After 75 years of failure, one would imagine that a people would learn what works and what doesn’t, both from their own experience, as well as the experience of others.
This pattern was set in motion by the first of the wars. The vote by the #UN General Assembly in 1947 to partition #BritishPalestine into two states, one #Jewish and one #Arab, set off an explosion of violence against local Jewish communities almost immediately in #Palestine itself.
If there were doubts about the justice of the cause being fought for—preventing the establishment of a Jewish state—there is little record for that.
The weeks leading up to the 1967 war were, in the #Arab world, likewise a time of public displays of #ecstasy. The hour of “#revenge” was nigh, and the excitement was expressed in both mass public spectacles and elite opinion.
The #Egyptian president Gamal Abdel #Nasser promised an elated crowd the week before the war broke out that “our basic objective will be to destroy #Israel.