POWs arab troops
Riz Khan

Remembering 1967

Decades later the Middle East is still wrestling with the consequences of the war.

undefined
 Syrian soldiers giving themselves up to Israeli
soldiers on the Golan Heights [AFP]

Forty years ago today, Israel swept aside three Arab armies and occupied an area almost three times its size.

The June 1967 war lasted a total of six days and created an entirely new reality in the Middle East – a reality that the region continues to wrestle with decades later.

The occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, Syrian Golan Heights, and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula gave the Israeli army a reputation of invincibility – although that was short-lived.

For the Arabs, it was a blow to their psyche and to the credibility of their regimes.

1967: 40 years of occupation

Al Jazeera marks the 40th anniversary of the 1967 war with a series of special reports.

For the Palestinians in particular, it gave momentum for their own struggle for statehood – a goal which seems as elusive now as it did then.

For the Israelis, the initial euphoria of victory has been replaced with a debate over a ‘Greater Israel’ and the full territorial price that Israelis must pay to make peace.

In the meantime, the conflict has assumed religious overtones, with all the harsh absolutes of any religious conflict.

Your Views

“Forty years and yet no solution to an occupation”

Saeb Erekat, Senior Palestinian negotiator

Send us your views

On Tuesday Riz speaks with two experts who have been following the Arab-Israeli conflict closely.

Tom Segev is an Israeli historian and journalist whose latest book, 1967, was just published last week.

Segev draws on unpublished letters and diaries, as well as Israeli government memos and military records, to reconstruct the events that led up to the war and its aftermath.

Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, and the author of The Stakes: America in the Middle East: The Consequences of Power and the Choice for Peace.

Watch this episode of Riz Khan here:

Watch this episode of Riz Khan Street Talk here:

This episode of Riz Khan aired on 5 June 2007

Don’t miss Riz Khan live at 19:00GMT, when you can call with your questions and comments. Riz Khan is also shown every day at 00:00GMT, 05:00GMT, and 09:30GMT.


To contact us click on ‘Send your feedback’ at the top of the page

Watch Al Jazeera English programmes on YouTube