COMO ISRAEL VENCEU A GUERRA?

Shalom and welcome back to ‘Israel with Aline!’ Today we come to the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, but we don’t come here to talk about archaeological finds, but rather to talk about the Six Day War since this Museum became a key HQ for Israel’s miraculous victory. So, if you’re ready, let’s get started! Here on the walls of the museum we can see the gunfire and artillery marks and they remind us of this very important war; the Six Day War. and better saying Israel’s victory in the Six Day War is considered one of the great miracles of the State of Israel. Israel fought alone against seven countries and had a much smaller number of soldiers, armaments, planes and was at a geographical disadvantage. But in order to understand how Israel wins this war, we have to start by understanding why it happened. And for that we have to go back in history to the Roman Period and that is why I am standing here next to a Roman sarcophagus. Because they were the ones who two thousand years ago expelled the people of Israel from their land and that is why for almost two thousand years the people will stay in exile and suffer many persecutions including the Holocaust. But everything started to change in 1947 when the UN created the Palestine partition plan and with the help of a Brazilian named Oswaldo Aranha, this plan was approved. By the way, we have a video here in the channel telling the whole story of Oswaldo Aranha and the creation of the State of Israel, I will leave the link up here for you. But after 1900 years of exile, finally the UN and the world recognize the right and the need of the Jews to declare their independence and that is exactly what the people of Israel do; in 1948 Israel declared its Independence and the local Arabs and all the neighboring Arab countries then declared war on the newborn State of Israel. Israel wins the war of independence but at a high cost; one percent of the entire Jewish population of Israel will die in the war. Not one percent of the army guys, one percent of the entire population! It is going to be a very difficult war but one that in the end Israel will be victorious. But not completely, because Israel will lose many biblical and historical sites. The city of Jerusalem will be divided in half, the border passed right here behind the museum and half of Jerusalem will be in Israeli hands and the other half in Jordanian hands. But the victory in the war of independence is considered a great achievement for the State of Israel, ending an exile of almost two thousand years. But all the first years of the State of Israel are going to be a very difficult period, Israel is going to be constantly attacked from all its borders. Syria will also try to literally kill Israel with thirst; they try to divert the Jordan River which is the main source of water to the Sea of Galilee and to all of Israel. Israel was also very vulnerable because of geographical issues; at its narrowest point Israel was 9 miles wide as you can see on this map. And all the neighboring Arab countries did not accept the existence of the State of Israel and were waiting for the next war to annihilate this newly created state. Literally Israel could be wiped off the map at any moment. And Egypt starts to get organized and organize the Arab countries for the next attack on Israel they mobilize 80,000 soldiers on the border with Israel; Syria puts another 50,000 soldiers Jordan another 60,000 and Iraq sends even more soldiers! It was really an existential threat against Israel! The population of Israel begins to see thousands of enemy soldiers approaching their borders with tanks, planes and artillery and panic in Israel begins to grow. Israel did not have the soldiers and armaments to face such a big war and the population starts to despair; they start talking about a new H0locaust. The State of Israel, which for two thousand years had sought Independence, had finally achieved it and it was thought that after nineteen years this dream would come to an end. The situation was so bleak in Israel that people started preparing for this mass destruction, the government of Israel digs ten thousand graves. People, ten thousand graves are dug! And the population begins to talk of kidding, but a dark joke saying “last one out turns off the light”, literally they thought there would not be a Jew left here in Israel. Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran which was the main entrance for oil and many important products into Israel and also Egypt kicks out the UN observers who were to secure peace for Israel. Israel knew that it would be attacked at any moment and so Israel launches a pre-emptive strike against Egypt’s air force and they are taken completely by surprise; twelve Israeli planes in a total of four hours destroy two thirds of the entire Egyptian air force which was the largest air force in the entire Arab world. But the question is: How can such a gigantic attack be launched without Egypt knowing about it? As the element of surprise happens and here happens a series of “coincidences”, you will decide in the end if it was a coincidence or not. The first thing, a few weeks before, the president of Egypt decided to change all the Generals in the Sinai Peninsula and most of the air bases, so the new Egyptian Generals did not know the region well and were not prepared. Also the night before, without Israel knowing, they decide to have a big party and on the day of the attack most of the generals were tired and hungover and the most impressive of all, is that when Israel launches the attack, right at the beginning some people in the Sinai peninsula of the Egyptian army realize and they send a coded message to the Egyptian army but when they arrive and receive it, they