A 40 years hiatus - and no solution in sight

The Economist soberly analyses the outcome of the Six Day War 40 years ago in its piece "Israel's Wasted Victory" - and where it has left Israel and the Palestinians:

"On the seventh day Jews everywhere celebrated Israel's deliverance from danger. But 40 years after that tumultuous June of 1967, the six-day war has come to look like one of history's pyrrhic victories. That is not to say that the war was unnecessary. Israel struck after Egypt's President Nasser sent his army into the Sinai peninsula, evicted United Nations peacekeeping forces and blockaded Israeli shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel's victory opened the waterway and smashed its enemies' encircling armies, averting what many Israelis sincerely expected to be a second Holocaust. And yet, in the long run, the war turned into a calamity for the Jewish state no less than for its neighbours."

See also an accompanying piece "Forty Years On" here, also in The Economist.

To round out the picture it is interesting to reflect on how Israel constantly calls on the Palestinians to abide by UN Resolutions. It is now beyond question that Israel ignores virtually all Resolutions affecting it, especially the now "famous" [infamous?] Resolution 242, passed back on 22 November, 1967.

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