Saturday, January 06, 2007

History lesson: the six-day war - film clip



The six-day war with Israel in 1967 was a severe humiliation to the Arabs. The armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq were defeated, 100 Egyptian pilots killed and over 300 Egyptian jetfighters and hundreds of tanks were destroyed on the ground.

Israel seized the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank of the Jordan River (including East Jerusalem), and the Golan Heights. Overall, Israel's territory grew three times in size; 300 kilometers in the south, 60 kilometers in the east and 20 kilometers in the north. About one million Arabs came under Israeli control in the captured territories. Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser resigned but the emotional masses wanted him to stay, so he revoked his resignation. Syrian Defence Minister Hafez Al Assad did not resign. He had trained as a fighter pilot and two thirds of the Syrian airforce was destroyed in the 6-day battle. Before the war, on 20 May 1967, he had declared:

"Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation"

This film clip shows horrific scenes of death and destruction and Egyptian General Mun'em Abdul Husseini signing the surrender documents in the presence of Israeli army generals. the Israeli army is also seen entering East Jerusalem almost unchallenged. Sympathy and admiration for the Israelis can be detected in the American narrator's comments.

Click here to watch (5 minutes).


4 comments:

Philip I said...

Alex

Thank you for this and I'll look out for it.

It will be interesting to revisit this episode of history. The ageing Arab officers and politician might be more willing to talk openly now. However, the devastating reults of the war speak for themselves and no new documentary is going to make them any less humiliating.

One can only hope that today's generation of 20 something will stop dancing in the streets and learn from history.

Torstein said...

Hello

I downloaded your clips about the six-day war, but i only get the sound.

I have the regular codecs installed: Xvid, DivX and AC3.

Do you know which codec I need to see the clips?

Cheers

SMM said...

hi it says file not found... is it possible to email me the file on mailshyjumathew@gmail.com doing a seminar on the same about the 6day war..really appreciate any material on the same..thank you.
SJ

Anonymous said...

People should read this.