Rejecting the defeat - Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. Lecture and discussion with Egyptian historian Dr. Khaled Fahmy - lecture and discussion
7 Nov. 🕕 18h
Linke Büro, Karlstrasse 10, Freiburg
In June 1967, Israel inflicted a devastating defeat on three of its Arab neighbors, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Israeli Minister of Defense, Moshe Dayan, was famously quoted as saying that he was waiting for a phone call from Arab leaders, in reference to his expectation that they would capitulate and accept Israel’s terms of surrender. Instead, the Arab leaders met in a summit meeting and issued the three No’s that became as famous as Dayan’s phone quip: No peace, No recognition, No negotiations. At the same time, the Palestinians decided to take their fate in their hands and launched the Palestinian Revolution, an armed resistance against Israeli occupation of their land.
This talk will review the events of the June War and its immediate aftermath in order to explain the Arab “rejection of the defeat”. This did not mean a denial of the defeat, but a stubborn refusal to accept the terms that Israel was offering. The talk will then analyze the Arab efforts to deal with the aftermath of the defeat by concentrating on the Egyptian and Palestinian military efforts to recoup their losses and prepare to fight another day.
Khaled Fahmy is Edward Keller Professor of North Africa and the Middle East at Tufts University. He is a historian of the modern Middle East with specialised emphasis on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Egypt. His academic publications deal with the history of the Egyptian army in the first half of the nineteenth century, as well as the history of medicine, law and urban planning. He also works on the history of Egypt’s wars with Israel: Suez 1956, June 1967, the War of Attrition, 1969-70 and the October 1973 Wars.
In addition to his academic publications which have appeared in both English and Arabic, Fahmy is also active on regular and social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Clubhouse as well as his bi-lingual blog: www.khaledfahmy.org).
