Six-day War :

Pre six day war. The Sinai campaign gets rid of the Fedayeen raids from Gaza. Egypt was tied with a civil war in Yemen and there was disarray in the arab world. Egypt was fighting there. They were not interested with a war with Israel because they were tied up, because of arab division and because of the economic difficulties in the country.

Syria was a different story. Syria became the most belligerent of our arab neighbours and used the conflict to deflect from domestic problems. For a while they were depending on which coup succeeded and who was in government. They ridiculed Egypt for hiding behind the UN forces in Sinai. When the Baath came to power it changed their relationship with Egypt but it didn’t affect their belligerency. They promoted Fatah raids as Fatah were in Syria.

In 1965 the joint arab command has an estimate that they were going to need billions of dollars and four years to be ready for a war with Israel.

Jordan was not interested in a war because they didn’t want Iraqi forces on its soil. The Lebanese didn’t want war because they didn’t want Syrian forces on their soil. There was a lot of concern that Syria was going to drag them into a war that they did not feel the world was ready for.

In Feb 63′ the left wing of the Baath party came to power in Syria but it was weak because of its Allouite background. The regime was very shakey which meant they had to face a muslim country. Their problems meant they tried to strengthen the regime by creating a pact with Egypt and and by Keeping the arab Israel conflict alive and kicking.

There was a demilitarised zone with many Syrian Israeli skirmishes.
1.Raids from syrian territory
2.direct conflict between two armies
3.Syria was attacking Israel’s water projects.

There is a clear build up of tensions. In November 66′ the Egyptians signed an agreement with the Syrians. The Egyptians signed it to help the Syrian regime to stabilise and to try to get some control over what was happening in Syria. They wanted to restrain Syria until the arabs were ready.

Israel interpreted this as Egyptian backing for war.

In 66′ in Israel -

This is a period of recession economically and things are not good and it was felt and morale was extremely low. It was the first time that more people left than came in. There was a defeatist atmosphere. The political situation was still bitter. This was a period of a lack of confidence where the younger generation were beginning to think in terms of discos and not war.
If you were looking from the outside making an intelligence estimate.
1.Levi Eshkol was not seen as an impressive figure and then add that the Soviets were arming the arab armies and there was a feeling that any war would not be as easy as the Sinai campaign.
2.Israel didn’t want a two front war unlike the single front in 56′

It would seem as though Israel didn’t want a war. The United States would restrain Israel because they didn’t want any distractions during Vietnam.

In the beginning of 67′ there was a lot of rhetoric coming from the Syrians. In April 67′ The kibbutzim tried to take some more land and a major battle ensues and Israel downed 6 mig21. There is a major battle over the kinneret.

Rabin as chief of staff is making some serious statements as well as Eskol saying that if Syria goes on then there is going to be trouble. There is a spate of rumours of Israeli troop movements.

Timeline of events immediately before the war

7th April 1967 – Israeli -Syrian air battle over the kinneret
12/13 May – Soviets tell Egypt that Israel massing forces to attack Syria
14/15 May – Egyptian Chief of staff reports “no Israeli troops”
14 May – Egyptian forces enter Sinai
16 May – Partial Israeli mobilisation
18 May – Egypt asks UNEF to leave Sinai (not Gaza or Sharm)
19 May – Large scale mobilisation in Israel
22 May – Nasser announces closing straits of Tiran
23 May – Egypt closes straits, Israel postpones response
24 May – Egyptian war minister Badran in Moscow.