Skip to content
  • Image
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Podcasts
  • Email
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • News
  • Features
  • Comment
  • Store
The Arab Daily News

The Arab Daily News

Original news, features, opinions from Chicago to Jerusalem

  • About
    • About
    • Our Writers
    • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
    • Book Store
    • Contact
    • Submit Book Reviews, Press Releases
    • Advertise
    • Privacy Corrections Policy
    • Profile on Ray Hanania
    • Submit Press Release
  • Features
    • Food
    • Book Review
    • Humor
    • Movies
    • Travel
  • Arab Stores Targeted
  • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Heritage America resources
    • Directory
      • Groups & Organizations
      • Mosques, Churches
      • Restaurants
      • 2008 & 2014 Arab Media Directories
    • National Arab Heritage Month
    • Video: Chicago Arab History
    • Video: Photo Array of Chicago Arabs
    • Overview of Arabs in America
    • Hanania standup comedy
    • Arabs on the Titanic
    • Obituaries
  • Podcasts
    • Arab News Ray Hanania Radio
    • Ray Hanania on Politics Podcast
    • Podcast Info
    • Hanania Podcast intro
    • Live Arab Radio
  • Your Views
  • Hanania on Tiktok
  • Toggle search form
  • Arab Democratic Club Feb 12, 2023 Forum & Brunch flier
    Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12 American Arabs
  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Dr. Manal Fakhoury has been elected to the position of Chair of the National Board of Directors, and that attorneys Spojmie Nasiri of California and John Floyd of Texas have joined the organization’s National Board.
    CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd American Arabs
  • AHRC Executive Director Imad Hamad
    AHRC: Honor Dr. King Day with Civility, Unity, and Action American Arabs
  • Citgo Gas Station and Quik Mart at 3759 W. Chicago Ave in Chicago ordered closed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot because a street gang member with an AK-47 killed someone in front of the store. Only Arab and Muslim stores are being closed by the Mayor
    When Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot targeted Arab businesses in 2021 and 2022 Activism
  • Hussam al-Mayman, The Mayman Show, podcast Arab News
    Arab News launches third season of The Mayman Show podcast Arab News
  • State Rep. Cyril Nichols interviewed on live Arab American radio in Detroit with host Ray Hanania Friday Dec. 9, 2022
    Nichols discusses need to improve Arab-Black relations in Chicagoland American Arabs
  • Voting sticker issued to voters in Cook County elections in 2016. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    Gov. Pritzker Announces Six Appointments to Boards and Commissions — no Arabs included American Arabs
  • Closure notice posted on the doors and windows of Arab American businesses during Mayor Lori Lightfoot's closure of Arab owned stores in June - Sept. 2021. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    Pritzker again ignores needs of Arab businesses in latest appointments Activism
  • Arab American Democratic Club (AADC) official candidate endorsements for the November 8, 2022 General elections.
    Arab American Democratic Club issues endorsements for Nov. 8, 2022 Cook County Illinois elections Activism
  • Arab Democrats urge NO VOTE on Gov. J.B. Pritzker re-election bid Activism
  • Assyrian American GOP issues endorsements in Nov, 8, 2022 elections
    Assyrian American GOP group endorses candidates in Illinois Activism
  • Abdullah Hammoud, elected Mayor of Dearborn Nov. 2, 2021. Photo courtesy of Abdullah Hammoud Facebook Page
    AHRC’s 2022 Spirit of Humanity Gala a Great Success American Arabs
  • Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts Arab World
  • Rep. Cyril Nichols to be feted by supporters at fundraiser Saturday Oct. 22 Activism
  • Stand up For Human Rights website, United Nations
    UN experts condemn Israel’s ‘sadistic’ punitive measures against French-Palestinian rights defender Salah Hammouri Activism
Deir Yassin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The shame of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war

Posted on June 7, 2017June 7, 2017 By rayhanania No Comments on The shame of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war
SHARE ...
          
