Israel Palestinian Conflict: The Truth About the West Bank

[Gman]

Some great videos that explain the Israel Palestinian conflict.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGYxLWUKwWo&feature=relmfu
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAuBc_cbXo0&feature=relmfu

Any questions?

Shalom!

[Gman]

This is also another great one by Prager University. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

[RickD]

This is also another great one by Prager University. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63hTOaRu7h4

I enjoy just about anything from Dennis Prager. He's one of only a few radio talk show hosts that I can stomach.

[Murray]

I enjoy just about anything from Dennis Prager. He's one of only a few radio talk show hosts that I can stomach.

I think michael savage is a great talk show host even though I disagree with 65% of the stuff he spouts. Such energy and ability to fight about everything, he's just like me

[Rakovsky]

Dear Gman,

On the thread "What will happen when the Palestinians go to the U.N.?" you pointed me to the video which is the subject of this thread:""The Truth about the West Bank", presented by Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon. So I watched the movie as you suggested.

Deputy Minister Ayalon said a common story is that Israel captured the West Bank during the 1967 war, refused the UN demand to retreat, and built settlements, and asked "But is that really the case?"

Well, each of those statements is true, except that the UN demand that I assume he refers to, Resolution 242, says that Israel and the others should make a peace agreement, and the agreement should include withdrawal.

UN Resolution 242 begins:

"The Security Council...
Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war..."

I take it that these words introduce the resolution because they relate to whether Israel could annex territory that it captured during the war.

Next the Resolution says the Security Council:

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:
1. Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process ... on+242.htm

Well, the conflict here was the 1967 war, so I assume the territories occupied in the war refers to the land that became occupied as a result of the conflict.

Looking up Security Council Resolution 242 on Wikipedia to double-check what the term occupied territories refers to, I read:

Lord Caradon, the chief author of the resolution:
It was from occupied territories that the Resolution called for withdrawal. The test was which territories were occupied. That was a test not possibly subject to any doubt. As a matter of plain fact East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and Sinai were occupied in the 1967 conflict. It was on withdrawal from occupied territories that the Resolution insisted. [24]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nat ... lution_242

Ayalon is correct when he says next that UN 242 didn't demand a unilateral withdrawal, but demanded negotiating a solution that would include secure borders.
Still, the UN "required" both peace and withdrawal from the occupied territories.

Then, Ayalon asks: "From whom did Israel take the land? From Jordan during a war of self defense after it joined a war launched by Egypt to destroy Israel."
Well, this is pretty misleading. As Wikipedia says:

After a period of high tension between Israel and its neighbors, the war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise air strikes against Arab forces. The outcome was a swift and decisive Israeli victory. Israel took effective control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Opinions are divided on whether Israel's attack was an act of aggression or a preemptive strike of a defensive nature.

Even if the Israeli army made a preemptive strike, it was still the Israeli army that invaded Egypt.

Ayalon adds that "The UN in 1967 rejected Arab attempts to call israel the aggressor." OK, but that doesn't mean the UN called it a war of self defense, or that Egypt invaded Israel, either.

Next, Ayalon asks "What was Jordan doing in the West Bank?", and says it had no justification.
OK, assuming that's true and the land should've gone to Palestine instead of being taken by Jordan, that doesn't mean Israel has a legal basis for owning the land either. For example, just because someone took my car without my permission doesn't mean it belongs to a third person instead.

Then he says that Jordan changed the commonly accepted name of Judea and Samaria to the West Bank. But among whom was the West Bank commonly referred to as Judea and Samaria? I thought that Judea was the name of ancient kingdoms that spread from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean, and was not identical to the West Bank.

As to the question If Palestine didn't exist because it was occupied by Jordan and Jordan didn't have a right to it, whose territory is it? Well, I guess in that case it was supposed to go to the creation of a Palestinian state.
In the case with the car, if the car was supposed to go to me but it was baselessly taken by someone else instead, it is still something that belongs to me.

Next, Ayalon said Britain took the land in 1917 and that Lord Balfour made a declaration recognizing a Jewish homeland. That's true, but recognizing a Jewish homeland doesn't mean the entire territory would go to a state for only one ethnicity over the entire territory. Before the Balfour Declaration, Britain had agreed in the 1916 Sykes Picot Treaty with France- and with Russia's approval- to make the Holy Land an international zone, and afterwards in the 1947 resolution, Britain as part of the UN Security Council decided to divide the country. So both before and after the Balfour Declaration Britain made decrees that contradict the idea of a single-ethnicity state over the whole territory.

Then he correctly he says Britain got a mandate from the League of Nations to establish a Jewish homeland.

This Mandate says:

the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

Nothing here speaks of a one-ethnic state dedicated to just one ethnicity. After all, a jewish homeland isn't the same as a single-ethnicity state. Instead, if we assume that nothing in the Mandate was to affect the native communities' rights, and the vast majority of the people were Palestinian, the expectation would be that the state would be equally dedicated to Palestinians, especially if they had equal voting power.

Next, Ayalon says that the Jewish homeland originally included the west and east bank of the Jordan river (74%), and portrays the removal of Jordan one month later from the Palestine Mandate as a "painful compromise."
Jordan had been promised to the Jordanian royalty in 1915, and the possibility of Jordan's removal was mentioned in the Palestinian Mandate:

In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions.

If it were said that the Israelis compromised with the British government in later accepting the British government's legitimate decision to remove Jordan, don't you think it would be a decision they would have actually wanted from a practical standpoint, since we are talking about an area where a huge majority of the population belonged to another ethnicity and it would have been practically impossible to govern them in a single-ethnic-state with equal political rights?

He said the UN recognized a Jewish "homeland" in the Mandate after WWII, but that doesn't mean it meant a one-ethnicity state over all the land. Not much longer- 1947- as Ayalon points out, the UN specified the land would be divided into two "states." Ayalon points out that the Israelis accepted the division into two states but the Arabs rejected it. He says it is a nonbinding resolution without legal status. However, even if resolutions by themselves were nonbinding, the Israeli declaration of independence cites this particular resolution as a basis for setting up the state. In accepting this resolution at the UN and in its Declaration of Independence, the Israeli government accepted the part of the resolution that defined the territory.

Next, he says that the 1949 Armistice Line was defined as having no political significance. As he says, they are often called the 1967 borders.

