The 1967 Six Days War: Why the Arab Armies Failed

For many, the 1967 War with Israel remains a stark, simple tale: a quick, stunning military victory against overwhelming odds. The conflict, often referred to as the Six Days War, is frequently framed as a clear-cut example of superior strategy triumphing over sheer numbers.

But viewing the 1967 war Middle East conflict as merely a “David vs. Goliath” story misses the profound, structural asymmetries that helped predetermine the outcome. Understanding this complexity is essential—not only to grasp what happened, but to learn the war’s real historical lessons.

Exhaustion Before the Six Days War: The Shadow of Yemen

The Arab armies entered the 1967 War with Israel already depleted by years of intense engagement elsewhere.

As 1967 began, both the Egyptian and Jordanian armies were reeling from the ongoing civil war in Yemen. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had committed a massive force, estimated at 70,000 Egyptian soldiers, to support the republicans. Meanwhile, Jordan was involved in the fight on the side of the royalists, backed by Saudi Arabia and Britain.

This nearly five-year diversion meant that the Arab forces facing Israel were not fresh, fully prepared, or using their best and most modernized equipment. They were tired, overstretched, and focused on an entirely different type of conflict hundreds of miles away—an exhaustion that would prove fatal when faced with a prepared enemy.

Political Disunity: The Cost of Contradictory Orders

Beyond physical exhaustion, the political landscape among the Arab states before the Six Days War was defined by deep distrust, making joint military planning almost impossible.

The strained relations stemmed from events like Syria’s separation from Nasser’s United Arab Republic and Jordan’s opposition to Egypt’s stance in Yemen. This political friction translated directly to the battlefield, leading to catastrophic inefficiency. Orders between armies were often delayed, contradictory, or ignored altogether.

On the ground, this disunity was felt most keenly by soldiers like Osama Sadiq, who found himself stranded in the Sinai desert for 28 days following the initial collapse, with nothing but the tattered uniform on his body.

Units became isolated, commanders were unreachable, and thousands of men were left uncertain of where to go or which positions to hold. The 1967 War with Israel demonstrated the devastating price of fighting a unified, coordinated opponent while operating under a cloud of mutual suspicion.

The Decisive Blow: Who started the 1967 war with Israel?

The question of who started the 1967 war with Israel is answered by the devastating first strike launched by the Israeli Air Force on the morning of June 5, 1967. This sudden, pre-emptive attack effectively decided the war within hours.

Israeli jets swept across airfields in Egypt and the West Bank, destroying the majority of Arab aircraft while they were still on the ground. The Arab states lost almost all of their air power in a single morning.

This success was not just a lucky strike; it was the result of a critical structural asymmetry—years of meticulous planning and significant technological investment, often supported by Western powers:

French Fighter Jets

France was instrumental in providing the advanced aircraft that formed the backbone of the initial strike. The Dassault Mirage III jets were technologically superior to most of the Soviet-supplied Arab aircraft. Crucially, the French also assisted with pilot training and aircraft customization, enhancing the IAF’s operational readiness.

Intelligence and Reconnaissance

The United States, while officially neutral, provided Israel with crucial intelligence information, particularly regarding the readiness and positioning of Arab air assets. This intelligence was vital in planning the precise timing and attack vectors of Operation Focus.

Fuel Supply and Maintenance

Western logistical support ensured the IAF had reliable access to high-quality aviation fuel and spare parts, maintaining an extremely high operational readiness rate for the short duration of the conflict.

This qualitative edge in technology and preparation made the pre-emptive strike both possible and devastatingly efficient, fundamentally tipping the balance of the 1967 war Middle East before ground forces were fully engaged.

Occupation and Displacement: The Consequences of the Six-Day War

The immediate consequence of the defeat was the territorial loss that completely reshaped the map of the 1967 war Middle East: Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.

To grasp the scale of the territorial and human consequences of the Six-Day War, review the table below.

But the human cost extended far beyond military defeat. Between 280,000 and 450,000 Palestinians were uprooted from their homes in the West Bank and Gaza, as entire communities were displaced and families scattered.

Learning the Lessons: From 1967 to 1973

The defeat in the Six Days War was a profound humiliation, but it also became a painful foundation for future resilience. The structural flaws exposed in 1967 were meticulously diagnosed and addressed in the years that followed:

• Disunity was replaced by unprecedented, high-security coordination between Egypt and Syria to plan a simultaneous two-front attack.

• Air vulnerability was countered by acquiring vast arrays of advanced Soviet surface-to-air missile (SAM) defenses, specifically designed to neutralize the qualitative air superiority Israel had enjoyed.

• Surprise was flipped, becoming the decisive factor in the launch of the 1973 War.

Just six years later, the coordinated success of the initial strikes in the 1973 War showed that the structural lessons of 1967—the need for unity, preparation, and strategic parity—had been learned and implemented.

By looking at the 1967 conflict not as a simple footnote, but as a complex interplay of political friction, military exhaustion, and external support, we gain the knowledge and perspective necessary to understand not just why the armies fell short, but how history is truly shaped.

Watch the Episode on YouTube

This blog is part of our ongoing documentary work at Rajaeen.
Watch the full episode on YouTube: “The 1967 Six Days War: Why the Arab Armies Failed” — and if it helped you see the story more clearly, share it with someone who only knows the headline version of 1967.

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