Last week, Jews around the world celebrated the (Hebrew date of) miraculous victory known as the 6 Day War. The best, most thorough, and most engaging history of this war is an excellent book called 6 Days of War, by Michael B. Oren (not content to rest on the laurels two excellent books, after writing Power, Faith, and Fantasy, a history of American involvement in the Middle East since the Revolutionary War, he became Israel's Ambassador to the United States). In it the author breaks down the background, the immediate context, and the day-by-day action, including the first day's surprise attack which, almost as soon as it started after only two waves of attacks, ended with General Moti Hod, the Israeli Air Force commander, told then Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin "The Egyptian Air Force has ceased to exist".

The war, though it liberated Jerusalem, expanded Israel's borders, and destroyed the bulk of enemy forces, did not bring a lasting peace to Israel. Just 6 years later, a surprise attack initiated by Egypt and Syria on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, what would begin the month-long conflict known as the Yom Kippur War. My favorite book on the war, The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich, has this to say about Israel's performance in the war:

"in military terms Israel would recognize its achievement in the war as having few historic parallels. Reeling from a surprise attack on two fronts with the bulk of its army still unmobilized, and confronted by staggering new battlefield realities, Israel's situation was one that could readily bring strong nations to their knees. Yet, within days, it had regained its footing and in less than two weeks it was threatening both enemy capitals, an achievement having few historical parallels. Israel faced not just the Egyptian and Syrian armies but much of the Arab world, and did so with the arm it had most relied on, the air force, tied behind its back. As a military feat, the IDF’s performance in the Yom Kippur War dwarfed that in the Six Day War. Victory emerged from motivation that came from the deepest layers of the nation’s being and from basic military skills that compensated for the grave errors of leadership."

The war would leave Egypt in such a weak position, and Israel in such a strong one, that Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat soon recognized the need to negotiate a peace with Israel, leading to the March 26, 1979 peace treaty concluded between Egypt and Israel just 6 years after the Yom Kippur War. The treaty lasts even to this day.
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