However, the 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and other countries did give them political significance. The Wikipedia article on "Borders of Israel" says:

in the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Israel's expanded territorial holdings, with some minor adjustments, were made into boundaries, commonly referred to as the Green Line. The Green Line was expressly declared in the Armistice Agreements as a temporary demarcation line, rather than a permanent border, and the Armistice Agreements relegated the issue of permanent borders to future negotiations. The area to the west of the Jordan River came to be called the West Bank, and was annexed by Jordan in 1950;[21] and the Gaza Strip was controlled by Egypt. Then, when Israel conquered the territories during the Six-Day War, it did not annex them, instead placing them under military occupation.
The Green Line is today Israel's official boundary with the Palestinian territories, with the exception of East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and formally annexing in 1980 with the Jerusalem Law,

He concludes that this is why a better name for the territories is "disputed territories", which means territories that are disputed and are not defined as occupied. However, it seems that if Israel has no grounds to claim the territory, they would not really be in "dispute". And actually, they are in fact defined as occupied, because they are under Military Administration. Even if Jordan did not have a legal claim to the land it took in 1948 does not mean that Israel had a legal claim when it took the same land from Jordan in 1967.

The US government also refers to the territories under Military Administration as "occupied territories" See for example http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2009/127349.htm

After watching this video, one may find some light humor in watching the following video produced by the "Council of Settlers of Judea and Samaria." The Hebrew clip's use of the words "politically correct" in English was cute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ_ozDPt ... re=related

I find some poetic significance in Foreign Minister Ayalon's English clip, explaining that the West Bank isn't "occupied territory," being seamlessly repeated by the clip of the Settlers who, backed by military prowess, are displacing the previous inhabitants.

[RickD]

Guys, I don't mean to intrude in this thread, because you two have a good conversation going here. But, after reading this, I just had to point out this obvious error.

Rakovsky wrote:

Then, Ayalon asks: "From whom did Israel take the land? From Jordan during a war of self defense after it joined a war launched by Egypt to destroy Israel."
Well, this is pretty misleading. As Wikipedia says:

After a period of high tension between Israel and its neighbors, the war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise air strikes against Arab forces. The outcome was a swift and decisive Israeli victory. Israel took effective control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Opinions are divided on whether Israel's attack was an act of aggression or a preemptive strike of a defensive nature.


Even if the Israeli army made a preemptive strike, it was still the Israeli army that invaded Egypt.

Ayalon adds that "The UN in 1967 rejected Arab attempts to call israel the aggressor." OK, but that doesn't mean the UN called it a war of self defense, or that Egypt invaded Israel, either

Rakovsky,
Israel is a tiny country, surrounded by muslim countries whose leaders have publicly said that their goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. If Israel made a preemptive strike, and I believe Israel did, then she had no other option to insure her survival. Think about this logically. There's one tiny little country. Surrounded by countries that outnumber Israel. Those countries are about to amass their forces to destroy Israel. Was Israel supposed to sit around and wait until she was invaded first, before retaliating? The only chance of defense Israel had, was to go on the offense.

[Gman]

Well, the conflict here was the 1967 war, so I assume the territories occupied in the war refers to the land that became occupied as a result of the conflict.

Not so fast... The ultimate goal of resolution 242 is the fulfillment of a peaceful and accepted settlement as expressed on paragraph three which both groups have to succumb to. It's not a one sided peace agreement as you think. On top of that you are assuming "the territories occupied in the war refers to the land that became occupied as a result of the conflict" that is not true. The security council did NOT say that Israel had to withdraw from ALL of the territories. In fact, the Arabs tried to push for the word "all" in the resolution but it was rejected by the security council for many reasons..

Looking up Security Council Resolution 242 on Wikipedia to double-check what the term occupied territories refers to, I read:
Lord Caradon, the chief author of the resolution:
It was from occupied territories that the Resolution called for withdrawal. The test was which territories were occupied. That was a test not possibly subject to any doubt. As a matter of plain fact East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan and Sinai were occupied in the 1967 conflict. It was on withdrawal from occupied territories that the Resolution insisted. [24]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nat ... lution_242

No.. Look what Lord Caradon, really said. He stated...

"It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places where the soldiers of each side happened to be on the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That’s why we didn’t demand that the Israelis return to them."

Then, Ayalon asks: "From whom did Israel take the land? From Jordan during a war of self defense after it joined a war launched by Egypt to destroy Israel."
Well, this is pretty misleading. As Wikipedia says:

After a period of high tension between Israel and its neighbors, the war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise air strikes against Arab forces. The outcome was a swift and decisive Israeli victory. Israel took effective control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Opinions are divided on whether Israel's attack was an act of aggression or a preemptive strike of a defensive nature.

Even if the Israeli army made a preemptive strike, it was still the Israeli army that invaded Egypt.

Ayalon adds that "The UN in 1967 rejected Arab attempts to call israel the aggressor." OK, but that doesn't mean the UN called it a war of self defense, or that Egypt invaded Israel, either.

That is a joke of a statement... Look at all the wars that Egypt, Jordan, and Syria started with Israel BEFORE the 67 war. The Fadayeen raids in 1949-1956, the 1956 Sinai/Suez war, the Al Fatah raids of 1959.... Then Israel sees a huge army assembled on it's borders with repeated threats from Arab leaders, blocking Israelis international waters, so Israel in turn performs a preemptive strike that was forced on them and yet Israel are labeled the aggressors??

I can't believe how anyone could call this logical...

Next, Ayalon asks "What was Jordan doing in the West Bank?", and says it had no justification.
OK, assuming that's true and the land should've gone to Palestine instead of being taken by Jordan, that doesn't mean Israel has a legal basis for owning the land either. For example, just because someone took my car without my permission doesn't mean it belongs to a third person instead.

Then he says that Jordan changed the commonly accepted name of Judea and Samaria to the West Bank. But among whom was the West Bank commonly referred to as Judea and Samaria? I thought that Judea was the name of ancient kingdoms that spread from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean, and was not identical to the West Bank.

No.. Jordan was in that area well before the 67 war.. They have been doing raids into Israel way before the 67 war and occupied that area of the West bank. Please know your history..

As to the question If Palestine didn't exist because it was occupied by Jordan and Jordan didn't have a right to it, whose territory is it? Well, I guess in that case it was supposed to go to the creation of a Palestinian state.
In the case with the car, if the car was supposed to go to me but it was baselessly taken by someone else instead, it is still something that belongs to me.

