On June 5, 1967, Israel destroyed Egypt’s air force and attacked the planes of Syria and Jordan. Then Israeli forces advanced on Sinai, Jerusalem’s Old City, Suez and the Golan Heights. Six days later Israel had achieved a stunning victory over the encircling Arab armies, and the map of the Middle East was redrawn.
The Arab states immediately began looking for reasons to explain their defeat, and loudly claimed British and US troops, planes and aircraft carriers had taken part in the fighting on Israel’s side. Thus was born one of the oldest and most intractable conspiracy theories of modern times, one that has coloured Middle Eastern politics for half a century.
The Six Day War was only a day old when Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt called King Hussein of Jordan on a crackling telephone line to cook up the fake news of Anglo-American military involvement. What they did not know was that two veteran officers of Israeli military intelligence were eavesdropping, using bugging equipment left over from World War II.
Read the full article by Ben MacIntyre of The Times at The Australian (subscription only).