Talk:Origins of the Six-Day War

Self defence?
The claim that many commentators consider the Israeli attack to be a "case of anticipatory attack in self-defense" is wrong, for two reasons. Firstly the grammar. The expression ought to be "attack in self-defence", or something similar. 'Anticipatory attack' is not a logical expression. Secondly many commentators do not argue that was self-defence. Many pro-Israeli commentators argue that it was self-defence. That is not the international consensus.Royalcourtier (talk) 03:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi, if you have a good edit to suggest, with sources, it could make the point clearer in the article. Some of the sources in the article now that are used for this point are, IIRC, not the best ones. --Dailycare (talk) 16:12, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
 * One of the sources is Quigley, who makes the opposite point that the sentence makes -- that the attack was not anticipatory. I believe the sentence should read "Some commentators consider the war as a case of anticipatory attack in self-defense, while others object to this classification." IMHO, the whole paragraph is problematic and does not reflect current research. But, oh well. ImTheIP (talk) 10:46, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I for one don't object to that change, go ahead and make it. --Dailycare (talk) 14:50, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not allowed to. :P ImTheIP (talk) 17:35, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, I made an edit, quoting Quigley at the same place. --Dailycare (talk) 13:25, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

90% of Israeli oil

 * 90% of Israeli oil passed through the Straits of Tiran.

This statement is sourced by page 224 in the book The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences. And indeed, the text in the book reads: "To mention only one prominent fact that impressed the Chiefs of Staff Committee, 90% of Israeli passed through the Straits of Tiran." However, the book itself offers no source for this number. So I wonder if a more precise source can be found? In 1967, Eliat wasn't a very big city and did not have a well-developed port. ImTheIP (talk) 08:46, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

The same 90% figure is given in the article Straits of Tiran ImTheIP (talk) 20:14, 4 June 2017 (UTC)


 * http://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/02364/frontmatter/9781107002364_frontmatter.pdf


 * hello, here is a searchable copy of the text mentioned above, I believe.... although you did not include an author or date of publication, this was the only title I could find of the same text as you have entered above, so i may be mistaken but i believe this is the text referred to.


 * I do not find the statement you cite, nor is the word "oil" included at any point during the text, therefore i cannot address your question at this time. I Hope that my sharing this with you will be useful.


 * I look forward to resolving your inquiry


 * Thank you Nolanpowers (talk) 09:19, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

The Iraq quote ""there will be practically no Jewish survivors" has no source
I think there should be a source for that direct quote.

And both Naji Talib and Arif were Iraqi prime ministers in 1967. It's unclear who said that quote, if it was said at all. Drsmartypants(Smarty M.D) (talk) 18:31, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Poorly referenced and possibly biased introduction
The introduction contains many claims but few sources. Some notable unsourced claims:

- Border clashes had begun to take place between Israel and Arab neighbours

- April 1967 Syrian “shooting” of an Israeli tractor, and subsequent aerial clash

- Soviet misinformation on Israeli intentions

I found an academic article which questioned the reliability or strength of intel provided by USSR on Israel’s intent to launch an attack, but I question whether the wording here used in the introduction would accurately reflect that information

- Shipping blockade

- The conventional view being that Israeli actions were prudent

In fact, [2] seems to undermine this - summary at https://press.umich.edu/Books/D/Defending-the-Holy-Land, says: “Most of the wars in which Israel was involved, Maoz shows, were entirely avoidable, the result of deliberate Israeli aggression, flawed decision-making, and misguided conflict management strategies. None, with the possible exception of the 1948 War of Independence, were what Israelis call "wars of necessity." They were all wars of choice-or, worse, folly.”

Regarding the claims with sources present:

- [1] is a broken link, but the following link works as of 14/10/2023 > https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-182090/.

