“It was a Miracle”: Israel’s Victory over the

Arab Threat in the Six Day War

Interviewer: Nick Tsintolas

Interviewee: Allen Avinoam Kowarski

Instructor: Alex Haight

February 11, 2019

Table of Contents

Interviewer Release Form ...... 2

Interviewee Release Form ...... 3

Statement of Purpose ...... 6

Biography ...... 7

Historical Contextualization: Israel’s Fight for Survival ...... 9

Interview Transcription ...... 35

Interview Analysis ...... 95

Works Consulted ...... 101

Appendix ...... 105

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Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this Oral History Project is to provide a greater understanding and a new perspective of the Six Day War through an interview with Dr. Allen Avinoam Kowarski, a retired pediatric endocrinologist, who experienced the Arab aggression firsthand serving as an Israeli doctor. As a war fought in the scope of the larger and enduring Arab-Israeli conflict, the Six Day

War highlights the threats Arab nations levy against Israel and provides context to the current political situation in the Middle East. Dr. Kowarski’s account of the Six Day War will offer a primary source of life during the war and will contribute to the historical debate over the causes and portrayal of the war.

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Biography

Dr. Allen Avinoam Kowarski was born Avinoam Kowarski on December 30, 1927, in Tel

Aviv, Mandatory Palestine, during Great Britain’s occupation of the region. His parents, brother, and sister emigrated from Lithuania to Palestine along with other Jews who settled there during the British occupation. As a child, Dr. Kowarski read about famous scientists in hopes of becoming one himself, but he later decided that becoming a doctor would be more realistic. After Dr.

Kowarski graduated from high school at 17, he joined the Haganah, an early Israeli defense organization, to fulfill his one-year compulsory service. Since his brother was serving in the

Haganah, the organization’s leaders considered Dr. Kowarski reliable enough to be a messenger.

He was entrusted with the locations of the group’s leaders and delivered correspondence between them. The Haganah was transformed into the Israeli Defense Force in which Dr. Kowarski served as a soldier during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. Next, he began medical school in

Lausanne, Switzerland. Dr. Kowarski married on March 24, 1950, in Switzerland. He returned to

Israel to finish medical school at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, becoming a pediatric endocrinologist. During the 1956 Suez Crisis, he served as an Israeli doctor. Dr. Kowarski’s son,

David, was born in 1957 in Israel, and his daughter, Ruth, was born in 1962 in Baltimore,

Maryland, during his 1962 to 1965 tenure at the Pediatric Endocrine Clinic at Johns Hopkins

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Hospital. Dr. Kowarski changed his name to Allen Avinoam Kowarski while he worked in the

United States. Dr. Kowarski and his family moved back to Israel in 1965, and he served as a doctor in the Israeli Air Force during the 1967 Six Day War. He was recruited to help in the war because of his experience serving his country, and because he was a doctor, he held the rank of captain.

Dr. Kowarski received four medals for his efforts serving Israel: one for his work in the Haganah, one for being a soldier in the Israeli War of Independence, another for risking his life three times during the Suez Crisis, and a fourth for working as a doctor in the Six Day War.

Dr. Kowarski moved back to Baltimore with his family at age 40 and became a fellow at

Johns Hopkins. In 1978 when he was researching pediatric endocrinology, Dr. Kowarski discovered a genetic condition that causes growth failures in children and named it the Kowarski

Syndrome. Later on, he helped write the Wikipedia article describing the syndrome1. During his career, Dr. Kowarski was also a professor of endocrinology in Johns Hopkins University. He opened the Pediatric Endocrine Clinic at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in 1981.

Dr. Kowarski currently lives in North Bethesda, Maryland, near his daughter and her family. He is proud of his lifelong devotion to research and teaching. He enjoys learning more about the science he worked on during his career, studying outer space through reading science journals, and discussing his findings with his family.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowarski_syndrome

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Historical Contextualization: Israel’s Fight for Survival

On August 12, 1967, former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion penned a letter to

United States Army General Julius Klein in which he wrote, “Like all Jews I am proud of the victory of our Army, but I am not certain that the six days war [sic] was the last war we have to fight and win….I am afraid there will be no peace in the Middle East, between the Arabs themselves and between the Arabs and Israel.”2 Ben-Gurion, an early Zionist, or Israeli nationalist, leader involved in Israel’s founding, served as the country’s first prime minister from 1948-1963.3

As Ben-Gurion stated and has observed, peace between the Arabs and the Israelis has been elusive.

From the Egyptian enslavement of Jews described in the Torah to the Arab resistance of Jews settling into Palestine, there is a long history of animosity between the two groups. When it comes to understanding this larger conflict, the Six Day War exemplifies the Arabs’ hostility toward Israel and provides insight into the present political condition of the region following Israel’s victory and acquisition of new territory. Therefore, in order to understand the perspective of someone who participated in and witnessed the Six Day War, it is important to first examine the contentious founding of the state of Israel and its subsequent heated relationship with its Arab neighbors.

During the early 20th century in Europe, a wave of nationalism arose as European leaders consolidated their land along ethnic lines. Due to this nationalism, Jews across Europe struggled to assimilate into society. Author and rabbi Marc Rosenstein states, "It seemed that the harder Jews tried to fit in, and the more they sacrificed to do so, the more they came to be seen as unassimilable."4 Inspired by their European neighbors, Jews throughout Europe longed for a nation to call their own. Antisemitism throughout Europe led Jews to desire their own land free of such

2 David Ben-Gurion to Julius Klein, August 12, 1967, in David Ben-Gurion Predicts the Six Day War Will Not Be Israel’s Last. http://www.shapell.org/manuscript/six-day-war-ben-gurion 3 Marc J. Rosenstein, Turning Points in Jewish History (Lincoln, Nebraska: U of Nebraska P, 2018), 347. 4 Ibid., 281.

Tsintolas 10 prejudice. Consequently, the Zionist movement arose with the goal to create a Jewish national state in and around the biblical homeland of the Jews, Jerusalem. The movement was led by the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, a Jewish writer active in the late 19th century and early 20th century.5

His 1896 pamphlet, Der Judenstaat, or The Jewish State, declared that the Jews were a nation of their own unable to assimilate into Europe, and that they needed their own land to establish the nation of Israel. Herzl demanded that European leaders help Zionists like himself find a location for the new nation. Initially, Herzl had little success; European leaders believed Judaism to be a religion and not a nationality requiring its own country. However, Rosenstein writes, “[Herzl] created a grassroots movement with an infrastructure that continued to pursue the goal of a Jewish state after his death.”6

Once Britain gained control of Palestine after its defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World

War I, the Zionist movement gained traction.7 In 1917, Arthur James Balfour, the then-British

Foreign Secretary, sent a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild stating the British government’s desire to establish a Jewish homeland in its newly acquired land in what has become known as the Balfour

Declaration:

His Majesty's Government view with favour [sic] the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.8

5 Anti-Defamation League, “Zionism,” Anti-Defamation League, accessed December 3, 2018, www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/zionism. 6 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 285. 7 Anti-Defamation League, " Creation of the State of Israel," Anti-Defamation League, accessed December 3, 2018, www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/creation-of-the-state-of-israel. 8 Arthur James Balfour to Walter Rothschild, November 2, 1917, in Balfour Declaration, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/text-of-the-balfour-declaration

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In 1922, the League of Nations ratified Britain’s Palestinian Mandate, which internationally recognized the Balfour Declaration and Britain’s control of the new Jewish home.9 Britain’s authority over Mandatory Palestine, which went into effect in 1923, included the ability to create a new Jewish nation and to oversee the immigration and settlement of Jews into the region.10

Britain’s insufficient management of Mandatory Palestine facilitated the Zionist takeover of the region and the founding of Israel. As Zionists immigrated to Palestine, they felt they would be welcomed by the native Arabs. At first, Arabs flocked to Jewish locations in Palestine where the Jews had strengthened the economy. Soon after, the Arabs retaliated against settling Jews, initially in small bands, and later in organized efforts.11 One such incident occurred in 1920, during the Muslim Nebi Musa pilgrimage near Jericho. While the British assured the Zions that there would be ample security, three days of fighting left 5 Jews dead and 200 injured and 4 Arabs dead and 25 injured. British Journalist Ian Black writes in his book, Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and

Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, “Zionists complained that the British were not prepared to act.”12 Additionally, Arab riots in Jaffa in 1921 caused Jews to abandon their homes and move north toward the safety of Tel Aviv. Such unrest continued in the city, leading to the desertion of

Jaffa and expansion of Tel Aviv.13 Many more skirmishes in the region diminished the Jews’ trust in the British government.14 Palestinians also grew wary that they could not continue to enjoy the

Zionist-driven economic prosperity in the region once a formal Jewish state had been established.15

9 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 288. 10 Anti-Defamation League, “Creation of the State of Israel,” Anti-Defamation League 11 Anti-Defamation League. "Israel-Arab Conflicts: Before the Creation of the State of Israel." Anti-Defamation League accessed December 3, 2018, www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/israel-arab-conflicts-before-the- creation-of-the-state-of-israel. 12 Ian Black, Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017 (New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017), 42. 13 Jewish Virtual Library, "Geography of Israel: Jaffa," Jewish Virtual Library, accessed February 8, 2019, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jaffa. 14 Black, Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 42. 15 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 343.

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As a result, Palestinians opposed all forms of Jewish immigration into the region and launched armed uprisings against the British in 1936 through 1939.

The British responded in 1939 by banning European Jews from immigrating to Mandatory

Palestine to avoid further confrontations, despite the onset of the Holocaust. Rosenstein wrote regarding the immigration ban that "The timing could not have been worse; European Jews had now become desperate for a refuge."16 Despite the ban, Zionists instructed the Haganah, the

Hebrew word for defense and an early Israeli defense organization founded in 1920, to smuggle

Jews into the nation. Additionally, the Jews employed the Haganah to fight against the British and the Palestinians.17 As the regional conflict between the Arabs and the Jews escalated, the British government began to question its role. In 1937, Briton Lord William Peel created the Peel

Commission to examine Britain’s involvement in the Middle East; it determined that the only peaceful resolution was to divide the land in question between the Jews and the Palestinians.

Initially, Jews were against the partition because they did not want a governmental body to interfere in the divine promise of acquiring the holy land, they did not want to cede control of

Jerusalem, and they felt the land they were assigned, with the Mediterranean Sea to its West and its Arab neighbors surrounding it on all sides, was not strategic. However, Rosenstein revealed,

“ultimately, the Zionist and Yishuv leadership accepted partition -- after all, better half a state than none.” Contrarily, the Arabs rejected the Peel Commission’s proposal because they felt it was a repeat of the European Crusades into the region.18

Finally, in 1947, Britain gave up trying to control the situation and relinquished the issue to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). On November 29, 1947, the

16 Ibid., 342. 17 Ibid., 344. 18 Ibid., 344-345

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UNSCOP recommended the partition of the land; the Jews favored the idea while the Arabs opposed it.19 Jerusalem would be internationally accessible but remain within the Palestinian state.20 The UN approved the partition by a two-thirds majority.21 The Arabs responded to the UN action by attacking Jewish settlements and preparing for a larger invasion of Israel to prevent it from becoming a legitimate country. To defend against these preliminary attacks and prepare for a full-scale Arab invasion, the Haganah transformed into an offensive military organization.22 The

British tried to maintain the peace as their May 14, 1948 deadline to leave the region approached.23

Preliminary Jewish governmental organizations established during the British Mandate, led by

David Ben-Gurion, facilitated a smooth transition of power. At 4:00pm on May 14, 1948, Ben-

Gurion announced the establishment of the state of Israel. He soon became the nation’s first Prime

Minister. The next day, the United States and the Soviet Union recognized the new nation.24

Palestinians remember the founding of Israel as the Nakba, or catastrophe, suggesting they questioned Israel’s legitimacy and initiating violence between the Jews and the Arabs.25

On May 15, 1948, Israel’s Arab neighbors attacked the new nation in the first of three major Arab-Israeli conflicts. The Israelis identify this conflict as the Israeli War of Independence since it was fighting for its survival in the region.26 Egypt, which had the largest army of any of the Arab combatants, planned to take Tel Aviv by going through the coastal highway; Jordan wanted to capture Jerusalem for its religious significance; and Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon all invaded

19 Anti-Defamation League, “Creation of the State of Israel,” Anti-Defamation League, 20 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 389. 21 Ibid., 345-346. 22 Anti-Defamation League, “Israel-Arab Conflicts: Before the Creation of the State of Israel,” Anti-Defamation League. 23 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 345-346. 24 Anti-Defamation League, “Creation of the State of Israel,” Anti-Defamation League. 25 Anti-Defamation League, “Nakba,” Anti-Defamation League, Accessed December 3, 2018, www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/nakba 26 Anti-Defamation League, “War of Independence 1948-1949,” Anti-Defamation League, Accessed December 3, 2018, www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/war-of-independence-1948-1949.

Tsintolas 14 to capture northern territory. While the combined populations of the Arab countries far exceeded that of Israel, their combined army was only slightly larger than the Israeli forces.27 The Arab armies were also better equipped but lacked the coordination and training of the Israelis.28

However, the Haganah did not know of the similarity in the armies’ sizes and prepared for the worst. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion felt protecting Jerusalem from the Jordanians was the most important objective in the war, but his Head of Operations, Yigael Yadin, felt protecting Tel Aviv from the impending Egyptian attack demanded the most attention. Ben-Gurion did not back down from his plan for Jerusalem, and after two failed Arab attacks on Jerusalem, Israel, along with the

Arab nations, were forced to accept an UN-proposed four-week cease-fire on June 10, 1948. Israel desperately needed food, supplies and soldiers for its cause, while the Egyptians felt a cease-fire would allow it to regroup before it pressed its attack even more. During the cease-fire, Ben-Gurion consolidated the Haganah and the local militias into one army, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

The IDF doubled its manpower by the end of the cease-fire through volunteers, mostly Jewish

World War II veterans, who had come to Israel to support the cause, and acquired new weapons.

