Conflicted S3 E10 - Arab-Israeli Blitzkrieg

Thomas Small No time to banter today, Aimen. We've got so much to cover in this episode.

Aimen Dean So much to condense for sure.

Thomas Small The Six-Day War of '67 and its bold sequel, the Yom Kippur War of '73. But you are still alive, right?

Aimen Dean Alive and thriving.

Thomas Small Good to hear. Now, let's get straight into it.

Yes. We finally reached the climax of the Cold War in the Middle East. Well, a climax at least. The outcomes of both the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War are relatively well known. Less so, the political machinations leading up to them. We'll do our best, dear listener, to take you behind the scenes of the corridors of power and into the minds of Arab and Israeli leaders.

No one wanted war. Yet war arrived. Why? That's our question? These two wars were transformative. Nasserism was out, and radicalism was in. And in the ongoing clash of civilisations in the Middle East, a new and improved player emerged from the wreckage of war: radical Islamism. Are you excited, Aimen?

Aimen Dean Of course. Of course. Now, I can trace the roots of my ideological, you know, youth, to the 1960s and 1970s.

Thomas Small The Six-Day War was a turning point in the history of the modern Arab world. Arabs were left traumatised by their spectacular defeat. The Nasserist project was thoroughly discredited. And so, a huge Egyptian transition began, away from the Soviet union and toward the United States, away from a centralised command economy and toward crony capitalism, away from Arab nationalism and toward Egyptian nationalism. And all of these changes had huge reverberations across the region.

But in the years running up to the 1967 War, things had changed since the first clash between Israelis and Arabs in 1948. Israel's victory in '48 is largely down to the corruption of its Arab enemies. They were weak regimes, still dependent upon colonial powers and internally disunited.

But by 1967, this had all changed. Arab states were now independent. They were centralised. They were heavily armed and radically nationalistic. Syria and Egypt had Soviet military advisers, as well as armaments. So, even though with hindsight, we know that Israel soundly defeated the Arabs. Before the war began, an Israeli victory was far from certain.

Okay, Aimen. Give me the global Cold War context in the run-up to the '67 War. We're in '63, '64. What's the world like at the time?

Aimen Dean Many listeners, you know, will be thinking right now that, "Oh, we have a war on Ukraine. We have a war, you know, with the Taliban. You know, took over Afghanistan. We have, you know, crisis here, crisis there."

You know, if they were living, you know, in the 1960s, I don't know what they will do. They will go into significant panic, because 1966, you know, in October and November, the world came really pretty close to nuclear annihilation.

Thomas Small The Cuban missile crisis.

Aimen Dean The Cuban missile crisis.

Thomas Small Yeah.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. So, can you imagine? And then a year later—almost a year later—in 1963, in November, President Kennedy was assassinated.

Thomas Small Wow. Yep. That's true. Imagine if—. I mean, we – we can't really imagine it now. It must—. It was so huge.

Aimen Dean The channels of information were really scarce. You know? People were depending primarily on, you know, radio, newspapers, and, you know, a few TV stations. That's it. So, it was a really panic-stricken world at the time. 1962: Cuban missile crisis. 1963: Kennedy was assassinated. 1964: the Vietnam War.

Thomas Small '64: Vietnam starts. Yeah.

Aimen Dean So, you know, it was, like—.

Thomas Small The world was crazy.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. You know? 1962: China invaded India or at least, like, you know, parts of India. And there was a war between India and China. I mean, the spectre of war between India and Pakistan was always ever-present. You know? The world was not exactly a very happy place at that time or it didn't seem so. So, that is why we understand that the Middle East was not—. The Cold War dynamics in the Middle East did not happen in a vacuum. You know? The entire world was in turmoil.

Thomas Small Zooming down into the regional level. I mean, we're talking about the Middle Eastern heartland here: Israel and Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and, of course, Egypt. What's the status quo at the time there in terms of the borders? I mean, tell us about the Green Line.

Aimen Dean If you go to 1960, '62, '63, '64, '65, and '66, you know, these years, the Israeli borders were pretty much, you know, you take away the West Bank and Gaza and the Golan Heights, and that's what Israel looked like at the time. So, it is from, you know, from the Lebanese-Israeli border, there was a demilitarised zone. The Golan Heights, all of it basically was demilitarised zone. And then, you have the Green Line, which separated the West Bank, you know, from Israel proper. Including even the Green Line barricades, you know, and kind of scary in the middle of Jerusalem.

So, Jerusalem was divided into East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem, West Jerusalem: Israeli. East Jerusalem: Jordanian.

Thomas Small It's important to say, I think that it wasn't—. The Green Line wasn't really a border. It—. Because there – there had only been an armistice after the '48 War, not a peace treaty.

Aimen Dean Yeah.

Thomas Small So, in effect, the war, that war, the war of Israeli independence, never ended.

Aimen Dean Yeah. So, actually, East and West Jerusalem resembled, you know, East and West Berlin to an extent, except, basically, there was far greater movement, you know, between the two sides for religious reasons. It's more like, you know, if people in Northern Ireland who are listening to this, they will remember the Green Line in Belfast. I mean, it's something similar to that, between the two communities.

Thomas Small Exactly. So, as you say, there were – there were DMZs with Jordan and Syria mainly. I mean, with Lebanon, too. Lebanon doesn't really come into it. And across the Jordan and Syria DMZs, they had been fighting back and forth. And especially with Syria.

Now, as for Egypt, right. Remember their listener, Israel had taken Gaza and much of the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt during the Suez Crisis in 1956. But after the crisis, under international pressure, they had withdrawn. And Suez and Gaza were being patrolled by the United Nations Emergency Force (the UNEF), which, of course, leaves Jordan, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which had occupied and annexed the West Bank in the 1948 War. So, they were controlling Jerusalem. They were controlling all of the holy places in the region: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.

But it might surprise the listener to know that, at that time, Israel actually had quite a good working relationship with King Hussein.

Thomas Small Well, King Hussein was always pragmatic, to be honest. I mean, and at the end of the day, he realised that, "Okay. These are the people on my border. I need to keep Jerusalem as part of my fiefdom, part of my kingdom, part of my legacy, part of my inheritance." Because King Hussein realised that, you know, his grandfather and his great-grandfather lost Mecca Medina, you know, and the Hejaz to the House Saud. And so—.

Thomas Small We talked all about this in the last episode, on the Hashemites.

Aimen Dean Exactly. So, he needs to keep Jerusalem. And he realised, you know. And if you – if you – if you read many of the interviews basically that he gave throughout the years, of course, in hindsight, he was always sounding regretful, you know, about, you know, participating in any of the Arab foolishness regarding, like, you know, annihilating Israel and all of that, because he realised he lost the West Bank and Jerusalem because of that.

