Day Seven
Someone one day will do the definitive thesis on why certain years become so thick with historic import. The year 1967 saw the Summer of Love and the Newark riots, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the world's first successful human heart transplant. It was also the year of the Six-Day War. And in some regards, that means 1967 has never really ended.
Israel is still living in Day Seven, hoping that the achievements on the battlefield can at last be brought to their diplomatic conclusion. Then, as now, Jerusalem waits while Arab forces battle among themselves for power and supremacy. Then, as now, a few brave voices in the Arab world are drowned out by voices of rejectionism; in Israel, compromise must yield to those who demand an unflinching response to provocation.
Michael Oren, the author of a definitive history of the war, even suggests that Israel is reliving the days before the Six-Day War. Writes Oren: "The Palestinians are resorting to terrorism to attack Israel, Syria is threatening to embark on a war, hostile elements exploit southern Lebanon as a base for launching attacks on Israel – and the world condemns any Israeli attempt to defend ourselves through revenge attacks."
The difference between then and now, however, is that few can see the kind of daring, pinpoint, and total military operation that can halt the Hamas and Hizbullah rockets, that can disarm militants and terrorists, or awaken Palestinian leaders from their dreams of destroying Israel. Israel, with its military and economic might, is a far cry from the backwater it was in 1967; nevertheless, the Palestinian civil war leaves Israel and its supporters feeling less hopeful, perhaps, than they were then.
Oren suggest that Israel take two lessons from the Six-Day War: Continue to remind the world of the threats it faces – this time from daily rocket attacks – and guarantee that it has exhausted all possibilities to resolve the crisis through diplomatic means. Such calls for "restraint" may be cold comfort to residents of battered Sderot, but Oren is reminding us not only of 1967, but 2006, when Israel paid the price for a military response that was braver than it was effective.
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