In the next phase of the fighting, the IDF pushed back the Arab armies on all fronts.29

The Israeli War for Independence ended in January 1949 following a series of battles and cease-fires. In the end, Israel maintained the 5,600 square miles allocated by the UN in 1948 and gained 2,500 square miles. Jordan kept the eastern part of Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Egypt kept the Gaza Strip. The final borders were drawn according to the frontlines at that time. Israel signed individual armistice agreements with each of its enemies.30 However, Marc Rosenstein

27 Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 125. 28 Anti-Defamation League, “War of Independence 1948-1949,” Anti-Defamation League. 29 Gartman, Return to Zion, 125, 136-139. 30 Anti-Defamation League, “War of Independence 1948-1949”, Anti-Defamation League.

Tsintolas 15 writes, "…armistice was not peace: the Arab nations surrounding Israel made it clear by formal policy and occasional violence that Israel's existence remained unacceptable."31 Furthermore, both sides laid in tatters. Israel lost close to 6,000 soldiers, or 1% of its population, and Palestinian society was in ruins. Still, the Palestinians refused to relent in expelling the Israeli invaders.32

Peace was far from tangible.

On July 26, 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal from British control, leading to the second major Arab-Israeli conflict: the Suez

Crisis. Author Eric Gartman captured the Egyptian response to the news, “That night, wild celebrations erupted throughout Egypt. Finally someone was standing up to the European imperialists...Nasser instantly became the hero of the Arab world.”33 Nasser’s popular support of

Algerian rebels against the French led France to ally with Britain against Egypt. Both European nations needed a regional ally threatened by Egypt and found one in Israel. Therefore, France began supplying the Israelis with weapons and planes. The three nations planned for Israel to push on foot through the Sinai Peninsula toward the Suez Canal with Britain and France landing their troops at the canal a few days later. The Sinai campaign, beginning on October 29, went smoothly except for the conflict at Abu Agheila, Egypt’s bunker surrounded by artillery and minefields for seven miles on each side. The most fortified Egyptian stronghold, Um Cataf, held off multiple

Israeli attacks before the Israelis finally captured the site upon Egyptian retreat. The final Israeli objective of the Suez Crisis was to disarm the Egyptian guns at Sharm el-Sheikh in the south of the Sinai Peninsula, which had been used to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping since

1950. Gartman recounted, “By closing the Straits of Tiran to [Israeli] ships, Egypt was successfully

31 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 347. 32 Gartman, Return to Zion, 143-144. 33 Ibid., 155.

Tsintolas 16 challenging Israel's legitimacy…for Ben-Gurion it was the most important operation of the war.”34

The Israelis successfully neutralized the guns and opened the Straits.

Throughout the war, Israel thought that its American allies would back its campaign. While

Eisenhower disliked Nasser, he also worried that the British, French, and Israelis would be perceived as neo-imperialists fighting against Egypt in the Arab world and would galvanize Arab countries to align themselves with the Soviets. Eisenhower himself even called Ben-Gurion and told him to stop the attacks.35 While Eisenhower merely worried that the alliance seemed imperialistic, Rosenstein wrote, “…Israel's alliance with the British and French against Egypt only confirmed Arab perceptions that the Jewish state was a crusader/colonialist [sic] entity."36 The conflict ended on November 5, with Israel taking the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula and France and Britain controlling the Suez Canal. The United Nations voted for the three nations to cede all territory gained during the crisis, but they all refused. While France and Britain pulled their troops out of the region after the Soviet Union threatened the alliance, Israel continued its hold on the land. Another UN vote combined with international pressure prompted Israel to exit the Sinai

Peninsula, but Israel wanted to hold onto Gaza and Sharm el-Sheikh for security reasons. The UN responded by placing Peacekeepers, the UN’s non-combatant group of peace enforcers, in those locations at the consent of Egypt to ease the Israeli government’s worry, and the final Israeli troops left the Sinai Peninsula in March 1957. While the UN maintained a presence in Sharm el-Sheikh,

Israel announced that any closure of the Straits of Tiran would be perceived as an act of war. This threat would materialize into action ten years later.37

34 Ibid., 160. 35 Ibid., 155-162. 36 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 377. 37 Gartman, Return to Zion, 162-164.

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Egyptian action against Israel throughout May 1967 escalated into the Six Day War. On

May 14, the Soviet Union sent false information to Egypt and Syria that Israel was amassing troops along the Syrian border in preparation of an invasion into Egypt and Syria in the coming days. The

Soviets wished to bring the Arab nations into a war with Israel so they could destroy the threatening and burgeoning nuclear program in the Jewish state. Nasser took the report seriously, believing an

Israeli victory over Syria would leave only Egypt to fight back. He moved his troops into the Sinai

Peninsula in solidarity with the Syrians and in compliance to the defense pact they agreed to in

1966. In the following days, Nasser learned that the Soviet statement was fraudulent, but he continued to amass around 80,000 troops in the Sinai so he would not appear cowardly. Between

May 16 and 19, Nasser ordered the removal of the United Nations Peacekeepers placed in Gaza and Sharm el-Sheikh.38 The United Nations Secretary General U. Thant obliged without broaching the action before the General Assembly.39 As Israel learned of Nasser’s actions, it mobilized its army-aged men to military bases, effectively shutting down the country’s economy. The “Waiting

Period” began as civilians transformed their basements and storage spaces into makeshift bomb shelters, anticipating Nasser’s first move. The Israeli populous feared for the nation’s chances of survival, but they also coalesced.40 Former Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir reflected:

When I think back to those days, what stands out in my mind is the miraculous sense of unity and purpose that transformed us within only a week or two from a small, rather claustrophobic community, coping – and not always well – with all sorts of economic, political, and social discontents into two and a half million Jews, each and every one of whom felt personally responsible for the survival of the State of Israel and each and every one of whom knew that the enemy we faced was committed to our annihilation.41

38 Ibid., 177-178. 39 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 377. 40 Gartman, Return to Zion, 185. 41 Ibid., 182.

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On May 22, Egypt and Israel inched closer to war when Nasser declared he would stand up for

Arab and Palestinian rights by closing the Straits of Tiran.42 Rosenstein illustrates that the significance of Nasser’s move was “… an escalating war fever among the political leadership and the masses in both Israel and the Arab world. For Israel, this was a casus belli, or a cause for war; for the Arabs, it marked the opening shot in the third and hoped-for final round of the battle to eliminate Israel...Israelis felt isolated and surrounded, haunted by Holocaust memories.”43

Nasser’s actions energized the Arab Middle East. Banners calling for the destruction of Israel and posters depicting stereotypical images of Jews being trampled by Arabs were commonalities in the

Arab world during the pre-war period.44 On May 26, 1967, Egyptian President Nasser addressed a gathering of Arab Trade Unionists about the growing tensions between Arab countries and Israel:

The Arab people want to regain the rights of the people of Palestine…With regard to military plans, there is complete coordination of military action between us and Syria. We will operate as one army fighting a single battle for the sake of a common objective – the objective of the Arab nation. If Israel embarks on, an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle against Israel will be a general one and not confined to one spot on the Syrian and Egyptian borders. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel…Today, some eleven years after 1956, I say such things because I am confident.45

The Prime Minister of Israel during the conflict, Levi Eshkol, gave a speech to the nation on May

28 that contrasted Nasser’s strong condemnation of Israel; Eshkol stumbled on his words and made himself look weak, failing to allay Israel’s anxiety. As images of Arab countries rallying around a message of annihilation reached other countries, the world viewed the Israel as a victim.46

42 Ibid., 179. 43 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 378. 44 Gartman, Return to Zion, 179. 45 Gamal Abdel Nasser, “Speech to Arab Trade Unionists” (speech, May 26, 1967), Statement by President Nasser to Arab Trade Unionists - 26 May 1967, https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook1/Pages/7%20Statement%20by%20President%20 Nasser%20to%20Arab%20Trade%20Unio.aspx 46 Gartman, Return to Zion, 183-186.

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However, Israel’s allies failed to come to her aid. Both France and Britain did not want to interfere in an Arab conflict to preserve its trade relationship with Arab countries. United States

President Lyndon Johnson wanted the belligerent countries to reach a diplomatic solution before moving toward war. The US also feared that being dragged into a war they felt the Arabs would win would bring the Soviet Union into the conflict on the Arab side and escalate the Cold War.

On May 30, Nasser met with King Hussein of Jordan and agreed to a defense pact similar to the

Syrian agreement. Moreover, he announced that the armies of Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Sudan, and the rest of the Arab world were on his side. Despite President Nasser’s threating statements, the

Israeli military and political apparatus remained confident that the Israeli Defense Force could win the war.47 Following the Suez Crisis, Israel invested in underground, concrete hangers for its aircraft while the Arab countries continued to leave its jets out in the open.48 Israeli military leaders wanted to strike these easy targets first, at the present moment, while troop morale was high, but

Prime Minister Eshkol, like President Johnson, wanted to find a diplomatic solution first. Nasser initially wanted to destroy Israel following the Jewish nation’s anticipated first strike, but he then decided that he wanted to start the war and annihilate Israel on his own terms. The Israeli Cabinet learned of this change in sentiment around June 4. Two days prior, Prime Minister Eshkol appointed Moshe Dayan as the Minister of Defense. At a cabinet meeting on June 4, Dayan stated that Israel could win if it struck first and fought the war on its own terms. Eshkol dropped his diplomatic policy and supported Dayan’s plan, believing it was the best option for the IDF and

Israel’s success. The cabinet then voted unanimously in support of the first strike, and The Six Day

War began.49

47 Ibid., 186. 48 Ersun N. Kurtulus, “The Notion of a “Pre-Emtpive War:” the Six Day War Revisited,” Middle East Journal 61, no. 2 (2007): 220-38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4330386. 49 Gartman, Return to Zion, 186-187.

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At 7:45 AM on June 5, 1967, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched Operation Focus in order to destroy the Arabs’ fighter jets. The highly coordinated attack struck eleven Egyptian airfields simultaneously. The Egyptians, many of whom were having breakfast at the time, were caught off guard and unable to respond, and 311 of their jets were eliminated. The IAF lost 19 of its jets due to mechanical failures; five of its pilots were killed and five were injured. The IAF also took out

Iraqi, Jordanian, and Syrian planes at their airfields, instituting Israel’s air supremacy for the remainder of the war.50 Eric Gartman recounted the Israeli view of to the attack:

..the extent of the attack exceeded everyone's expectations. Israeli commanders doubted the first airmen's reports about the attacks' success. But it was true… The skies now belonged to the Israelis. There would be no air raids over the country. The civilian population was safe. The war was not over, but the people of Israel had been delivered from destruction. All over the country, people who had been fearful that their families were about to be killed, relaxed and exhaled, their worries finally over.51

As the news spread that the IAF had taken out close to 400 Arab planes, the Israeli public celebrated with Hebrew songs and dance. They were relieved to know that Israel now controlled the skies in the war and that the threat of an air-borne homeland strike had been allayed.52

Following the IAF’s airstrikes, Prime Minister Eshkol broadcasted a message about the commencement of war to the public:

Since the hours of this morning our forces, on land and in the air, are returning with a view to vanquishing the armies of the aggressive ruler of Egypt. Egypt has forced a military campaign upon us…we shall repulse the enemy and defeat his army. Throughout the years since he assumed power, the ruler of Egypt has been announcing his plan and his preparations to attack Israel in order to destroy it. During the past three weeks he has not concealed from the world the fact that the time has come to carry out his scheme…Our only desire is to remove from our borders any threat of sabotage and every danger of aggression, to safeguard our security and the fullness of our rights.53

50 BBC. "1967 Middle East War." BBC News, accessed December 1, 2018, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457035/html/. 51 Gartman, Return to Zion, 191-192. 52 Ibid., 191-192. 53 Levi Eshkol, “Broadcast to Israel After the Start of the War” (speech, June 5, 1967), Broadcast to the Nation by Prime Minister Eshkol- 5 June 1967, https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook1/Pages/15%20Broadcast%20to%20the%20Natio n%20by%20Prime%20Minister%20Eshko.aspx

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With Israeli air supremacy, the IDF began to launch an attack through the Sinai Peninsula.

Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Minister of Defense, ordered the country’s ground forces to attack the Sinai Peninsula. The Egyptian army had amassed around 120,000 troops, 2,000 tanks, and

1,000 artillery pieces, triple the resources available to the IDF.54 However, Rosenstein recognized,

“...the Israelis proved to be much better motivated, organized, informed, and led than their enemies.”55 The Israeli plan of attack would be similar to its 1956 campaign: a full sweep of the

Sinai Peninsula culminating at the Suez Canal. The main targets were the heavily fortified

Egyptian bases at Rafa, Jebel Libni, and Abu Agheila; General Israel Tal would take his soldiers north toward Rafa, General Ariel Sharon would head south toward Abu Agheila, and General

Avraham Yoffe would cut through the middle of the peninsula and attack the north-south highway to cut off Egyptian supplies before hitting Jebel Libni. The Israelis had a difficult time taking Abu

Agheila in 1956, and the Egyptians had reinforced the heavily-armed Um Cataf stronghold further with artillery to pound approaching troops. General Sharon devised a highly coordinated attack to take the site: Israeli tanks would go south and west to take out other locations around Abu Agheila before converging on Um Cataf, the infantry would cross the sand dunes from the north toward

Um Cataf, and heliborne troops would land in the stronghold and take out artillery. The plan was set for the evening of June 5, and by dawn on June 6, Abu Agheila had been captured. The Egyptian forces faced more defeats at Rafa and Jebel Libni, whose attack was supported by the Israeli- controlled skies, so the Egyptian command ordered a retreat to a second line of defense. Gartman commented, "It was a reasonable order. The war was hardly over. The size of [the Egyptian] forces remained enormous, and the second line was intact. But instead of an orderly withdrawal, the entire

54 Gartman, Return to Zion, 192 55 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 378.

Tsintolas 22 army raced home in an uncontrolled panic. From that point on, the Egyptian army in the Sinai could not offer any coordinated resistance to the IDF." As the Egyptians frantically retreated, the

Israeli generals improvised the next phase of the Sinai attack because the IDF was exceeding expectations. On the night of June 6, the Israeli command decided to prevent a possible Egyptian counterattack by sending Generals Yoffe and Tal to Egyptian retreat locations at the Milta and

Gidi Passes while General Sharon chased the remaining Egyptians into these Israeli locations. The

Israelis successfully executed the plan the evening of June 7, utilizing their high ground and air support to destroy the retreating Egyptians. The Egyptians were run off roads and forced to turn around, and some exited their vehicles to retreat by foot in the scorching hot desert. As the Israelis pushed west toward the Suez Canal, they encountered many Egyptians to take prisoners, and the sheer number meant they could only handle capturing the officers.56 The Israelis reached the Suez

Canal on June 7 as more Jewish forces captured the Egyptian fortress at Sharm el-Sheikh, culminating the Sinai campaign.57

On the morning of June 5, Egyptian President Nasser phoned Jordanian King Hussein to tell him, falsely, that Egypt had severely defeated the Israeli army and that Jordan should attack

Israel to acquire as much Israeli land as possible.58 After the IAF defeat of Egypt and subsequent ground assault, Prime Minister Eshkol warned Jordanian King Hussein, “We are engaged in defensive fighting on the Egyptian sector, and we shall not engage ourselves in any action against

Jordan, unless Jordan attacks us. Should Jordan attack Israel, we shall go against her with all our might.”59 Eshkol sent three such message to King Hussein. Nevertheless, King Hussein fired 6,000

56 Gartman, Return to Zion, 192-197. 57 BBC. "1967 Middle East War." BBC News. 58 Gartman, Return to Zion, 197. 59 Levi Eshkol to Hussein of Jordan, June 5, 1967, in Message from Prime Minister Eshkol to King Hussein- 5 June 1967 https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook1/Pages/16%20Message%20from%20Prime%20 Minister%20Eshkol%20to%20King%20Huss.aspx

Tsintolas 23 shells into Israeli Jerusalem, injuring hundreds of civilians and entering into a conflict with Israel.60

Jordanian Prime Minister Saad Jumaa described Jordan’s decision to enter the war by saying, “We are today living in the holiest hours of our lives, united with all the other armies of the Arab nation, we are fighting the war of heroism and honor against our common enemy. We have waited years for this battle and to erase the stain of the past.”61 In response to the Jordanian shelling, the IDF sent troops into the West Bank and Jerusalem toward the Jordanian position at Ammunition Hill.

Israeli troops and tanks could not get through the Jordanian defenses, but paratroopers succeeded in getting in the morning of June 6. Israeli ground and air forces continued to push the Jordanians back along the West Bank, and by midday the Jordanians were in full retreat.

On June 6, the IDF surrounded the Old City of Jerusalem. The full Israeli cabinet agreed to capture it, but Moshe Dayan wanted to wait for the Sinai front to close before allocating troops toward another battle. On June 7, Dayan learned of a UN ceasefire going into effect later that day, so he ordered the operation to begin. The Israelis entered the city, and only a few shots were fired as the Jordanians fled. The Israelis had captured the Old City of Jerusalem. Gartman described it as, “…the single greatest moment in Israel's History.” As Israeli troops gazed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, IDF leadership came in to experience the holy site.62 Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak

Rabin recounted in his memoir his experiences as he approached the Western Wall with Minister of Defense Dayan:

When we reached the Western Wall, I was breathless. It seemed as though all the tears of the centuries were striving to break out of the men crowded into that narrow alley, while all the hopes of the generations proclaimed, "This is no time for weeping! It is a moment of redemption, of hope." Following the ancient custom, Dayan scrawled a wish on a slip of paper and pushed it in between two of the stones. I felt truly shaken and stood there, murmuring a prayer for peace... We stood among a tangle of rugged, battle-weary men who

60 Gartman, Return to Zion, 197. 61 Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002), 188. 62 Gartman, Return to Zion, 197-202.

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were unable to believe their eyes or restrain their emotions. Their eyes were moist with tears, their speech incoherent. The overwhelming desire was to cling to the Wall, to hold on to that moment as long as possible.63

After 19 years, Israel had finally unified Jerusalem under its control as the Jordanian front closed with a cease-fire.

Israel’s successes in the Six Day War were offset on June 8 when Israeli jets and torpedo boats attacked the intelligence-gathering USS Liberty. That morning, Chief of Staff Rabin received word that there had been several naval bombardments on Israeli positions in El-Arish, an Egyptian city off of the Gaza strip. Believing these attacks to be the start of an amphibious Egyptian invasion to flank Israel’s soldiers, Rabin ordered the IDF to take out any vessel traveling over 20 knots. The

USS Liberty was traveling toward Egypt at what Israel estimated to be 30 knots. This was later deemed false since the Liberty had a maximum speed of 18 knots. The Israelis also did not identify the Liberty as an American vessel. The attack left 34 dead and 171 wounded. Both survivors and anti-Israeli conspiracists believe the Israeli attack was meant to thwart the American retrieval of information about an impending attack on Syria. However, it has become clear that the United

States was well aware of Israeli plans to invade Syria. Gartman reflected, “The notion that a tiny country would intentionally attack a naval vessel belonging to the most powerful nation on earth has always been problematic, especially considering that Israel needed the United States as an ally.” In the end, angry Americans demanded that Israeli’s address their role in the attack. President

Johnson accepted the Israeli’s apology for the attack and twelve million dollars in compensation for the victims.64

Initially, the crew of the USS Liberty thought the Egyptians were attacking them, but they later deduced it was an Israeli jet based on the assailants’ intermittent fire. The attack had massive

63 Yitzhak Rabin, Rabin Memoirs, (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 113. 64 Gartman, Return to Zion, 204-207.

Tsintolas 25 ramifications on the Liberty’s mission. James Scott, a journalist and son of a surviving Liberty officer, described how “Dave Lewis, the head of the Liberty's intelligence operation, ordered his men to destroy classified materials. If the attackers chose to seize the Liberty rather than sink it, the racks of crypto equipment, key cards, and manuals would not only reveal the ship's mission but also expose America's intelligence capabilities.” Israel’s attack on the Liberty was the first time since World War II that a nation had torpedoed a United States vessel.65 Scott also questioned how

Israel had the capacity to launch such an attack:

Israel claimed that its forces had attacked in error. But how could its exceptional military, which had nearly wiped out its Arab neighbors in only four days, make such a colossal blunder? The attack occurred in the middle of the afternoon, not at night when visibility would be more difficult. Knowing Soviet ships sailed in the area, why would the Israelis be so reckless as to torpedo an unidentified ship? None of it made any sense.66

US Secretary of State Rusk did not believe the Israeli claim to an accidental attack, but the Johnson administration placed its focus toward the Vietnam War. The United States press began its coverage questioning the Pentagon’s claim that the Liberty was not eavesdropping on the war and wondering if the US had warned Israel about the ship’s presence; the press never doubted Israel’s claims on the matter. However, the attack on the Liberty was overshadowed by the Vietnam War and the story faded away days after the attack.67 Israeli Chief of Staff Rabin became the Israeli

Ambassador to the United States later in his life, and he wrote in his memoir about his first-hand knowledge of the incident and what he learned about the Liberty attack during his service:

With the outbreak of fighting on June 5, we notified the American naval attaché in Israel that we intended to protect our shores from Egyptian naval attacks by employing a combination of naval and air units. In the event that Egyptian vessels approached our shores, we would not be able to delay our response. We therefore asked that American ships be removed from the vicinity of the Israeli shore, or that the Americans notify us of their precise location in the area near our coast. In the storm of battle, there was no time to

65 The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship, (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2009), 51, 56, 63. 66 Ibid., 93. 67 Ibid., 131, 154, 164.

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check whether or not our request had been fulfilled. During my term as ambassador, however, I learned that Washington had indeed instructed the Sixth Fleet to move its vessels away from the Israeli coastline, but due to a bureaucratic blunder the order failed to reach the Liberty.68

Despite Israel’s warning to report any US ships, The USS Liberty suffered an unfortunate attack that sparked outrage in the US but was quickly forgotten in the press.

Recently declassified CIA Documents reveal the US government’s position on the USS

Liberty ambush. One CIA Memorandum laid out the facts of the event:

...Intercepted conversations between the helicopter pilots and the control tower at Hatzor (near Tel Aviv) leave little doubt that the Israelis failed to identify the Liberty as a U.S. ship before or during the crisis…The weather was clear in the area of the attack, the Liberty's hull number (GTR 5) was prominently displayed, and an American flag was flying.69

A second CIA Memorandum reveals the final findings of the US government in response to an

Israeli inquiry:

The preliminary report of the special Court of Inquiry convened by the Government of Israel has concluded that the “attack on the USS Liberty was not in malice; there was no criminal negligence and the attack was made by innocent mistake”…In light of the findings of the Israeli Court of Inquiry, we conclude that our previous statement that "the Israelis did not identify the Liberty as a US ship until some 44 minutes after the second attack" is in error. The Liberty had been identified prior to the attacks, but the Israelis were apparently not aware that they were attacking the Liberty. The attack was not made in malice toward the US and was by mistake, but the failure of the IDF Headquarters and the attacking aircraft to identify the Liberty and the subsequent attack by the torpedo boats were both incongruous and indicative of gross negligence.70

While the US government concluded that the attack was a mistake, the undeniable tragedy of the

USS Liberty reveals the scope of the Six Day War.

68 Yitzhak Rabin, Rabin Memoirs, 110. 69 CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “The Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty,” June 13, 1967, Approved for release June 2006, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/0001359216. 70 CIA Directorate of Intelligence, “The Israeli Statement on the Attack on the USS Liberty,” June 21, 1967. Approved for release June 2006, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/0001359215.

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Chief of Staff Rabin announced on June 8 Israel’s ability to commit its forces to Syria after the Egyptian and Jordanian fronts had closed in order to answer that nation’s shelling of Galilee.

Prime Minister Eshkol supported the plan, but once again, Moshe Dayan refused, feeling there was no point to invading Syria. Dayan changed his mind when he received a report that Syrian positions in the Golan Heights were collapsing without Israeli intervention and that Nasser had told the

Syrian president to accept a cease-fire before it was too late.71 Dayan told Eshkol, “This compels us to take the maximum lines. Last night, I had no idea that the leadership of Egypt and Syria would rumble like this and give up the battle. In any event, we must exploit this opportunity to the utmost,” and ordered the IDF Northern Command Chief David Elazar’s troops into the Golan

Heights.72 The IAF led the attack on the morning of June 9, but it did little to break through Syrian fortifications. Troops went in on foot alongside specially-fashioned bulldozers to breach the Syrian lines. The bulldozers were all destroyed, and the troops continued on, taking heavy losses. Finally,

Israeli troops entered the bunkers and defeated the panicked and confused Syrians in hand to hand combat. By the end of June 9, the Israeli’s had taken the first line of Syrian defenses. Chief Elazar expected a Syrian counterattack or UN cease-fire to stabilize the conflict. The Israeli government stalled the UN cease-fire for another day, giving the IDF until the end of June 10 to capture the

Golan Heights. The Syrians continued their panicked frenzy and retreated back, averting a bloody second day of fighting. The IDF pushed forward and completed the conquest of the Golan Heights before the ceasefire took hold at 6:30pm on June 10. The Six Day War was over.73

Eric Gartman explained the impact of the Israeli’s victory, “If the 1948 war had created the

Jewish state, the Six-Day War had made it whole.”74 Israel’s land size quadrupled as it gained the

71 Gartman, Return to Zion, 207-208. 72 Oren, Six Days of War, 279. 73 Gartman, Return to Zion, 207-208. 74 Ibid., 210.

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Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Jerusalem, Sinai Peninsula, and West Bank. Israel reported 776 military casualties. While the Arab countries involved have not released official casualty counts, the Associated Press reports that 11,500 Egyptian, 6,094 Jordanian and 1,000 Syrian soldiers died.75 Israel’s victory in the Six Day War produced a powerful euphoria throughout the nation, bolstering its economy and increasing national pride. Rosenstein reported, “Indeed, many saw the surprising victory - which encompassed the conquest of Judea, Samaria, and the Old City of

Jerusalem - as a clear manifestation of divine providence, restoring the biblical borders of the Holy

Land” Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem is marked annually on June 1 by Jerusalem Day, which celebrates the unification of Jerusalem.76 The Six Day War produced a substantial victory for

Israel.

The Six Day War also created a refugee crisis in the Middle East. Eric Gartman wrote, “In the days leading up to the [Six Day War], the [Palestinian] refugees had hoped that their hour of deliverance had finally arrived after nineteen years. Some had even started to move west, only to be caught in the crossfire of war.” Israel’s capture of Jerusalem prompted roughly 100,000

Palestinians to flee.77 Alan Dershowitz claims that 200,000-250,000 refugees left Gaza and the

West Bank after Israel assumed control.78 The BBC reports that by mid-June 1967, 745,000

Palestinians had relocated to Jordan.79 The Middle East continues to struggle with the refugee crisis.

On November 22, 1967, the 15-member UN Security Council unanimously approved

Resolution 242, which states that the Security Council:

75 BBC. “1967 Middle East War.” BBC News. 76 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 378, 380. 77 Gartman, Return to Zion, 202-204. 78 Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2003), 93. 79 BBC. "1967 Middle East War." BBC News.