Thomas Small He had some other difficulties, too. Internal difficulties. And his regime was Western leaning on the whole. But it was always being opposed by the Palestinian majority inside the country. Remember he was ruling not just the present-day Jordan, but also present-day West Bank. So, the majority of his country were Palestinians. They were fervently pro-Nasser. They were fervently pro-Arab nationalism.

And so, the revolutionary Arab regimes—like Syria, like Egypt—were always interfering internally in Jordanian affairs, putting the King Hussein in a tight spot.

Aimen Dean Absolutely. And this is the problem is that, you know, the – the – the Palestinians at that time were started to fashion themselves as the new cool kids, you know, of the revolutionary scene globally. I mean, you remember, these are the 1960s. These are the days of Castro, Che Guevarra. You know, all of these, you know, revolutionaries, like, you know – you know, parading around dinner with their berets and all of that. And the military uniforms. And, you know, they are the cool kids. You know, the socialists. You know, the leftists.

So, the Palestinians started to fashion themselves around that image of global socialist, internationalist, revolutionary solidarity. And this is where it clashed completely with the image of the calm, stoic monarchy of Jordan.

Thomas Small Okay. So, that's the regional political status quo. Now, let's drill into the Israeli government's mind at the time. After the Suez Crisis of '56, right, the Israeli government changed policy. It did not want war. And the government had specifically told the Israeli Defence Force (the IDF) to avoid any escalation with the Arab countries.

To this end, the prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was obsessed with obtaining nuclear weapons for Israel. He – he said this: "What Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Teller (the three of them are Jews) made for the United States could also be done by scientists in Israel for their own people."

The Israeli acquisition of nuclear technology is a fascinating Cold War story in its own right, isn't it. Aimen?

Aimen Dean Oh, indeed. There's no question. I mean, the – the secrecy. The piracy. You know, the stealing of information. The espionage. The intrigue. Oh, my God. Like, you know, I mean. The—. You know? But in the end, they got what they wanted.

Thomas Small They did. They did this by working closely with, perhaps, a country that people wouldn't expect.

Aimen Dean Funny enough, it's France.

Thomas Small That's right. The French. Now, the French they'd been developing their own nuclear deterrence. This is actually one of the consequences of the Suez Crisis. Remember, the Americans refused to support Britain and France in that war. And at the end of the war, the French were like, "Well, we can't trust the Americans. We don't want to be under their nuclear umbrella. We need our own deterrence."

So, they were developing nuclear bombs. And already, as we saw in episode six, France and Israel were really close allies. In fact, it was not the US back then. It was France that was by far Israel's closest ally. France was the main supplier of weapons to Israel. And Israel had been helping France combat Algerian freedom fighters by passing on intelligence gathered from North African Jews during the Algerian War for Independence.

And – and remember it was France that had arranged for Israel to contribute to the Suez campaign. And, in fact, to get Israeli support for the Suez campaign, France had agreed to supply Israel with vital nuclear technology, which became part of Israel's Dimona reactor in the Negev Desert. This reactor would play an important role in the '67 War.

Aimen Dean In fact, Thomas, the – the, you know, the – the – the French alliance with Israel goes further than just the nuclear cooperation. The entire Israeli Air Force at the time was made up actually of French fighter jets. You know, the Mystère and the Mirage. The Mirage fighter jets were really, you know, a league ahead of their Soviet counterparts. And so, you know, the French military cooperation with the Israelis played a decisive role, you know, in the wars to come.

Thomas Small In Israel's mind, they were developing nuclear weapons in order to prevent war. Israel hoped that a nuclear deterrent would convince their Arab enemies never to invade.

Of course, that's not how the Arabs saw it. And they – they saw the development of an Israeli nuclear weapon programme as a reason, possibly, to go to war to prevent Israel from getting a nuclear bomb.

Aimen Dean Sounds familiar.

Thomas Small Throughout this story, we will see, you know, interpretations of – of one side's actions by the other, which run exactly counter to the intentions of the enemy.

This is – this is, of course, something that we have to always bear in mind when we're talking about war. You know? We have this objective God's eye view of the situation now. With hindsight. But at the time, you know, what Israel is thinking, Egypt doesn't know. What Egypt is thinking, Israel doesn't know. They have to guess based on the moves that they can see.

Aimen Dean And this is the problem with conflicts. You always sleepwalk into conflict when you start second-guessing what your neighbours and adversaries and your enemies might be thinking, When you start second-guessing and, you know, you start, you know, underestimating what they are thinking, what they are trying to do, and you try to delve deeper into their mindset and you go into the wrong path rather than the right path, the path will lead to war.

Thomas Small That was definitely true of the Six-Day War. It was true of the First World War, actually. It was true of a lot of wars. Maybe even the recent war with Ukraine and Russia.

Aimen Dean And, of course, like, you know, I mean, if anyone wants to understand, like, you know, how second-guessing and underestimating your enemies could lead to war, please read the book The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. It was published in the 1960s. And this book basically will give you an idea about how really, like, you know, I mean, second-guessing your enemies could lead to dire consequences.

Thomas Small Okay. Right now, that's Israel's – that's Israel's perspective at the moment. They don't want war. They're developing a nuclear deterrent in order to prevent war. They've told the IDF not to foment war with the Arab states.

Let – let's move now to Egypt and its president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Put us inside Nasser's head in the mid-1960s, Aimen. I mean, after the Syrian coup, in '61, took Syria out of the UAR (the United Arab Republic), Nasser's prestige was damaged, and he began remorselessly attacking the Syrian regime. He – he began doing all sorts of slightly more aggressive things. What – what – what – what was going on inside Nasser's mind at the time?

Aimen Dean Nasser's mind was really like a scrambled egg at the time, and for a very good reason, because he was having one setback after another all across the Arab world. Nothing was going his way.

Thomas Small Not just across the Arab world. In fact, the social and economic policies of Nasserism, which were becoming more and more extreme (nationalising industry, nationalising finance), these were beginning to bear quite rotten fruit at home. And there was a growing unrest within Egypt. The economy wasn't doing great.

Aimen Dean Indeed. Because, of course, like, you know, I mean, since when collectivisation and, you know, nationalisation of industries, like, you know, I mean, and crony socialism ever work?

And so, that's exactly what happened to him. I mean, you know, and at the same time, there was a resurgent Muslim Brotherhood. There was a second wave of the Muslim Brotherhood, you know, in Egypt, in the 1960s. He really wasn't having a good time. And the pressure on him was just so great.

Thomas Small Absolutely. And Nasser was still animated by a kind of anti-Israeli feelings. He had suffered two embarrassing defeats at the hands of Israel or Egypt had at least: the '48 war and the '56 Suez Crisis to some extent. He had not forgotten these defeats.

