From the Six-Day War to the 12-Day War: Israel’s Military Decline
By Jeremy Salt
Despite the signs of steady strategic decline since 1967, Israel remains fixated on war as the solution to the problems it has created for itself through its lawlessness and brutality.
The ‘Six-Day’ or Ramadan War of 1967 was a watershed in Middle Eastern history. A small state went to war to create a much bigger state. The whole of Palestine was absorbed. The claim of a ‘pre-emptive attack’ was a lie. Israel wanted to go to war. The generals could hardly be held back.
Catching Egypt and Syria off guard, Israel destroyed the air power of both countries. Planes sitting on the tarmac were easy targets. In Sinai and on the Golan Heights, the land forces fought bravely, but without air cover, they were in a hopeless situation. In a few days, the war was over.
Israel’s main target after 1967 was the PLO bases in Lebanon. Between 1967 and 2000, Israel launched thousands of attacks into the largely Shi’a south. Occupying southern Lebanon up to the Litani river after its 1982 invasion, it created the South Lebanese Army to reinforce its control. Mainly Maronite Christians, the SLA became a byword for cruelty. After Israel’s withdrawal from most of the south in 2000 and the collapse of the SLA, its infamous ‘prison camp’ at Khiam was turned into a memorial to those who were imprisoned, tortured, and died there.
Israel repeatedly attacked other countries, most often Syria, but also Jordan and Egypt, and even Tunisia, where it killed up to 100 Palestinians and Tunisians in air strikes on October 1, 1985. This was followed by the landing of a ground force and the murder of Abu Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir) on October 1, 1988.
What follows is a summary of the wars, major Israeli attacks, and other events between Israel’s attack on Egypt and Syria in 1967 and Iran’s devastating missile response to the Israeli attack in 2025.
March 2, 1968: The Battle of Karameh
A large Israeli ground force backed by helicopters and fighter jets attacked the Palestinian base in the Jordanian town of Karameh. Unexpectedly, the Israelis were met with fierce resistance by Jordanian army artillery units as well as the Palestinians.
The Israelis were forced to withdraw after 33 paratroopers were killed or wounded. The success in fending off Israel’s supposedly invincible army was regarded across the Arab world as a victory.
On December 28, Israeli special forces destroyed 12 Lebanese passenger planes and two cargo aircraft on the tarmac at Beirut International Airport. The attack was condemned by the UN Security Council.
1969: The ‘Cairo Accords’
In November, Yasser Arafat signed an agreement with the Lebanese army’s commander-in-chief to regulate the Palestinian presence in Lebanon.
The agreement moved control of 16 Palestinian refugee camps from the army’s Deuxième Bureau to the Palestinian armed struggle command. It upheld the right of Palestinians to engage in armed resistance against Israel from southern Lebanon.
1972: The Munich Olympics
On September 5, Black September militants took the Israeli Olympic team hostage.
Breaking an agreement to fly the hostages and their captors out to a safe country, the German government, with Israeli backing, ordered an attack on the Palestinians when they reached the tarmac. It was a botched attempt, resulting in the death of 11 Israelis and five Palestinians.
In retaliation, Israel ordered air attacks on Palestinian bases and refugee camps in southern Lebanon and Syria. 15 Lebanese towns or villages were bombed, river bridges and roads destroyed, and 61 Lebanese soldiers killed or wounded, along with 12 Palestinians. An estimated 200 people were killed in both countries.
1973: Libyan Airliner Shot Down
On February 21, a Libyan passenger jet, flying in bad weather, accidentally crossed into the Israeli-occupied Egyptian Sinai. Although it was clearly a passenger plane, Israeli fighter jets shot it down: all 108 passengers and crew were killed.
On April 10, an Israeli force landed from the sea stormed into the Raouche district of West Beirut, and murdered three senior PLO figures in their apartments: Yusuf al Najjar (Abu Yusif), and his wife, shot while trying to protect him; Kamal Nasser, a poet and PLO spokesman; and Kamal Adwan, along with an elderly Italian woman who heard the noise and opened her door to see what was going on.