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1. Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles: (i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; (ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force; 2. Affirms further the necessity: (a) For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area; (b) For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem; (c) For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones;80

Resolution 242 provided the basis of future Middle Eastern peace policy and enumerates Israel’s territorial rights in the Middle East disputes. The Resolution also features the withdrawal clause that was deliberately worded vaguely to mean that Israel could withdraw from only some of the territories it gained during the war.81 This clause influenced the Camp David Accords in 1978 in which Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.82 Israel and Jordan accepted Resolution 242 immediately. Egypt superficially accepted it based on its own interpretation of the document. The

Egyptians felt the Resolution called for Israel to leave all of the lands it had gained during the Six

Day War and return to the June 4, 1967 borders. Egypt also refused to create any peace agreement with Israel but felt Resolution 242 complemented that position since it only called for an Israeli withdrawal. Syria did not accept the Resolution because it was against any peace negotiations with

Israel through any legislative body. Palestine also rejected the Resolution because it wanted to be

80 Resolution 242, United Nations Security Council, 1382nd meeting (1967) 81 Dore Gold, "48 Years since U.N. Resolution 242: The Cornerstone of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process," Florida Jewish Journal. Accessed December 8, 2018. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/florida-jewish-journal/opinion/fl-jjps- gold-1118-20151117-story.html. 82 Rosenstein, Turning Points, 379.

Tsintolas 30 an independent country.83 While UN Resolution 242 outlined peace in the Middle East, many Arab nations refused to support it.

Gartman clarified the impact of the Six Day War, “Israel's military triumph had not translated into a political victory.” Nasser addressed his nation on June 23, 1967 and declared that he would continue to fight for Palestinian rights and would deny any prospect of peace with Israel.

The USSR quickly rearmed Egypt and Syria to the same strength before the Six Day War because the Soviets wanted to protect their influence in the Middle East. The War of Attrition began in

March 1969 as Egyptians fired on Israelis sitting at the eastern side of the Suez Canal. Israelis retaliated with commando raids on the western side of the Canal. Nasser did not back down, so the

IAF hit targets closer to Cairo. A humiliated Nasser begged Russia to bring in its new SAM-3 antiaircraft guns, but the IAF took them out. Finally, Nasser, like the other two Arab combatants in the Six Day War, accepted a cease-fire in August 1970.84

Contemporary newspapers varied in their portrayal of the Arab-Israeli tensions. On May

26, 1967, the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram published an editorial written by Mohamed Hassanain

Heikal entitled An Armed Clash with Israel is Inevitable – Why? in which Heikal responds to

President Nasser’s closure of the Straits of Tiran and the impending war with Israel. Heikal writes,

“…The next move is up to Israel. Israel has to reply now. It has to deal a blow. We have to be ready for it…to minimise [sic] its effect as much as possible. Then it will be our turn to deal the second blow, which we will deliver with the utmost possible effectiveness….Let it be a knockout.”85 On June 12, 1967, Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel wrote an article for The

83 CAMERA, "Resolution 242: Response from the Affected Parties," The Six-Day War, accessed December 9, 2018, http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/242response.asp. 84 Gartman, Return to Zion, 210-212 85 Mohamed Hassanain Heikal, “An Armed Clash with Israel is Inevitable – Why?” Al Ahram, May 26, 1967.

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Forward entitled The Six Day War about pre- and post-war Israel. The Forward editors rediscovered the article in 2017, describing it as either “lost” or “forgotten”. Wiesel wrote:

Future generations…won’t believe that this small state, surrounded by hatred, fire and murder, had so quickly managed a miracle…Quietly, we asked if the test was too hard this time. Was too much being demanded from the Jewish people and from their land?...It didn’t take long before the supposedly might enemy was rendered speechless and lost its nerve…For Jews around the world, these last events are a deep source of pride. Those who thought Jews were frightened by huge armies were mistaken.86

Egyptian and Israeli newspapers’ responses to the Six Day War varied dramatically.

Historians differ on how to interpret Israel’s motives in the initial attacks on its Arab neighbors. Harvard Law Professor and author Alan Dershowitz argues in his 2003 book, The Case for Israel, that Israel did not start the Six Day War but instead was forced to launch a pre-emptive air strike. He writes, “Although Israel fired the first shot against Egypt – although not against

Jordan – the war was begun by Egypt’s decision to close the Gulf of Aqaba [and the Straits of

Tiran] to Israeli shipping and to order the removal of UN troops from the Sinai.” He goes on to say, “After exhausting all diplomatic options and learning that Egypt was preparing an imminent attack…the Israeli air force attacked Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi military airfields on the morning of June 5, 1967. Would any reasonable nation faced with comparable threats of annihilation have acted differently?”87 University of Kent professor and author Ersun Kurtulus disagrees with

Dershowitz’s assertion that Israel launched a pre-emptive strike in his article “The Notion of a

‘Pre-emptive War:’ the Six Day War Revisited.” He argues that while the Israeli government characterized the attack as pre-emptive, and the general public and most historians have accepted such a description, he believes it was a preventative strike. Kurtulus defines a pre-emptive strike as one launched in anticipation of an attack along with the conditions that:

86 Elie Wiesel. “Revealed after 50 Years: What Elie Wiesel Wrote About The Six Day War,” The Forward, May 1, 2017, Retrieved from https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/elie-wiesel-the-6-day-war. 87 Dershowitz, Case for Israel, 91-92.

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(a) there is a deep international crisis which puts the military apparatus of both parts to the conflict on high alert; (b) there is at least a rough strategic parity between them and; (c) both parts possess offensive weapons which are vulnerable.

Kurtulus argues that in the three weeks leading up to the war, there were heightened tensions between Egypt and Israel stimulated by the false Soviet report, but that those tensions later diminished as Israel postponed action and Egypt appeared to ease up on its aggressions. Kurtulus acknowledges there was strategic parity in the conflict since the Arab nations had a quantitatively stronger army and Israel had a superiorly trained defense force. Kurtulus uses Israel’s ability to launch an air strike on the vulnerable Arab jets left in the open as evidence that only one side of the conflict had vulnerable weapons; Israeli jets were protected in their underground, concrete hangers. Through his criteria, Kurtulus concludes that Israel did not launch a pre-emptive strike.

He instead offers the conclusion:

…there is circumstantial evidence in the literature which indicates the main concern of the Israeli decision-makers was the long-term collapse of Israeli deterrence. If true, this would support the view that the June 1967 War was a preventative war rather than a pre-emptive one. The differences here are by no means merely terminological…a preventative war is “based on a concern over an historical shift in the military balance” which is fundamentally different from the emergency involved in an intense crisis situation characterized by high alert levels and mutual fears of imminent attack…In sum, more and more evidence is accumulating…giving effect to the view that the Six Day War was a “war of choice” for Israel rather than being a pre-emptive war imposed upon Israel.88

Dershowitz and Kurtulus represent a divide among historians regarding how to classify Israel’s strike on Arab airfields.

Samuel Goldenberg conducted an Oral History Project in 2006 entitled, “Lightning out of

Israel: The Six Day War,” in which he interviewed Ambassador Edward Gibson Lanpher about his service as a Foreign Service Officer in the US Embassy in Tel Aviv during the Six Day War.

The interview covered the atmosphere in Israel before the war, Mr. Lanpher’s reactions to Israel’s

88Ersun N. Kurtulus, “The Notion of a ‘Pre-Emtpive War:’ the Six Day War Revisited,” 220-38.

Tsintolas 33 pre-emptive strike and the subsequent Jordanian shelling, the USS Liberty, and Mr. Lanpher’s opinions on resolutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Lanpher characterized pre-war

Israel:

The three weeks before, there was a lol of apprehension and worry, you know, on paper the Israelis were outnumbered, manpower as I said earlier, manpower, airplanes, tanks, and whatnot...There was also an underlying sense [among the Israelis], we've got a good army, we've got a good air force, we've fought before and we'll fight again. So there was some confidence combined with apprehension. Tension, tension was very high, nobody knew what was gonna happen.89 (36-37)

Mr. Lanpher also reflected on Israel’s strike into Egypt, saying, “…they just shut up the Egyptian

Air Force on the ground. And in many respects, that was the decisive moment of the Six Day War, because, after that, the Egyptians had no air power. So, the war effectively - the air war, as far as

Egypt was concerned - was over by 8:30 on Monday morning."90 Ambassador Lanpher offered his take on the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty:

My own take on it, and I think I probably am in a minority, was that the Israelis - this was an accident in war; that the Israelis didn't target us as spying on them, but this was just one of those things that happened in a heated battle....but there is a conspiracy to this day that the Israelis targeted us. You know, with my thinking cap on, my diplomatic cap on, and knowing how close of a relationship we developed in the lead up to that war with the Israelis - I can't conceive of any Israeli interest that would have been served by shooting up our ship.91

In addition, Ambassador Lanpher felt that the Israeli army easily defeated the combined armies of the Arab nations in a matter of six days and that the world is still faced with resolving the consequences of the conflict.92

89 “Lightning out of Israel: The Six Day War” by Samuel Goldenberg, American Century Oral History Project, February 10, 2006, http://collections.digitalmaryland.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/saac/id/9633/rec/2 (accessed Dec. 8, 2018), 36-37. 90 Ibid., 21. 91 Ibid., 29. 92 Ibid., 25.

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The Six Day War escalated Israeli’s fight for survival with its Arab neighbors and resulted in territorial gains including the historic unification of Jerusalem. However, the Middle East still lacks an adequate conclusion to the conflict. While Resolution 242 was not a set peace treaty,

Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban described it as, “...a list of principles on which the parties could base their agreement.”93 It is important to note that such an agreement has not been formed in the Middle East. The world still faces the Arab-Israeli conflict that shaped the Six Day War.

93CAMERA, "Resolution 242: Response from the Affected Parties," The Six-Day War.

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Interview Transcription

Interviewees/Narrators: Allen Avinoam Kowarski and Ruth Cooke Interviewer: Nick Tsintolas Location: Dr. Kowarski and Mrs. Cooke’s apartment building, North Bethesda, MD Date: December 29, 2018

Nick Tsintolas: This is Nick Tsintolas, and I am interviewing Dr. Avinoam Kowarski94 as a part of the American Century Oral History Project95. This interview took place at 1:00 pm on December

29, 2018 at Dr. Kowarski’s apartment building in North Bethesda, Maryland. My first question for you, Dr. Kowarski, is: Can you tell me about your childhood?

Allen Avinoam Kowarski: (laughs) At the beginning of the fight of the local Arabs for the expectation that this is going to be a place for the Jews. The British Empire was ordered to make it easier for the Jews to start and create a state, but they were not used to doing the Empire, so they encouraged the local Arabs to express their unhappiness. The year that I was born [1927] was the year when the Arabs killed a lot of people living in Jaffa and they [the Jews] left the place and headed north of Jaffa and created a new place for them which is now called Tel Aviv.96 It was really the beginning. I remember as a child, the people that had houses in Jaffa had to live inside the…

Ruth Cooke: Did they live inside a fence or a gate or a wall?

94 This is Dr. Kowarski’s birth name. He now goes by Allen Avinoam Kowarski. 95 Mrs. Ruth Cooke and her daughter, Lauren Cooke, were both present at the interview as well to translate any responses Dr. Kowarski provided in Hebrew or to help him articulate his thoughts. Later on, Mrs. Cooke offered an account of her experiences as a child in Israel before and during the Six Day War. 96 In the 1920s, waves of Arab attacks caused Jewish residents living in Jaffa, an old port city south of modern-day Tel Aviv, to move north and re-settle in Tel Aviv.

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AAK: When you go up.

RC: A mountain? A hill?

AAK: No, inside, when you go step by step.

RC: Up the stairs

AAK: Up stairs. In the stairs, they had to live there because they had no place to live for a while.

That’s my first…

RC: Your first home?

AAK: I remember as a little child how people were living

RC: On stairs? Were they living in a tent or inside a house?

AAK: No they were inside, they were just sitting there

RK: Was it inside an apartment or was it inside a stairwell?

AAK: A stairwell

RC: They lived inside a stairwell.

Tsintolas 37

AAK: Yes

RC: OK…and how would they keep warm?

AAK: In Israel this is not much of a problem

RC: Because it’s hot. Did they put something up for privacy like a sheet or a towel?

AAK: I was a child I do not remember exactly, but they were there with their own children.

RC: It was like camping out. Was that where you lived?

AAK: I lived in an apartment.

RC: You did, so who was living in the stairwell?

AAK: People that had to leave Jaffa.

RC: The people that had to leave Jaffa, they were living in the stairwell. Were these Jews?

AAK: Yes, they were people who ran away

Tsintolas 38

RC: Ran away from whom?

AAK: The Arabs who were killing people

RC: Oh, in Jaffa they were killing people, so they ran away and lived in the stairwells in Tel Aviv

AAK: Yes, this was the beginning of the struggle.

RC: Of the fight with – I see.

NT: As you grew up, you witnessed the Jews moving into Israel, and they were fighting with the

Arabs there? [5:12]

AAK: My parents left Lithuania because they were told the Jews have a place, so they are among the Jews that believed in what was going to happen…

NT: And they moved there?

AAK: They moved. They had some money, so they rented an apartment.

NT: Why did you want to become a doctor?

Tsintolas 39

AAK: I really wanted to be a scientist, but (laughs) in the situation that I was in there was not a chance to become one, so I decided that that would be the closest possible thing to science, so that’s what I decided. I was reading a lot, and I read about all the scientists, but I didn’t expect to succeed in becoming a scientist. Actually, I had an opportunity to become a scientist at the age of

40 when I was invited by John Hopkins to become a fellow, ?which means? a trainee. Before that

I was just a doctor.

NT: Growing up and as you were a young adult, what was the relationship like between Israel and the Arab countries in the Middle East after Israel’s founding and before the Six Day War?

AAK: I remember that throughout my childhood there were black…

RC: (Hebrew)

AAK: (Hebrew)

RC: Newspapers?