But Nasser had disengaged from active hostility to Israel by the early sixties. He'd stopped supporting guerrilla attacks against Israeli territory for example, because he believed that the Arab world needed to unite first and undergo a proper social and technological revolution before it took on Israel. So, instead, Nasser was focused on shoring up his project of creating a pan-Arab union with Egypt at its centre. And this was leading him to do more and more desperate things.

I mean, in 1962, he invaded Yemen. Most people don't know this. Egypt invaded Yemen, trying to force Yemen to join with Egypt. I mean, there were sort of tens of thousands of Egyptian troops. Tens of thousands dead. This was very much weighing down Nasser's ability to act.

Aimen Dean Indeed. And in fact, basically that war soured the relationship with Saudi Arabia and with other Arab countries, and some Arab people started to view Nasser as an imperialist himself rather than an anti-imperialist.

Thomas Small Soured relations with Saudi Arabia. My goodness. Way more than that. I mean, Nasser was bombing Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was working with the United States to repel the Egyptian attack in Yemen. Very much similar to the situation going on in Yemen today.

Aimen Dean Indeed. Absolutely.

Thomas Small So, there was this alliance of conservative Arab states against Nasser. He was feeling blue. What he really wanted was a Syrian regime that recognised his leadership of the pan-Arab cause or at least pretended to do so. And he got it in early 1963 when, as we said in – in the last episode, both Syria and Iraq experienced successful Ba'athist coups. And in order to strengthen their new regimes, the Ba'ath movement immediately initiated talks with Nasser on a new union, a new UAR between Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.

Aimen Dean Indeed. To the point where a new flag was created with three stars, which is, you know, today's Iraq flag. Funny enough. [unintelligible].

Thomas Small This new union was greeted with huge jubilation, especially by the Palestinians. The signatories had made it a signature aim of the new union to liberate Palestine. This was an explicit aim of their agreement.

And so, the Arab street erupted in – in glee. So, there were huge riots inside the – the West Bank of Palestinians waving a flag with four stars on it, 'cause they were really hoping that – that Jordan would also join this union.

Aimen Dean Indeed. Because, you know—. The – the listener must remember that the West Bank at the time was part of Jordan.

Thomas Small That's right. Now, Nasser's regional enemies greeted this new revived UAR with great dismay. Ben-Gurion, the Israeli prime minister, said that the new union meant the spectre of a new Holocaust. But perhaps more than anyone, it was King Hussein of Jordan who freaked out. Just like in 1958, when the first UAR was announced, in 1963, King Hussein was like, "Oh, God. This is not what I want."

Aimen Dean Indeed. I mean, don't forget, for King Hussein, this is 1963. In 1958. you know, his cousin, his dear cousin, King Faisal of Iraq, was killed. You know? So, he still feel, five years later, that at any moment, it could be him.

Thomas Small He said, "The ring is closing around us once again."

Poor King Hussein. He must have felt so insecure. And that wasn't helped when US Intelligence learnt that Egypt was in league with pro-Nasser officers in Jordan about launching a military coup there. A bit like what happened to his cousin in '58. A military coup that they hoped would incorporate Jordan into the UAR.

Aimen Dean And that's why the Israelis really freaked out when they felt that Jordan could be the next to fall. Because if Jordan falls, then Israel will become extremely vulnerable. And that's why they threatened to invade and annex the West Bank.

Thomas Small This is 1963, dear listener. We're – we're – we're still leading up to the '67 War. But this is all really important context.

Aimen Dean Indeed. You know? You know? In – in 2018, when I was in Israel, I have driven from Tel Aviv, you know, to Jerusalem and it took literally twenty minutes. Twenty-minutes' drive exactly to go from Tel Aviv to the board of the West Bank. That's it. So, in reality, you know, for Israel, you know, the West Bank was its Achilles heel. If the West Bank is controlled by a hostile power, then what's going to happen is that they can cut Israel in half in twenty, thirty minutes. That's it. There is no strategic depth.

And so, for the Israelis, they threatened Nasser and they threatened the Arabs that, you know, if Jordan falls, a hostile power, if there is a military coup, "we will invade the West Bank to shore up our strategic depth and strategic defence.

Thomas Small This threat by Israel to invade, in fact, kind of made Nasser back off. So, the – the – the—. Any – any machinations inside Jordan to launch a coup there stopped. And in fact, by mid-'63—so, only three or four months after the new UAR was announced—the scheme had already basically failed.

As we said in the last episode, Ba'athists and Nasserists, they didn't really like each other. There was a lot of infighting between the two groups. And in Syria, there was a massive massacre of Nasserists in Damascus, so much so that Nasser broke off relations with Syria entirely. He called the Syrian regime fascist. So, Israel must have heaved a sigh of relief thinking, "Well, at least the Arabs once again are more divided than they are united."

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small Yet it was at this point that David Ben-Gurion suddenly resigned the premiership of Israel. For mysterious reasons. You know? In fact, this is one of the great debates of history. Maybe he couldn't take the pressure who knows. But what's important for the '67 War is – is his replacement.

He was replaced as prime minister by Levi Eshkol, a Ukrainian Jew as it happens.

Aimen Dean Levi Eshkol was of the, you know, of the pragmatist, you know, school, you know, within, you know, the long list of Israeli prime ministers. And he came to power hoping to deescalate rather than escalate. His dream, you know, always basically was of having a – a more cordial relationship with his Arab neighbours. I mean, they were looking for acceptance rather than for confrontation.

Thomas Small He – he had been a lifelong Zionist, an early player in the Israeli Zionist movement, a major player in the founding of the state of Israel. But yes, as you say, he was hoping, as really was the whole government establishment in Israel, for something like peace or at least, you know, a modus vivendi with its neighbours.

Now, Eshkol also—and this is really interesting—he had a long experience in water development, which is important, because water became a massive casus belli in the '67 War. You'll like this, Aimen. You're always talking about how water in the Middle East. It explains so much.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small There had long been tensions between Syria and Israel, especially over Israel's water development plans, which were diverting source waters of the Jordan River into Israel.

Aimen Dean Well, as you know, basically, Mount Hermon is, you know, one of the most important sources for the, you know, River Jordan.

Thomas Small Yes. A very tall – a very tall mountain to the north of the Golan Heights. At the very tip of Israel, in that part of it. A very tall mountain.

Aimen Dean The white cup mountain actually sits on, you know, the meeting point of three borders: Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. And, you know, from the Lebanese side is my mother's village. You know? So, the village of Shebaa, which, in Aramaic, means Sabbat, which means "seven" in Arabic.