Again... There has never been a land called Palestine. It has never existed as a country. Ever..So there is no land to take away from expect from Jordan declared at the 1922 declaration of Balfour.

b]Next, Ayalon said Britain took the land in 1917 [/b]and that Lord Balfour made a declaration recognizing a Jewish homeland. That's true, but recognizing a Jewish homeland doesn't mean the entire territory would go to a state for only one ethnicity over the entire territory. Before the Balfour Declaration, Britain had agreed in the 1916 Sykes Picot Treaty with France- and with Russia's approval- to make the Holy Land an international zone, and afterwards in the 1947 resolution, Britain as part of the UN Security Council decided to divide the country. So both before and after the Balfour Declaration Britain made decrees that contradict the idea of a single-ethnicity state over the whole territory.
Then he correctly he says Britain got a mandate from the League of Nations to establish a Jewish homeland.

The legal resolution was established in 1922 by the league of nations and it was for the Jews or anyone else who wanted to join them.

This Mandate says:

the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

Nothing here speaks of a one-ethnic state dedicated to just one ethnicity. After all, a jewish homeland isn't the same as a single-ethnicity state. Instead, if we assume that nothing in the Mandate was to affect the native communities' rights, and the vast majority of the people were Palestinian, the expectation would be that the state would be equally dedicated to Palestinians, especially if they had equal voting power.

Did you read what it said? It said, "in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." What do you think Jews are? Muslims? On top of that Muslim Arabs get the SAME rights as Jews in Israel.. They can vote, own property, etc..so the Jews are doing their part.

Next, Ayalon says that the Jewish homeland originally included the west and east bank of the Jordan river (74%), and portrays the removal of Jordan one month later from the Palestine Mandate as a "painful compromise."
Jordan had been promised to the Jordanian royalty in 1915, and the possibility of Jordan's removal was mentioned in the Palestinian Mandate:
In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions.

If it were said that the Israelis compromised with the British government in later accepting the British government's legitimate decision to remove Jordan, don't you think it would be a decision they would have actually wanted from a practical standpoint, since we are talking about an area where a huge majority of the population belonged to another ethnicity and it would have been practically impossible to govern them in a single-ethnic-state with equal political rights?

That's what happens when you start a war and loose a war... You forfeit your rights.. Too bad.. AND in many areas of the British Mandate Jews were already the majority there.

He said the UN recognized a Jewish "homeland" in the Mandate after WWII, but that doesn't mean it meant a one-ethnicity state over all the land. Not much longer- 1947- as Ayalon points out, the UN specified the land would be divided into two "states." Ayalon points out that the Israelis accepted the division into two states but the Arabs rejected it. He says it is a nonbinding resolution without legal status. However, even if resolutions by themselves were nonbinding, the Israeli declaration of independence cites this particular resolution as a basis for setting up the state. In accepting this resolution at the UN and in its Declaration of Independence, the Israeli government accepted the part of the resolution that defined the territory.

So? But the Arabs there didn't want Israel there at all, they never recognized these borders... So they started wars with Israel and paid the price.. They lost. They forfeited their rights plain and simple.

Next, he says that the 1949 Armistice Line was defined as having no political significance. As he says, they are often called the 1967 borders.

However, the 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and other countries did give them political significance. The Wikipedia article on "Borders of Israel" says:

in the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Israel's expanded territorial holdings, with some minor adjustments, were made into boundaries, commonly referred to as the Green Line. The Green Line was expressly declared in the Armistice Agreements as a temporary demarcation line, rather than a permanent border, and the Armistice Agreements relegated the issue of permanent borders to future negotiations. The area to the west of the Jordan River came to be called the West Bank, and was annexed by Jordan in 1950;[21] and the Gaza Strip was controlled by Egypt. Then, when Israel conquered the territories during the Six-Day War, it did not annex them, instead placing them under military occupation.
The Green Line is today Israel's official boundary with the Palestinian territories, with the exception of East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and formally annexing in 1980 with the Jerusalem Law,

He concludes that this is why a better name for the territories is "disputed territories", which means territories that are disputed and are not defined as occupied. However, it seems that if Israel has no grounds to claim the territory, they would not really be in "dispute". And actually, they are in fact defined as occupied, because they are under Military Administration. Even if Jordan did not have a legal claim to the land it took in 1948 does not mean that Israel had a legal claim when it took the same land from Jordan in 1967.

Again.. These Jordanians lost the war so technically they are in Israeli hands now.. Biblically speaking however, God gave the Jews this land thousands of years ago Gen. 12:7, 13:15, 15:18, 17:8. Again, if you want to mock God, be my guest.

The US government also refers to the territories under Military Administration as "occupied territories" See for example http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2009/127349.htm

Doesn't say who.. Occupied by terrorists right now and we know which ones..

After watching this video, one may find some light humor in watching the following video produced by the "Council of Settlers of Judea and Samaria." The Hebrew clip's use of the words "politically correct" in English was cute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ_ozDPt ... re=related

I find some poetic significance in Foreign Minister Ayalon's English clip, explaining that the West Bank isn't "occupied territory," being seamlessly repeated by the clip of the Settlers who, backed by military prowess, are displacing the previous inhabitants.

They lost a war.. So? If they wouldn't have started it we wouldn't even be talking about this... But if they love Sharia Law so much why can't they start up their own country somewhere else? Women are not animals and shouldn't be treated as such.. Everyone want's equal voting rights.. Not just a few dictators. Sorry..

[Gman]

Israel is a tiny country, surrounded by muslim countries whose leaders have publicly said that their goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. If Israel made a preemptive strike, and I believe Israel did, then she had no other option to insure her survival. Think about this logically. There's one tiny little country. Surrounded by countries that outnumber Israel. Those countries are about to amass their forces to destroy Israel. Was Israel supposed to sit around and wait until she was invaded first, before retaliating? The only chance of defense Israel had, was to go on the offense.

That is correct Rick.. It was preemptive.. Why? Because of all the NUMEROUS attacks Israel faced before the 67 war. AND not to mention all the threats from Gamal Hussein from Egypt and others that they would attack. They also massed over 250,000 troops on Israel's borders and blocked Israels international waters so that they would starve to death.

What was Israel to do?? Throw basket balls at them??

This kind of stupid stuff makes me sick.. And yet Israel get's the blame for this? No way..

[Danieltwotwenty]

Hey Gman
I must commend you on your defence of Israel and God's people, i have just made conatct with my family over there via facebook and i hope to learn more about the truth of the conflict.

