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Last update - 23:23 15/05/2007 Jerusalem 40 / Seminal myths The war that created the outlines for peace By Eli Podeh To the Israeli way of thinking, the 1967 war was the "Six-Day War", a term designed to indicate the extent of the Israeli military achievement. The equivalent Arabic term is "Nachsa," which is similar to the "Nakba" of 1948, which means trouble, disaster or a disease that repeats itself. And indeed, from an Arab point of view, the results of the war seemed to be a continuation of the disasters that had befallen the Arabs since the establishment of the state of Israel. However, while it had been possible to blame the Nakba on the corrupt regimes that had been the allies of colonialism, the 1967 defeat was identified with Gamal Abdel Nasser, an authentic Arab leader who wanted to change Arab society. It seems that, as we grow more distant from that war, it actually seems to get closer to us. On its 40th anniversary, the results of the 1967 war appear more relevant than ever. Historical research has provided us with new information, historical perspective offers us new interpretations and the struggle over the memory of the war is still as strong as ever. Therefore, the 1967 war has not yet ended and its implications go well beyond academic and historic aspects. The contrast between victory and defeat was reflected in the collective memory of the war as well. In the Israeli historical narrative, the 1967 war has been endowed with a mystical status which strengthened some of the formative myths of the state: a few against many, as well as the belief that in every generation there are those who rise up to finish us - with Nasser being the modern incarnation of Pharaoh, Haman or Hitler. There were those who saw the victory as a divine epiphany. But in the eyes of most of the secular Jewish public, it was the Israel Defense Forces that won worldwide fame. Poems, stories, memoirs, textbooks, pictures, memorials and street names - all of these have time and again recounted the heroic story, also for the generation that did not have the privilege of undergoing the ecstatic experience of victory. Advertisement The Arab side, not surprisingly, marked the day on which the war ended as a day of mourning, but soon started taking action to wipe out the war's memory from the collective consciousness of its public. All the familiar agents of memorialization worked to operate a mechanism of forgetfulness instead. In places where it was impossible to wipe out the memory completely, the war was presented as an American-Israeli "collusion." From the psychological point of view, it was possible to digest an amazing and swift Israeli victory only if it could be seen as a cooperative effort with the West. Recognition of the fact that the "little" Israel had by itself defeated some of the most advanced Arab armies within six days was impossible to conceive of. Parallel to the process of wiping out the war's memory and of denying it, there was also an attempt to compensate for the defeat, even if only in symbolic terms. In this way, Anwar Sadat chose to reopen the Suez Canal on June 5, 1975, and in June 1972 Saddam Hussein nationalized Iraq's oil industry, which had been in Western hands, so the date could be identified with victory. The beginning of the process The war speeded up certain basic processes and in this way helped to change the face of the Middle East. It symbolized the downfall of the pan-Arab dream headed by Nasser and the failure of the Nasserite movement. The rise of Anwar Sadat in 1970 marked a significant change in Egyptian policies, but Israel was not sufficiently aware of the change. And thus it was that Israel missed Sadat's 1971 initiative, which resembled the peace treaty that was signed eight years later to a surprising extent. The transfer from an ideology that sanctified the Arab collective to an ideology that sanctified the territorial state made it possible to conduct separate negotiations between Israel and every one of its neighbors, even if these opportunities were not realized to their fullest extent. Cracks began to appear in the Arab concept on the transience of the Jewish state and its expected demise. In 1967, voices began to be raised among the Arabs about the existence of Israel as being a fait accompli more than had been the case in the past - even if this change was not motivated by a recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist enterprise but rather by the necessities of reality. In a historical perspective, it is possible to claim that this marked the start of a process that would lead to the presentation of the Arab peace plan 40 years later. Israeli governments preferred to see the decisions of the 1967 Arab summit conference in Khartoum - that rejected negotiations, recognition of Israel and peace - as the "true" and only Arab stance. The gradual change of positions on Israel created the