Thomas Small Oh, seven.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Because it's shaped like the number seven in Aramaic. So, from there, you know, the icecap mountain basically, like, you know, provide a lot of the water that flows into the Jordan River. Actually, that mountain, Mount Hermon, is called, in Arabic, Jabal al-Shaykh. You know? For those who, you know, who speak Arabic among our listeners.

In the—. In 1957, you know, that mountain was important for me personally, because, basically, on the Lebanese side of that mountain, in one of the springs and a waterfall there, you know, a very beautiful setting, that was the wedding of my mum and dad.

Thomas Small Oh, Aimen. That's sweet.

Aimen Dean Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

So, basically the, you know, the, you know, the waters were flowing, you know, from north to south, going from Mount Hermon, going into, you know, the Sea of Galilee and from there, into the River Jordan. And, of course, that was divided. That water was divided, you know, between the Arabs and the Israelis, you know, according to UN agreements.

Thomas Small That's right. The UN had been invited in to mediate the – the – the dispute, and their plan allocated thirty-eight percent of the Jordan's water to Israel. Okay. Israel was, in fact, developing the area, developing the water resources of the area, and they were sticking more or less to within that thirty-eight percent allocation.

However, when the Ba'athist coup happened in Syria in '63, all diplomatic dialogue with Israel was suspended and the new Ba'athist Syrian regime threatened what it called a suicide war with Israel over water. And this resulted, in 1964, to a rather remarkable Arab League Summit.

Aimen Dean In the 1964 Arab League Summit, it's when they decided to divert, you know, the water away from Israel, which actually amounted to an act of war. I mean, it's the Middle East after all. Water is so scarce.

Thomas Small Israel certainly considered the – the – the plan to divert its water to be an existential threat. And they did prepare for war. This caused for fighting again to break out across the DMZ with the Syrians. And on the 16th of March 1965, the Syrians fired on Israeli farmers, in the DMZ. They were settlers. Technically, they shouldn't have been there. They were fired upon. And a tractor driver, an Israeli tractor driver, was killed.

Now, this was a pretext for the IDF (the Israeli Defence Forces) to open fire, although they didn't actually target the place where the attack on the tractor had come from. They targeted the Syrian water diversion project. They'd had it in their sites, and they were waiting for an excuse to attack it.

Aimen Dean And the question was that since the Israelis were attacking Syria right now, would the, you know, Egyptians join the fight? Because, see in that summit of 1964, they created something called the United Joint Arab Command, you know, which actually was anything but united and joined. And then, so—.

Thomas Small It did. It did. It was a military command that united all thirteen Arab states militaries. That's something

Aimen Dean On paper only. Come on, Thomas. This was only on paper. What coordination was there? There was nothing.

Thomas Small Well, that is true. Nonetheless, people did wonder: Is Nasser going to send in his troops since Israel had attack Syria? But, you know, he was bogged down in Yemen. He did not want to be lured into any war with Israel. And so, he – he didn't do anything. That means that the United Arab Command, which was announced with great fanfare the year before, was just another example of Nasser sort of scrambling to make symbolic displays of Arab unity. But in fact, behind the scenes, he always favoured a cautious, incremental approach. He hoped primarily to ensure Egypt's domination of the Arab world.

Aimen Dean And this is why, Thomas, I think, you know, the – the path to war, unfortunately, was paved, you know, with such, you know, jingoistic, nationalistic rhetoric. You know? Nasser, you know, and for all the Arab leaders who actually inflamed the passions of the street about, you know, the glories of the Arabs and the restoration of such union and the crushing of Israel and its colonial backers, I mean, when – when you raise such expectations so high, then with high expectations, you know, these expectations, unless if they are satisfied, they will turn into dissatisfaction.

And this is where, you know, Nasser put himself and trapped himself, you know, between a rock and a hard place. Between his, you know, populous, who were expecting too much, because of his rhetoric, and the realities of "I can't win a war against Israel."

Thomas Small Well, radical Arabist pan-Arab expectations went up again in February 1966 when there was another coup inside Syria in which radical Ba'athists overthrew moderate Ba'athists. And this is the coup that resulted in a certain military officer being made minister of defence. Do you know whom I'm talking about?

Aimen Dean Oh, indeed. Assad the father. Assad the senior. Hafez al-Assad.

Thomas Small Hafez al-Assad. He became minister of defence in 1966. Of course, you know, in 1970, he would take full control of the country. But during the '67 War, he was minister of defence, Hafez al-Assad.

Now, this coup inside Syria that brought the radical Ba'athists to power in Damascus was provocative to Israel. The regime in Damascus supported "direct popular struggle against Israel," by which they meant guerrilla warfare or perhaps, to speak more plainly, terrorism. However you want to describe it. Damascus was calling for revolution now against imperialism and Israel. And this was important, because in the meantime, two new players had emerged on the regional chessboard.

First, let's talk about the PLO (the Palestinian Liberation Organisation), because it was another consequence of that '64 Arab League Summit.

Aimen Dean So, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was established as a political organisation initially, not a military one. And it was Nasser's tool, you know, in order to control the internal Palestinian narrative, which angered so many other Arab leaders, including – including King Hussein, because he was the king of the Palestinians, as well as the Jordanians. You know? And this was seen as Nasser stepping on Hussein's territory.

Thomas Small Beyond the refugee problem, the Palestinians, you know, they hadn't really been a political player. They'd been absorbed into Jordan, and the Arab powers were making decisions on their behalf, you know, including by creating the PLO. Nasser, the Arab League, were still managing Palestinian affairs.

Aimen Dean And this actually approves more or less that the Palestinians, even by the 1960s, they did not yet develop what they call basically like, you know, I mean, aspirations for statehood, for a separate Palestinian state. I mean, at the time, they were just hoping for a larger Arab entity to incorporate them as part of the pan-Arab nationalism.

Thomas Small So, as you rightly said, Aimen, the PLO was connected to Egypt and, therefore, it followed Nasser's orders. And – and – and for that reason, they did not launch attacks inside Israel, because Nasser did not want a war.

However, that was not the case with the other Palestinian player that emerged in the mid-sixties: Fatah or the Palestinian National Liberation Movement. Many people think that the PLO and Fatah are the same thing. They ended up merging. And we'll get to that. But in the beginning, they were very different.

Aimen Dean Well, Fatah was actually, like, you know, modelled around, you know, the contemporary, at that time, you know, the contemporary socialist revolutionary movements, such as, you know, Castro and Che Guevara. And, of course, like, you know, I mean, among the Fatah, you know, founders, you know, of the very famous Yasser Arafat.

Thomas Small Yasser Arafat. He—. I mean, in the eighties and nineties, when I was coming of age, my God, there was – there was perhaps no more iconic Arab. He was everything.

