Israel's Most Serious Miscalculation/Missed Opportunity

There are mistakes that haunt us for life. Sometimes they can be easily corrected, and sometimes not, and sometimes it's best to make a major about face and go in that correct direction, no matter how difficult it seems.

Before the 1967 Six Days War, Israel was surrounded by a very difficult to defend ceasefire line. The post war borders were logical and defensible, with the high Golan Heights in the North, the Jordan River on the East, The Mediterranean Sea on the West and on the south there was a great buffer zone, the Sinai and the Suez Canal.

More and more, over the years and decades I find myself more and more convinced that there was a very crucial mistake made by the Israeli Government as the dust settled after the 1967 Six Days War. Being that we were led by very secular Israelis, who were fueled by an ideology that glorified man and ignored the power of Gd, it's no surprise that they did not read the signs, comprehend what had happened during those six miraculous days. The Israeli victory over three relatively well-equipped and prepared armies, Egypt, Syria and Jordan, was of Biblical proportions. It was like the victory of David over Goliath or the masses of Jewish slaves and followers safely escaping from the powerful Egypt. There is no logical, scientific rationale for it. And military experts and historians have been trying to explain it ever since it happened.




Israel's political leaders of June, 1967, were like an amateur gambler at a slot machine who leaves thousands of dollars on the floor, because he/she had brought too small a bag.

The Labor Eshkol Government had only planned on maintaining a status quo when it came to borders. For, inexplicable to me at least, reasons hard to understand they had no plans on expanding the country, except maybe to rule over the Old City of Jerusalem and whatever was needed for access. They wanted the Kotel, the Western Wall of the outer limits of the Temple Mount, which had only gained popularity as a Jewish holy spot a few hundred years earlier. They even insisted on returning the symbolic key of the Temple Mount to the Muslims. For some fokokt reason, which still causes trouble today, they were sure that it would buy Israel peace and international approval.

They looked at Judea, Samaria, the Jordan Valley, the Golan and Sinai as bargaining chips to offer Jordan, Syria and Egypt for "peace," even though the Golan was quickly divided into Israeli agricultural communities and settled. The same was done in parts of the Jordan valley and Northern Sinai. There was that one thing all those communities had in common, and it was agriculture, especially for export. But on the whole, the leaders and shakers considered that "for sure" Egypt, Syria and Jordan would be willing and happy to get most or all of it back in exchange for "peace." Of course, it never happened, though, davka, Likud's Menachem Begin did make a deal with Egypt, though he had to destroy every single Jewish community in the Sinai and banish all Jews from living there.

Now, to be honest, I do think that a better peace could have developed if Israel had acted completely differently. With the Gd given power of that 1967 victory we could have, and for a while did have, a peaceful relationship with the Arabs if we had behaved as victors. The fear factor, causing respect could have been just the thing to keep the Arabs from attacking us.

In 1967, after the Six Days War the world was totally in awe of Israel. We could have done anything! There were still many, many people alive and powerful who had witnessed the cruelty of the Nazi Holocaust and were so completely overwhelmed by the Israeli victory that they would have supported anything. That is when we should have fully annexed every single millimeter of land liberated in Six Days War. That act of determination and confidence would have set us on the road to a religious and political salvation/redemption, the true Messianic time. But we, our government did everything wrong.

It's difficult, but never too late, to remedy it. And because we are the Jewish People, if we do what we must do, then Gd will help us.