Israelis protest to mark Six-Day War

This week's remembrances of the Six-Day War 40 years ago expose political divisions in Israeli society.

By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 7, 2007 edition

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Tel Aviv, Israel - Civilians shuffle in line at a checkpoint, waiting nervously in the bright sun to get to the end of the fenced-in tunnel. When they do, they find themselves confronted by M16-wielding soldiers who tell them they're not allowed to pass – they don't have the proper permits.

"We need to go through," pleads a Palestinian man holding his wife's hand.

"No permit, no entry," an Israeli soldier replies.

"Haven't you had enough of this –"

"Move back!"

Rifles are raised, tensions are ticking, voices vault.

This is not a scene one would ever witness on the average day in a Tel Aviv that is far-removed from the daily tremors ofthe West Bank. But it is one that is played out daily at checkpoints inside and on the borders of Israel's occupied territories in the West Bank and on the borders of the Gaza Strip.

So on Tuesday, the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the Six-Day War, peace activists set up a mock checkpoint here in an effort to give Israelis a bitter if symbolic taste of what it means for the country to hold onto the territories it has occupied since 1967.

"We want people to know that this occupation isn't just bad for the Palestinians, it's destroying Israeli society," says Chava Lerman, a middle-aged mother who is active in Machsom (checkpoint) Watch, an organization of women who go out to West Bank checkpoints to witness and record the treatment of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers.

Such strong sentiments about the impact of Israel's presence in the territories represent a certain slice of the political spectrum. On the religious right, other Israelis view the outcome of the 1967 war, in which Israel seized control of lands that have been parts of Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, as a sign of divine providence, even heralding a messianic era. The secular right saw it as a victory that added strategic depth to a country that, between 1948 and 1967, was slim and not fully defensible.

But in between these two poles is an amorphous Israeli middle that is uncertain about what was right then and what's to be done about it now. As the country grapples with where to go from here, it seems that even within Israeli society, there are deeply different narratives about how Israel got into the Six-Day War – whether it was attacked or acted as a provocateur – and whether it could have taken a different path in its aftermath.

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