Aimen Dean Indeed. With his, you know, wearing the kufiya and the way, like, you know, he was wearing his military uniform. He was trying to be, like, you know, I mean, a mix of a Che Guevara and a Qasem or whatever. But anyway, he and Fatah were far more violent and far more revolutionary, because they were, at the end of the day, like, you know, I mean, you know, a bunch of students, you know, coming from Cairo and Oman and other places in order to, you know, advocate for the overthrow of Israel as a whole. Like, you know, I mean, you know, completely like, you know, annihilation of the state of Israel as it was known at that time.

Thomas Small Yeah. Yasser Arafat and Fatah favoured "popular struggle." They'd been inspired by the success of the Algerian War for Independence. They identified the US as part of the enemy camp. They saluted the USSR, China—especially, they loved Mao—and all the non-aligned countries. So, in the Cold War kind of binary, they were definitely setting their – their – their – themselves against the United States.

They were obsessed with the idea—rightly as it turned out—that Israel was on the brink of acquiring a nuclear bomb. This was part of their motivation for – for fomenting all-out war. They wanted war as soon as possible to prevent that from happening. And starting in early '65, Fatah began guerrilla attacks against Israeli forces. And so, the IDF, in turn, began commando attacks on Fatah positions inside the Jordanian-held Westbank.

Eventually, the Fatah attacks would grow more and more sophisticated, because they received aid by the new radical Ba'athist regime in Damascus. This kind of climaxed in November 1966, when Fattah gorillas, they were – who – who were attacking Israel from the West Bank, which Jordanian-held, but they were being supported by Syria. Jordan didn't support Fatah. They—. The Jordanians hated Fatah. But the Syrians were supporting Fatah from within Jordan to attack Israel. So, these attacks were getting worse and worse. And eventually, the IDF (the Israeli Defence Force) decided to launch a massive raid inside the West Bank. This raid on the village of Samu is – is notorious.

Aimen Dean Indeed. I mean, it was a, you know, the—. It led to significant loss of life, you know, among militants and civilians. And it was widely condemned. You know, widely condemned across the Arab world. And it galvanised, you know, public opinion.

Thomas Small It was called Operation Shredder.

Aimen Dean Yes.

Thomas Small And eight tanks, four hundred paratroopers were sent in. They captured the village. They – they blew up. They dynamited fifty houses, the police station, a medical clinic, a school, and a mosque. It was a pretty – pretty harsh reprisal.

This actually forced the Jordanian troops to intervene. So, fighting broke out between the IDF and the Jordanian troops. Even jets were scrambled. The – the Jordanian Air Force got involved. Two Jordanian jets were shot down by the Israelis. It was pretty tense, especially since following this attack, huge riots again broke out across the West Bank. There were demands for the entire Jordanian government to resign. King Hussein's rule was – was on a knife's edge. He felt extremely threatened. He was so politically weakened by all of this that he felt himself being compelled closer to Nasser and the other revolutionary Arab regimes to bolster his credential with his people.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Practically, he was bullied into it.

Thomas Small And those Arab revolutionary governments were getting stronger, because, in November 66, by some miracle, Egypt and Syria set aside their rivalry and, to the great surprise of the Israelis, they signed a renewed mutual defence agreement.

Now, it's important to point out that Nasser actually hoped that the military pact with Syria would restrain Syria. He was worried that Syrian aggression was provoking Israel – Israel into war. He didn't want a war.

But the Israelis saw Arabs uniting "against us." It's another example of – of how both sides misunderstood the other's motivation, which – which climaxed in a massive way, in a way, the first shot of the '67 War, in a way, on the 7th of April 1967.

Aimen Dean I mean, it's all, again, coming back to a tractor. Yet a second tractor. What is the problem with tractors? You know, they always cause trouble.

So, Syrian regular troops, you know, fired upon a agricultural tractor on the Israeli side. The, you know, the driver was killed. So—. However, this time, the Israeli Air Force immediately scrambled and immediately went into a frenzy deduction. And they went after every Syrian military target they can. From Al Qunaitra, you know, and the Golan Heights, all the way to Damascus. They dropped sixty-five tons of bombs, you know, on these positions. To the point where even when the Syrian Air Force started to – scrambled to resist them, they shut down two Syrian MiGs—you know, fighter jets—over Damascus itself.

Thomas Small What's interesting about that event is that the Israeli government had not been consulted. The commander of the air force acted alone. This is an example of how the tensions, the military tensions that had been ratcheting up over the previous years, were creating a dynamic within the military, not just in Israel as we'll see, but in Egypt and elsewhere, and a dynamic where the military felt it needed to respond so quickly that civilian governments were being slightly side-lined.

But again, in this case, the Arabs and the Soviets, who were backing them, did not know this. They did not know that the air force had acted without government approval. They assumed it was the first move in an Israeli attempt to bring down the Syrian regime.

Aimen Dean And that left Nasser totally humiliated.

Thomas Small Humiliated again.

Aimen Dean Yeah. Why? Because, you see, Jordan was attacked. That village of Samu was attacked. And nothing happened. You know, Nasser, you know, did not do anything. Then, Syria was attacked. You know? Was—. You know, the – the – the – the Israeli Air Force made a mincemeat out of Syrian forces. And the—. The Syrian Air Force. And Nasser yet again did not do anything.

So, really, you know, since you are not good in terms of economy, you are no good in terms of, you know, diplomacy, what are you good for if you are not, you know, going to deter the Israelis?

Thomas Small The Soviets were also really worried at this point. So, just to kind of remind the listener, Soviet military advisers had been training the Egyptian army now for over a decade. And in fact, in September '65—so, just eighteen months before—a huge new arms deal had been brokered between the Soviets and Egypt. And Nasser, in fact, had been made a hero of the Soviet Union during a visit to Cairo by Khrushchev in 1964. That shows you how close the countries had become.

Aimen Dean So much for non-alignment, huh.

Thomas Small At around this time, the head of the commander of all the Warsaw Pact countries—so, this is like the Soviet NATO—the commander of the Warsaw Pact countries paid Nasser a visit. He told Nasser that the Egyptian army was battle-ready, offering encouragement to Nasser, but in fact, knowing full well that this was mere flattery.

The thing is the Soviets had decided they wanted Nasser to do something. The USSR had immediately become a very close ally of the new radical Ba'athist regime in Damascus. And following that April attack on Syria by Israel, Syria had been rocked by protests organised by the Muslim Brotherhood. And there was an increase in terrorist attacks across the border into Israel, which led the Israelis to say that they would have no choice but to launch even more decisive reprisals.

The Soviets began to fear that the Ba'athist regime was on the verge of collapse and/or conquest by Israel.

