MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Marianna Belenkaya) - On June 5, it will be 40 years since the start of the 1967 Arab-Israeli "six-day" war.
This anniversary is a good excuse to recall the war that is still exerting an impact on the situation in the Middle East. The problems of Palestinian refugees, occupied territories and radical Islamism are largely rooted in 1967.
In the middle 1960s, both the Arabs and the Israelis were getting ready for the war in the hope that it would resolve numerous contradictions. In 1947, the United Nations made a decision to divide the British-mandated Palestinian territory into two independent states - Jewish and Palestinian. The Jews implemented their right but the Palestinians did not, largely through the fault of the Arabs. Jurisdiction over Palestinian territories was temporarily handed over to Egypt and Jordan.
Arab radicals and nationalists did not wish to recognize Israel's right to existence. The Israelis believed that a preventive strike and military victory would help make the Arabs change their position. A strategic advantage was also obvious - occupation of Arab lands would increase the Israeli-controlled territory.
Today, it is clear that there is no military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Peaceful settlement in the Middle East centers on the return of the Israeli-occupied territories, formation of a Palestinian state, Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist and granting its security guarantees. All talks concentrated on the borders that existed before June 5, 1967. The problem is that the Mid-Eastern map has changed since then, above all, politically.
During the June war, Israel occupied territories under the jurisdiction of Jordan, Egypt and Syria. Today, the Israelis have peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt, but they are not likely to reach progress with Syria in the foreseeable future. But the return of occupied territories is not confined to the talks with Damascus. The place of Jordan and Egypt in the debates was taken by the new political entity - the Palestinian National Authority, while Lebanon claims part of the territories that UN map-makers ascribed to Syria.
But the entangled territorial issue is not the whole problem. Islamic radicalism, problems of Palestinian resistance and the difficult situation in Lebanon - all go back to 1967.
"Absence of real political progress both 40 years ago and today is the main reason of new wars and conflicts; it is a fertile soil for extremists of different hue and cry," said Valentin Yurchenko, an expert with the Institute of the Middle East.
He recalled that the war lead to a rapid growth of the Palestinian Resistance Movement (PRM), which tuned into a major factor of influence on Arab-Israeli confrontation in the late 1960s - early 1970s. The Palestinians started increasingly claiming an independent role in the conflict. But in those years, an independent Palestinian state was out of the question. Lack of prospects led to the prevalence of political extremists in the PRM. Terror became their main weapon.
Yurchenko added that the humiliating military rout in 1967 dealt a heavy blow at the Arab faith in the ideals of Arab nationalism, unity and socialism. People turned to Islam. "The war has given the first strong impetus to the invigoration of political Islam and its extremist manifestations," he stressed.
This made a bad situation worse. Subsequent events showed that Israel found a compromise with a number of Arab states but not with the Arab "street" and its radical ideas.
Against this background and considering subsequent Arab-Israeli conflicts, the opinion of some experts that this "six-day" war was a catalyst for a search for ways of a political settlement of Arab-Israeli relations seems paradoxical.
"It is after the crushing military defeat in June 1967 that the Arab countries had to accept Israel's existence. It became obvious that it was not possible to 'throw it into the sea' (or to quote the Iranian president, 'erase it from the face of the Earth')," Yurchenko explained.
Needless to say, officials and the Arab media did not admit this openly, but in effect, in all subsequent conflicts the Arab goal was not to destroy Israel but pressure it into an acceptable agreement and return what was lost in 1967. For many Arab leaders, the conflict with Israel helped manipulate the domestic political situation in their countries. The reasons behind the current problems are rooted in 1967 as well - 40 years of lies gave birth to a new generation of hatred.
The road to peace in the region proved to be very long and uphill. Egypt was the first country to dare sign a peace treaty with Israel, but the rest of the Arab world took it for a separate deal. Multilateral Arab-Israeli negotiations were launched after 1991, but success was reached at bilateral talks - a peace agreement with Jordan was signed in 1994 and agreements with Palestinians a year before.
But the latter's implementation eventually stopped deadlocking the entire Middle East settlement. The Palestinian issue is still a fuse for all extremist forces in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
It took the majority of Arab leaders almost 40 years to announce their readiness for peace with Israel in exchange for the return to the 1967 borders and the resolution of the refugee problem.
Will it take another 40 years to tell the truth - that it will never be possible to return to 1967?
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