 
  

  • Tweet

The shame of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war

Fifty years have passed since Israel launched its war against the Arab World on June 5, 1967, claiming that it was “forced” to attack Egypt, then Syria and later Jordan, occupying the remaining portions of Palestine that it failed to take nearly two decades earlier. Although Israel has officially maintained it would be willing to return the occupied lands for peace, it’s conduct since says otherwise. That conduct is reflected in an ongoing campaign of lies, distortions and propaganda spin that sits well in America, but not in the court of honesty

By Ray Hanania

I was just a kid in 1967 when Egypt’s President Gamal Abdul Nasser was screaming about Israel which was established only 19 years earlier and vowing to “push the Jews into the sea.”

Nasser’s words were twisted into a reflection of what pro-Israeli propagandists have asserted was “anti-Semitism,” the truth is that Israel called itself the “Jewish State” and the state was carved out of a division between “Jews” and “non-Jews.”

The Israeli assertion of anti-Semitism wasn’t the worst part. It was the worst lie Israel ever told or would tell, just one of many that helped spin pro-Israel support and suppress the truth so that the American public could remain in an Israeli information headlock.

The truth was that Jewish immigrants to Palestine accepted a United Nations Partition that was pushed by its supporters in the wake of the Nazi-driven Holocaust, the extermination of some 6 million Jews in gas chambers and horrific medical experiments and a brutality that was so horrendous that no human being could not sympathize with that suffering.

Deir Yassin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Deir Yassin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But it was those who survived the Holocaust, not those who died, who went to Palestine and then used that suffering of their people to win over world sympathies to justify the destruction of another people’s aspirations. Non-Jews, Palestinians, who made up 66 percent of the population of Palestine, were told by the United Nations where they had little representation, that they would have to give more than half their state to the Holocaust survivors.

Who could say no to that one-sided logic? The Holocaust was the most inhumane atrocity committed against human beings, an unprecedented mass slaughter by the Nazis during Worlds War II that is so reprehensible it’s impossible to even fathom.

In contrast, the world knew little about the Palestinians, Christians and Muslims who have lived on the land since the time of Christ. Their roots go back to Biblical days and many Palestinian Christians and Muslims trace their heritage to the original Hebrews, whom the Jews claim as their own. Apparently, conversions from Judaism to Christianity and then Islam don’t count in the court of modernday public opinion.

Pushed by Britain and the United States, which had strong pro-Jewish lobbies, the United Nations imposed the partition of Palestine into 7 zones, including one international zone for the Holy City of Jerusalem, and six zones that overlapped like a checkerboard that would make up the “Jewish State” and the “Arab State.”

Once approved, the incomprehensible overlapping maps were made to result in a war and war it was internally through the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1948, until Israel declared its independence, not just within it’s borders but also in the borders of part of the Arab State, too. In fact, even before Israel declared its statehood, it’s militias attacked and occupied a dozen cities inside the so-called Arab State and massacred the Arab populations in several cities, like at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, to create fear among the non-Jewish populations.

Since then, Israel propaganda has called the Deir Yassin massacre and the theft of Christian and Muslim lands “a myth” in their powerful propaganda that has been unchallenged in America by truth and embraced by uneducated, ignorant Americans as if it were truth.

How do you beat that?

Palestinian Refugees from 1948 and 1967 have never received justice in Israel or in the American court system. Photo courtesy of the United Nations
Palestinian Refugees from 1948 and 1967 have never received justice in Israel or in the American court system. Photo courtesy of the United Nations

And in the early morning hours of June 5, 1967, Israel implemented an invasion it had been contemplating for years, to capture the Old City of Jerusalem (Arab East Jerusalem) and the West Bank of the Jordan River to fulfill its land needs and land growth and its vision of Eretz Israel, or Greater Israel.

Americans went along. Israel said it was about to be attacked by Nasser, a myth that Nasser made believable by his pompous and bombastic rhetoric. Egypt’s army was poorly trained and poorly equipped by the Russians, another reason why the Americans believed Israel and turned a blind eye to truth. Israel had been supplied by the United States and by then had even manufactured a nuclear bomb.

