Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
4 June
ISRAEL LAUNCHES WAR ON NEIGHBOURS AND ETHNIC CLEANSING WAVE
On this day in 1967, Israel finalised preparations for a surprise attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Menachem Begin, a member of the government at the time and later Prime Minister, told a newspaper: "In June l967, we had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." Israel used the victory to expel around 300,000 Palestinians from their homes, over 100,000 for the second time.
تشن إسرائيل حربا على الجيران وتنفذ موجة تطهيرعرقي
يونيو 4
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1967 ، أنهت إسرائيل الاستعدادات لهجوم مفاجئ على مصر والأردن وسوريا. وقال مناحيم بيغن ، عضو الحكومة في ذلك الوقت ثم رئيس الوزراء في وقت لاحق ، لصحيفة: "في يونيو 1967 ، كان لدينا خيار، اذ ان تجمع الجيش المصري في سيناء لم يدل على نية ناصرلمهاجمتنا ويجب أن نكون صادقين مع أنفسنا لأننا قررنا مهاجمته ". استخدمت إسرائيل انتصارها لطرد حوالي 300 ألف فلسطيني من منازلهم ، وكان بينهم أكثر من 100 ألف مهجر للمرة الثانية
Fifty years ago, between June 5 and June 10, 1967, Israel invaded and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. The Six-Day War, as it would later be dubbed, saw the Jewish David inflict a humiliating defeat on the Arab Goliath, personified perhaps by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt.“The existence of the Israeli state hung by a thread,” the country’s prime minister, Levi Eshkol, claimed two days after the war was over, “but the hopes of the Arab leaders to annihilate Israel were dashed.” Genocide, went the argument, had been prevented; another Holocaust of the Jews averted.There is, however, a problem with this argument: It is complete fiction, a self-serving fantasy constructed after the event to justify a war of aggression and conquest. Don’t take my word for it: “The thesis according to which the danger of genocide hung over us in June 1967, and according to which Israel was fighting for her very physical survival, was nothing but a bluff which was born and bred after the war,” declared Gen. Matituahu Peled, chief of logistical command during the war and one of 12 members of Israel’s General Staff. (March 1972)