[Gman]

Hey Gman
I must commend you on your defence of Israel and God's people, i have just made conatct with my family over there via facebook and i hope to learn more about the truth of the conflict.

Thanks Dan.. Long live Israel.. They truly need our help...

[Rakovsky]

Dear Rick D,

My hope is that by openly discussing the problems with the conflict, we will be better able to understand it. In doing so, we may come to look at things in ways we hadn't before.

In your message above, it seems to me your main question is what the Israeli State could have done in a situation where it was surrounded by larger hostile countries using rhetoric about destroying it, and where they would soon mass forces to destroy it:

Israel is a tiny country, surrounded by muslim countries whose leaders have publicly said that their goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth... Think about this logically... Those countries are about to amass their forces to destroy Israel. Was Israel supposed to sit around and wait until she was invaded first, before retaliating?

To understand this best, perhaps we can think from our own country's experience: small communities pioneers on the American frontier for 200-300 years were very often surrounded by larger numbers of native American tribes, who were usually depicted as savage, hostile, aggressive, and expected to attack pioneer families at any moment. Let's ask: in this situation, what would we recommend the pioneers to do?

My idea is that it would be best to try to make friends with the native Americans. Yes, they may likely be hostile. But even in that case, we should try to do our best to show our kindness and compassion. Smoke the peace pipe, talk about the beauty of the earth and the creator. Perhaps we might find one of the least hostile of the neighboring warrior tribes and ally with them.

We know this friendship with the warrior savages was possible, as the pilgrims got help from the Indians, the Quakers avoided fighting them on principle, Lewis and Clark connected with them on their travels, and all across the country there were cases where European individuals like missionaries lived among the Indians. And yet we also know that as America became stronger, our militias and army accepted the path of war with the native warriors and drove the natives onto reservations, where many of them live in poverty to this day.

Now when we ask what the Israeli army should have done if they were surrounded by larger hostile armies about to mass to destroy them, I don't want to be too judgmental, because we know that our country own chose the path of invasion and the greedy conquest of territories. But when you put the question to me, my answer is that the Israeli State should have chosen the path of peace and tried reach understanding with the other societies. I think that like our predecessors could have, the Israelis could have lived in a common peace with the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors, one of the evidences being that in the modern era until the 1948 war, many Jews lived together with Arabs in Arab societies.

At the same time, there really were Indian attacks on settlers, so I can see an OK counterargument that where you know the native peoples are about to attack, your outnumbered militia might have to attack first as a last resort. Even so, I don't find this mentality particularly appealing, including because of abuse. The settlers had so much fear of the Indians, and "taming the West" to a large extent meant killing off the buffalo and subjugating the Indians. So I think the "civilized" settlers were more a danger to the Indians than the other way around, contrary to the common "civilized" view.

So when we look at a conflict like the settlers and the natives or the Israelis and Palestinians, we must to ask ourselves whether there really is such a huge danger that we must "preemptively" invade and conquer our neighbors.


But first, I would like to please say that I believe you missed my main point, Rick, when you wrote:

I just had to point out this obvious error.

Rakovsky wrote:

Then, Ayalon asks: "From whom did Israel take the land? From Jordan during a war of self defense after it joined a war launched by Egypt to destroy Israel."
Well, this is pretty misleading. As Wikipedia says:

After a period of high tension between Israel and its neighbors, the war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise air strikes against Arab forces... Opinions are divided on whether Israel's attack was an act of aggression or a preemptive strike of a defensive nature.

Even if the Israeli army made a preemptive strike, it was still the Israeli army that invaded Egypt. Ayalon adds that "The UN in 1967 rejected Arab attempts to call israel the aggressor." OK, but that doesn't mean the UN called it a war of self defense, or that Egypt invaded Israel, either.

In the 2003 Iraq War, Iraq had hostile anti-US rhetoric, our government suspected them of building WMDS, it refused weapons inspectors to a significant extent, and so our army invaded and conquered them.
Now imagine if our State Department made a video called "The Truth about Iraq" where it said Iraq invaded the United States in 2003, and that consequently the US has a claim to own big parts of Iraq. A video like that would make me think: Wow, this video is making stuff up to justify an agressive action that's gonna make the conflict worse.

Now here, the Israeli Foreign Ministry produced a video called "The Truth about the West Bank", where Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon stands and teaches us that Egypt quote "invaded" Israel in 1967, and that Israel has a legal claim to the territories it conquered as a result of this "invasion."

I am sorry, but that did not happen. Coincidentally, this isn't the first time the Foreign Ministry claimed Egypt invaded Israel in the 1967 war. The WIkipedia article on the 1967 war I quoted from said:

on June 4 the decision was made to go to war. The next morning, Israel launched Operation Focus, a large-scale surprise air strike that was the opening of the Six-Day War... Israel's first and most critical move was a surprise attack on the Egyptian Air Force. Egypt had by far the largest and the most modern of all the Arab air forces, consisting of about 420 combat aircraft... A total of 338 Egyptian aircraft were destroyed and 100 pilots were killed... The Israelis lost 19 planes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

The Wikipedia article "Controversies relating to the Six Day War" says:

Initial claims
Both Egypt and Israel announced that they had been attacked by the other country. Gideon Rafael, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, received a message from the Israeli foreign office: "inform immediately the President of the Sec. Co. that Israel is now engaged in repelling Egyptian land and air forces." At 3:10 am, Rafael woke ambassador Hans Tabor, the Danish President of the Security Council for June, with the news that Egyptian forces had "moved against Israel" . and that Israel was responding to a "cowardly and treacherous" attack from Egypt…" At the Security Council meeting of June 5, both Israel and Egypt claimed to be repelling an invasion by the other, and "Israeli officials – Eban and Evron – swore that Egypt had fired first".

On June 5 Egypt charged Israel with aggression, supported by the USSR. Israel claimed that Egypt had struck first, telling the council that “in the early hours of this morning Egyptian armoured columns moved in an offensive thrust against Israel’s borders. At the same time Egyptian planes took off from airfields in Sinai and struck out towards Israel. Egyptian artillery in the Gaza strip shelled the Israel villages of Kissufim, Nahal-Oz and Ein Hashelosha..." In fact, this was not the case. The US Office of Current Intelligence "...soon concluded that the Israelis – contrary to their claims – had fired first."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controvers ... ix-Day_War

So to answer your question, I would have preferred if, like the American settlers with the Indian warriors, the Israeli State in the first half of 1967 had set its main objective to be reaching understanding and to live in peace among its neighbors. I dislike preemptive strikes as a general rule, particularly if they are neither a last resort nor in the face of an imminent attack. But I don't want to be prejudicial either and say I would never allow them under any circumstance.