The Israeli armies rushed into Egypt, then Syria and eventually Jordan in a mechanized blitzkrieg of tanks and military personal, covered by one of the most powerful air forces in the world. The Israelis destroyed the Arab Armies in a sweep that lasted only a few days and in the process, even managed to nearly destroy an American communications ship that was clearly flying the American flag.

But Israel intentionally attacked the U.S.S. Liberty Naval Communications ship on June 8, 1967, killing 34 American crew members and seriously injuring 174 other American servicemen. Unprepared for an assault by their “ally,” the crew of the Liberty barely managed to fight back.

Why did Israel attack the Liberty? The Israelis feared that the U.S. Communications vessel (some called a spy ship) may have intercepted Israeli communications which exposed Israel’s lie that it was forced to attack the Arab countries. The communications would have disclosed that Israel was planning to invade East Jerusalem to take control of the city that is holy to three religions in order to control the Jewish holy sites, such as the temple mount under the Dome of the Rock and the Wailing Wall.

Nearly 800,000 Palestinian civilians were forced at gunpoint to leave Palestine in 1948 when Israel took control of 56 percent of the land. And hundreds of thousands more Palestinian civilians were forced out at gunpoint in 1967.

I was just a kid at the time. Tarzan was one of the top programs on American television, a series about a White Man who defeats evil by evil-doers (usually dark skinned people, including Arabs). Andy of Mayberry was also another popular TV series, which featured in one episode two little old white haired White women who were selling hootch to drunks, including one man who was a Muslim Arab who couldn’t speak but the women noted, “They really love their hootch.”

There was a lot of racism on television. Amos and Andy was still popular, two bumbling black people that White people celebrated in TV enjoyment. Racism dominated America. (You can read my book about White Flight from 1969 by clicking here.)

Teachers in my school made me carry a canister to help raise money for the Jewish United Fund to support Israel. You didn’t have a choice. The “stamp out Nasser” campaign was officially embraced not only by the Chicago Public Schools but also by the City of Chicago. The Arabs were compared to the Nazis and Israeli propaganda asserting that the Arabs planned a new “Holocaust” was very believable.

The kids surrounded me and demanded to know “Whose side are you on?” I was an American, I tried to respond as they wanted to know “What are you?” But that didn’t matter to anyone.

Meanwhile, Richard Speck had been sentenced to death that very day for killing eight student nurses a year ago about 8 blocks south of where I lived. And the following year both Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., would be assassinated — Kennedy by a Palestinian immigrated in Los Angeles on the one year anniversary of the June 5, 1967 war, dying shortly after midnight on June 6. The Assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, reportedly was angry with Kennedy’s support of Israel and the loss of his family’s land and homes during the 1967 war a year earlier.

Israelis were masters of propaganda, exploiting everything to their advantage and twisting into ugliness the rights and suffering of the Christian and Muslim Palestinians.

How could Christians so turn their backs on their people in Palestine, my mother, who was born in the Holy City of Bethlehem, would often wonder aloud? American Christians didn’t care that Christians were being killed by Israelis because the mainstream American news media didn’t report on it that way. Palestinians killed by Israel were described by Israel as “Arab terrorists” and the American people just accepted it. In fact, in the late 1950s, Israel commissioned Leon Uris to write the fictional novel “Exodus” to help “frame” the Israel narrative of its birth and the terrorism of the Arabs who hated Jews.

The most nauseating aspect of the movie is the injection of Nazis into the Exodus plot suggesting that the Arabs were a part and cause of the Holocaust. The Arabs, according to Uris, wanted to murder children. The “Jews” who fled Nazi persecution during the Holocaust wanted to build a land that the Arabs “didn’t want.”

The book and the subsequent film featuring Paul Newman is obnoxious and nauseating to the point of being reprehensible and disgustingly filled with lies.

Meanwhile, the Arabs had no effective propaganda of their own. They lacked any communications skills. They were angry and over the years, their anger festered into uncontrollable emotions that always seemed to explode during debates.

