The Six-Day War

In 1964 Yasir Arafat formed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as an umbrella group to coordinate the activities of all Palestinian guerrilla bands. Increasing guerrilla attacks on targets inside Israel spurred increasing Israeli retaliatory attacks on suspected guerrilla outposts in Israel and in the refugee camps in neighboring countries. In 1967 military and civilian officials in Israel decided to eliminate at least some of the guerrilla bases by a surprise attack on neighboring Arab countries.

During the Six-Day War in 1967 Israeli military forces overwhelmingly defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon and occupied much strategic territory from which guerrillas had launched attacks against Israel. Israeli forces overran the Golan Heights on their border with Syria and Lebanon and occupied the Negev Desert on their border with Egypt.

The General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution denouncing the Israeli actions as aggression and declaring Zionism to be a form of racism. Despite an unprovoked Israeli attack on a U. S. naval vessel that killed thirty-four American sailors, only a U. S. veto in the Security Council prevented the United Nations from taking military action against Israel.

The Six-Day War shifted the locus of Palestinian guerrilla attacks to Israeli targets outside Israel. The new round of violence reached its zenith with the murder of eleven Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, West Germany. The cycle of violence, with the Israelis retaliating for Palestinian guerrilla attacks, continued until 1973, when an Arab oil embargo severely tested the relationship between the United States and Israel.