AAK: The newspapers, and almost every day they had a mark that said they were killed here, the

Jews here or there. They were killing slowly, which is what they are doing today.

NT: You are saying the newspapers then were reporting…that the Jews were being killed?

Tsintolas 40

AAK: Yes, continuously.

NT: Were these the Israeli newspapers?

AAK: Yes

NT: You witnessed, basically, that the Arabs around Israel were killing the Jews during this period?

AAK: Yes. Theoretically, the British were supposed to prevent it, and they did try to…

RC: They weren’t able.

AAK: …But they were hopelessly inefficient, they expected the Jews not to succeed in getting a state. But at that point, the Jews created what we called the Haganah97, which means they were training young people for self-defense to prepare the future, and all the young people like me were participating in it. Outside the city, Tel Aviv, was safe. There were young people that were defending, preventing the Arabs from killing people. It was called the Haganah. The children were learning how to become members of the Haganah. The Haganah was not legal by the British. They were not allowed to have any (Hebrew)…

RC: No army…no guns

97 Early Israeli defense group, Hebrew for defense

Tsintolas 41

AAK: No army, no guns, nothing. They were hiding them.

RC: They weren’t allowed to be armed.

AAK: All over the British Empire, people were not allowed to have firearms, and they definitely were illegal. It was an illegal organization.

NT: And you said you were a member of the Haganah? [11:20]

AAK: Yes. My brother was fourteen years older than me, he actually was born in Lithuania and came with his sister. He joined the first Haganah. I was very proud of him. (laughs) He was bringing after the War (unintelligible), and in the War, was bringing Jews from Europe that wanted to enter Israel.

NT: Is this war that you are referring to World War II?

AAK: Yes, the Second World War. Since I was the brother…

RC: He [Dr. Kowarski’s brother] was the captain of a ship

AAK: …I was trusted by the Haganah. As a child, I had the job to know where all the leaders of the Haganah lived, and if they wanted to talk to each other, I was the messenger.

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NT: As you served in the Haganah, which Israeli wars were you apart of? The Suez Crisis?

AAK: Yes.98

RC: The Haganah was a secret army, but it was during World War II. After World War II, was the Haganah still in existence?

AAK: Yes. But it was illegal.

RC: It was still in existence after World War II?

AAK: Yes.

RC: When did Israel get a real army?

NT: It was later on…They transformed the Haganah into the Israeli Defense Force.99

RC: I’m sorry, I’m gonna stop talking.

NT: Your involvement in the Haganah…

98 The Haganah was transformed into the Israeli Defense Force prior to the Suez Crisis. Dr. Kowarski is referring to his service as a doctor during this crisis. 99 This occurred in 1948 during the Israeli War of Independence

Tsintolas 43

AAK: It was very early ?on?, I didn’t realize how dangerous it is. As a child, when I finished high school, everyone, the young people, were supposed to give one year to the Haganah. They were trained in preparation for the War of Independence. I was a different kind…

NT: You were more of a messenger?

AAK: Yes

NT: Looking forward, in May 1967, right before the Six Day War, what was life like in Israel during those weeks leading up to the war?

AAK: There was an unexpected decision by the United Kingdom to help the Jews again to create the state. The Jews took advantage of it and decided to consider themselves a state and an army.

The British were supposed to leave, they were reluctant, but they had no choice. Gradually, the

British disappeared and the war started, the War of Independence.

NT: That was in 1948, the first Arab-Israeli conflict. I’m primarily focusing on the Six Day War in 1967. What were the emotions like of the Israelis right before the war began? [15:59]

AAK: It was something unbelievable. (coughs) At that point, the Jews were not allowed to buy equipment and so forth. The Arabs had states and were legally allowed to have everything…

Tsintolas 44

RC: When you say equipment, do you mean arms, guns, things like that? When you say equipment, what do you mean?

AAK: Yes, guns and everything. It is after successfully overcoming (inintelligible) which I think

I will not go into it, I was participating in this war.

NT: The Six Day War?

AAK: No, the war before that.

NT: The War of Independence?

AAK: Yes. At a certain point, the war before, the Israelis had part of the south…

NT: The Sinai Peninsula?

AAK: The Sinai. The Egyptians got armed, very organized, and they declared that they are going to kill all the Jews and all the world assumed that would happen because the Jews had no way to defend themselves. The difference was so enormous that the expectation was that this would be…

NT: A blowout?

RC: They would be decimated.

Tsintolas 45

AAK: People will be just killed.

RC: That everyone would be killed and there would be no more country.

AAK: It was so expected that my daughter…

RC: That’s me. (laughter) I’m born in the United States. Because I’m American, the United States was calling back all American citizens because they didn’t want anybody there that was a US citizen because they were going to be a killed and as a young a child that was American, they offered my parents to let me, just me, go and I don’t know what would have happened…

AAK: Be protected.

RC: Be protected and go live there, separated from my family. I stayed, but they had to make a decision whether or not to let their five-year-old kid leave.

AAK: A lot of people sent their children away if they could because they expected them to die. It was considered to be hopeless.

NT: I have quote here from the former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

AAK: What did you ask?

Tsintolas 46

RC: He has a quote from Golda Meir. Do you want me to read it?

NT: I can read it. She said, “When I think back to those days, what stands out in my mind is the miraculous sense of unity and purpose that transformed us within only a week or two… into two and a half million Jews, each and every one of whom felt personally responsible for the survival of the State of Israel and each and every one of whom knew that the enemy we faced was committed to our annihilation.” What do you think of her description? [20:40]

AAK: Now I can tell you my share. The Arabs were organized to start the war together, all their armies…

RC: To surround the country.

AAK: From other countries, they came. It was just a question of time. They took their time, it took some time. The Israelis had an army at that point, and they decided to win the war. The idea was we have a few airplanes which were essential to survive, (papers moving on table) and especially the Egyptians had a huge number of organized planes. The idea to survive was not to wait for the

Arabs, and to start the war, hopefully successfully, so they will survive. It was realized that the most important way to survive is for us to destroy all the…

RC: The airplanes that belonged to the Egyptians.

Tsintolas 47

AAK: The Egyptians had the biggest air force. I was organized… It was a very interesting kind of war. It was necessary to be able to be successful to do the first [attack], so for that, the Egyptians should not know how many airplanes we have. (people talking in the background) When I was organized, at that time, I was a doctor, so they put me in the north in Syria to look as if all the soldiers are in the north and there are no airplanes in the south. The rule was to look as a soldier when I was not, and the few airplanes we had were showing themselves. In the south, without their

[The Arabs’] knowledge, they [Israel] started to organize the…

NT: The air force? [24.48]

AAK: The air force. They were hiding, they would not show themselves.

NT: Who was hiding?

RC: The Israelis or the Egyptians were hiding?

AAK: Everything was underground.

NT: Oh, the Israelis were…

RC: The Israelis were hiding the airplanes.

Tsintolas 48

AAK: …And hiding the airport and they did not move anything. That was the first phase. Then, when there was a significant number of airplanes in the south, they brought me there for a new assignment to show that there was an army without arms. They had to show us…

RC: Make a display.

AAK: That we were doing nothing, moving around so that was my second role.

RC: Where did they move you to? Where did they move you to in your second role? Where did you go?

AAK: I came, and they said we are going to have a war. I understood (unintelligible), “You should not look as if you are a soldier, that you have no army” and I was told, there was a tower that controlled, I was to be below the tower all day and not to show myself. A lot of us. I asked, “Where should I go if you start?” They said, “If they come, you’re dead.” (laughter)

RC: Where were you located?

AAK: The tower.

RC/Lauren Cooke: Where was the tower located?

NT: In the south?

Tsintolas 49

RC: Was it in Jerusalem? Was it in Tel Aviv?

AAK: No, it was outside…

RC: Outside of the city?

NT: In the south, in southern Israel?

AAK: In the south, as close as possible.

RC: Where in the south? In the Negev? Where?

AAK: Closer.

NT: Was it near the Gaza Strip?

AAK: And wait. (water bottle falls down)

NT: They told you to wait?

RC: But where were you located?

Tsintolas 50

AAK: It was a secret…

RC: But do you know where it was?

AAK: I know where I was.

RC: OK, never mind.

NT: Were you in the location where they had the airplanes underground?

AAK: Everything, yes.

NT: You were there?

AAK: They were there, and slowly they were moved from the north south without them realizing.

They all could see this, people that are not soldiers, that had no equipment. It was number two.100

Then, they decided they are ready. All the people that were there pretending to be soldiers were told to go home… from time to time, were going to Jerusalem where I was for a weekend and come back. This time, all of us left to go where to where we lived, my house was in Jerusalem.

NT: They sent you home?

100 The second preparation phase Dr. Kowarski was involved in.

Tsintolas 51

AAK: They gave us an arm.

RC: They gave you a gun.

AAK: A gun, without…

RC: Without bullets

AAK: Without bullets. The army was allowed to go home to their families. It was the fake army.

I remember I went home at the time and my son said, “Is it going to be a war?” I said, “No.”

NT: You didn’t think…

AAK: There would be no war.

RC: That’s what he told my brother. I think he knew otherwise, but that’s what he told his son because he was a child.

AAK: As a child, his father said no, its no.

RC: Right.

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NT: A little bit before the war, on May 22, 1967, the Egyptian President Nasser ordered United

Nations Peacekeepers out of the Sinai Peninsula and they closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.

[How were these actions viewed in Israel?] [31:00]

AAK: Yes, they were preparing and felt very secure.

NT: The Arabs, the Egyptians?

AAK: Yes. Suddenly, I was told to come back. The war has started. I came back and had an opportunity to listen in the tower how they talked in Hebrew, to see the people coming. It was an interesting way to see the people [the airplanes taking off]. In order to be able to use the airplanes that we had, they would go fast and come back in a short time, prepare to go again and again so that each airplane was able to do the work of three or four, they came very quickly.

NT: Because the Israelis were outnumbered.

RC: Oh yeah.

AAK: In a short time, they destroyed completely, and after that…

RC: What did they destroy? The Egyptians’ air force, right?

AAK: Yes.

Tsintolas 53

RC: The small Israeli air force destroyed the Egyptians air force.

AAK: In one day.

RC: In one day… because they didn’t know they were there.

NT: On June 5, 1967 Israel launched an airstrike against Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, which we’ve been talking about. The Israeli Air Force destroyed nearly 400 of those nations’ airplanes.

What more do you recall about that event?

AAK: What?

NT: What do you remember about that event?

AAK: My wife was worried that we were being killed because they started the war in Jerusalem.

RC: Which is where we lived.

AAK: She thought that she will have to fight…

RC: For survival.

Tsintolas 54

AAK: She had a big knife.

RC: Right, we each had knives. I had a knife under my pillow. We had no guns, but we had knives.

AAK: Yeah.

RC: And we thought we were going to get killed.

AAK: To fight the last fight.

RC: Right, to fight the last fight.

NT: You felt the Arab countries would invade Israel?

RC: We all thought we would die. We didn’t know how long we were going to live. They were shooting at us. You could hear the guns, bullets were being sprayed into our home. We boarded up our home with paper so when the glass broke, when the bullets hit, hopefully we wouldn’t get hit by bullets and we wouldn’t get hit by glass.

LC: Didn’t they bomb your Kindergarten?

RC: They bombed my Kindergarten, yeah. I can tell my story later. We can hear his.

Tsintolas 55

AAK: (laughs). She thought, purposefully, the Israelis did say, they kept it a secret, because the

Arabs…

RC: They could listen.

AAK: …lied that they are losing the war. They said, “we are winning, we are killing,” (excited sounds mimicking the Egyptians as they lied) da da da da. So she called, she knew…

RC: My mother.

AAK: …A friend of ours and asked him “what’s going on?” He said, “We won.” (laughs)

RC: Really? I never knew that.

AAK: You were a child. “What?” He told, “Keep it a secret, we won, the first day.”

NT: You’re saying, the Israeli public, like your wife, felt after that first airstrike that Israel was winning? [35:31]

AAK: They were not…

RC: They didn’t know. Most of the Israeli public thought we were being killed. No one didn’t know, she happened to have inside knowledge, but no one knew. We all thought we were going to

Tsintolas 56 be done with because in the news, the little that you could get, they were, the propaganda from the

Egyptians or whomever, was that they were winning, so all the Israeli citizens that didn’t have a contact, which were all of them, thought that it was the end.

AAK: It was wonderful…

RC: It was a surprise.

AAK: …Like a miracle

RC: It was a miracle.

AAK: The whole world was listening to what the Egyptians said. My friend in the United States thought that I am being killed. They were listening, and they said, “we are killing them”.

RC: Right

NT: Everyone around the world was focused in on this war?

RC: and thought that Israel was going to be done with.

AAK: They saw it as the Arabs did.

Tsintolas 57

RC: Their media was the Arab media, so they were hearing that the Arabs were winning this war and that Israel was not going to make it, and they believed it.

AAK: Yeah.

RC: Right, they had no reason not to…(papers moving) Do you still want this question answered

[the Golda Meir question]?

NT: I think we’ve talked about it.

RC: You feel like you’ve answer it? OK.

NT: I’m doing the Oral History Project, this is what this project is….

AAK: Yes.

NT: A previous Oral History Project interviewee, someone else who was interviewed, his name was Ambassador Edward Gibson Lanpher. He served as a United States Foreign Service Officer in the American embassy in Tel Aviv.

RC: Interesting.

Tsintolas 58

NT: He said this quote: “…[The Israelis] just shut up the Egyptian Air Force on the ground. And in many respects, that was the decisive moment of the Six Day War, because, after that, the

Egyptians had no air power. So, the war effectively - the air war, as far as Egypt was concerned - was over by 8:30 on June 5.” How do your opinions on the initial Israeli strike compare to

Ambassador Lanpher’s?

RC: Do you agree with that statement? Let me read it to you. (repeats quote). Do you agree with that statement?

AAK: Yes.

