40th anniversary of the Six Day War

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An
examination of the origins, history, and after-effects of Israel's most
stunning military victory that probably caused more social-political
problems than it solved. Israel viewed Jordan as an inevitable enemy
and their West Bank ripe for the taking, but invaded with no real
strategic objectives in mind and its forces already stretched thin
fighting Egypt. They weren't ready to become an occupying empire, but
that's what happened. Although Israel had no problem whooping 3 Arab
nations and doubled its land mass, it now had to deal with the issues
of extremely pissed off neighbors and droves of disgruntled Arabs
within its occupied territory. Winning the battle is the easy part;
what you do in the aftermath determines the legacy of your military
victory. This should be a lesson for us in Iraq, though obviously it's
too late.

What some Israelis think of the war:

"What
you had here was a conquest without a strategic goal," said writer and
historian Gershom Gorenberg. "The war was unexpected, the conquest was
unexpected and the strategy had to be invented after the fact. And in
many ways you could say that to this day, Israel is still trying to
figure out what the strategic goal was of conquering the West Bank 40
years ago."

"It's
tragic more than anything else," said Israeli peace activist Dror
Etkes. "It's a story of waste of energy, of waste of life, of waste of
so much potential on both sides — Palestinian and Israel. It's a story
that cannot end well. Occupation cannot last."

More from NPR on the aftermath of the 6 Day War: Annexing East Jerusalem Shortly
after the Six Day War ended, Israel annexed East Jerusalem in a highly
controversial move that is still not recognized internationally.

One
year after the Issawiya home was built, the Israeli authorities
declared the house illegal. The Daouds had not gotten the proper
building permits, they were told. Israeli bulldozers flattened the
home.

"My sons and I worked five years in order to save money
to save this house," AhSheikh said. "And they came and demolished it in
a minute. They crushed our future in a minute."

According to
a recent World Bank report, Israel demolished 157 Palestinian-owned
buildings in East Jerusalem after declaring them illegal between 1999
and 2003. The World Bank called it a discriminatory practice that has
led to housing shortages — and stymied business and employment
opportunities — in East Jerusalem.

Those conflicting
feelings are widespread among East Jerusalemites, who are living under
"occupation deluxe," said Israeli writer Gershom Gorenberg.

"They
are very resentful of their inequality — of harassment by the Israeli
bureaucracy," Gorenberg said. "At the same time, they are terrified
very often of being under the rule of the Palestinian Authority because
PA is so corrupt. It's much poorer and their lives are already so
dependent on the Israeli economy."

West Bank Settlements Hazameh
said he grew grapes, chickpeas and wheat on that land, before the 1967
war – and continued to farm it after. He takes out yellowing documents
dating back to the Ottoman Empire that he claims prove his ownership.

But
in the mid 1970's, Israel confiscated most of his land, he said.
Hazameh hired a lawyer and tried to get it back. Even after he lost in
court, he still tried to farm the land that was no longer his, he said.

"I
didn't stop," Hazameh said. "I started taking six and seven tractors
with a lot of workers and I started marching towards my land — the land
that had fed my whole community and my ancestors."

But the settlers uprooted his crops and the police refused to help him, he said. Eventually, he gave up.

An
Israeli government spokesman says the land of Shilo was built
exclusively on what is known as "state land." That means it either
belonged to the Jordanian government before 1967 or to Palestinians who
fled the West Bank during or after the war.

But Peace Now, a
dovish Israeli group that opposes the settlements, says most
settlements are built on a combination of state land and private
Palestinian land. In the case of the Shilo settlement, Peace Now says
more than a quarter of the land belongs to Palestinians like Hazameh.

Hundreds
of residents fled to Jordan, where many remain today, Ibrahim said. For
those who stayed life, changed dramatically in 1975 when a group of
fervently religious Jews started an archaeological excavation on a
nearby hill. Ibrahim says soon after the settlers appeared, Israeli
officials came to reassure the residents of TurMus Aya about their new
neighbors.

"At the beginning, the military chief of this area
would say, 'They are looking for artifacts. Don't annoy them. Don't
disturb them.' Slowly, slowly, their caravans started coming and their
caravans became permanent. Then they started building houses and so on
and so forth," Ibrahim said.

As the settlement began to
encroach on Palestinian land, Israeli officials offered compensation
but the residents refused, Ibrahim said.