Our memories tend sometimes to arrange events out of chronological order. As a result, many in the Arab Levant feel like the October War (the fiftieth anniversary of which will be celebrated in the next few days) is further back than the June War. And this is the case although the latter broke out six years before the former.
That can be explained by the fact that the 1973 war was not described in the kinds of conclusive and unequivocal terms that could be applied contemporarily, and by its refusal to be simplified into a clear template like those that put simple judgments at ease. When it broke out, the war dispelled a theory being advocated by the radical left, that regular armies do not fight and that the only solution is a guerrilla war like that of the Vietnamese; suddenly, the armies did fight. Following Islamist claims, in the aftermath of the 1967 war, that we had always been doomed to defeat because we had been forsaken by God having forsaken him, it became clear that God had not gone that far in forsaking us, or that his abandonment of us had receded slightly.
On top of that, victory and defeat merged in 1973, blurring the picture a little. We won only at the beginning of the war. Moreover, fierce battles and peace became intertwined in this war, at least for Egypt, as reflected in the famous slogan “a war to kick-start the peace process.” Indeed, the Camp David Accords were signed shortly after its conclusion. While this war was presented as having given back the Arabs the self-confidence they had lost in 1967, it also paved the way for the consolidation of Syria's military dictatorship, which inhibited any forms of self-confidence in the Syrian people. After the war continued and was crowned by “Arab solidarity,” a civil-regional war of immense proportions broke out: the Lebanese Civil War that erupted in 1975.
Further down the line, the Axis of Resistance that would later emerge chose to turn the page on entire chapters of the October War. The notion of “Arab solidarity” with “the Arab reactionary regimes” was among the aspects they found to be beyond the pale, as was the fleeting alliance with Anwar Sadat, which they labeled a “ruse,” to say nothing about the fact that the war broke out three years after Gamal Abdel Nasser had died or that the Soviet Union did not play a pre-eminent role in it. And so, herculean efforts were required in the Axis of Resistance's pursuit of compounding the confusion and ambiguity around the war. They stressed that Nasser had made the preparations for the war and laid out the strategy before his passing, or that its actual hero was none other than the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Saad El-Shazly... They authored a narrative about the war that fits their view of war but contradicts and challenges what happened in this war.
On the other hand, the military confrontation was also partially theologized, greatly increasing the obscurity around it. For the Jews, it coincided with Yom Kippur, while the Arabs focused their attention on Egyptian soldiers crossing the Suez Canal - a traversal that has, since the Old Testament, had stark mythological connotations.
However, nothing of what resists interpretation or of what is being organized into straight thoughts in the 1973 war can be found in the 1967 war. The story here is simple, concise, and so singular that it involves almost no analysis, let alone imagination: Here, we are faced with the sweeping, obliterating defeat of three Arab countries in six days.
True, attempts to heal the narcissistic wound that inflected us have been made. It was said that the regimes did not fall and that this was a victory in itself. In creating the term “setback” (Naksa), Mohammed Hassanein Heikal tried to make this defeat palatable, at least in comparison to the “calamity” (Nakba) of 19 years prior.
But these rhetorical tricks did not allow for surmounting the immense wall of hard reality. In addition to land, “we lost our dignity” and “shame” was brought to our name, as it became and remains commonplace to hear. To many, it seemed that, in less than a week, we had gone from Nasser's promise of paradise to the lowest pits of hell. After a transition from singing the praises of Solomon’s Temple to captivity in Babylon, one can do nothing but grieve, just as the Hebrew prophets had.
In all of these respects, the June defeat resembles our current state of affairs: it is equally frank, clear, and transparent. Indeed, we in the Arab Levant are discovering our immense and comprehensive collapse. States are not states, and nations are not nations, and this comes after Hafez al-Assad had been the “biggest player” in the region and Saddam Hussein was “defying the world,” while Yasser Arafat was “the region’s tough nut to crack.” Everything that had been built from cardboard was crumpled up into a ball that could be kicked around small feet. If, after all this, we wanted to forget about the great defeat of 1967, Iran and Hezbollah’s talk of victories would remind us of it, as they speak about these victories relentlessly on a daily basis, and because each brings the other to mind.
That is why some say, from time to time, that we are still living in June 67. We are still embracing this founding event that birthed children who, though they may differ from her in this or that way, leave no room for doubt regarding the contents of their birth certificates.