RC: Why do you agree with that statement?

AAK: I was there! (laughter) I was there.

RC: And that’s true, that’s true. (points to Ambassador Lanpher quote)

AAK: Listening to them doing it at the tower. I saw them coming and going, coming and going, quickly, quickly, quickly.

RC: He was an eyewitness to the Israeli side of this air war. He watched the planes come in and out and heard the discussions about what was going on, blow by blow.

Tsintolas 59

AAK: At that point I was talking to them.

NT: You believe as Ambassador Lanpher said that basically Israel won air supremacy, they had control of the air…

RC: Yes.

NT: …of the skies? (people talking in the hall)

AAK: The quality of the air force wasn’t as good as the Egyptians, except they were good enough.

RC: The strategy won the war. I’m gonna shut the door.

LC: Ok.

NT: On June 5, 1967, Jordan began shelling Tel Aviv with missiles despite repeated pressure from the Israeli government to stay out of the war. What impact did the Jordanians entering the war have? [39:49]

AAK: We were listening on the phone how the Egyptians were talking, telling them, “We are winning! Go start! Start!” And he [King Hussein] believed them and thought that it would be an easy fight…

Tsintolas 60

LC: (whispering to Mrs. Cooke) They’re talking about the shelling.

AAK: …with them, (coughs) that they could take Jerusalem. They were wrong.

NT: Were you or your family affected by the Jordanian shellings?

AAK: We were affected directly.

RC: Yeah.

AAK: When they started shelling, my son was at school, he went to school. His father went to war. My wife said, “Don’t go, don’t go, stay home.” (laughs)

RC: To you?

AAK: Yes. (laughs)

RC: OK. That sounds like my mom.

AAK: He was told by his teachers that we will win. At school, my son said, “What am I going to do?” The master at school said, “Go home.” (laughs)

RC: The schoolmaster told him…

Tsintolas 61

AAK: The schoolmaster…, “Send your children home.” He let them go. At that point, the bombardment started.

RC: They started bombing

NT: The shelling.

RC: It was the middle of the day.

AAK: Yeah

RC: I can, can I…?

LC: Yeah, go.

AAK: She was with her mother. (points to Mrs. Cooke)

RC: I was with my little friend, Tali, my best friend. I think I was in Kindergarten…

AAK: In Kindergarten

Tsintolas 62

RC: …And it was around lunchtime, and we were seated at our little tiny desks, you know, the chair and the desk and all of a sudden, they told us, “You need to duck underneath your desk,” so we get underneath the desk, and you here all this noise going on, and it was very frightening. At that point…

AAK: They were striking.

RC: They were shooting at the school, something was going on, clearly. At that point, I don’t know the sequencing in time, but my mother showed up at my school along with my best friend’s mother. They were coming to get us, but it was too much shelling and shooting and stuff going on, so they told us that we needed to go down. Then there was a sudden, you know the air raid sounds you all hear around here, that’s for a bomb? (ambulance sirens in background) We got to hear those sounds and they told us to go downstairs, there was a little tiny, it looked like the size of an elevator, it was an elevator shaft, it was an elevator. I’d say about 30 or 40 kids and maybe three or four adults: my mom, her mom, our teacher, and maybe there might have been another teacher, all huddled in this little tiny area together, waiting and then all of a sudden there was this awful, crashing bang, and the whole thing was shaking because they had bombed our Kindergarten while we were in it. Then after that we waited, and it got quiet, and then we ran, and we ran to my mother’s friend’s car and she and my mother were in the front, and my friend and I were in the back, and they told us to crouch down on the floor of the car because they were shooting and there was noise all around us and they drove as fast as they could and they got us to our house or our apartment, it was really a house and we had an apartment part of this house, and we ran and my

Tsintolas 63 brother had been locked out, he couldn’t get in, so my mother let us in. I had a cousin, apparently, who was there…

AAK: Yeah

RC: I don’t really remember her, but I know she was there. We all went inside, and my mother boarded up all the windows with this green paper for the glass… I just remember that because it was so weird and then all the furniture was brought, where we would sleep, into the center area of the apartment that had the smallest windows and was kind of dark and away from the two other sides of the apartment that had bigger windows. That’s where we were for the entire time. My cousin, she decided to peel back the paper, she wanted to see what was going on outside. My mother was very upset that she was doing that. I think she made her leave and go home because she didn’t want her, she was too dangerous to have her with us, at least that was the extensible excuse, I don’t know.

AAK: She went with us because we had a safe house there.

RC: We had a safer house, I guess than most. Also, we were very fortunate because there was a bomb shelter attached to this building that you could leave the apartment – it was not like a real apartment, it was a house that we were renting – there was a courtyard area with another little house next door and there was an underground, dark, sooty place where we would go, every time we heard the sirens, we would run there in case there was a bombing happening. We didn’t know how long the war was going to last, I remember that, too. We didn’t know how do you deal with

Tsintolas 64 food or things like that. She had food, but she didn’t know how long we would need the food. I remember meals were minimalistic, and I remember that my cousin had to leave because she was naughty. (laughter) That’s all I remember. I remember we didn’t have pets, but there were stray cats everywhere in Israel often, (laughter) and so I had a pet stray cat outside that I wanted to feed.

My mother was like, “You’re not feeding the cat.” I remember that, also. I remember the knife, she gave me a knife to put underneath my pillow when we went to sleep at night. We also had a television set for some reason, which was rare, because in Israel nobody had TVs. [46:04]

AAK: It started for the first time.

RC: It never worked. Then all of a sudden, this box was working, and we were getting news reports, I guess of what was, allegedly, going on with this war. That’s the only other thing that I remember, and that he (points to Dr. Kowarski) was not there. It was just us three.

NT: Complete chaos.

RC: It was just a very frightening time. You’re frightened, you don’t know, you don’t know what’s going to happen, you don’t know when it’s going to end, and you don’t really know what to expect.

AAK: It was taking a chance. But it was design, meaning people were thinking ahead to take a chance.

RC: We were just living day-to-day.

Tsintolas 65

AAK: It could have been a catastrophe if the Egyptians were ready for them. They would have been finished. They were surprised to see what Israel had.

RC: I would say that at least for me, as a child, this statement is absolutely true. (points to Golda

Meir quote)

NT: The one by Prime Minister Meir?

RC: Yes, because that is how you felt. We knew we had an enemy that was committed to killing us. There was no doubt in my mind, then or now. We had to be prepared to fight for your survival and that that threat was non-relenting and never-ending and it’s still that way today, at least for me, and I’m sure for many, many people that live there. If you ever go there and you ever spend some time there and if you ever bother to listen to the news or even just general television there, if you’re fortunate, or not fortunate, you will have the opportunity to hear people that are not

Israelis that are living in other parts that will very blatantly, openly express a long-term goal and a plan to do just that, to annihilate every single person that is there. It’s not a secret, they talk about it all the time. That’s what the people that live there get to face every day, and it’s not a game;

They’re very serious and they daily do stuff. It’s just by the sheer force and the need to protect that it’s not successful every time. It’s just a continuous, ongoing thing that never, ever ends.

NT: I actually have a newspaper article from right before the Six Day War. (shuffling papers) It was published in the Egyptian newspaper called Al-Ahram on May 26, 1967. It was written by

Tsintolas 66

Mohamed Hassanain Heikal and it was entitled An Armed Clash with Israel is Inevitable – Why?.

In it, Heikal responds to the Egyptian President Nasser’s closure of the Straits of Tiran and he said,

“…The next move is up to Israel. Israel has to reply now. It has to deal a blow. We have to be ready for it…to minimise [sic] its effect as much as possible. Then it will be our turn to deal the second blow, which we will deliver with the utmost possible effectiveness….Let it be a knockout.”

What is your reaction to Heikal’s editorial where he calls for, basically, the destruction of Israel?

[49:46]

AAK: (laughs) It’s ridiculous, but Israel was ready to destroy them. After World War II, they decided not to die anymore. I don’t think that people realize that Israel can destroy…

NT: The Arab countries?

AAK: It will be only one country now…

NT: Egypt.

AAK: They can do awful things. They are going to do it. Syria… it reminds me of what happened before. They are prepared. For example, the Syrians dug under the Earth for many years to go to

Israel. Yesterday, they announced that Israel detected it, and they put a liquid through it that will clog it. That’s happened yesterday.

Tsintolas 67

RC: In other words, after you experience World War II and six million Jews get killed, you come to understand that you’re responsible for your own survival. The Israelis and the Jews that moved to Israel learned that lesson well and never expected anyone to take care of themselves other than themselves. They did what it took to be prepared for every eventuality and they still act in that manner today and that is the only reason that that country is still around. I think what he’s saying is they used strategy, they developed the technology that is necessary in order to sustain the survival of the homeland, because it is the only homeland for the Jews. Without it, there is no protection for that group of people anywhere in the world

AAK: They decided not to die and that is serious. As a result of it, unbelievable things have been created.

NT: On the topic of the religious importance of Israel in the Middle East…

RC: It’s not religious importance. I think people misunderstand that. The Jewish people are a group of people that have been persecuted throughout time. There is a religion that they happen to follow, and maybe they were persecuted because of that religion, but to survive as a people, it’s necessary to have the means to do that. This push, this desire to sustain a homeland for this group of people so that they aren’t at risk of being decimated, a place of safety, a haven…it’s not a question of religion, it’s a question of survival, just basic survival. But I think people are caught up with the fact that this desire, this wish to be able to sustain the survival of a group of people, it happens to be connected to a religion, but that’s not really what it’s about. It’s about pure, raw living, survival, basic day-to-day. That is the drive, that is the reason why people feel anxious

Tsintolas 68 about the security of that nation because for those people affected, they understand that without the existence of that nation, they do not have a wing and a prayer of being able to live, not just in that nation, but anywhere in the entire world because even now, you can listen to news reports throughout Europe where people that happen to be of that religion are being persecuted, I don’t know how else to put it, murdered, killed, gone after, in order to destroy them. The reasons, I don’t really care, but they’ll tell you it’s because of assorted reasons, but does it really matter to the people affected? Not at all. What is this about? This is about survival, it’s about existing from one generation to the next, and the rest is window dressing, really. People can say what they want to say, but why are people doing what they are doing? To live, just to live. It’s so basic, it’s almost offensive that there are these discussions about whether or not things need to be done when we’re talking about life and death for the people that are being discussed. It’s no one’s business. It’s the business of the people that are there that are fighting for their survival just like if in this country, somebody came and attacked this country, we would be fighting for our survival, too. The nerve, should they be able to. Is it appropriate? No one’s asking. Not if you’re there, no one cares. The opinion just doesn’t matter because it’s life or death. Bottom line. I just share that with you because

I guess it’s a very intense epiphany that I’m having and its where all the other people here that didn’t live through that, that don’t know, thankfully, they still care, but I don’t think they truly understand why they care. Maybe some do, and for those that do, great because they are the greatest asset that that country can have, but for those that don’t, please keep doing what you’re doing because you’re fighting for the survival of yourself, basically.

NT: I guess what I’m getting at is the war resulted in an important religious thing, being…

Tsintolas 69

RC: Not for me.

NT: It got the Western Wall.

RC: OK, in a war, there are spoils of war, right?

NT: I just wanted to ask a question: On June 7, 1967, Israeli soldiers captured the Old City of

Jerusalem from the Jordanians. (banging on door) Photographer David Rubinger captured this photo of paratroopers against the backdrop of the Western Wall. [See Appendix C] What are your opinions on this event and this photo? (tapping photo) [56:23]

AAK: Yes. (laughs) It was unexpected. You asked something?

RC: Yeah, what is your reaction to this picture and to the event of the capturing of the Western

Wall?

AAK: To be religious, it’s not so simple. People think they are not religious, but this changed their mind.

NT: What do you mean?

RC: Are you saying that because of the war and the survival of the war there was a push to religion?

Tsintolas 70

AAK: No. (remark in Hebrew)

RC: The war of the Western Wall

AAK: When they took the Western Wall, Jews that never believed…

RC: It caused people to believe in G-d

NT: To become more religious?

RC: To believe in G-d. I think after you go through something like the Holocaust you might lose your faith in G-d, but then when you go through something like the Six Day War, that might create a resurgence of the belief in G-d again.

AAK: But this has a special value for many years.

RC: Right. Why? Why does it have a special value?

AAK: As the Jews all over the world this was the point when they thought Judaism… I would say the most important part of the Jews all over the world. They would drive for many years, they would come just to be there.

Tsintolas 71

RC: To see the wall.

AAK: The fact that we’re taking back the wall… it’s not the wall its basically…

RC: Our home

AAK: Yeah. The people that built Israel, the majority were not religious.

RC: At all, they were definitely not religious.

AAK: But things have changed.

RC: Yes.

NT: When they built Israel, were they more looking to create a nation for themselves?

AAK: The majority were leftists, so they believed in…

RC: Socialism

AAK: But they wanted to create a state, it’s not like the leftists of today.

RC: They wanted to create a home that was safe and that was idealistic in its method of being run.

Tsintolas 72

AAK: People don’t realize how close we are for the next…

RC: War?

AAK: Six Day War, the equivalent.

NT: Like how close we are to another war? [59:54]

RC: Yes

AAK: This time, Israel tells them this is not a ?space? , if you do it you will get something you don’t even know that we have prepared for you. They are trying to convince them not to start.

RC: Who are they trying to convince? Syria?

AAK: The Syrians, its basically

RC: Assad?

AAK: Yeah.

NT: To clarify, are you saying…

Tsintolas 73

AAK: It’s not really Assad. It’s the Shiites.

LC: Oh

RC: Ok and where are they located? Is this Iran or Iraq? (Hebrew) Say it in Hebrew and I’ll try to translate it.

AAK: I’m blocked. The Muslims are selected into two, and this time it is the Shiites that took upon themselves to kill the Jews and they are there. It will happen, and it is just going to be terrible.