can’t read this code because a wrong code was sent and they can’t decipher the message. And until the message arrives, try to be deciphered, they realize that the code is wrong, sending the message back and receiving it again, four hours have passed. How can such an error happen? They simply choose to send the wrong code and the message arrives ineligible, you can really feel the hand of God here. And so begins the Six Day War between Israel and Egypt. And despite a great start in this war, Israel still felt that it would not be able to defeat several armies in parallel. So Israel sends a message to King Hussein, the King of Jordan who then controlled half of Jerusalem, all of the West Bank and had a very powerful army and Israel sends the following message: “don’t attack Israel and Israel promises not to attack you either, please don’t get into this war.” But King Hussein ignores Israel’s request and yes attacks Israel and starts attacking Jerusalem, they attack even holy places and even churches. Then Egypt attacks Israel, Jordan attacks and they are also joined by Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and also support from Kuwait and Lebanon. In a total of seven countries, they have more than 240,000 troops against 100,000 of Israel, more than 2,500 enemy tanks against less than 800 of Israel, more than 1,000 aircraft against 250 of Israel. We can see that Israel is at a numerical disadvantage, Israel did not have even half the number of soldiers and armaments that all these countries had. And then the great battle between Jordan and Israel starts here in Jerusalem and Israel manages to conquer the Rockefeller Museum and turns this place into their military HQ Why, precisely this museum? For two reasons; the first one is its geographical location, here is a strategic point in relation to the Old City, but the second reason is even more important and it is related to the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls and we will talk about it at the end of this video because now we will continue talking about the great battle. Israel decides not to use artillery to attack the Old City because of the holy and biblical sites. And on June 7th, the third day of the war, Israel managed to liberate the Old City of Jerusalem and the famous phrase was said: “The Temple Mount is in our hands!” Religious and non-religious Jews go to the Wailing Wall and for the first time in 1900 years, Jews can pray freely, all the soldiers had a feeling that this was a miracle happening, that the hand of God had to be there three days earlier they were digging graves to bury thousands of Jews who would die in this war and three days later they were blowing the shofar, blowing the trumpet at the Wailing Wall raising the flag of Israel on the Temple Mount, things that seemed more than impossible! And then out of the despair and panic, Israel begins to feel the power of God and feel the victory, and the victory really comes on the sixth day, six days Israel battles and on the seventh Israel rests. And in six days alone, Israel not only defeats seven countries, but Israel more than triples its territory! Israel conquers the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the entire Sinai Peninsula all the way to the Suez Canal, see here on the map the gigantic size that Israel becomes! Despite Israel’s great victory, here to this day we can see the gunshot marks the marks of the explosions in the Rockefeller Museum, but this museum shows us Israel’s connection to its land. What is the other reason why the military HQ was set up here? Because here the Dead Sea Scrolls were kept, The Dead Sea scrolls were written by a Jewish group called the Essenes more than two thousand years ago but these scrolls were found and kept here by Jordan and they were inaccessible to Israel. Think about it, the oldest Hebrew Bible in the world was not accessible to Israel and so when the conflict started Israel was obviously worried about winning the war but also the Generals thought: “The Dead Sea scrolls are here, the greatest treasure we have is the Bible and our connection to Biblical history. The Hebrew of the scrolls, we also speak Hebrew today.” And so they send a special unit of paratroopers here, they will surround the museum, come in here and ensure the preservation of the scrolls so that they would not be destroyed during the conflict and also so that they would not be smuggled to Jordan. And so thanks to the thinking of these Generals that even in a time of war, even in a time when they were literally thinking that maybe Israel would be destroyed they were still concerned about the archeology. And thanks to them Israel here is able to have the Dead Sea scrolls which will later be taken from here to the Israel Museum and a department built especially for them air-conditioned and protected so that these scrolls of more than two thousand years will be here also for the next thousands of years. So this museum here has ensured that the scrolls are accessible to us, not all of them unfortunately, some scrolls like the copper scroll they were in Jordan when the Six Day War started and they are there to this day. But this museum makes sure that most of the scrolls are under the control of Israel and the people of Israel today. So when we walk here we see all these marks of fire that remind us of the difficult moments of war but also remind us of the victory of the people of Israel, a victory that without any doubt had the hand of God because in six days Israel succeeds in winning and on the seventh day Israel rests. I hope you enjoyed getting to know a little bit of the Rockefeller Museum and the history of the Six Day War, let us know in the comments what you want to hear about next week, thank you for watching and see you next week!