Six Day War: As 50th anniversary dawns, peace in Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains as elusive as ever

Israelis reflect on half a century of occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as prospect of two-state solution appears to fade

Flying the flag: far-right Israeli nationalists demonstrating in Jerusalem’s Old City on Jerusalem Day last month (AFP/Getty Images)

“The Six Day War was one of the greatest victories in the history of Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said.

Israel’s swift surprise victory in the 1967 conflict with its Arab neighbours not only secured the young Jewish state’s survival: it cemented the country’s position as a regional power.

While Israelis and Palestinians are marking the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the war on Monday 5 June, they will do so in very different ways.

On Jerusalem Day (because of the Hebrew calendar, this year held on 24 May), Israelis celebrate what some see as the reunification of the city in the aftermath of the war, in which Israel annexed the east of the city and parts of the West Bank.

State-organised ceremonies and memorials are held, talks are given in schools, and blue and white flags are paraded through Jerusalem’s streets.

This year, as almost always, some Palestinian residents of the city were evacuated by police after ultra-nationalist marches threatened to turn violent.

Israel’s bold territorial gains in 1967 have never been recognised by the Palestinians or the vast majority of the international community.

For those in the West Bank and Gaza, the Arab-Israeli war is viewed as the naksa, or setback, the second worst event to befall Palestinians apart from the creation of Israel in 1948 (the nakba).

There has long been a vocal Israeli community which says the occupation harms Israel’s claim to legitimate statehood, and damages the chances of reaching peace with Palestinians.

On the 50th anniversary milestone, more than ever are beginning to question whether the struggle to control occupied Palestinian territory is worth it.

Israel must “cloak itself in sorrow also over what has happened to Israel since that terrible summer of 1967, the summer in which it won a war and lost nearly everything,” wrote Gideon Levy, a columnist in the Haaretz newspaper, in April. “Strong, armed and rich as it never was in 1967. Corrupt and rotten as only an occupying country can be.”

US President Donald Trump reiterated on his visit to the region last month his desire to broker a peace deal in the intractable conflict.

The Palestinian Authority is still officially in favour of a two-state solution. But the growing Israeli presence over the 1967 Green Line in the form of settlements – now home to thousands of Jewish families – means the likelihood of such a resolution is fading, if it is not already impossible.