel was to manage with

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