By Daan de Wit
Former Dutch UN observer, Colonel (ret.) Jan Mühren,
said last Monday on the Dutch current affairs program Nova that in the run up to the the Six-Day War Israel provoked most border incidents as part of its strategy to annex more land. Jan Mühren, who was stationed interchangeably at the Golan Heights and the West Bank in 1966 and 1967, says Israel was not under siege by Arab countries. Mühren said neither Jordan nor Syria had any intention to start a war with Israel.
Last Tuesday it was forty years ago the Six-Day War started.Watch the video with English subtitles (the segment is broken down into two parts). Below the video's the subtitles are printed as text.
Tomorrow is exactly 40 years after ..
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.. Israel decided to attack it's neighboring countries.
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In just a few days the armies of Egypt, Syria ..
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.. and Jordan were devastatingly defeated.
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The general view then was that Israel would be wiped of the map by their Arab neighbors.
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But it is exactly the opposite, says Jan Mühren a former UN observer.
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Our reporter traveled with him to the Middle-East in an attempt to reconstruct what happened.
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It's a journey in time.
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40 years after he shot these images with his 8 mm camera..
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.. Jan Mühren is back for the first time in the West Bank.
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An unique experience.
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And I have to say from Jerusalem the landscape has changed so much.
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We have seen some beautiful settlements.
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The wall.. this is actually really unimaginable.
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In 1966 and 1967 Jan Mühren was stationed as UN observer at the Israeli border.
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Here he witnessed in person how Israel was continuously provoking it's Arab neighbors.
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He never reconciled himself in the way in which the Six-Day War ended up in our history books.
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The general view improved a little ..
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.. but the image we had in the first few decades afterwards was totally outdated.
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The small Israel being threatened from all sides ..
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.. that is completely incorrect.
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It's totally incorrect?
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- Yes, nothing adds up.
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This is Samua ..
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.. a small Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank territory.
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Before the Six-Day War it was part of Jordan.
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The inhabitants of this village have never forgotten the date of November 13, 1966 ..
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.. when a large Israeli force of over 1000 soldiers with planes and tanks attacked Samua.
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A meeting with the Samua municipality spokesperson.
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As 17 year old boy he was witness to the Israeli attack.
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Khalil Abu Lkibash remembers exactly what happened that early Sunday morning in November.
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He shows the cave where he then sought refuge.
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While the inhabitants of Samua went in hiding, the Israeli army went on a rampage.
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More than 80 homes were demolished.
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15 Jordanian soldiers and 3 civilians lost their lives in the attack.
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It was an Israeli retaliation for a terrorist strike by Palestinian terrorists ..
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.. but they didn't come from this place.
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Had the people from this village anything to do with the attack on Israel?
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- Well no. Not just from this village but also NOT from the entire West Bank.
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That last half year we, I mean my UN colleagues and I, Belgians ..
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.. only western officers operated here and we did patrols. The situation was completely calm.
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In the UN Security Council the Israeli attack on Samua was condemned in harsh terms.
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The Israeli historian Michael Oren wrote an authoritative book on the Six-Day war.
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Also according to him Israel had nothing to fear from Jordan when it attacked Samua.
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The UN observers were busy in the months prior to the war.
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They drove from incident to incident.
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There were firefights going on between the two sides.
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And in April '66 Israel even took down a Syrian Mig.
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A former Syrian position on the Golan Heights.
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Now it's a war memorial.
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From this place the Jewish kibbutzes were constantly being shot at.
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At least, according to the Israeli version of events.
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Frankly I believe this is a case of falsification of history.
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Last century's largest chapter of falsification of history.
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This is a lie?
- An absolute lie!
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Syria posed no threat to Israel, says Mühren.
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It was the exact opposite.
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This was the location of the UN observation post.
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From this place Mühren observed how the Israelis provoked a border incident..
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.. with armored tractors.
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Those armored tractors were fully loaded..
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.. and went in, two in front, one backup in the rear, into the demilitarized zone.
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Where they had no business going to.
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It was in breach of the truce.
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On that moment shots were fired from the Golan Heights.
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First a couple of gun shots, then later some bursts of machine gun fire.
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And the Israelis who had positions over there clearly waited ..
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.. until we took note of the shots. That the first shots originated from the Syrians.
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And after that within half an hour the whole area was on fire.
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Why did the Israelis do that?
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- To take possession of another piece of demilitarized zone.
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First they simply used the farmers from the kibbutzes to grab land.
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And later it became military operations.
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Moshe Dayan, the famous Israeli war hero has admitted ..
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.. long after the Six-Day war that the majority of incidents were provoked by Israel.
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He did this in a conversation with journalist Rami Tal.
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The conversation was only published after the death of Dayan.
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In the Netherlands little of this transpired.
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This is the Mannopam gate in Jerusalem, in Israel.
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The only border crossing into the Arab countries surrounding Israel: Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
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The only opening in likely the world's most fiercely contested border.
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The media stands firmly on Israel's side.
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In November 1966 the current affairs program AVRO Televizier ..
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.. reports on how the Jewish state is being threatened from all sides.
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Syria is sending tanks to the Israeli borders.
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Egypt flew some Mig fighter squadrons to Syria.
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Around Damascus and near the border with Israel ..
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.. Russian experts are active installing anti-aircraft rockets.
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In Israel an increasing number of voices call for teaching the Arabs a heavy handed lesson.
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Since January 1963 the Arabs conducted no less than 66 raids on Israel ..
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.. while the Security Council or the Truce Commission is unable to do anything against it.
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Not one single word about the Israeli provocations.
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Mühren returned home to the Netherlands just before the start of the Six-Day War.
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On his return he tells in an interview with the 'Army Courier' what he has seen.
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The publication of the article was canceled by the upper echelons.
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That article never got published. A few weeks later we got notice that the article would not ..
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.. appear in the May '67 issue because it was incompatible with the sentiments of the population.
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This is literally what they said?
- This is literally what they said.
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After all these incidents and exchanges of fire on June the 5th, 1967, the war broke out.
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Israel attacked Egypt and defeated in 6 days all neighboring Arab countries.
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East-Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights were captured.
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For Samua the war was the beginning of the occupation that now has endured for 40 years.
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The village has now been rebuilt ..
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.. but the inhabitants lost much of their land to Israeli colonists.
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Since recently there is also 'the wall' ..
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.. that's why the people from Samua cannot go to their jobs in Israel.
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The war that lasted 6 days for the Israelis is for the Palestinians far from over.
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A solution has to be found.
It is there actually ..
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.. but it has to be executed. And that must happen on short term.
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Israel has to be pressured.
This cannot continue.