Aimen Dean So, the Soviets, unfortunately, you know, and in their infinite lack of wisdom, they decided that, to manipulate Nasser into believing that the Israelis are about to attack Syria and depose the Ba'athist regime in Damascus, they told Nasser that they have solid intelligence that Israeli army brigades are marching on the Syrian-Israeli border. And, therefore, because he already told us obvious before that any attack by Israel against Syria will lead to a Egypt intervention, so the Soviets thought, "Uh-huh." You know? "This is how we can manipulate, you know, this guy into actually doing something in order to prevent our allies in Damascus, you know, falling."

And so, that is basically how the intelligence was passed—that was false intelligence—to Nasser. Nasser immediately ordered mobilisation. And this is when you can see that, once you give the military more power, they do foolish things.

Thomas Small That's absolutely right. So, you have, you know—. Israel is now panicked. Israel thinks that Syria and Egypt are planning an attack. Syria is panicked. Syria thinks Israel is going to invade. Egypt is panicked. It thinks that Israel is going to attack Syria and lure Egypt into a war that it does not want. So, it's in this context then, on the 16th of May 1966, the Egyptian army chief of staff orders the United Nations Emergency Force (the UNF), which was in the Sinai, to withdraw from its positions along the Israel-Sinai border.

Now, it's important. Just like before, when they, when the Israeli Air Force attacked Syria, this order did not come from Nasser. It came from the Egyptian army chief of staff. This was a sign that Nasser wasn't in complete control of the military. The logic of war was, in a way, overwhelming the political decision-making.

Aimen Dean In fact, Field Marshall Abdel Hakim Amer, you know, the head of the Egyptian military, you know, he actually requested that the UN forces withdraw from the border only. They just—. He just wanted them to go south. He did not want them to leave the entire Sinai.

Thomas Small That's right. The UNEF first asked Israel if it could perhaps take up positions on its side of the line of the border to be a buffer. But Israel refused. Israel never wanted UN troops inside its territory.

This put the UN in a bind. I mean, it couldn't just withdraw its forces south away from the border with Israel deeper into Sinai and watch as Egypt amassed troops along the border, and the two sides start fighting. You know, they're a peace—. They're peacekeeping troops. What would be the point of doing that? So, they – they were in a bind, and they – they were left thinking, "What do we do?"

Now, the following day, tensions ratchet up again when two Egyptian fighter jets are spotted flying over the Dimona reactor. Remember that, dear listener? The reactor that was the centre of Israel's nuclear development plan.

Aimen Dean I mean, of course, for the Israelis, they thought, "Oh, this must be, like, you know, I mean, a Egyptian, you know, [unintelligible] mission, you know, preparing for a strike on our, you know, nuclear reactor."

So, the Israelis really freaked out now.

Thomas Small And it was certainly widely believed that already, at that time, Israel had a couple of crude nuclear bombs that they could draw on and that they would be able to produce a proper one in six to eight weeks should it be required. So, Israel knew that was the case. Israel had reason to think its enemies knew that was the case. So, you know, it thought, "Oh, my God. They're gonna – they're gonna attack our nuclear programme as a way of luring us into war."

But it's important to note that Nasser still did not want war. Even the fly over at the Dimona reactor was just a show of force. All he wanted to do was deter an Israeli attacked on Syria.

Aimen Dean Again, we come back to the fact that everyone was engaging in second-guessing the other.

Thomas Small Meanwhile, the UNEF had reached its decision. So, as I said, on the grounds. That it couldn't just withdraw to the south and watch Egypt and Israel fight each other. It ordered a full withdrawal. All UN troops evacuated, and the Sinai was free for Egypt to move its troops into.

Aimen Dean So, Nasser was really praying to God, you know, "Please, you know, let the UN stay." But the UN did not, and the UN decided to evacuate Sinai. And by evacuating Sinai, they created this void, this, you know – you know, vacuum that he needed to fill immediately.

Now, he really didn't want to put the Egyptian military into Sinai. But now, he has to. You know? His hand was forced. So, he sent the Egyptian military into Sinai. And now that they are in Sinai, you know, okay, the Arab world is waiting. The Archibald is waiting with bated breath. Like, you know, "Hey." You know? "Do something."

So, what he ends up doing, he closes the Straits of Tiran at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba against Israeli shipping, military and civilian alike. And, you know, in international law, this is an act of war.

Thomas Small Not only Israeli shipping, actually. He closed it to all ships carrying strategic materials to Israel—i.e., oil, most of which interestingly enough was coming from Iran at the time, which, back in those days, was in Israeli ally.

Aimen Dean Indeed. The shah an ally of Israel at the time. So, that was, you know, as far as the Israelis were concerned, you know, the last straw.

Thomas Small Yes. So, this was an act of war. Israel made it clear this is an act of war. But the funny thing is Nasser still didn't want a war. And one week later, at the end of May 1967, he said so. He said Egypt would not be the one to fire the first shot. What he really hoped for was that, by closing the straits of Tiran, he could claim to have had some kind of victory over Israel, placate the Arab masses, and go back to business as usual. But it got out of control. By this point, it was – it was going to happen anyway.

Aimen Dean Mainly, you know, Nasser didn't want to walk. But that was not the case with the Egyptian military. Their adoption military were really eager to wash away the humiliation of '48 and '56. And Abdel Hakim Amer …

Thomas Small The minister of defence.

Aimen Dean … he put together a plan called Operation Dawn or [speaks in Arabic] al-Fajr, in which an invasion of Israel actually was, you know – you know, meticulously planned and put forward. And it was supposed to be launched on 27th of May. Of course, the Israeli intelligence, you know, got hold of that. They warned the Americans. The Americans warned the Soviets. And, of course, the Soviets came back to Nasser and said, "Hey, hey, hey." Like, you know. You know? "We wanted you to just to be on the border to scare the Israelis, not – not to invade Syria, but not to start a real war. Please."

Thomas Small Nasser had actually not greenlit the plan. He was on the fence about it. He also didn't really know what was going on at this stage. He was slightly afraid. Is Israel going to attack? You know? He didn't know. But all this whole thing left Israel on even higher alert. In their mind. Egypt had been on the verge of invading their country. All the while other, Arab states had begun mobilising. Sudan, Iraq, others. Even Saudi Arabia, they all began saying openly, with this, you know, pan-Arab rhetoric that they would contribute to any war with Israel. The tensions were at, you know, really—. You could – you could cut – cut it with a knife.

Aimen Dean Indeed. And, of course, then came the thing that pushed the Israelis over there: King Hussein signing a mutual defence agreement with Nasser.

