IT’S BEEN FIFTY YEARS SINCE THE “6-DAY WAR” BETWEEN ISRAEL AND A COALITION OF ARAB STATES, EGYPT AND SYRIA PRINCIPALLY.

We are re-publishing on our site http://quatrieme-internationale-posadiste.org/EN  two of the articles produced by J POSADAS on the war that came to be known as ‘The Six-Day War“.

The first text, dated 5th June 1967, was elaborated on the first day of the war. Its title is: “To the reactionary war of Israel led by Yankee imperialism, respond with the war for the socialist liberation of the Middle East“.

The second text, dated 11th June 1967, was elaborated on the day when the war ended. Its title is: “The failure of the counter-revolutionary aims of imperialism and Israel“.

Quick access to these documents is enabled by selecting the cover of the relevant electronic book displayed on the right column of the home page of this blog.

It is just 50 years since the ‘Six-Day War’ took place between Israel and a coalition of Arab States – notably Egypt and Syria. In today’s view of Israel and of the main Western States, this lightening war ended in ‘a historic victory’ against ‘the Arab world’ and revolutionary Arab nationalism.

It is only very discreetly today that the 50th anniversary of this ‘victory’ is being commemorated  in the capitalist world, even in Israel.

In these documents, J Posadas analyses that the military victory of Israel and its allies at the end of this short war, was in reality a historic defeat for imperialism and Israel – Israel being the agent of imperialism in the Middle East. The latter wanted to invade the whole of the Middle East to go and crush the revolutionary Arab nationalists, in Egypt and Syria particularly.

J Posadas gives much importance to the deep revolutionary confidence of the Arab masses. He sees their mobilisations as never inspired by religion so much as by their thirst to transform society in a socialist perspective. From there, the author derives the programmatic proposals of: The anti-imperialist United Front between the Jewish and Arab masses, and The Federation of the Soviet Socialist Republics of the Middle East to the inclusion of the right to self-determination for the Jewish population of Israel.

By 1967, J Posadas had already highlighted the importance of the nationalist revolutionary process in Syria. The Syrian State was secular and allowed the functioning of organised workers’ militias. With a deep social programme, the Syrian Baath Party had implemented large-scale expropriations and taken over the oil multinationals. All key sectors of the Syrian economy had been nationalised, and the economy had become planned to satisfy the essential needs of the population. These measures had given to Syria a structure not very different from that of a Workers State. Syria’s good relations with the Soviet Union had led to the installation of important Soviet military bases at Latakia and Tartus.

On top of the resistance of the masses of Iraq, Syria and Egypt in particular, during the first few days of this attack in 1967, the deployment of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet to the Mediterranean caused US imperialism to abandon its project of having the Middle East invaded, particularly Syria. On the 10th June 1967, as Israel had started its attack on Damascus, Lyndon Johnson called on it to accept a ceasefire and stop the attack. As the conflict stopped, Israel and US imperialism had won militarily, but they had been defeated in their aim of invading to go and crush the Arab revolution.

The evolution of the process from 1967 to the present imperialist wars against Syria, Iraq, Libya, Iran and Palestine, confirms quite clearly that Western imperialism, and Israel as its military tool in the Middle East, never won the historic victory which they claimed. And that the Revolutionary States and the populations of those regions were never crushed.

In Syria today, an alliance has been built between the government of Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah of Lebanon, the Guardians of the Revolution of Iran, and Russia above all with its Red Army. This alliance has  permitted Syrian national sovereignty to be reinstated over large parts of the Syrian territory. It has defeated Israel and the Islamic State (also called IS or Daesh) and their Nato backers standing just behind.

Les Posadistes, 30.6.2017