Sunday, June 03, 2007

TIMELINE - 3 JUNE 1967

3 JUNE 2007

The New York Times reported that Britain declared the Egyptian blockade could lead to war. They further reported that four Syrian commandos had been intercepted in Israel.

MILITARY BUILD-UP:

By this time Egypt had 210,000 troops ready for deployment, with 100,000 of them with 930 tanks ready in the Sinai. They had 30 Tu-16 Russian-made bombers, which were a threat to Israel’s cities. Overall the Egyptian Air Force, by far the largest and the most modern of all the Arab air forces, consisting of about 450 combat aircraft, all Soviet-built and relatively new.

Syria had 63,000 troops and Jordan 55,000 – totalling 328,000 troops ready to fight Israel.

The Arabs had twice the number of tanks compared to Israel (2,330 against 1000) and far more combat aircraft too (682 compared to Israel’s 286); They had 1,845 armoured personnel carriers compared to Israel’s 1,500.

However, by fully mobilizing Israel could muster 250,000 men. Israel would need to rely on the training and motivation of this largely civilian army to counter the numeric superiority of the Arabs in manpower and weaponry.

Israel's newly-appointed Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, wishing to confine hostilities if possible to the imminent battles against Egypt, ordered the Israeli Army not to open a second front with Jordan in the West Bank in the event of war. He instructed the head of the Israeli Army Central Command: “You must not do anything to entangle Israel with the Jordanians..."

[From http://www.sixdaywar.co.uk/index.htm].

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