Thomas Small Yeah. This was really surprising. On the 30th of May. King Hussein and Nasser had been enemies basically quite openly for, well over a decade. And yet there they are assigning a mutual defence agreement in the midst of all this tension. Nasser states, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight." This coming from a man who didn't want a war. This is a way—. This is another sign that Nasser's rhetoric was overwhelming his own cautiousness. You know? But this whole situation was being goaded on by other Arab nationalist leaders, real radicals, such as Hafez al-Assad on asset, who said, "Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself and to expel the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland."

So, this is a real threat to Israel.

Aimen Dean So, in the early hours of 4th of June 1967, even though the Israelis were outnumbered three to one on almost every metric—three to one when it comes to crafts, three to one when it comes to tanks, three to one when it comes to deploy troops—the Israelis nonetheless decided to, you know, be, you know, to test the odds. And they launched a, you know, one of the most audacious, unsuccessful air raids in modern history.

Thomas Small So, yes, the war started on the 5th of June, at 7:45, in the morning with Operation Focus. And indeed it was a focused operation. The – the goal was to destroy the Egyptian Air Force.

Aimen Dean Indeed. The Israelis Ironically learnt this, you know, lesson from the Germans during World War II, the Blitzkrieg. The idea that in order to achieve quick, decisive victory, you need to really annihilate your enemy's air force and you achieve immediate air superiority within the first twenty to forty-eight hours. And that was the Israeli objective.

Thomas Small They certainly achieved this. Egypt was caught off guard in fact, because Israeli intelligence had cleverly planted false news reports and newspapers, saying that the IDF was on vacation and that the air force would be carrying out routine training mission. So, the Egyptian Air Force was in a way cooling its heels. And in fact, the – the advanced warning systems that the Egyptian Air Force relied on was not even online. It wasn't on.

Aimen Dean So, a hundred and eighty-three Israeli jets, they flew so low over the Mediterranean, and they surprised, you know, the Egyptian Air Force when they attacked for airfields with such precision that they destroyed eighty percent of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground.

Thomas Small Three hundred and thirty-eight Egyptian jets were destroyed.

Aimen Dean You know? And at that time, Abdel Hakim Amer, and the head of the military intelligence, [name] Nasir, and many other generals were actually having a hangover from the previous night's party. And, you know—. And they were in one of the military headquarters somewhere outside of Cairo, when they saw what was happening. And so, they actually were trying to rush back to the ministry of defence. So, they went to one of the airports, but they found it was bombed. So—. And, you know—. And the – and the military car that dropped them there already left. So, they called for a taxi. I'm not kidding. They called for a taxi to come and pick them up while the country is being bombed and the air force is being shredded by the Israelis. And they all crammed into one taxi trying to get to the Ministry of Defence, so they – to find out what really was happening.

Talk about total surprise and total incompetence.

Thomas Small They didn't know it was happening, because Radio Cairo was pumping out the usual propaganda, which was masking the scale of the Israeli attack. It was saying that Egypt was on the verge of victory. It was being believed by its own – by its own military leaders. And not – not just in Egypt, but actually all around the Arab world. They were thinking, "Oh, Egypt is winning," when, in fact, it was the exact opposite.

That very morning Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula in force and, within a day, had captured the entire thing. In – in response to all of this, Jordan began shelling Israel from the West Bank. And so, on the 6th of June Israel invades the West Bank and, within a single day, had taken the whole thing. The Syrians began shelling Israel. And on the 9th of June, the IDF invades the Golan Heights and, again, captures it the very next day. It had been a total route.

Aimen Dean It was a total route. One, because the Israelis had superior weapons from France. But two, which is extremely important, training, training, training, and training. You cannot underestimate how many times Israelis where drilling and drilling and drilling and training and training and preparing, you know, for this. The average Israeli soldier and the average Israeli pilot had almost nine times the amount of training and the amount of drilling that their Arab counterparts had.

And finally, number three: intelligence. Intelligence was really important.

Thomas Small Well, on the Arab side, it was a total disaster. Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, a former Egyptian vice-president, later said, "We felt as though we were dreaming. It was mayhem. Like a nightmare. How could our air force have been wiped out in the space of one day and our ground troops decimated the next? How could they be so strong that we couldn't hold out for more than thirty-six hours?"

Aimen Dean That's what happened when you have a very well-motivated, very well-trained and advanced, you know, and coordinated, you know, military. No matter how small it is, it can take on any larger military that is not coordinated, not well-trained, not well-motivated.

Thomas Small The aftermath of the Six-Day War was sort of inconceivable. The Suez Canal became a war zone and the canal was closed for eight years, disrupting global shipping to a degree that we can hardly imagine. The Palestinians, once again, you know, they were pretty much screwed. At the time, there were about one million inhabitants of the West Bank, about twenty-five percent of them became refugees. Again, another wave of Palestinian refugees, mostly to Jordan. And – and in addition, a hundred and thirty thousand Syrian refugees from the Golan Heights were created by the war.

Fatah and the PLO, as we said before, merged in the wake of the '67 disaster. And now, Yasser Arafat was in charge of the whole organisation, the new merged organisation, and they began escalating their tactics. Not only would they attack rural sites as they had been, they were now going to target urban areas as their strategy became more explicitly terroristic.

In addition, Palestinian nationalism, which as we've said again and again, was not really a thing, it now becomes a real thing. More and more Palestinians are saying, "We need to push Israelis out of the way and take over a historic Palestine for ourselves with our own state."

I think, possibly, the greatest personal tragedy of the '67 War is with Gamal Abdel Nasser himself. On the 9th of June in the midst of the war—it's still going on—he announces his resignation. I mean, he was – he was heartbroken.

Aimen Dean Well, I mean, yeah, of course. Like, you know, I mean, you know, the, you know—. No – no shit, Sherlock. Like, you know, basically, he was responsible for the whole mess. Like, you know, I mean, he did not understand the law of unintended consequences.

But nonetheless, you know, the Egyptian people, you know, being, you know, at the time, the naive people they were at the time, I mean, they just swarmed the streets in their millions, asking for him to remain in power and shouting his name and, you know, slogans off, you know, [speaks in Arabic]. You know? "But no, Mr. President."

And the Soviets also urged him to stay. In fact, you know, he received a telegram personally, like, you know, from, you know, Soviet premier, you know, promising that all the military hardware that Egypt lost, you know, in this war (the aircraft, the tanks, the artillery) all of this will be completely replaced and replenished by the USSR free of charge. That was a very sweet deal.

Thomas Small It sure was. That was an incentive. So, Nasser changed his mind. He did not resign and to some extent, I suppose, revived—. He led an Arab summit in Khartoum later that year. This is the famous Arab summit of the three noes: no peace, no recognition, no negotiation with Israel. And this led to what's called the War of Attrition, a kind of constant bombardment by the Arab allies of new Israeli positions that lasted three years.

