ISRAEL'S 1967 WAR OF AGGRESSION AGAINST EGYPT, JORDAN AND SYRIA.

In the early hours of June 5, l967, Israel launched a war of aggression against Egypt, Jordan and Syria and occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula.

On the admission of many Israeli leaders, this war was the result of a long-planned, calculated aggression. It was undertaken in order to expand Israel's ocupation of Arab territories and not (as falsely claimed by Israeli apologists) as a pre-emptive strike to avoid annihilation.

Menachem Begin, Minister without Portfoli:

"In June l967, we had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." (New York Times, August 21, 1982)

General Mordechai Hod, Commanding General, Israeli Air Force:

"Sixteen years planning had gone into those initial eighty minutes. We lived with the plan, we slept on the plan, we ate the plan. Constantly we perfected it." (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1978, pp. 558-559)

General Yitshak Rabin, Chief of Staff, Israeli Defence Forces:

"I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it." (Le Monde, February 28, 1968 )

General Mattitiahu Peled, Chief Quartermaster-General's Branch, Israeli Defence Forces, General Staff:

"All those stories about the huge danger we were facing because of our small territorial size, an argument expounded once the war was over, had never been considered our calculations prior to the unleashing of hostilities. While we proceeded towards the full mobilisation of our forces, no person in his right mind could believe that all this force was necessary to our defence against the Egyptian threat. To pretend that the Egyptian forces concentrated on our borders were capable of threatening Israel's existence does not only insult the intelligence of any person capable of analysing this kind of situation, but is primarily an insult to the Israeli army." (Le Monde, June 3, 1972)

General Ezer Weizman, Chief of Operations, Israeli Defence Forces, General Staff:

"There was never a danger of extermination. This hypothesis had never been considered in any serious meeting." (Ha'aretz, March 29, 1972)

General Yeshayahu Gavish, Commanding General Southern Command:

"The danger of Israel's extermination was hardly present before the Six-day war." (Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection , New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1978, p. 558)

General Haim Barlev, Chief of General Staff Branch, Israeli Defence Forces:

"We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the six-day war, and we had never thought of such a possibility." (Ma' ariv, April 4, 1972)

General Chaim Herzog, Commanding General and first Military Govemor, Israeli Occupied West Bank:

"There was no danger of annihilation. Israeli headquarters never believed in this danger." (Ma' ariv, April 4, 1972)

Mordechai Bentov, Minister of Housing:

"The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail, and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory." (Al-Hamishmar, April 14, 1971)

General Meir Amit, the former head of Military Intelligence who was head of Mossad in 1967:

"There is going to be a war. Our army is now fully mobilized. But we cannot remain in that condition for long. Because we have a civilian army our economy is shuddering to a stop. We don't have the manpower right now even to bring in the crops. Sugar beets are rotting in the earth. We have to make quick decisions... If we can get the first blow in our casualties will be comparatively light..." ( Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan and Eli Landau, The Mossad: Israel's Secret Intelligence Service , New York: New American Library, 1978)