1973: The Ramadan War
On October 6, 100,000 Egyptian and 35,000 Syrian troops launched a joint attack on the occupied Sinai and Golan Heights. The Egyptian attack was a masterpiece of military planning.
The army crossed the Suez Canal on pontoon bridges after frogmen blocked the nozzles of pipes the Israelis had set up to spray oil over the canal before setting it on fire.
The Israelis were routed, but Sadat had deceived the Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad. His goal was not to win the war but to shock the US into setting up ‘peace’ negotiations. He called an ‘operational pause’, which allowed the Israelis to concentrate on the Golan Heights and eventually cross the canal in a successful counter-attack.
While Israel ‘won’ the war, Arab successes on the ground demolished the myth of Israeli invincibility. The US saved the Israelis by flying in 25,000 tons of military equipment in 17 flights on October 15. Some had to be dropped directly into Sinai, so desperate was Israel’s situation.
Israel lost 400 tanks in Sinai and another 400 on the Golan Heights. “Explain to me”, said Henry Kissinger, “how could 400 tanks be lost to the Egyptians?” Staring at defeat, Golda Meir ordered nuclear-warhead capable Jericho missiles to be readied so as to alarm the US into delivering emergency supplies of weaponry.
The war triggered the OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) embargo against any country that supported Israel. The global crisis that followed ended when OAPEC ended the embargo in March 1974, by which time oil prices had risen by 300 percent.
1974: Refugee Camps Attacked
On May 16, Israeli fighters bombed southern Lebanese towns and villages and two Palestinian refugee camps, Ain al Helweh, at Sidon, and the camp at Nabatiyya.
More than 40 people were killed and 180 wounded, along with widespread destruction of civilian homes and buildings.
1975: Kfar Shouba Destruction
In January, more than 90 houses in the Lebanese village of Kfar Shouba were destroyed in an Israeli air attack.
Roads, bridges and an irrigation canal were also destroyed. Kfar Shouba’s strategic value lies in its location, 1300 metres above sea level, close to the Golan Heights and the ‘border’ with Israel and overlooking the Bika’a valley. The town was bombed again on June 15 and again on August 31.
1978: Invading Lebanon
On March 11, Dalal Mughrabi, 18, led a team of Palestinian fighters that landed on the coast of occupied Palestine and attacked a bus. The Israeli army intervened, and in the crossfire,e 38 Israelis were killed and the bus exploded. Dalal and eight Palestinians were killed.
In the aftermath, Israel launched a massive attack on southern Lebanon (March 14-March 21), following extensive naval, air, and artillery bombardment. An estimated 1100-2000 Palestinian or Lebanese civilians were killed in the onslaught.
Israel occupied the area south of the Litani but withdrew towards the end of the year, handing over control to its SLA Iron Guard. The attack spurred the depopulation of southern Lebanon, with 100,000-250,000 people following the 100,000 who had already fled north.
1982: Invading Lebanon again
On June 6, 60,000 Israeli troops and 800 tanks poured across the armistice line intending to crush the PLO. Reaching Beirut by June 14, Israeli aircraft caused carnage in the city through the bombing of high-rise residential apartments.
In negotiations to end the fighting, the PLO leadership and leading cadres agreed to leave for Tunisia. Israel immediately invaded West Beirut. Sabra and Shatila refugee camps were surrounded. The Israeli army command oversaw the mass murder of up to 3500 Palestinian civilians in the two camps by Israel’s Lebanese mercenaries.
The operation ended on September 28, by which time close to 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians had been killed. The Israelis had met heavy Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese resistance on the ground. Logistically, the operation was a shambles, and ultimately successful only because of air power.
1982-2000: The Rise of Hezbollah
On October 23, suicide truck bombings destroyed the US and French army barracks outside Beirut, killing 241 American and 58 French troops sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational ‘peacekeeping’ force. The identities of the truck drivers or the organization behind them were never known.
