Why Israel went to war in 1967

Dan Buckley’s article ‘Lifeblood of the World is Running Dry’ (Sept 5) suggests that a leading motivating factor in Israel’s participation in the 1967 Six Day War against three Arab armies was its desire to conquer water sources in the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

There is no basis for this claim. The war was forced on Israel by aggressive actions on the part of its Arab neighbours.

The precipitating factors in the war were: (1) the massing of 100,000 Egyptian troops and 100 tanks in the Sinai peninsula next to Israel’s border from May 16, 1967, by Egyptian president Gamal Nasser; (2) the expulsion of the UN Emergency Force from the Sinai by Nasser on May 19; (3) the closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping by Nasser on May 22, which Israel had warned would be considered an act of war; (4) a barrage of inflammatory propaganda from Nasser, including his declaration on May 27 that his basic objective was the destruction of Israel, and his co-ordination of military operations with Syria.

Regarding current water resources in the region, I refer to Israel’s desalination programme, under which it intends to meet 85% of its household water needs when the new Ashdod plant joins the existing four facilities by the end of 2013, and may become an exporter of water in the future.

The decrepit state of the water system in the Gaza Strip is dueprimarily to the failure of its Hamas rulers to maintain the infrastructure as agreed between Israel and the Palestinians under the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Desalination projects are currently under way, funded by Unicef, the EU and others, to provide clean water to the people of Gaza.

Nurit Tinari-Modai

Deputy Ambassador of Israel

Dublin 4