It was a modern-day miracle and an example of successfully using military strategy as a last resort. To really understand the politics of the Middle East today, it is worth remembering what really happened then and seeing how this anniversary reminds us of what needs to be done.

The 1967 war did not just happen. The heads of the Arab states had been clear since the Suez war in 1956 that the goal was to destroy Israel entirely. In his 1964 speech to the United Nations, Egyptian President Nasser made it clear that the problem of Israel is not Palestinian refugees, but “the very existence of Israel” itself. In 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organization was created with the express purpose of destroying Israel and under the leadership of Yasser Arafat proceeded to be the terrorist arm of the Arabs.

In the two years prior to the Six-Day War, the PLO committed 113 attacks on Israeli civilians, not military, but specifically civilian men, women, and children (sound familiar?). In 1965, Arab leaders met in Morocco to discuss their detailed plans to destroy Israel. King Hassan II of Morocco did not trust these Arab leaders, and so he secretly taped the meetings, which allows us to see the insidious evil intentions of Nasser and his cronies. Hassan was so disturbed that he gave those tapes to the Shin Bet Mossad, allowing Israel to be prepared for the upcoming aggressions.

On May 18, 1967, Nasser ordered the UN to withdraw its peacekeeping forces, and without even bringing it up to the Security Council or General Assembly, UN Secretary-General U Thant did what Nasser told him. With the UN forces no longer there as a buffer between Egypt and Israel, the Egyptian forces had massed at Israel’s border by the end of the month, and Syria was moving its military to the northern border. On May 23, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran, creating a blockade that entirely cut Israel off from the Suez and any shipping to or from its port city of Eilat.