Israeli violence was justified as being a part of a war. Arab violence was denounced as “anti-semitic” acts of “terrorism.”

The real tragedy of the 1967 war is not the war itself but the fact that 50 years later, nothing has changed.

Arabs blame Israel, and they certainly deserve much of the blame refusing to make peace and doing everything possible to make the Two-State Solution compromise an impossibility by building Jewish-only settlements int he very areas that supposedly would be a part of the proposed “Palestine State.”

But the Arabs deserve credit for their suffering, too. Incapable of controlling their emotions, they allowed their cause to be trampled by Israeli propaganda and lies. Kicked to the curb by hypocrisy, fiction and anti-Arab racism.

They did nothing to confront Israel’s lies. They only did what Nasser did. Yelled. Screamed. Stomped their feet. And gave Israel every opportunity to take everything. The Arabs embraced a losing strategy, demanding “All or nothing” and they refused to acknowledge their failures because it would be embarrassing. And shameful.

Arabs can live with shame, apparently, as long as they can blame it all on someone else and not have to work to change it.

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
rayhanania
rayhanania
Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster at The Arab Daily News
RAY HANANIA — Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster

Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.

Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).

Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.

Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.

His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.

Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.

Click here to send Ray Hanania email.

Follow RayHanania on Gettr.com, the uncensored Twitter Ray Hanania on Gettr, the new Twitter
rayhanania
Latest posts by rayhanania (see all)
  • Israeli-push behind effort to ban Tiktok in the United States - January 19, 2023
  • Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12 - January 18, 2023
  • CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd - January 12, 2023

  • Tweet

SHARE ...
          
 
  
 
          
 
 Tweet 
Arab World, Bloggers, Christian & Muslim, Commentary, Editors Picks, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine & Jordan, Ray Hanania Tags:1967 War, Egypt, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Israel, Jerusalem, JORDAN, Nasr, Palestine, Partition, pre-emptive strike, Sirhan Sirhan, U.S.S. Liberty

Post navigation

Previous Post: The Arab Daily News articles picked up by many newspapers
Next Post: All Arabs Must Feel Like Qataris

Related Posts

  • Palestinian Oktoberfest in Taybeh Sept. 24, 25 Arab World
  • Remember the USS Liberty’s MD in honor of National Dr. Day 2014 American Arabs
  • Arab, European diplomats affirm Israeli settlements as illegal Arab World
  • American Arab Quarterback Manziel struggles in first play American Arabs
  • Cook County Board President Pro Temper Deborah Sims, (4th from left) poses with representatives of Arab American organizations in Illinois at the board meeting March 20, 2019. From left are Tasneem Abuzir and Mazen Barakat, editor and publisher of Hyatt Magazine, writer and author Ray Hanania, Sims, activist Sam Odeh, County Commissioner Sean Morrison, and Our Lady of Lebanon Pastor Pierre El-Khoury. Photo courtesy of the Cook County Board.
    Cook County Board approves April Arab Heritage Month proclamation American Arabs
  • IMAGINE a Thanksgiving of Real Peace: Paix, Salaam, Shalom American Arabs

More Related Articles

Reza Aslan book promo Reza Aslan publishes new book on God American Arabs
CAIR warns about hate rallies scheduled this week American Arabs
Why I am fed-up with Sears Baby Boomers
Spiritual Progressive Responds to U.S. Attorney General William Barr Arab World
USS Liberty Veterans Speaking Tour Kicks Off in Florida American Arabs
In Israel’s elections, racism is the winning ballot Arab World

