Key Features of the Six Day War

This built up of tension ultimately led to the second key feature- war. On the 5th June 1967 Israel launched a devastating air assault on Egypt, Syria and Jordan destroying almost the entire Egyptian air force on the ground. By 11:35am, 250 Egyptian aircraft had already been destroyed.  Having gained clear and decisive air superiority, Israel launched their ground invasion using paratroopers, in the space of 100 hours the Israel’s had crossed the Sinai and reached the Suez canal and 85% of Egyptian military hardware had been captured.  Success was also high against Syria as the Golan Heights was captured, in doing so 2500 Syrians were killed.

A third key feature is the consequences that the six day war had. As shown in the previous paragraph the Israelis overpowered her Arab neighbours- there were now new border changes with Israeli now owning the Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Relations had fallen even more between the Arabs and the Jews-the Arabs who were bitter promised revenge and this was the case as they attacked in the Yom Kippur war. One can therefore argue that a consequence of the Six Day War was also the Yom Kippur war the post war negations did little to improve relations between both sides, war was inevitable.

In conclusion, the Six Day war was caused by tensions rising between the Israelis and the Arabs, furthered by questionable Soviet intelligence.  PLO raids and cross border attacks heightened the tension and led to the spark that was the outbreak of war. The Israeli attack focused on gaining new territories to act as a buffer zone.  The consequences of this were new border changed, huge Arab losses and a new low point in relations that would lead to yet another war between the two sides. As once can see, the factors are clearly linked because it was the initial increase in tension that led to the attack and the subsequent border changes and then the Yom Kippur war.