However, the main point I was trying to make was that Egypt didn't invade Israel in 1967 as the Foreign Ministry's video says.

[Gman]

To understand this best, perhaps we can think from our own country's experience: small communities pioneers on the American frontier for 200-300 years were very often surrounded by larger numbers of native American tribes, who were usually depicted as savage, hostile, aggressive, and expected to attack pioneer families at any moment. Let's ask: in this situation, what would we recommend the pioneers to do?

My idea is that it would be best to try to make friends with the native Americans. Yes, they may likely be hostile. But even in that case, we should try to do our best to show our kindness and compassion. Smoke the peace pipe, talk about the beauty of the earth and the creator. Perhaps we might find one of the least hostile of the neighboring warrior tribes and ally with them.

We know this friendship with the warrior savages was possible, as the pilgrims got help from the Indians, the Quakers avoided fighting them on principle, Lewis and Clark connected with them on their travels, and all across the country there were cases where European individuals like missionaries lived among the Indians. And yet we also know that as America became stronger, our militias and army accepted the path of war with the native warriors and drove the natives onto reservations, where many of them live in poverty to this day.

Rakovshy.. This is possibly the worst comparison I have ever seen. Comparing what the U.S. did to the American Indians as to what Israel is doing to the Arabs? What on earth are you smoking? You don't think that the Israelis wanted peace with the Arabs when they started Israel as a nation in 1948? Are you forgetting who tried to destroy Israel as a nation in 1948? Are you forgetting that there where already huge Jewish settlements in the land before the 1948 wars?

Now when we ask what the Israeli army should have done if they were surrounded by larger hostile armies about to mass to destroy them, I don't want to be too judgmental, because we know that our country own chose the path of invasion and the greedy conquest of territories. But when you put the question to me, my answer is that the Israeli State should have chosen the path of peace and tried reach understanding with the other societies. I think that like our predecessors could have, the Israelis could have lived in a common peace with the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors, one of the evidences being that in the modern era until the 1948 war, many Jews lived together with Arabs in Arab societies.

Again what about the many many wars that Israel endured before the 1967 war. Many wars.. On top of that don't forget that Egypt tried to block Israel's international ports so that it couldn't get any more resources.. And then you have the nerve to call Israel an aggressor?

At the same time, there really were Indian attacks on settlers, so I can see an OK counterargument that where you know the native peoples are about to attack, your outnumbered militia might have to attack first as a last resort. Even so, I don't find this mentality particularly appealing, including because of abuse. The settlers had so much fear of the Indians, and "taming the West" to a large extent meant killing off the buffalo and subjugating the Indians. So I think the "civilized" settlers were more a danger to the Indians than the other way around, contrary to the common "civilized" view.

Again another silly comparison.. The Israelis had no such intentions as to "taming" the land.. They promote equal rights for ALL peoples. Even the ones that oppose them. About the land, they turned it from a dessert to one of the most productive areas of the world. Providing much needed vegetation and jobs to that area. And much needed jobs to the Arabs.

Don't worry.. One day the Arabs will embrace the God of Israel and know that He loves them.. And they will embrace Israel and their God.. Isaiah 19:23-25. Despite your efforts.

So when we look at a conflict like the settlers and the natives or the Israelis and Palestinians, we must to ask ourselves whether there really is such a huge danger that we must "preemptively" invade and conquer our neighbors.

But first, I would like to please say that I believe you missed my main point, Rick, when you wrote:
I just had to point out this obvious error.

Rakovsky wrote:
Then, Ayalon asks: "From whom did Israel take the land? From Jordan during a war of self defense after it joined a war launched by Egypt to destroy Israel."
Well, this is pretty misleading. As Wikipedia says:
After a period of high tension between Israel and its neighbors, the war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise air strikes against Arab forces... Opinions are divided on whether Israel's attack was an act of aggression or a preemptive strike of a defensive nature. Even if the Israeli army made a preemptive strike, it was still the Israeli army that invaded Egypt. Ayalon adds that "The UN in 1967 rejected Arab attempts to call israel the aggressor." OK, but that doesn't mean the UN called it a war of self defense, or that Egypt invaded Israel, either.

Again.. Look at all the wars that Egypt, Jordan, and Syria started with Israel BEFORE the 67 war. The Fadayeen raids in 1949-1956, the 1956 Sinai/Suez war, the Al Fatah raids of 1959.... Then Israel sees a huge army assembled on it's borders with repeated threats from Arab leaders, blocking Israelis international waters, so Israel in turn performs a preemptive strike that was forced on them and yet Israel are labeled the aggressors??

Know your history please..

In the 2003 Iraq War, Iraq had hostile anti-US rhetoric, our government suspected them of building WMDS, it refused weapons inspectors to a significant extent, and so our army invaded and conquered them.
Now imagine if our State Department made a video called "The Truth about Iraq" where it said Iraq invaded the United States in 2003, and that consequently the US has a claim to own big parts of Iraq. A video like that would make me think: Wow, this video is making stuff up to justify an agressive action that's gonna make the conflict worse.

Now here, the Israeli Foreign Ministry produced a video called "The Truth about the West Bank", where Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon stands teaches us that Egypt quote "invaded" Israel in 1967, and that Israel has a legal claim to the territories it conquered as a result of this "invasion."

Yes... It does. So why doesn't the U.S. give California back to the Spaniards? Why? They clearly lost the war... Too bad.