Aimen Dean Not only the bombardment of the Israeli positions east of the canal, but also commando raids, you know. You know? And it was actually a tit for tat commander is between the two sides. And it was—.

Thomas Small As it had been since 1948. It never ended. There wasn't peace.

Aimen Dean Definitely no peace.

Thomas Small However, just around the corner, a prospect of peace arrived when, in September of 1970, unexpectedly, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the great man of Arab unity, the great Arab of the mid-twentieth century, died. He – he had a heart attack and he died. His funeral is something to be seen. Look it up on YouTube. It's – it's amazing. You might—. You would have thought maybe Jesus Christ himself had died.

But he is followed by a long-term colleague of his. To some extent, the – the brains behind the whole Nasserist project from the beginning. Anwar Sadat. Anwar Sadat becomes president of Egypt and immediately signals his intention to reach some sort of agreement with Israel.

Aimen Dean Well, first of all, I must state to the dear listeners that Anwar Sadat is my favourite president of Egypt. You know? You know, hands down. He's my favourite. And, you know, later, I'll explain why.

The first thing he did actually, in 1971, and he insisted again on that on 1972, you know, is to ask the Israelis, "Please." You know? "Can you withdraw thirty-two kilometres east of the canal, and that area will become adoption zone of control, so shipping can resume and so we can make money out of the canal. I mean, and, you know, we can give you whatever guarantees. It would be demilitarised." You know?" But still, thirty-two kilometres is of the canal that will be ours."

And the Israelis were saying, "No, no, no, no, no." Because Israel has already built a – an impregnable, you know, line of defence, you know, from the mouth of the canal in the north to the mouth of the canal in the south, and that was called the Bar Lev Line of Defence. It's one of the most impregnable lines of defence in modern history.

Thomas Small Or so they thought. In fact …

Aimen Dean Oh, yeah.

Thomas Small … in 1973, on the 6th of October 1973, which was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Anwar Sadat, having been convinced that Israel would never agree to any sort of peace unless the Arabs could have something like a military victory, launched the Yom Kippur War as it's known. It lasted from the sixth to the 25th of October 1973. And this podcast episode, God knows, has gone on long enough. So, we cannot talk about it in any detail. The main point is this line—. What's it called, Aimen?

Aimen Dean The Bar Lev Line.

Thomas Small That's right. The Bar Lev Line was fantastically, heroically, and miraculously breached by the Egyptian troops.

Aimen Dean Yeah. The crossing was something of a legend. While the war itself wasn't exactly a victory for the Arabs—.

Thomas Small Not at all in the end. Israel beat them all back. But at the beginning, there was something fantastic that happened.

Aimen Dean Indeed. And you see, like, you know, the crossing—. You see, this is why the Egyptians, to this day, they always celebrate every day – every year on the 6th of October, the crossing. The crossing. That crossing, basically, which is the miraculous crossing of the canal.

In fact, one of my teachers, when I was in middle school in Saudi Arabia, he was Egyptian and he was a conscript and the Egyptian military in 1973, in the Yom Kippur War. And just to show you basically about, like, you know, the heroic, you know, Egyptians in their little dingy, you know, rubber, you know, boats, like, you know, crossing, you know, and using their high-pressure hoses in order to bring down the sand fortifications of the Israelis, you know—. But, you know, he was talking about it so animated to the point where he reached the point where he said, "Even the dolphins came out of the water, fighting with us."

And it's kind of in my image. Like, you know, basically, you know, dolphins with their fins, you know, basically holding AK-47s and shooting and—.

You know? We always grew up with so many movies produced by the Egyptian drama companies about the crossing. They never talk about what happened after the crossing, because it was embarrassing. It's just "We crossed." That's it. That's the most important thing. "We did cross. We did breach the Bar Lev."

And I give them that. It was really a – a piece of military genius. It's just the question of what to do next. And they failed at that.

Thomas Small Well, the Yom Kippur War did create the conditions for something like peace, which was finally achieved several years later when Anwar Sadat went to the Knesset in Jerusalem and said that Egypt would like to make peace with Israel.

We'll probably get to that story sometime in Conflicted. We don't have time now, you know, 'cause another great story from the Yom Kippur War is the Arab oil embargo that it – that it created, which changed everything. And we're going to talk about that next time.

As far as this episode is concerned, to – to sort of close it out, I find in terms of its historical impact one of the most interesting things about the '67 and '73 wars is how it marked the end of – of mid-century Arab nationalism. As the Arabs grew very disillusioned with the promises of secular Arab republicanism, very disillusioned with the kind of, you know, modernisation programmes that the socialist leadership were constantly offering them without getting anything back in return or not getting nearly as much as they were promised.

And instead, they began to retreat away from this form of sort of modern development, modern nationalism, modern patriotism, et cetera, and instead moved in the direction of a renewed political Islamism.

Aimen Dean Indeed.

Thomas Small As for now, because we should raise the question of a clash of civilisations that we're supposed to at any rate, I mean, I think you can see the '67 War, the humiliations that the Arab suffered at the end of that war, the '73 War, we can – you can see this period as the – as the time when mid-century Arab nationalism and all the promise that it held out to the Arab public was lost. And the Arabs began a move towards a greater cynicism towards that vision of modernity and instead retreated back to what they thought was their own civilisation. Something more native to – to the Middle East, native to Arab culture, and that's the – the resurgence of Islam, especially in its political, its Islamist form.

Aimen Dean In fact, Thomas, just nine months, like literally nine months before the 1967 six days war and the humiliation of it, there was a little event that was happening in a jail cell somewhere in Egypt that will have a grave impact. It will be the beginning, you know, of the rise of Islamism and the beginning of the decline of Arab nationalism. It is the execution of a relatively unknown Egyptian thinker by the name of Sayyid Qutb. Nasser had him executed, you know, just nine months before the humiliation of 1967. Little did he know that by doing so, he sealed the fate of Egypt and the fate of the Middle East for many decades to come.

Thomas Small Arab nationalism wasn't dead, but it was now the radicals who were in the driver's seat. A new generation of Arab strongmen came to the fore: Assad, eventually Saddam, and others, but, perhaps most dramatically, Gadhafi. These characters and especially Gadhafi are what we'll be discussing next time.

Join us in two weeks, dear listener, for the next episode of Conflicted. If you don't already, you can follow the show on Facebook and Twitter @MHConflicted. And if you would like to carry on the conversation and learn more about the topics discussed here on Conflicted, you can search for "Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group" on Facebook where you'll find fascinating conversations and debate between other fans of the show.

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production. This episode was produced and edited by Rowan Bishop. Sandra Ferrari is our executive producer. Production support and fact-checking by Molly Freeman. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley.

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