Legacy of ’67 War Disquiets Many Israelis Who Fought

Michael Rodny was a 20-year-old Israeli army lieutenant riding in an armored vehicle toward Jericho when he heard the news over his military radio: East Jerusalem was in Israeli hands. “We were crying, weeping,” recalled Rodny, whose battalion fought in Jerusalem and Jericho. “It was like half our heart, so long from our body, had come back to us.”

But now, on the 30th anniversary of Israel’s overwhelming victory in the 1967 Mideast War and its capture of the eastern sector of the Holy City, that euphoria has long since given way to pragmatism. “Today, we have to believe in realpolitik,” said Rodny, now a lawyer in the coastal town of Netanya. “And a solution must be found to the problem of Jerusalem.”

Three decades after the war, many of those who fought are reflecting with growing unease on the political dilemmas, still unresolved, that were born of the conflict. Chief among them is the status of Jerusalem, a city holy to three religions and central to the nationalist aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike.

The future of the city, never far from the crux of debate here, has recently returned to center stage, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hoping to revive stalled peace talks with the Palestinians by offering to jump to immediate discussions of sensitive issues, including Jerusalem and final borders.

In recent interviews with nearly a dozen veterans of the war in 1967--known to Israelis as the Six-Day War--many said they would never have believed that the question of what to do with the territories Israel conquered would still be at issue today.

“I was sure, 100%, that we had captured all this land only to help us make peace,” said Amos Neeman, who in 1967 was a top commander for a brigade that fought in Jerusalem. “I didn’t dream that we would be there now.”

A Legacy Reexamined

The 1967 veterans, feted at more than a dozen celebrations here marking the 30th anniversary, are among many Israelis examining anew the mixed legacy of a military triumph turned political headache. And as the peace negotiations remain deadlocked, they are also among many here expressing new doubts about the chances for a comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors any time soon.

The war, in which Israel defeated the Jordanian, Egyptian and Syrian armies between June 5 and June 10, planted the seeds of today’s continuing conflict, notes Tel Aviv University professor Anita Shapira. In its lopsided victory, Israel opened a Pandora’s box, humiliating the Arabs and fueling Palestinian nationalism.

“We still have not come to terms with the results,” Shapira, who teaches Jewish history, said at a recent conference on the war. “I believe we can say that in the ’67 war, we founded the Palestinian state.”

Fellow historian Benny Morris, himself a 1967 veteran, said the problem can be traced to the war’s aftermath. When the Arab states voted at a conference in Sudan in August 1967 against negotiating for peace, “Israel became very greedy,” Morris said. Thus, the military victory, followed by a political decision to hold on to the territories, became a “mixed blessing at best,” he said.

The veterans interviewed, men now in their 50s and 60s with gray-flecked hair and diverse views, pointed with evident pride to their military triumph, which tripled the land under Israeli control and left it with the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. The Sinai was returned to Egypt under the 1978 Camp David accords; the Palestinians now have limited autonomy in the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank.

Still, virtually all of these men, who lost friends and comrades in the fighting, expressed disagreement with Israel’s continued occupation of the rest of the territories captured in 1967. Most said they would be willing to trade away some or all of the West Bank and the Golan Heights in exchange for peace.

More surprising, a few also said they favor giving the Palestinians at least part of East Jerusalem, the traditionally Arab side of the city annexed by Israel three weeks after the war.

For 19 years, between Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and the 1967 war, the two halves of Jerusalem were divided with barricades and barbed wire. The western, newer part of the city was under Israeli control; the eastern section, including the holy sites of the walled Old City, was under Jordanian rule.

Immediately after the war, Israeli troops tore down the barricades, making way for euphoric, emotional crowds who surged into the Old City, gazing in wonder at the Western Wall, the last remnant of the Jewish temple destroyed in AD 70, and other sacred spots long out of reach.

Since 1967, Israel has claimed all of Jerusalem as its eternal capital, never to be redivided. The Palestinians, meanwhile, want East Jerusalem as the capital of their own, hoped-for state. Public opinion surveys consistently show that a majority of Israelis support retaining control of the entire city.

But not Meir Arieli, a popular Israeli singer, who as a young paratrooper helped capture the Old City. His experience helped launch his singing career, when he wrote a battle-inspired remake of the Israeli classic “Jerusalem of Gold” titled “Jerusalem of Iron.” A dark vision of fire, blood and loss within the ancient walls, the song ends with a plea for peace.

“I would be very happy to pass into East Jerusalem with a passport,” said Arieli, 55, who lives in Tel Aviv. “The city should have its own citizenship but with different areas under control of the two sides, Palestinian and Israel. We can entertain two states in the same city.”

Arieli said that in the years since the war, he has come to believe that Israel should give back its gains. “I began to think there was no chance for a reasonable life if we didn’t give the Palestinians what they want,” he said.

And while Israeli leaders continue to debate the strategic boundaries necessary to maintain Israel’s security in any final peace agreement, the singer said, “the actual strategic area lies in the hearts of people.”

Dan Livni, 61, a painter and art teacher living in the northern city of Haifa, holds a similar view. During the war, Livni was a scout for an armored brigade that took part in the battle in Jerusalem, then swept through the West Bank toward Jericho and the Jordanian border. The Palestinians, Livni said, should be given part of East Jerusalem to allow them to establish a capital within the city and to regard it as theirs.

“I don’t believe that anything will happen to the Jewish people as a result, and it’s not so sacred that one more young man should be killed for it,” Livni said.

Call for Compromise

Amos Neeman, a career officer who served as operations commander of the Jerusalem Brigade in the war, also believes that Israel should compromise. The Palestinians, said Neeman, now 60, will never agree to a comprehensive peace settlement unless they can claim at least a sliver of Jerusalem. “We have to compromise on Jerusalem,” he said. “If we don’t do this, we can’t come to the end of the conflict. We will have war and war and war.

“And for what? For stones,” he said, referring to the holy sites of the Old City.

In many ways, Neeman added, Jerusalem has never really been united. Many Israelis never cross the line that once marked the division, preferring to remain in the city’s western half. And most Arab residents of Jerusalem have never accepted the citizenship Israel offered to them, viewing such documents as acceptance of Israel’s sovereignty.

Neeman also said that the Jerusalem of today, riven by a growing schism between the city’s secular and religious populations, is not the one he fought for. In a survey released this week, the dispute between the two groups was cited as the third major reason--behind housing and job shortages--for residents leaving the city.

Ties to Jerusalem

But for many veterans, even those who are not religious Jews, Jerusalem’s hard-won unity has cultural and political significance that argue against a compromise. Izack Ifat, a Jerusalem gynecologist, is among those who believe that the city can never be redivided.

Ifat, who was 24 in 1967, became an enduring symbol of Israel’s victory when his expression of reverence at the Western Wall was captured by photographer David Rubinger. Surrounded by fellow paratroopers, he had removed his helmet as he gazed at the wall for the first time, moments after the fighting ended.

Of the rest of the territories, Ifat said: “We should have given them back a long time ago, as long as we kept a security border. But Jerusalem should stay united in our hands. It is the capital of Israel, and it should stay the way it is.”

David Furst, another former paratrooper, agreed, saying Jerusalem’s status is not negotiable.

“This is the one thing we must keep,” said Furst, 54, a business development manager for a high-tech company outside Tel Aviv. “This unites the Israeli left and right wing: Jerusalem has to be united and the capital city of Israel. I don’t think we have to compromise on this.”

Times special correspondent Dina Shiloh in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.

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Israeli leader envisions keeping Greater Jerusalem and much of the occupied West Bank. A24