Draft:Liberation of Jerusalem
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| Liberation of Jerusalem (1967) | |||||||
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| Part of the Six-Day War | |||||||
| File:The Paratroopers in the Western Wall Paratroopers in the Western Wall Pictured by David Rubinger | |||||||
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- Start of the Reunification of Jerusalem
- Start of the celebrations of Jerusalem Day
- Start of the Jordanian Campaign (1967) and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank
The Liberation of Jerusalem (also known as the Battle of Jerusalem or Liberation of the Western Wall[1]; Hebrew:קְרָב יֵרֻושָלַים ; Arabic: معركة القدس) was a military confrontation between the Israel Defense Forces and the Jordanian Army in the Six-Day War of June 1967. The decisive defeat of the Jordanians was critical to the eventual loss of the Jordanian Army to Israel. Leading Israeli forces was Major General Moshe Dayan , later a prominent politician and then became A Hero of Israel
Background
[edit]Jordan and an alliance of Arab states rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan under which Jerusalem was to be a Corpus separatum, instead invading former Palestinian Mandate territory, and by the armistice in 1949 was in control of the Old City and East Jerusalem (excluding Mount Scopus). The Arab invading armies failed to take control over the rest of Israel, including West Jerusalem. The city was then divided along the o1949 Armistice Line. East Jerusalem was annexed to Jordan in 1950. The city remained divided until the Six-Day War in 1967.[2] As part of the Jordanian campaign[3] ,on June 5, 1967, the Jordanian Army began shelling Israel.When the Israeli cabinet convened to decide how to respond, Yigal Allon and Menahem Begin argued that this was an opportunity to take the Old City of Jerusalem, but Eshkol decided to defer any decision until Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin could be consulted.During the late afternoon of June 5, the Israelis launched an offensive to encircle Jerusalem, which lasted into the following day. On June 7, heavy fighting ensued. Dayan had ordered his troops not to enter the Old City; however, upon hearing that the UN was about to declare a ceasefire, he changed his mind, and without cabinet clearance, decided to capture it.[4]
Legacy
[edit]Jerusalem Day is an Israeli national holiday that commemorates the "reunification" of East Jerusalem (including the Old City) with West Jerusalem following the Six-Day War of 1967, which saw Israel occupy East Jerusalem and the West Bank, effectively annexing the former. It is celebrated annually on 28 Iyar on the Hebrew calendar, and is marked officially throughout Israel with state ceremonies and memorial services. A notable celebration that marks the holiday is a flag-flying parade known as the Dance of Flags. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared Jerusalem Day to be a minor religious holiday, as it marks the regaining for Jewish people of access to the Western Wall.
References
[edit]- ^ in June 1967, Israel was once again compelled to fight for its existence. The third war forced upon Israel was also the shortest. Israel succeeded against all odds and prevailed over the armies of its three most powerful neighbors, which threatened to strangle it from the south, east and north. Jerusalem, Israel's capital, was reunited. For the first time in 19 years, the Old City was open to believers of all faiths and Jews could access their holiest sites. A war of self-defense The escalation to war began with renewed heavy shelling of Israeli agricultural villages from Syrian army positions overlooking them on the Golan Heights, Palestinian infiltrations into Israeli territory, and Egyptian President Nasser's outspoken threats to wipe Israel off the map and to throw the Jews into the sea. On 16 May 1967 Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal and entered the Sinai, moving quickly towards the border with Israel, despite the presence of United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), whose purpose was to serve as a buffer between the sides. Further acts of aggression quickly followed, as the Syrian army placed itself on a war footing on the Golan Heights. On 19 May, UN Secretary General U Thant acceded to Egypt’s request to remove UNEF from Sinai, leaving Israel's southern border totally exposed to Egypt's army. On 22 May, in a move that constituted a casus belli [an act that justifies war], Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, cutting off Israel’s only route to Asia and Iran, its main supplier of oil. Other leaders across the Arab world added their voices to the choir threatening to destroy Israel and by 4 June, the military alliance of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq was complete.
- ^ Upon the departure of the British occupying forces in May 1948 and the proclamation of the State of Israel, the armies of five Arab countries entered Palestine. In the ensuing conflict—the first of the Arab-Israeli wars—Israel expanded beyond the territory contemplated by the partition plan. The West Bank, as demarcated by the Jordanian-Israeli armistice of 1949, was broadly similar to (but smaller than) one of the zones designated as an Arab state by the United Nations (UN) partition plan for Palestine in 1947 (see United Nations Resolution 181). According to that plan, Jerusalem was to have been an international zone. However, the city was instead divided into Israeli (west) and Jordanian (east) sectors. The Arab state whose creation was envisioned by the 1947 UN partition plan never came into being, and the West Bank was formally annexed by Jordan on April 24, 1950, although this annexation was recognized only by Great Britain and Pakistan.
- ^ In the days before June 5, Jordan had deployed in the West Bank opposite Israel ten of its eleven brigades, totaling some 45,000 men. In the north were three infantry brigades: one near the Jordan river, opposite the Israeli town of Beit Shean, one around the city of Jenin, and one near the city of Tulkarem (where Israel is only about 10 miles wide). In the central sector were four brigades: an infantry brigade near Qalqilya, right on the Israeli border, another near Latrun, also on the border, and two around Jerusalem. In the south was an infantry brigade around Hebron, and in the rear, near the Damia bridge over the Jordan river and near Jericho, were two armored brigades, the main striking forces of the Jordanian army. The eleventh Jordanian brigade was deployed south of the Dead Sea, facing Israel’s Negev Desert and pointing towards the Egyptian forces in the Sinai. According to the joint Jordanian-Egyptian plans this brigade’s role was to fight into the Negev and link up with the advancing Egyptians, thereby cutting Israel in half. An Iraqi brigade, based on the other side of the Damia Bridge, with three more on the way, and two Egyptian commando battalions deployed near Latrun rounded out the forces arrayed against Israel on the Jordanian front. The western half of the of the West Bank — that is, the portion bordering on Israel — is mountainous and densely populated, especially the Old City of Jerusalem, and the large cities of Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron. The terrain is nothing like the open spaces of the Sinai, so suited to tank warfare. In the West Bank the geography favored the defenders, offering innumerable ambush points and potential bottlenecks, which the Jordanians had supplemented by building many strategically located fortified positions, with trenches, bunkers, ammunition storerooms and gun emplacements. However, because Egypt was the strongest and most threatening of the Arab countries, Israel had to deploy the bulk of its forces in the south. Consequently, against the eleven Jordanian brigades and the Iraqi expeditionary force, the Israelis could muster only three infantry brigades and an armored brigade. Just after hostilities began between Israel and Egypt, the Egyptian commander Marshal Amer sent a message to Jordan’s King Hussein, reporting that 75 percent of Israel’s planes had been shot down or disabled, and urging Hussein to open a second front. As the King recounted in his book on the war
- ^ In Judaism: The situation today …of June 1967, Iyyar 28—Liberation of Jerusalem Day—is celebrated unofficially by many Israelis (see Arab-Israeli wars). Appropriate services are conducted on all the aforementioned holidays by most segments of Israel’s religious community. READ MORE In Jewish religious year: The situation today …June 1967 war, Iyyar 28—Liberation of Jerusalem Day—is celebrated unofficially by many Israelis. Appropriate services are conducted on all the aforementioned holidays by most segments of Israel’s religious community.