Israel-Palestine Mega Fact Check!

Prior to the outbreak of this war, there was a series of escalations between Egypt and Israel. In mid-May, in response to increased tensions, President Nasser placed a number of Egyptian troops in the Sinai desert in a defensive formation but announced to all that he would not fire the first shot.

On the morning of June 5^th 1967, Israel claimed that Egypt attacked first by bombarding the villages of Kissufim, Nahal-Oz and Ein Hashelosha. However, outside observers including the U.S. Office of Current Intelligence quickly concluded that this attack had not occurred and that Israel had in fact struck first.

Two days later, Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol officially retracted this initial claim and re-characterized Israel’s attack as a legitimate pre-emptive strike against a planned invasion.

However, even this revised claim was not supported by the available evidence. Both U.S. intelligence and Israeli intelligence had already concluded by the end of May that the Egyptian forces had remained in a defensive position with no evidence they were planning to attack. Mossad chief Meir Amit concluded that “Egypt was not ready for a war; and Nasser did not want a war.” After the war, IDF chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin stated that he did not believe Nasser wanted a war. For details, see Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict (2003) by Norman G. Finkelstein, pp.134-135.

Israeli PM Menachem Begin later admitted that the revised claim that Egypt was planning to invade was a lie: "In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."