The destruction that is prepared, they said you will never realize what is going to happen. I don’t think they understand. I suspect that the fight between the Israelis and the Shiites is coming and it’s not good. Nobody wants to kill. It’s become necessary.

NT: You feel that the same aspirations for survival in the Six Day War…Israel is facing those same things today facing the Shiites?

AAK: Yeah, there are similarities because they can kill a lot. They prepared a huge amount of missiles that they believe will create… people will run away.

RC: Who prepared the missiles?

NT: The Syrians?

Tsintolas 74

AAK: The Syrians, but the Shiites

RC: The Shiites, OK.

NT: A few days after the Israelis took the Western Wall, on June 8, 1967, Israeli jets and torpedo boats attacked an American vessel, the USS Liberty. 34 sailors were killed and 171 were wounded.

AAK: I was there.

NT: You were…

AAK: Participating. We were celebrating the Six Day War, meaning they decided to have a party.

Everybody singing, all of our unit, where everything started. Suddenly, we were told there is a…

NT: An American Ship?

AAK: No, they didn’t know. A ship ?of the enemy? is coming toward us. All the lights were off.

The air force went for them. There was no knowledge, but it was considered to be very dangerous.

NT: Attacking the boat?

AAK: Yes. They didn’t know. There is no question that there was no…

Tsintolas 75

RC: (Hebrew)

AAK: To this day, the Americans believed that Israel wanted to kill them.

NT: That Israel intentionally attacked the boat?

AAK: Yeah

NT: Before, we talked about that ambassador and what he had to share about the initial airstrike on the Egyptian base. I have another quote from him about the USS Liberty. Here it is. (hands copy of quote to Dr. Kowarski) He said, “My own take on it, and I think I probably am in a minority, was that the Israelis - this was an accident in war; that the Israelis didn't target us as spying on them, but this was just one of those things that happened in a heated battle.” How do you respond to Ambassador Lanpher’s statement? [66:09]

AAK: I can tell you how the people were told. Definitely it was a warning because we thought that they were somehow going to attack us.

NT: Ambassador Lanpher is saying this was just one of those things that happens in war…

AAK: Yeah

Tsintolas 76

NT: But are you saying the Israelis thought this boat was going to attack Israel?

AAK: Yes. It was unknown and moving toward Israel.

LC: It was defense?

RC: Self-defense?

AAK: Yeah, but it is very difficult to say how the leaders thought. Maybe they wanted to tell us, but I don’t see any advantage for Israel to kill Americans, definitely.

LC: What did you think when you were there?

AAK: I was frightened.

LC: You were scared?

AAK: I was told “Go to sleep,” and I thought I’m being attacked suddenly, which is unexpected,

I guess that’s what I thought, that’s what I thought. But I’m thinking logically, there cannot be any advantage for Israel to kill Americans in the Six Day War. I think it makes no sense at all to do that.

LC: Do you think maybe it was a mistake?

Tsintolas 77

AAK: I think… in this condition, I think it was a misunderstanding by the Israelis. They don’t take chances. If you come to kill them, they will kill you.

LC: They were ready to defend themselves, but you think that the way the Americans came in, there was some sort of miscommunication?

AAK: It was expected that if the Americans did that they would have to report it.

LC: Right, did they?

AAK: They didn’t…

LC: It was a secret

AAK: They purposefully wanted to come, I don’t know what they wanted to get with this.

LC: Maybe they were trying to help in secret or something?

AAK: It was the end of the war.

NT: The ship, the USS Liberty, was a spy ship.

Tsintolas 78

AAK: It was a spy ship, yes, and I guess that’s the training to listen and purposefully, they thought the Israelis were not there, and the Israelis decided not to risk anything.

LC: They were defending themselves.

AAK: Yeah

NT: The war ended on June 10 with Israel capturing the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West

Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Here is a map of Israel following the

Six Day War. (Handing Dr. Kowarski copy of the map) [See Appendix E] What are your thoughts on the results of the war, both geographically, politically? [70:38]

AAK: I think that it cut the Jews of Israel into two. The left side [leftists], which used to be very aggressive in defending, decided that there should not be the state of Israel, that there should be everybody.

LC: The Jewish state?

AAK: They don’t believe in a Jewish state.

NT: The left side of Israel didn’t want there to be an Israel, they just wanted the Arabs and the

Jews…

Tsintolas 79

RC: The Jews to coexist.

AAK: To live together, which is the new way. It’s inevitable because the Arabs never gave up taking back [Israel], never.

RC: They still haven’t

AAK: This is part of years and years of survival. They are very aggressive. They believe as a result of it that Israel will take ?over? everything.

RC: Both sides need to desire to coexist in order for that to happen.

AAK: The number of the leftists in Israel…

RC: One side may desire it, the other side does not.

AAK: They disappeared, there is an election now. They are nothing.

NT: Who is this?

AAK: The leftists party.

LC: The people that want to coexist that are Israeli.

Tsintolas 80

NT: The leftists, the people who want to coexist with the Arabs…

AAK: They believe that it is not fair, that the whole human race should be together. They believe in it and as a result of it they encourage it. I don’t think that matters. They are not going to stop.

RC: Meaning the Arabs are not going to stop.

AAK: I think a lot of the Muslims gave up…

NT: Trying to take over Israel?

AAK: Yes. They are pro-Israel now, they are actually pro-Israel. (laughs)

RC: There are actually some countries outside of Israel that are pro-Israel, but the people that are in Israel, there is a faction, there’s Hamas, and they are not.

AAK: The Sunnis are fighting for their survival, and they want help from Israel.

RC: (Hebrew) Answer the question (laughter)

NT: As we were talking about, the Arabs around Israel basically to this day they don’t want to coexist with Israel. During the peace process… [75:00]

Tsintolas 81

AAK: The majority again believe that they can take back Israel, they say so. The opposite is happening. The Israelis, the Jews wanted to live together.

RC: They wanted to coexist, they tried

AAK: In other words, they believed in justice. They believed, just like the United States, in hoping to have a smaller United States.

RC: What was your question, Nick?

NT: What are your thoughts on the results of the war?

RC: What are your thoughts on the results of the Six Day War?

AAK: The Israelis started believing in themselves too much, I would say.

RC: Do you think the result of the Six Day War was good or bad?

AAK: The Israelis became more religious.

NT: They became more religious as a result of the Six Day War?

Tsintolas 82

AAK: They think this is a miracle. They believe it is a miracle. It’s not only the Israelis that thought that it was a miracle. If they believe in G-d they think it’s a miracle. They believe it. The effect of it on the group of Israelis was that they became religious. They though that G-d allowed them to do it. Instead of being a non-religious country, it is becoming very religious, more and more religious. It made them religious, basically. As I understand, it’s not only in Israel and not only in the Jews. There is a significant number of Americans, non-Jews, who think that it was G-d’s will.

They believe it. It’s not ideal, I’m not for it, I wanted to have a little United States.

NT: What do you mean?

AAK: You’re a citizen there, you have all the rights.

LC: Like a neo-Europe?

AAK: You have to live together, but the law supports you

LC: A different kind of government?

AAK: But you have the right to be what you are, like here.

NT: Are you saying that you wish the religious conflicts in the Middle East were more modeled off the United States where everyone is tolerant of everyone’s religion?

Tsintolas 83

AAK: I hope so. (laughs)

RC/LC: Yes.

AAK: (unintelligible) Hopefully, basically I have to say the Muslims, the Shiites, are with us because they are afraid.

RC: That’s really not what the focus is of his paper. He’s not writing about the subject you’re talking about. He’s talking about the Six Day War, so let’s just stay on that.

AAK: The Six Day War made people religious…

NT: Let’s move on to…

AAK: Even I. (laughs) It looks like a miraculous thing.

RC: Ok, next question.

NT: Harvard Law Professor and author Alan Dershowitz argues in his book The Case for Israel that the Israelis were driven to attack its Arab neighbors after Egypt mobilized troops and closed the Straits of Tiran. This is before the war began.

AAK: Yes

Tsintolas 84

NT: He says, “After exhausting all diplomatic options and learning that Egypt was preparing an imminent attack…the Israeli air force attacked Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi military airfields on the morning of June 5, 1967. Would any reasonable nation faced with comparable threats of annihilation have acted differently?” What do you think of Dershowitz’s representation of the beginning of the war? [81:24]

AAK: Oh, I agree. That’s what I was telling you. We were afraid to be killed. It would have happened. It’s not like…that it’s obvious. It’s obvious that we were supposed to be killed. That’s what was coming. Again, it’s happening again.

RC: Okay, we’re talking about the Six Day War, let’s just talk about that

AAK: Yes.

NT: An opposing viewpoint to that is University of Kent Professor and author Ersun Kurtulus who argues in his article “The Notion of a ‘Pre-Emptive War:’ The Six Day War Revisited” that the

Israelis began the Six Day War with a preventative strike meant to maintain its position in the

Middle East and prevent a shift in the military balance as opposed to what we were talking about before, a pre-emptive strike, which would be prompted by another country’s actions. He writes,

“more evidence is accumulating…giving effect to the view that the Six Day War was a ‘war of choice’ for Israel rather than being a pre-emptive war imposed upon Israel.”

Tsintolas 85

RC: That’s not…

AAK: Ridiculous! We were fighting for our lives.

NT: You disagree with that statement?

AAK: There is no question about it.

RC: Israel did not start that war. If that statement is intended to suggest that Israel is responsible and somehow started that war, it’s a disagreeable and inaccurate statement.

AAK: It’s absolutely ?backwards? I was there. I can tell you that it…

RC: No one was looking for that fight

AAK: The whole world was helping them, they were waiting to see. Nobody was helping us

LC: They all turned a blind eye

RC: The world turned a blind eye to Israel’s circumstances.

LC: Didn’t they just send the Peacekeepers away?

Tsintolas 86

RC: They sent the Peacekeepers away…

NT: And told the UN to leave.

RC: and waited to see what would happen.

AAK: They said, “we are not doing it, we are not doing it.”

RC: Deal with it yourself.

AAK: But there was an embargo. They wouldn’t let us buy…

RC: They walked away and left them without any arms.

AAK: they thought it was useless to help the Jews, the Israelis, it’s just useless. That’s what happened in the war. It’s just too bad.

RC: Exactly.

LC: They left you for dead.

NT: A few more questions left. (shuffling papers) On June 12, 1967, Holocaust survivor and author

Elie Wiesel wrote an article entitled The Six Day War in which he argued “Future

Tsintolas 87 generations…won’t believe that this small state, surrounded by hatred, fire and murder, had so quickly managed a miracle…

AAK: Yes.

NT: “…For Jews around the world, these last events are a deep source of pride. Those who thought

Jews were frightened by huge armies were mistaken.” What is your response to Wiesel’s view of the war? [84:52]

AAK: I don’t understand what the question is.

RC: Do you agree with this statement or not? (repeats question)

AAK: The only thing that I can add is we were frightened. (laughs) To say we were not frightened, we were frightened! Period. It didn’t happen like that, that people have no choice, the whole world against them, they are supposed to die.

RC: It was a miracle.

AAK: Yeah, it was.

Tsintolas 88

RC: He agrees that it was a miracle, but he doesn’t agree that we weren’t frightened because we were frightened, everyone was frightened. Nothing was assumed. It was not like there was this show of bravado, there was none. It was about survival.

AAK: There were a lot of people there that said Israel should ask them to do whatever you want…

RC: To try to appease, to try to appease.

AAK: to give them what they want: “They are going to kill us, please, tell them, I will do what you want.”

RC: Exactly.

AAK: With the Sinai, do it, do it, do it.

RC: Whatever it takes to live

AAK: This is a bad government, irresponsible on their part, ?things like? that were happening.

RC: There was a group of people so afraid that they didn’t want to fight, they just wanted to give in, hoping that that would be enough

Tsintolas 89

AAK: Yes, I know them. People that I know that thought… when a situation like that happens, you don’t fight

RC: You don’t fight, you give in.

AAK: This is what the Jews did for thousands of years.

RC: They gave in.

AAK: What can you do? (laughs)

RC: You can go be murdered.

AAK: People were leaving Israel, meaning they were running away. (laughs) What more do you want? They were willing to send her without us just because she would be the survivor. (points to

Mrs. Cooke) We had no right to tell her, “Stay with us” when the Americans said, “We will support you, we will save you.” Think of it.

RC: I was five. They asked me whether or not I wanted to go. It was really my decision.

NT: Looking back on the Six Day War, do you think you made an impact in the Six Day War?

AAK: What?

Tsintolas 90

NT: Do you think that you made an impact in the Six Day War?

RC: Do you think that you, personally, made an impact in the Six Day War?

AAK: I was doing my…yes. ?It’s not good? to say that one person, but I participated in the plan, and I understood it much better how I was moved in the three stages. It was planned. I was part of the plan.

RC: He was part of the team, he was part of the team.

AAK: I was, yeah.

RC: His impact was to be an integral part of the team.

AAK: I did what was needed

RC: What was required.

AAK: I ?did? understand it at the beginning.

NT: Final question: Do you have anything else you would like to add that we might have missed on this topic? [89:11]

Tsintolas 91

RC: Is there something that you want to say about the Six Day War that you haven’t already said?

Something new.

LC: Something new.

AAK: It’s too dangerous. I don’t want another. (laughs)

RC: He doesn’t want another one.

AAK: We were in horrible danger. If they decided to start the war, we would have been finished, finished. We took a chance.

NT: I think that’s it. Thank you so much for sharing your reflections with me. I learned a lot and

I look forward to listening back and going through everything.

AAK: It was an opportunity for me to come back to something awful. (laughter)

NT: I’m sorry.

AAK: It was awful.

RC: Yeah, you don’t realize the trauma you carry with you, no matter how many years go by…

Tsintolas 92

NT: I can only imagine.

RC: …But it’s an important topic.

NT: Thank you both, and Lauren, thank you everybody.

