8 - The war in perspective

Summary

Analysis of military operations in Jordan

The universal feeling amongst the Jordanian and military leaders who were either observers or actively involved in the 1967 war was that their major mistake was to rely on the help and leadership of other Arab nations. Although they do not believe that Israel could have been prevented from seizing the West Bank they do feel that they would have put up a harder fight on their own. King Hussein later commented:

In my view our first error was the fact that we did not organize our military operations on the basis of our own plans and according to our own capabilities. For so many years they talked to us about the Arab Command, the Commander-in-Chief of all the Arab armies and the assistance we could expect from our brethren … We relied on that which was natural. We should not have done so. For if we had not depended on the potential of outside support … war with Israel would undoubtedly have taken a totally different course. When one expects the air cover that I expected it was imperative that one acted the way I did. If our men had known from the beginning that they could not expect support from either Egypt, Syria or Iraq our strategy would have been different and Jerusalem would have been ours today. For during the first few days of this rapid war we placed Arab interest above our own. This is how I understood solidarity. Unfortunately no one else adhered to the same principle.