conditions for it to leave the "ghetto" of the Middle East that had been imposed upon it. The peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan were supposed to be important stages in breaking through the wall of isolation. But Israel preferred to stick to the concept of "a nation that dwells alone," instead of furthering peace initiatives that would have strengthened its position in the Middle East. With their recovery from the trauma of 1948, their awakening from the Nasserite dream and the growth of a new generation of leaders among them, the Palestinians once again assumed a central role in the conflict. In a paradoxical fashion, it was precisely the conquest of the West Bank from the Jordanians that created the conditions for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but Israel preferred the Jordanian option. At the same time, the talks with Palestinian leaders in the territories proved that the Israeli leadership was aware of the existence of a commune of people (if not a nation) that was worthy of a separate existence but was not prepared to (or could not) accept the conclusions that stemmed from this recognition. The adoption of an ambiguous policy about the territories by the governments of Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir provided the green light for the establishment of the settlements and rendered the possibility that there would be a Palestinian or Jordanian agreement ever more distant. This process became more entrenched when the Likud came to power in 1977 and it became the main stumbling block on the way to a solution to the conflict. The Israeli-Palestinian arena now constitutes the heart of the conflict whose roots indeed lie in the war of 1948 but whose chances of being successfully resolved can be found in the conclusions from the 1967 war. The beginning of the end The ideological vacuum that was created by the demise of Pan-Arabism and old-fashioned Zionism was filled instead by religious messianic fervor on both sides of the conflict. The Islamic movements considered the defeat a "divine" sign of the failure of the secular Arabic experiment, and religious Zionism viewed the victory over the Arabs, and in particular the liberation of Jerusalem, as a sign of messianic delivery. The results of the war therefore served as a catalyst in strengthening religious movements and establishing religious organizations that gave political expression to the phenomenon. The negative, even rejecting, attitude toward "the other" (whether Arab or Jew) on the part of religious movements on either side of the fence contributed to the conflict's escalation and its worsening. To a large extent, this was a parallel but opposite development to the process of recognition and the readiness to negotiate with the other side, which likewise started after 1967. In this case, too, Israel failed to see the change that was taking place, which might perhaps have pushed it into talking with the moderate voices in the Arab world even before the religious elements from both sides of the conflict had managed to become strengthened and entrenched. The war altered reality but it also created possibilities for significant and far-reaching changes in Israeli-Arab relations. The territorial gains made by Israel enabled it to sign a peace agreement with Egypt and Jordan; the potential for a diplomatic solution with Syria, the Palestinians and other Arab elements exists but has not yet been fulfilled. That is to say, the war created the infrastructure for the final design of the permanent borders of Israel, but this process has yet to be completed. Forty years after the 1967 war, Israel is once again at a crossroads. Ever since the occupation of Iraq by the United States in 2003, the Middle East is undergoing a drastic shake-up. Israel cannot continue to look at reality and say nothing has changed. It is already possible to say today - and not 40 years from now - that there has been a turnaround, and that the voices coming from the Arab and Islamic world calling for a dialogue are sufficiently serious and important. We should not ignore them. Progress in this direction is not merely the heritage of the 1967 war, but also the start of its end. Prof. Podeh is the head of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Terrorist donuts U.S. Arabs irate over criticism of celebrity cook's kaffiyeh. All the way to hell Rosner's blog: It's Obama's good intentions that pro-Israel activists fear.   1.   Good article 02:34  |  Paul 16/05/07   2.   author lives in la la land 03:57  |  terry 16/05/07   3.   #2 07:14  |  yuval 16/05/07   4.   Something For Peace 08:01  |  RickD 16/05/07   5.   Thank you Yuval 08:08  |  Shadi 16/05/07   6.   to Rick D and Shadi 09:17  |  Jason 16/05/07   7.   Yuval and Shadi 10:13  |  Eli 16/05/07   8.   justice always triumphs in the end. hence the israeli victories. 17:42  |  frenz 08/06/08

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