I am sorry, but that did not happen. Coincidentally, this isn't the first time the Foreign Ministry claimed Egypt invaded Israel in the 1967 war. The WIkipedia article on the 1967 war I quoted from said:
on June 4 the decision was made to go to war. The next morning, Israel launched Operation Focus, a large-scale surprise air strike that was the opening of the Six-Day War... Israel's first and most critical move was a surprise attack on the Egyptian Air Force. Egypt had by far the largest and the most modern of all the Arab air forces, consisting of about 420 combat aircraft... A total of 338 Egyptian aircraft were destroyed and 100 pilots were killed... The Israelis lost 19 planes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

The Wikipedia article "Controversies relating to the Six Day War" says:
Initial claims
Both Egypt and Israel announced that they had been attacked by the other country. Gideon Rafael, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, received a message from the Israeli foreign office: "inform immediately the President of the Sec. Co. that Israel is now engaged in repelling Egyptian land and air forces." At 3:10 am, Rafael woke ambassador Hans Tabor, the Danish President of the Security Council for June, with the news that Egyptian forces had "moved against Israel" . and that Israel was responding to a "cowardly and treacherous" attack from Egypt…" At the Security Council meeting of June 5, both Israel and Egypt claimed to be repelling an invasion by the other, and "Israeli officials – Eban and Evron – swore that Egypt had fired first".

Again... Look at all the previous wars Egypt and all the surrounding nation tried to do to Israel before the 67 war.. Many many wars on Israel.

On June 5 Egypt charged Israel with aggression, supported by the USSR. Israel claimed that Egypt had struck first, telling the council that “in the early hours of this morning Egyptian armoured columns moved in an offensive thrust against Israel’s borders. At the same time Egyptian planes took off from airfields in Sinai and struck out towards Israel. Egyptian artillery in the Gaza strip shelled the Israel villages of Kissufim, Nahal-Oz and Ein Hashelosha..." In fact, this was not the case. The US Office of Current Intelligence "...soon concluded that the Israelis – contrary to their claims – had fired first."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controvers ... ix-Day_War

So to answer your question, I would have preferred if, like the American settlers with the Indian warriors, the Israeli State in the first half of 1967 had set its main objective to be reaching understanding and to live in peace among its neighbors. I dislike preemptive strikes as a general rule, particularly if they are neither a last resort nor in the face of an imminent attack. But I don't want to be prejudicial either and say I would never allow them under any circumstance.

No comparison whatsoever.. Nothing like the American settlers with the Indian warriors. You are dreaming.. The Israelis had NO INTENTIONS of starting a war with the Arabs... IN FACT, they actually begged them to stay. In many cases it was the Arabs themselves that told the other Arabs to leave these areas with sirens on their trucks, threatening them to leave because the aggressive Arabs were going to bomb the area... Stop spreading lies..

However, the main point I was trying to make was that Egypt didn't invade Israel in 1967 as the Foreign Ministry's video says.

Actually... You know what. You are helping me in a way.. In fact I'm going to double my efforts for Israel and provide them more money and more of my resources. This has really got me ticked off.. Big bother is getting more angry. You are doing the Arabs a disservice..

Thank you.

[Rakovsky]

Dear RickD and Gman,

I prefer peaceful resolutions to conflicts and dislike war.

Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. ~Ludwig von Mises

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it. ~William Penn

These words appeal to me. When I think about justifications for war, I have to think them over for myself.

One of the toughest to evaluate is "the Great War", WWI. The Austrian Monarchy apparently wanted to fight Serbia. It started the war when Serbia failed to meet its extreme demands, which followed the Serbian terrorist assassination of an Austrian noble. This should have been a moment for diplomacy. But then Austria declared war on Serbia. Here was another moment for diplomacy. But then all the other major European powers declared war on eachother. They pulled in America, which ended up fighting against Austria.

Yes, Austria was the main party responsible. But the other nations didn't do enough diplomatically to avert the crisis, and I think this was what they wanted at some level. The result was huge casualties and the breeding grounds for WWII. I assume most Americans look at their victorious involvement in this bloodbath as positive, but I certainly wouldn't have wanted to perform mutual slaughter in the trenches.

So I think it is should be with a preference for diplomacy, and with independence of judgment, that one should look at wars like the 1967 war. And I should try to avoid some feeling of moral superiority when evaluating it, because we have engaged in far more bloody mutual wars

In your review of the problems leading up to the war, you identified several factors, and then asked what could Israel have done:

Israel is a tiny country, surrounded by muslim countries whose leaders have publicly said that their goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. If Israel made a preemptive strike, and I believe Israel did, then she had no other option to insure her survival. There's one tiny little country. Surrounded by countries that outnumber Israel. Those countries are about to amass their forces to destroy Israel.

It was preemptive.. Because of all the NUMEROUS attacks Israel faced before the 67 war. AND not to mention all the threats from Gamal Hussein from Egypt and others that they would attack. They also massed over 250,000 troops on Israel's borders and blocked Israels international waters so that they would starve to death. What was Israel to do??

1. Israel was a tiny country surrounded by hostile Arab countries.
2. There were attacks before the 1967 war
3. The Arab countries massed 250,000 troops on its borders.
4. Egypt blocked the straits of Tiran
5. Egyptian president Nasser, especially, used attacking rhetoric.
Were there options available for Israel?

It is worth doing a brief review of articles with different points of view. Out of these factors, the main background factor is that 1. Israel was a tiny country surrounded by hostile Arab countries. Yet somehow Israel's army was more powerful than the Arab countries combined.

Being a small country surrounded by hostile countries is a strategic weakness. But this does not mean a small country is weaker than its neighbors. Sparta was a small country, and yet its army was very powerful. If you've seen the movie The "300" with Russell Crowe, you may remember how the Spartans defeated the Persians. Rome was one city, and yet it conquered the Mediterranean. And the American settlers lived in small colonies and in 100-200 years were able to take over the land from sea to sea.

Further, one must ask how the strategic weakness of being surrounded by hostile countries can be ended. This occurs when the beighbors seek to be hostile. In that case, they must either be conquered or be persuaded to be friendly, or at least neutral. In my opinion, it is much better to seek to try to make friends with people instead of conquering them. If they are weaker and can be conquered, perhaps a distant time will come when they will be stronger, and in that case it would've been better to make friends with them.

One thing that is confusing for me was that Israel was very much stronger than the Arab countries combined. But the Arab countries' armies were significantly larger, and I assume they had comparable equipment.
Wikipedia says about the scale of forces before the 1967 war:
Israeli army: Total troops: 264,000 (including 300 combat aircraft; 800 tanks); 100,000 deployed
Arab countries: Egypt: 240,000; Syria, Jordan, and Iraq: 307,000; 957 combat aircraft 2,504 tanks; Total troops: 547,000 (240,000 deployed)

And yet the extreme casualty rate is surprising:
Israeli military: 776–983 killed; 15 captured; 46 aircraft destroyed
Arab military: between 13,200–23,500 killed; 5,500+ captured; hundreds of tanks destroyed; 452+ aircraft destroyed

And yet the commentary about the countries' strengths during the war says the opposite. The CIA analysis of the sides' strength said:

The second paper Helms had brought—the “who will win” memo—was the crucial one. It stated that Israel could “defend successfully against simultaneous Arab attacks on all fronts . . . or hold on any three fronts while mounting successfully a major offensive on the fourth.”