On November 11, 1982, 75 Israeli soldiers, border police, and Shin Bet agents were killed in a suicide car bombing of the Israel ‘command post’ in the coastal city of Tyre. On November 4, 1983, Hezbollah bombed the new base in Tyre, killing 28 Israelis along with 32 Lebanese prisoners.
On April 18, 1983, a suicide bomber drove into the US embassy compound in Beirut and blew up the front of one of the buildings, killing more than 60 people, including senior CIA staff among the 17 Americans who died. Hezbollah was accused by the US but denied responsibility.
Having ‘succeeded’ in driving the PLO out of Lebanon, Israel now faced a far more dangerous enemy, Hezbollah. Iranian cadres in Lebanon trained young Shi’a fighters, and by 1985, Hezbollah had publicly announced its presence. Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah took over the leadership as secretary-general after Israel’s assassination of Sayyid Abbas al-Musawi in 1992.
From that starting point, Hezbollah steadily developed into a guerrilla force skilled in ground combat and the electronic warfare that enabled it to intercept Israeli communications and ambush and destroy even a unit of Israel’s ‘elite’ Sayeret Matkal force.
Outfought by Hezbollah and suffering heavy casualties, the Israeli army was forced to withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000.
In 2006, it launched another attack, but in 34 days (July to August), its troops proved incapable of moving more than a few kilometres from the armistice line. Numerous ‘indestructible’ Merkava tanks were destroyed by Hezbollah land mines.
Looking at these developments, especially against the background of the 12-day war on Iran that Netanyahu started but could not win, sending him running to Trump to arrange a ceasefire, many changes are clear.
First, the 1973 war exposed the myth of invincible Israel. The Egyptian and Syrian forces showed that they could be defeated. The war showed that Arab military commands were capable of planning successful, innovative offensives. The fact that Israel and the US did not believe they were capable of such initiatives worked in their favor.
The 1982 war on Lebanon was an eye-opener to the people of the world thanks to the advent of cable television. They could see the daily slaughter, culminating in the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and wonder: ‘Is this really the moral Israel we were taught to believe in?’
The rise of Hezbollah pitted a resistance movement against the combined power of the US and Israel, yet Hezbollah drove Israel out of Lebanon in 2000 and defeated it in the war of 2006. Although its senior figures were murdered in 2024, the organization remained intact and on guard, its missile stocks intact.
Since 1967, Israel’s enemies in war, now including Yemen, have been steadily catching up. They have developed skills at all levels of combat, including electronic warfare and advanced missile development.
While Israel could kill individual Hezbollah leaders in the massive bomb attacks that killed hundreds of civilians in 2024, the gaps were quickly filled, and resistance continued. Israel’s critical aerial domination, the key to all its ‘successes’ since 1967, has now been levelled out by Iran’s missile attacks.
Israel’s ground troops have constantly failed in battle against Hezbollah and the Gaza resistance forces, which are fighting as strongly as ever and causing even more casualties. With all its armed might, the Israeli military has failed to crush guerrilla movements, another sign of its decline. Globally, the world regards Israel with revulsion, with the exception of ‘western’ governments complicit in the genocide.
There are warnings and lessons here of a political and strategic nature, but Israel is incapable of learning and applying them. For peace to work, it would have to hand territory back to the Palestinians, and it is not going to do that.
Despite the signs of steady strategic decline since 1967, Israel remains fixated on war as the solution to the problems it has created for itself through its lawlessness and brutality.
This ‘solution’ cannot work. After nearly 80 years, indifferent to law and global public opinion, Israel is still massacring Palestinians. In conclusion, it has inserted itself into a long, dark tunnel with no light at the end.
– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press) and The Last Ottoman Wars. The Human Cost 1877-1923 (University of Utah Press, 2019). He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
The views expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Palestine Chronicle.