RC: Thank you (first recording ends)

AAK: I want to tell you something more (second recording begins)…?the young of Israel? that died in the War of Independence, those that did, the majority didn’t fight, but those that fought,

80% died. Nobody told us.

NT: This was the 1948 War?

AAK: Yeah. Those who went to fight died…it’s very dangerous, it was very dangerous, it’s so dangerous. The Europeans after all those wars, refused to fight. World War II: they didn’t fight, you know that?

NT: The French?

AAK: The French didn’t fight, The Italians didn’t fight, because they lost all their children. The consequence, people don’t realize, for Israel, new people came, so many, but our generation died.

Tsintolas 93

Second Interview

February 5, 2019 (via e-mail)

NT: In the interview, you described how you were stationed at an Israeli airfield leading up to the

Six Day War where you watched the Israeli jets take off for the airstrikes on the first day of the war. What was your role at the airfield? Were you sent there, or did you volunteer to go there?

AAK: Before the war, I was moved between many places. I was at this particular airfield because the Israeli leaders wanted people there. I was ordered to return home right before the war began to prevent the Arabs from seeing an aggressive play, to make it look like we had no preparation. I then was ordered back to the airfield immediately. I waited at the airbase because I was on standby to collect casualties in a helicopter and treat them due to my role as a doctor. There is no such thing as want in war, I went because I was obligated to do so.

Tsintolas 94

Time Index for Recording

Minute Mark Topics presented in order of discussion in recording

0 Introduction/Childhood

5:12 Jews settling in the Middle East/Relationship with Arabs/Haganah

11:20 Haganah continued

15:59 Life in Israel before the Six Day War

20:40 Israeli Preparation

24:48 Dr. Kowarski’s experience at an Israeli air base

31:00 Egyptian Removal of UN Peacekeepers/Airstrikes and the start of the war

35:31 Israeli public and Egyptian propaganda responses to the airstrikes

39:49 Jordanian Shellings/Bombing of Mrs. Cooke’s kindergarten

46:04 Feeling in Israel as the war began from Mrs. Cooke’s perspective

49:46 Egyptian Newspaper Propaganda/Israeli deterrence of those sentiments

56:23 Western Wall

59:54 Current Arab-Israeli Tensions/USS Liberty

66:09 USS Liberty

70:38 End of the Six Day War

75:00 Current Arab-Israeli Tensions and Coexisting/Results of the war

81:24 Response to arguments over how the war started

84:52 Response to Elie Wiesel newspaper article about the war

89:11 The danger surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflicts

Tsintolas 95

Interview Analysis

Dr. Allen Avinoam Kowarski described how frightened Israeli citizens like his family prepared for the Six Day War by keeping knives with them in order to “fight the last fight,”101 encapsulating the expectation of destruction gripping the Israelis facing the “horrible danger” of the Arab threat in 1967.102 Oral histories like the one provided by Dr. Kowarski preserve the experiences and sentiments of individuals involved in historical events that would otherwise be lost in broader, less intimate sources. As Donald Swain, assistant professor of history at the

University of California, Davis, says:

The emphasis on certain words, the suppressed chuckle when a seemingly humorless phrase comes up, are intangibles not found in documents. The excitement, frustration, boredom, or humor of a particular situation are often not discernible in the written record. Oral history techniques offer the possibility, without guaranteeing success, of recapturing the mood and the spirit of men and their times.103

He explains that another strength of oral history is, “As a result of man’s lengthening lifespan, there are more surviving witnesses to past events than ever before.”104 However, Swain asserts,

“The success or failure of an interview frequently seemed to depend on the status of the man being interviewed.”105 As the subjects of oral history get older, the precision of their memories fade, especially when recounting “unpleasant things.”106 Other weaknesses of oral history Swain presents are the additional time it takes to research, prepare, interview, and transcribe an oral history as opposed to recovering history through print sources already available and the reliability of “word-to-mouth evidence.”107 Historian Arthur Schlesinger adds, “The historian’s goals are

101 Kowarski, Allen Avinoam. Interview by Nick Tsintolas. Personal Interview. North Bethesda, December 29, 2018: 54. 102 Ibid., 91. 103 Swain, Donald C. "Problems for Practitioners of Oral History." The American Archivist 28, no. 1 (1965): 68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40290448. 104 Ibid., 64. 105 Ibid., 67. 106 Ibid., 68. 107 Ibid., 63, 65.

Tsintolas 96 accuracy, analysis, and objectivity in the reconstruction of the past.”108 While the veracity of the claims made during an oral history cannot be confirmed, first-hand accounts do help in making the

“reconstruction of the past” more complete by considering multiple perspectives. The oral history interview with Dr. Kowarski underscores oral history’s ability to make the understanding of a historical event more thorough. In the interview, Dr. Kowarski strongly disagrees with historian

Ersun Kurtulus’ claim on how Six Day War began and partially contradicts author Elie Wiesel’s report of how the Israelis felt as they faced the threat of the Arab nations.

The interview began with a discussion of Dr. Kowarski’s childhood in Israel. He talked about his dream to become a scientist, reflecting “…in the situation I was in there was not a chance to become one…I didn’t expect to succeed.”109 Dr. Kowarski recalled how growing up, the newspapers described how “[The Arabs] were killing [the Jews] slowly.”110 The interview transitioned to Dr. Kowarski’s time serving as a messenger in the Haganah at age 17. Next, Dr.

Kowarski discussed how prior to the Six Day War, the Arabs “declared that they are going to kill all the Jews and all the world assumed that would happen.”111 He added that his daughter, Ruth

Cooke, who was a United States citizen born in the US but living in Israel with her family and also present at the interview, was requested to return to the United States by the US government. She recalled how at the age of five, “…they offered my parents to let me, just me, go.”112 Dr. Kowarski continued talking about life before the war, mentioning how he served as a doctor at an Israeli air base and how the Israeli officials told the air base, “‘You should not look as if you are a soldier, that you have no army,”113 in order to mislead the Arab countries. He remembered watching the

108 Schlesinger, The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society, 51. 109 Kowarski, 39. 110 Ibid., 39. 111 Ibid., 44. 112 Ibid., 45. 113 Ibid., 48.

Tsintolas 97

Israeli jets take off on June 5, 1967, as they went to strike Egyptian and other Arab air bases. Next,

Mrs. Cooke recollected, “…we each had knives. I had a knife under my pillow…we all thought we would die.”114 As Dr. Kowarski reflected on the success of the Israeli airstrikes, he called it,

“…a miracle.”115 The interview then switched to the topic of the Jordanian shellings, which blew up Mrs. Cooke’s kindergarten. She remembered, “…all of a sudden, they told us, ‘You need to duck underneath your desk,’ so we get underneath the desk, and you here all this noise going on, and it was very frightening…we got to hear those [air raid] sounds,”116 adding “It was just a very frightening time. You’re frightened, you don’t know, you don’t know what’s going to happen…We knew we had an enemy that was committed to killing us. There was no doubt in my mind, then or now.”117 In response to an Egyptian newspaper article about that country’s objective to destroy Israel, Dr. Kowarski said, “[The Israelis] decided not to die and that is serious.”118 Next, the interview focused on the Israelis securing the Western Wall during the conflict. Mrs. Cooke emphasized, “This is about survival, it’s about existing from one generation to the next,”119 explaining that Israel withstanding the Arab threat of decimation far outweighed taking the

Western Wall and other “spoils of war.”120 Dr. Kowarski said about the event, “It was unexpected,”121 and that its miraculous unfolding caused Israelis to become more religious. The conversation shifted to the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, to which Dr. Kowarski said, “…I’m thinking logically, there cannot be any advantage for Israel to kill Americans in the Six Day

War.”122 As the focus of the interview reached the end of the war and its consequences, Dr.

114 Ibid., 54. 115 Ibid., 56. 116 Ibid., 62. 117 Ibid., 64-65. 118 Ibid., 67. 119 Ibid., 68. 120 Ibid., 69. 121 Ibid., 69. 122 Ibid., 76.

Tsintolas 98

Kowarski reflected, “…the Arabs never gave up taking back [Israel], never.”123 Dr. Kowarski then responded to historians’ claims about the start of the war and an Israeli newspaper article about the conflict. At the end of the interview, Dr. Kowarski underscored the danger Israel has faced throughout its history, such as during the 1948 War of Independence and the Six Day War, explaining, “It’s too dangerous. I don’t want another.”124

There has been a debate among historians over the events that prompted the outbreak of the Six Day War. Harvard law professor and author Alan Dershowitz writes, “After exhausting all diplomatic options and learning that Egypt was preparing an imminent attack…the Israeli air force attacked Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi military airfields on the morning of June 5, 1967. Would any reasonable nation faced with comparable threats of annihilation have acted differently?”125

Contrarily, University of Kent professor and author Ersun Kurtulus suggests, “…more evidence is accumulating…giving effect to the view that the Six Day War was a ‘war of choice’ for Israel rather than being a pre-emptive war imposed upon Israel.”126 Dr. Kowarski completely disagreed with Kurtulus after learning of his assessment of the situation. He responded, “Ridiculous! We were fighting for our lives…There is no question about it.”127 Mrs. Cooke reaffirmed Dr.

Kowarski’s statement, adding, “Israel did not start that war. If that statement is intended to suggest that Israel is responsible and somehow started that war, it’s a disagreeable and inaccurate statement…No one was looking for that fight.”128 Both Dr. Kowarski and Mrs. Cooke’s experiences living in Israel during the Six Day War contributed to their disagreement with

Kurtulus’ assertion. They felt endangered leading up to the war and understood that Israel was not

123 Ibid., 79. 124 Ibid., 91. 125 Dershowitz, Case for Israel, 91-92. 126 Ersun N. Kurtulus, “The Notion of a “Pre-Emtpive War:” the Six Day War Revisited,” 220-38. 127 Kowarski, 85. 128 Ibid., 85.

Tsintolas 99 instigating a conflict; As Dr. Kowarski said, “It’s obvious that we were supposed to be killed.

That’s what was coming.”129 Dr. Kowarski’s oral history allows for the opportunity to examine historians’ claims about the Six Day War with a first-hand account not available to them. This oral history provides credibility to Dershowitz’s claim over the cause of the Six Day War as it rebukes the idea that Kurtulus proposed that Israel had an option to enter the conflict; the interviewee asserts that the Arab pressure on Israel caused the Jews to fight back and defend their country. Dr.

Kowarski interview afforded him the chance to respond to another interpretation of the Six Day

War.

The feelings of the Israelis before and during the Six Day War are not as controversial as the debate over its beginnings, but they are commonly misrepresented. Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel writes in the newspaper article, The Six Day War, “Future generations…won’t believe that this small state, surrounded by hatred, fire and murder, had so quickly managed a miracle…For Jews around the world, these last events are a deep source of pride. Those who thought Jews were frightened by huge armies were mistaken.”130 While Dr. Kowarski agreed with

Wiesel’s discussion of the pride towards the miraculous Israeli victory, he contradicted Wiesel’s representation of the Jews’ emotions during this period. He said, “The only thing that I can add is we were frightened. To say we were not frightened, we were frightened! Period. It didn’t happen like that, that people have no choice, the whole world against them, they are supposed to die.”131

Dr. Kowarski agreed with the assertion that Israel’s victory was a “miracle” and a “deep source of pride” because he knew that while Israel was greatly outnumbered during the Six Day War and that the world anticipated an Israeli defeat, the Jews successfully protected their country from the

129 Ibid., 84. 130 Elie Wiesel “Revealed after 50 Years: What Elie Wiesel Wrote About The Six Day War,” The Forward. 131 Kowarski, 87.

Tsintolas 100

Arabs. He disagreed with the claim that the Israelis were not frightened during the war because he experienced and saw that fear himself. His family kept knives under their pillows to protect themselves and everyone was boarding up their homes, preparing for the worst. Dr. Kowarski’s oral history allowed him to comment on the Israelis’ response to the war through his first-hand understanding in order to contribute to Wiesel’s generalized portrayal of the event. This interview’s value is seen in its addition of Dr. Kowarski’s perspective of the Israeli reaction to the

Six Day War to the understanding of the war’s history, enhancing the historical record. Dr.

Kowarki’s disputations of historians’ and newspaper writers’ claims highlight the benefits of an eyewitness account in refining how history is portrayed.

While I agree with Donald Swain’s claim that oral history requires more time and is more challenging than a traditional approach to studying history, I found this process to be a rewarding experience that generated a meaningful primary source document. The opportunity to explore Dr.

Kowarski’s contributions to the history of Israel, particularly his involvement in the Six Day War, in a detailed manner was invaluable as it provided an intimate depiction of an Israeli perspective in the Arab-Israeli conflicts for historians studying the topic. This project also fostered an appreciation in me for the hard work of historians, whose job it is to sift through primary and secondary sources as they try to better express the past. Their work influences how people interpret the world they live in, and I am delighted to provide this comprehensive account of Dr. Kowarski’s experiences to the historical record as people study the Middle East’s present condition. After completing this project, I believe that I have contributed to the historical understanding of the Six

Day War, and I gained a greater appreciation for the work that goes into producing a historical record.

Tsintolas 101

Works Consulted

Anti-Defamation League. "1956 Suez Campaign." Anti-Defamation League, www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/1956-suez-campaign. Accessed 3 Dec. 2018.

Anti-Defamation League. "Creation of the State of Israel." Anti-Defamation League, www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/creation-of-the-state-of-israel. Accessed 3 Dec. 2018.

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Appendix A

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser among supporters in Mansoura, Egypt.

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Appendix B

Israeli territory preceding the Six Day War

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Appendix C

David Rubinger, Paratroopers at the Western Wall, (June 7, 1967)

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Appendix D

Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan (center left) and Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin

(center right) in the Old City of Jerusalem (June 7, 1967)

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Appendix E

Israeli territory after the Six Day War (June 10, 1967)