Two days later, Tel Aviv... submitt[ed] to Washington a Mossad estimate that claimed the Israeli military was badly outgunned... Helms had the Office of National Estimates (ONE) prepare an appraisal of the Mossad assessment, which was ready in only five hours. ONE flatly stated: “We do not believe that the Israeli appreciation . . . was a serious estimate of the sort they would submit to their own high officials.” Rather, “it is probably a gambit intended to influence the US to . . . provide military supplies . . . make more public commitments to Israel . . . approve Israeli military initiatives, and . . . put more pressure on [Egyptian President] Nasser.”
That paper—issued the following afternoon with the title “Military Capabilities of Israel and the Arab States”—is the illustrious “special estimate” in which the CIA (in collaboration with the Defense Intelligence Agency) purportedly called the war right, from its outcome down to the day it would end... the paper estimated that Israeli armored forces could breach Egypt's forward lines in the Sinai within “several” days.

[President Johnson] later recalled bluntly telling Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, “All of our intelligence people are unanimous that if the UAR attacks, you will whip hell out of them.”
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for- ... war_1.html

Wikipedia's article "Controversies relating to the Six Day War" says:

declassified documents from the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, indicate that top officials in the Johnson administration – including Johnson's most pro-Israeli Cabinet members – did not believe war between Israel and its neighbors was necessary or inevitable, at least until the final hour. In these documents, Israel emerges as a vastly superior military power, its opponents far weaker than the menacing threat Israel portrayed, and war itself something that Nasser, for all his saber-rattling, tried to avoid until the moment his air force went up in smoke...” Tolan, Sandy. (5 June 2007). Rethinking Israel’s ‘David and Goliath’ Past, Salon.com.

The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael B. Oren has acknowledged that "By all reports Israel received from the Americans, and according to its own intelligence, Nasser had no interest in bloodshed..." Israel's assessment was that "Nasser would have to be deranged to take on an Israel backed by France and the U.S. Sixth Fleet. War, according to the Israelis, could only come about if Nasser felt he had complete military superiority over the IDF, if Israel were caught up in a domestic crisis, and, most crucially, was isolated internationally—a most unlikely confluence." Oren 2002, pp. 59–60).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controvers ... ix-Day_War

As Israeli General Matitiahu Peled was later to put it:
“There is no reason to hide the fact that since 1949 no one has dared, or more precisely, no one was able, to threaten the very existence of Israel. In spite of that, we have continued to foster a sense of our own inferiority, as if we were a weak and insignificant people, which, in the midst of an anguished struggle for its existence, could be exterminated at any moment. … it is notorious that the Arab leaders themselves, thoroughly aware of their own impotence, did not believe in their own threats. … I am sure that our General Staff never told the government that the Egyptian military threat represented any danger to Israel or that we were unable to crush Nasser’s army, which, with unheard-of foolishness, had exposed itself to the devastating might of our army. … To claim that the Egyptian forces concentrated on our borders were capable of threatening Israel’s existence not only insults the intelligence of anyone capable of analysing this kind of situation, but is an insult to the Zahal [the Israeli army].” (Peled, Maariv, 24 March 1972, cited Hirst, pp. 336-7)
Former Commander of the Air Force General Ezer Weizmann claimed there was “no threat of destruction,” but that the attack was justified so that Israel could “exist according to the scale, spirit and quality she now embodies.” (Ha’aretz, March 29 1972; cited Chomsky, p. 100)>>
http://www.thephora.net/forum/archive/i ... 20779.html

Despite the huge unbalance in the casualty rate (perhaps 20 to 1) and the assertions that the Israeli military was far superior, the only explanation for this was that:

James Reston, writing in the New York Times on May 23, 1967, noted, "In discipline, training, morale, equipment and general competence his [Nasser's] army and the other Arab forces, without the direct assistance of the Soviet Union, are no match for the Israelis....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

So it is still curious for me to explain why there was such a huge unbalance of forces, even though the Arab countries were bigger and their militaries had more people in total. Maybe alot of Arab people didn't really have deep feelings about fighting (the morale issue), and their preparation was pretty weak? Maybe it is like today, where Egypt and Lebanon have alot of people, but the Israeli military has the planes, bombs, and nukes?

So yes, Israel was a tiny country surrounded by alot more people with hostile governments. But it appears that somehow Israel was alot stronger militarily.

[RickD]

So it is still curious for me to explain why there was such a huge unbalance of forces, even though the Arab countries were bigger and their militaries had more people in total. Maybe alot of Arab people didn't really have deep feelings about fighting (the morale issue), and their preparation was pretty weak? Maybe it is like today, where Egypt and Lebanon have alot of people, but the Israeli military has the planes, bombs, and nukes?

So yes, Israel was a tiny country surrounded by alot more people with hostile governments. But it appears that somehow Israel was alot stronger militarily.

Or, maybe...it's just as Gman has been saying all along...God is Israel's protector.

[Rakovsky]

Dear Rick D,

I think you raised a relevant question when you asked:

So it is still curious for me to explain why there was such a huge unbalance of forces, even though the Arab countries were bigger and their militaries had more people in total.
Israel was alot stronger militarily.

Or, maybe...it's just as Gman has been saying all along...God is Israel's protector.

My view is that God protects "the Israel of God", but it is potentially dangerous to use this to justify militarily crushing other countries.

First, I am cautious about using religious claims to justify earthly power and conquest.

I think we Americans may have a natural temptation to do this, considering how many earthly blessings we received in our relatively short history. Our forefathers landed on America's shores and within 100-200 years conquered the natives and expanded across to California with a belief called "Manifest Destiny"- that God ordained for our earthy political system to control the continent. This happened, but I am reluctant to indulge in what I see as a sense of excessive pride. After all, perhaps in several centuries, with our minds full of this pride, we will lose sense of reality and this earthly power will evaporate.

