But once the buildup started, Nasser couldn't quit – Amer and his military advisers were pressuring him, along with entire Arab world. It snowballed into a "destroy Israel" campaign with the Arab states all joining together in the United Arab Command. None of this was Israel's fault.

On May 15, 1967, Egyptian forces moved into the Sinai. Ironically, Egypts move was, in part, in reaction to false Soviet information passed to Syria according to which Israel had mobilized forces on her border with Syria in preparation for an invasion of Syria

On May 18, Egypt expelled the U.N. Peacekeeping forces from Israel's borders.

On the 22nd, the Egyptians closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.

On the 25th, encouraged by Egypt – Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia moved their troops to Israel's borders.

Two days later, on the 26th of May, President Nasser of Egypt declared, "Our basic goal is the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight…. The mining of Sharm El Sheik is a confrontation with Israel".

Modelled after the November 1966 Egyptian-Syrian "defence" pact, other pacts were signed by Egypt with Jordan and Iraq on May 30th and June 4th, thereby completing the encirclement of Israel.

Once again, you are completely wrong. Learn what really happened.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked the diversion works in Syria in March, May, and August 1965, perpetuating a prolonged chain of border violence that linked directly to the events leading to war.

Following numerous border clashes between Israel and its Arab neighbours, particularly Syria, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser expelled the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) from the Sinai Peninsula in May 1967. The peacekeeping force had been stationed there since 1957, following a British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt which was launched during the Suez Crisis. Egypt amassed 1,000 tanks and nearly 100,000 soldiers on the Israeli border and closed the Straits of Tiran to all ships flying Israeli flags or carrying strategic materials, receiving strong support from other Arab countries. Israel responded with a similar mobilization that included the call up of 70,000 reservists to augment the regular IDF forces. On June 5, 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack. This claim was, however, disputed by Arab countries that asserted Israel's strike was an act of aggression. Jordan, which had signed a mutual defence treaty with Egypt on May 30, then attacked western Jerusalem and Netanya.

Transfer — or expulsion or ethnic cleansing — was never an explicit part of the Zionist program, even among its more extreme elements.

Matters took another turn in May 1948, when the British left, Israel declared statehood and the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq marched in. Again, for all their numerical superiority, the Arabs were ill-equipped, inexperienced, unprepared. Some Arab leaders knew they were in over their heads. But given the anger over the Jewish state on their streets and their own tenuous hold on power, not to invade was even more perilous.

Within five and a half months, they were crushed, militarily and psychologically. But for international intervention, their defeat would have been still worse; the Egyptian army would have been annihilated. Only King Abdullah of Jordan, with the best (British-trained) army and limited objectives (not to destroy the Jewish state, but to annex the West Bank), got what he wanted. Meanwhile, Israel grew beyond the partition lines, and gained more defensible borders.

From January onwards, operations became increasingly militarized, with the intervention of a number of Arab Liberation Army regiments inside Palestine, each active in a variety of distinct sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee and Samaria. Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men of the Army of the Holy War. Having recruited a few thousands of volunteers, al-Husayni organised the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem. To counter this, the Yishuv authorities tried to supply the city with convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but the operation became more and more impractical as the number of casualties in the relief convoys surged. By March, Al-Hussayni's tactic had paid off. Almost all of Haganah's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into the city were killed. The situation for those who dwelt in the Jewish settlements in the highly-isolated Negev and North of Galilee was even more critical.

While the Jewish population had received strict orders requiring them to hold their ground everywhere at all costs, the Arab population was more affected by the general conditions of insecurity to which the country was exposed. Up to 100,000 Palestinians, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards

1948 Palestine war

At the issue of the war, the State of Israel kept most of the area it had been allocated by the partition plan. Israel also took control a significant portion of the area allocated to the proposed Arab State. Including Jaffa, Lydda and Ramle area, Galilee, Negev, a strip along the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem road and some territories around Samaria (called today West Bank). No Arab Palestinian state was created: the remainder of the West Bank was annexed by Jordan and the Gaza Strip was placed under Egyptian military rule.

Due to the war, demographic changes occurred in the country. Between 700,000 and 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from the area that became Israel but could not settle in the neighborhood Arab states and became what is known today as the Palestinian refugees. On the other side, around 10,000 Jews were also forced to leave their homes in Palestine. In the three years following the war, 700,000 Jews settled in Israel, mainly along the borders and in former Arab lands. Around 136,000 came from the 250,000 displaced Jews of World War II. Most others were part of the 758,000 to 900,000 Jews who left Arab countries between 1948 and the Six-Day War.

Jaffa riots 1921 – Dozens of British, Arab, and Jewish witnesses all reported that Arab men bearing clubs, knives, swords, and some pistols broke into Jewish buildings and murdered their inhabitants, while women followed to loot. They attacked Jewish pedestrians and destroyed Jewish homes and stores. They beat and killed Jews in their homes, including children, and in some cases split open the victims' skulls.

1929 Palestine riots – During the week of riots, 133 Jews were killed and 339 wounded (mostly by Arabs); 116 Arabs were killed and 232 wounded (mostly by British-commanded police and soldiers)

The Hebron Massacre refers to the mass murder of sixty-seven Jews in 1929 in Hebron, then part of the British Mandate of Palestine, by Arabs incited to violence by false rumors that Jews were massacring Arabs in Jerusalem and seizing control of Muslim Holy Places

The carnage had a deep effect on the Jewish community. The survivors were forced to flee Hebron, and their property was seized by Arab residents and occupied until after the Six Day War of 1967. It also led to the re-organization and development of the Jewish defense organization, the Haganah, which later became the nucleus of the Israel Defense Forces.

The 1929 Safed massacre took place on 29 August during the 1929 Palestine riots. Eighteen Jews were killed (some sources say twenty) and eighty wounded. The main Jewish street was looted and burned.

The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine was an uprising during the British mandate by Palestinian Arabs in Palestine which lasted from 1936 to 1939. It should not be confused with the Arab Revolt of 1916–18.

The revolt did not achieve its goals, although it is "credited with signifying the birth of the Arab Palestinian identity."

Another outcome of the hostilities was the disengagement of the Jewish and Arab economies in Palestine, which were more or less intertwined until that time.

You should also ask yourself how many Palestinians Israel has killed in the past year alone. The death ratio this year is a hundred to one. (Israel killed a hundred Palestinians for every Israeli (mostly soldiers this year) that the Palestinians managed to kill).

Yet for some reason you continue to defend ethnic cleansing, illegal blockades, and a brutal military occupation.

You should also know that MEMRI (the site you continue to link us all to) is known amongst journalists and scholars as a propaganda source. You claim to be someone who is against propaganda, so I thought you should know.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/12/world…