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • OPINION COLUMNS
  • Tiktok.com/@RayHanania
    Israeli-push behind effort to ban Tiktok in the United States
    January 19, 2023
  • Ghassan Rubeiz
    To what extent is Hezbollah responsible for the current crisis in Lebanon?
    January 17, 2023
  • Image from Rashid-al-Din Hamadani's "A Compendium of Chronicles. Image courtesy of Wikipedia
    Why allow religious extremists to re-define Islam in the West?
    January 10, 2023
  • CAIR Executive Director and co-founder Nihad Awad
    This Thanksgiving, let’s use our Blessings for good
    November 23, 2022
  • NEWS
  • Arab Democratic Club Feb 12, 2023 Forum & Brunch flier
    Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12
    January 18, 2023
  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Dr. Manal Fakhoury has been elected to the position of Chair of the National Board of Directors, and that attorneys Spojmie Nasiri of California and John Floyd of Texas have joined the organization’s National Board.
    CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd
    January 12, 2023
  • AHRC Executive Director Imad Hamad
    AHRC: Honor Dr. King Day with Civility, Unity, and Action
    January 11, 2023
  • Citgo Gas Station and Quik Mart at 3759 W. Chicago Ave in Chicago ordered closed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot because a street gang member with an AK-47 killed someone in front of the store. Only Arab and Muslim stores are being closed by the Mayor
    When Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot targeted Arab businesses in 2021 and 2022
    January 4, 2023
  • NEWSWIRE
  • Arab Democratic Club Feb 12, 2023 Forum & Brunch flier
    Arab Democrats host forum for Chicago and suburban candidates Feb. 12
    January 18, 2023
  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced Dr. Manal Fakhoury has been elected to the position of Chair of the National Board of Directors, and that attorneys Spojmie Nasiri of California and John Floyd of Texas have joined the organization’s National Board.
    CAIR Announces Dr. Manal Fakhoury as New Board Chair, New Board Members Spojmie Nasiri and John Floyd
    January 12, 2023
  • AHRC Executive Director Imad Hamad
    AHRC: Honor Dr. King Day with Civility, Unity, and Action
    January 11, 2023
  • Stand up For Human Rights website, United Nations
    UN experts condemn Israel’s ‘sadistic’ punitive measures against French-Palestinian rights defender Salah Hammouri
    October 19, 2022

Creative Commons License
All work on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Do not edit original work. Give credit to the original source.

  • ZiyadBrandLogo-2016BlackRedBackgrnd.jpg
  • 08-09-21-Ziyad-Sices-Ad.jpg
  • 08-09-21-Ziyad-Ad-Pantry-essentials.jpg
  • BOOK REVIEWS
  • Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    October 24, 2022
  • Stories My Father Told Me by author and artist Helen Zughaib, book cover. Photo courtesy of Cune Press
    Stories My Father Told Me by author and artist Helen Zughaib
    November 1, 2021
  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • Hussam al-Mayman, The Mayman Show, podcast Arab News
    Arab News launches third season of The Mayman Show podcast
    December 15, 2022
  • Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    Interlink 2022 Cookbooks Make the Best Holiday Gifts
    October 24, 2022
  • Comedian Ramy Youssef courtesy of his Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ramysfaceboo/
    “Ramy” cable series melds Arab world reality with every day American life
    October 22, 2022
  • The Ray Hanania Radio Show Live Wed 5 PM EST in Detroit, Washington DC, Ontario and on Thursday in Chicago. Watch the program live at Facebook.com/ArabNews
    Second Season of “The Ray Hanania Show” Arab American radio launches April 6
    April 4, 2022
  • American Arab CHamber President HassanNijem accepts the Proclamation from Chicago Ald. Roderick Sawyer at the Chamber dinner March 30, 2022
    Chicagoland celebrates Arab American Heritage Month
    March 31, 2022
  • New-iTunes-1400-x-1400-The-Ray-Hanania-Show-Podcast-Icon-300-x-300.jpg
  • The-Kings-Pawn-Book-300-x-300.png
  • terroristbookcover-300-x-300.jpg
  • Podcast-iTunes-Logo-Chi-City-Hall-1985.jpg
  • powerpr300x300ad.jpg
Arab News Newspaper Logo
Read the Arab News, the leading English language newspaper in the MIddle East

Follow Ray Hanania at Gab.com, MeWe.com and IDobbinate.com, the alternatives to Facebook and Twitter Censorship.

Click here to get information on The Ray Hanania Radio Show and its podcasts

Copyright © 2023 The Arab Daily News.

Powered by PressBook Premium theme