But it is also dangerous, because this kind of thinking, applied to other circumstances, could lead to approval of excessive earthly power. For example, in the Middle Ages, Catholic Spain drove out the Muslim conquerors from Western Europe, and then instituted an Inquisition that put to death many Jews who kept their religion secret and Protestants as heretics. Before that time, many Jews thrived in Muslim Spain. Afterwards, Spain was for centuries, if not today, one of the most extremely Catholic countries in Europe. As a result, it spread Roman Catholicism across Latin America, where the Inquisition also operated. I could easily see some Spanish Catholics taking the view that Spain conquered the Muslims and suppressed dissent as part of God's protecting Roman Catholicism. And yet I would prefer to take a "realistic" and humanitarian view and say that the conquest was due to earthly military power and European power that I take strong offense at the successful Inquisition, borne not of God but societal backwardness and intolerance. This should be a lesson for us about how we should respect others who are far less powerful than us.

For me, it is very sad to think about the inquisition, and it is much more mentally "easy" to think about the history in realistic and humanitarian terms.

But to get back to the question, does God protect Israel? I believe the answer is "yes."

According to St Paul, Israel refers to both Christians and nonChristian Jews. He gave the example in the Letter to the Romans of branches (gentile Christians) that had been grafted onto an olive tree(Israel), and others that had been separated(nonChristian Jews), but he believed and hoped would be returned.
(See also Matthew 21:43 where it talks about the kingdom of God being taken away and given to others, and Isaiah 10:22 where it talks about the return of the righteous remnant)
And as he wrote in Galatians 6:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.
And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy [be] upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

However, we know the early Christians in the Holy Land, and the Jews in R.C. Spain went through persecution from the Roman and Rabbinical, and Spanish Catholic authorities respectively, so this hardship even where there is a promise of protection must be explained- that God will see us through the persecution.
Furthermore, I don't think God's protection requires militarily conquering neighbors with a strong military. After all, God protected the ancient Kingdom of Judah with Cyrus, his anointed. In fact, I think that God prefers us to seek peace as Jesus said "Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God." He did not say that we would be blessed if we sought to conquer our opponents, but said to love and forgive them. I admit this can be very difficult for us, especially if we have been mistreated by others in the past.

Now when we ask was Israel's victory due to God's protection, I am hesitant to give an answer because I don't want to be presumptuous and say I know the mind of God, just as I am hesitant to say our country is so strong because God wanted it (I want to avoid pride), or that powerful countries persecuted people because God wanted it (I want to avoid endorsing bad things).

That is why when I look at the 1967 war, and think why the Israeli army won with a casualty rate of 20:1, it is much easier to think in terms of the fact that the CIA and Israeli military knew that the Israeli army was far superior, better equipped, and had alot better morale and preparedness, than simply ascribing the defeat and death of 20,000 Arabs (10-15% of whom were Christians belonging to God's protected Israel) to God's protection of another part of His Israel (the righteous remnant that will return).

But to get back to my main point: Did the Israeli army have to launch its attack in 1967?
Besides the fact that the Israeli army was far superior, another factor was 2. There were numerous attacks before 1967.
Well, I don't think that having fought a war many years previously is a good reason for countries to fight again, although it does mean there is at least a possibility of war. I think the opposite would be true- that wars in the past should motivate countries to resolve their differences to prevent one. So the 1948 war would mean that Israel should be prepared in case there's a war, but that's not a reason, in my opinion, to take a strong aggressive stance. Instead, it would be better to try to promote good relations.

Wikipedia notes that there were guerrilla attacks leading up to the 1967 wars:

"in response to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerilla activity, including a mine attack that left three dead, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) attacked the city of as-Samu in the Jordanian-occupied West Bank."
http://www.sixdaywar.co.uk/timeline.htm

An article supporting the 1967 invasion says:

From early 1965 to the Six-Day War in June 1967, the PLO through Fatah pursued a consistent policy of border attacks, particularly along the Jordanian and Lebanese borders. Criticism of these activities by the Arab governments and by local public opinion... In 1965, 35 terrorist raids were conducted against Israel. In 1966, the number increased to 41. In just the first four months of 1967, 37 attacks were launched.
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1948to ... backgd.php

On the other hand, an article critical of the 1967 invasion says:

a former head of Israeli military intelligence, Yehoshaphat Harkabi, concluded shortly after the war in a sober balance-sheet... that the "operational achievements" of the Palestinian commando raids "in the thirty months from [their] debut to the six-day war are not impressive by any standard" (italics in original). Emphasizing that the few successful sabotage operations and Israeli casualties in that period (a total of 14 civilians, police and soldiers) "did not endanger Israel's national life," he recalled that "to hide its mediocre results, Fatah inflated communiques which bore no resemblance to what actually took place. Often, reported actions did not take place at all, and the Israeli authorities had difficulty identifying them"

And another excerpt says:

In mid-November 1966, Israel embarked on its largest military action since the Suez war. An armored brigade of nearly 4,000 men attacked the West Bank town of Samu in the Hebron hills, methodically destroying 125 homes, a clinic, a school, and a workshop, and killing 18 Jordanian soldiers as well. (One Israeli soldier was killed.) Condemning the raid at the United Nations, US Ambassador Arthur Goldberg noted that the toll it took 'inhuman lives and in destruction far surpasses the cumulative total of the various acts of terrorism conducted against the frontiers of Israel'.'I wish to make it absolutely clear,' he pronounced 'that this large-scale military action cannot be justified, explained away or excused by the incidents which preceded it and in which the Government of Jordan has not been implicated.'

...Odd Bull, chief of staff of UN forces in the Middle East at the time, recalled, 'the Jordanian authorities did all they possibly could to stop infiltration.' A UN military observer on the Israel-Jordan border noted even more emphatically that 'Jordan's efforts to curb infiltrators reached the total capabilities of the country.' Indeed, until the June 1967 war, more Palestinians were killed by Jordanian soldiers attempting to enter Israel than by the Israelis themselves. And, only a few months before the Samu attach, King Hussein had taken the extraordinary step of arresting most of the PLO staff in Amman and closing its offices.
(Norman Finkelstein, "Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict", p. 125-126)

So in other words, in the two years leading up to the war, there really were scattered guerrilla attacks by groups penetrating the border from neighboring countries. However, the country the attacks were coming from- Jordan was trying hard to stop the attacks, and the main target of the Israeli invasion- Egypt- wasn't the territory from which the guerrilla attacks were coming.

Besides the 1948 war, there was also the 1956 Suez Crisis, but that was also an Israeli attack on Egypt and the casualty rate was also extreme: 15 to 1.