- [2] seems good

- [3]-[4], [3] seems fine but I question whether [4] could be a biased source, seeing as the writer holds Captain rank for the IDF as a reservist, and VP of strategy for Israel Democracy Institute which seeks to forward Israeli security - https://en.idi.org.il/experts/1360. As they are discussing the same event, and “inevitable” is stronger language than “likely”, it would be preferable to just use “likely”, which also seems more neutral Barkyklos (talk) 18:58, 14 October 2023 (UTC)


 * On your initial point, you seem to have a misunderstanding of how Wikipedia articles are structured. Leads are not supposed to have citations. The reason is the lead is a summary of the rest of article where the citations should be. Please read WP:LEAD. If you are reviewing the lead you should just be checking that it reasonably summarises the rest of the article and moving citations to the body of the article (if they are missing) or otherwise removing them. Checking sources is a job for the rest of the article (after the lead). DeCausa (talk) 20:03, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for letting me know! Barkyklos (talk) 23:58, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with this. I've made another post about it, discerning why this article is possibly biased. One should approach information in this page with precaution. XenSolation (talk) 19:38, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Redundant phrase
This phrase should be removed:

", which escalated to a prewar aerial clash"

It says the same thing as the following sentence and is surely the result of a misapplied cleanup. I do not have the protection level to do this myself. Tameware (talk) 21:12, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Minor change to fix weird incomplete quotation
Hi, I'm fairly new to editing on wikipedia, since the page is locked to editing and I am slightly confused about how to request an edit, I will post it here. I want to change an error in the quotations on a single line of the article that will not change the meaning or factual information therein.

I want to change this:

"censuring Israel for conducting "a large-scale and carefully planned military action against Jordanian territory"

To this: censuring Israel for conducting "a large-scale and carefully planned military action against Jordanian territory"

Or this: '''"censuring Israel for conducting" a "large-scale and carefully planned military action against Jordanian territory" ''' Either of these will fix the incomplete quotation marks, have no significant change to the meaning of the sentence and both quotes are found in United Nations Security Council Resolution 228 Your Friend From 1914 (talk) 01:36, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 27 October 2023
Remove the sentence "The event occasioned an escalation into a prewar aerial clash", because the previous sentence says exactly the same thing. This is a straight-forward copy-editing suggestion, not a substantive change. 2600:8805:D210:EA00:D051:2C59:7FF7:155F (talk) 12:02, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅! GoingBatty (talk) 17:16, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

"On April 7, 1967 Israel invaded Syria." wrong?
Under the headline "Summary of events leading to war" there is written that "On April 7, 1967 Israel invaded Syria.", yet there has not been an Israeli invasion. However the U. S. Department of States clarifies that "On April 7, 1967 a skirmish on land turned into a major air battle during which Israel shot down six Syrian MiG aircraft over Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights."1 There was no Israeli invasion into Syria. The secret message, which Nassar received from the Sovjet Union about Israel massing its forces against Syria was utterly false, which is explained subsequently in this article.

Calling this skirmish at the Israeli-Syrian boarder an Israeli invasion seems misleading. Does it not?

1https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/ea/97187.htm Hieronofsyracuse (talk) 01:04, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 December 2023
Archive source named "npr": MotherEarth00 (talk) 05:28, 25 December 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ Thank you for spotting the dead link and providing the archived version!  Delta  space 42 (talk • contribs) 17:43, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Conspicuous bias
Having read this article, I feel as though there is bias that may be conspicuously discerned. The original page for the 1967 Arab-Israeli war was good, but something about this one appears to be off. It is almost as though the author excessively emphasizes positions taken by historians that advocate for the argument that Israel had acted in self-defence. There is exhaustive mention of Arab provocation whereas Israeli provocation is rarely mentioned.

This may stem from sources that have been consulted. Many of the historians used to substantiate information the article are Israeli or from Western/Jewish origin. There is limited exploration of perspectives and hence, this article does not provide the reader with a nuanced comprehension of the event. XenSolation (talk) 19:36, 23 February 2024 (UTC)