During the Six-Day War, the Arab armies were heavily defeated, after Israel destroyed most of their aircraft while they remained on the ground.
Thanks to Israel’s victory, it is not the planes that many Arabs are now having trouble getting up.
Forty years after Israel’s stunning victory over three Arab armies, the defeat still lingers in the Arab world ‚Äî so much so, some blame it for everything from a lack of democracy in the region to the rise of religious extremism.On June 5, 1967, Israeli warplanes destroyed 400 aircraft belonging to Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq – most of them sitting on airport tarmacs. Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, Syria gave up the Golan Heights, and Jordan relinquished the West Bank and east Jerusalem.Trying to minimize the defeat, Arabs have long called the Six Day War the “naksa,” or “setback,” but its impact remains a deep wound.Egyptian columnist Wael Abdel Fattah wrote in the independent weekly Al-Fagr newspaper that Arabs blame the defeat for “everything” ‚Äî from “price hikes, dictatorship, religious extremism, sectarian strife, even sexual impotence.”
