1956 Suez War was a military defeat, but a political victory, for Egypt. Heavy diplomatic pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union forced Israel to withdraw its military from the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. After the 1956 war Egypt agreed to the stationing of a UN peacekeeping force in the Sinai, U.N.E.F. (United Nations Emergency Force), to keep that border region demilitarized, and prevent guerrillas from crossing the border into Israel. As a result the border between Egypt and Israel quieted for a while.

The aftermath of the 1956 war saw the region return to an uneasy balance without any real resolution of the region's difficulties. At the time no Arab state had recognized Israel. Syria, aligned with the Soviet bloc, started sponsoring guerilla raids on Israel in the early 60's as part of its "people's war of liberation" designed to deflect domestic opposition to the Ba'ath Party. 

1957, at the UN, 17 maritime powers declared that Israel had a right to transit the Straits of Tiran. Moreover, the Egyptian blockade prior to the 1956 Suez War possibly violated customary international law on innocent passage through international straits. Several years later, in response to Israel's construction of the National Water Carrier, Syria initiated a plan to divert the waters of the Dan/Baniyas stream so that the water would not enter Israel and the Sea of Galilee, but rather flow through Syria to Jordan and into the Jordan river. In addition to sponsoring attacks against Israel (often through Jordanian territory, much to King Hussein's chagrin), Syria also began shelling Israeli civilian communities in north-eastern Galilee, from positions on the Golan Heights Although Israel destroyed the water-diversion facilities in 1964, the border remained a scene of constant conflict.

1966, Egypt and Syria signed a military alliance, initiated for both sides if either were to go to war. According to foreign minister Mahmoud Riad, Egypt had been forced into the mutual defence pact by the Soviet Union. The pact had two objectives: (1) to reduce the chances of a punitive attack on Syria by Israel and (2) to bring the Syrians under Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s moderate influence. 

April 7, 1967, a minor border incident escalated into a full-scale aerial battle over the Golan Heights, resulting in the loss of six Syrian MiG-21s to Israeli Air Force (IAF) Dassault Mirage III, and the latter's flight over Damascus.  Drysdale and Hinnebusch report that Israeli tanks were concentrated on Syria's border and in a radio address Yitzhak Rabin threatened to march on Damascus to overthrow the Syrian government.  In early May the Israeli cabinet authorized a limited strike against Syria and Rabin's renewed demand for a large-scale strike to discredit or topple the Ba'ath regime was opposed by Eshkol.  Border incidents multiplied and numerous Arab leaders, both political and military, called for an end to Israeli reprisals. Egypt, then already trying to seize a central position in the Arab world under Nasser, accompanied these declarations with plans to re-militarize the Sinai. Syria shared these views, although it did not prepare for an immediate invasion. The Soviet Union actively backed the military needs of the Arab states. It was later revealed that on May 13 a Soviet intelligence report given by Nikolai Podgorny to Anwar Sadat falsely claimed that Israeli troops were massing along the Syrian border.  

May 17, Nasser demanded that the U.N.E.F. evacuate the Sinai, a request with which UN Secretary-General U Thant complied, thus removing the international buffer which had existed along the Egyptian-Israeli border since 1957. . The UN asked to move its force to Israel, but Israel refused to allow UN peacekeepers to deploy on its territory on their belief that it was a breach of the cease-fire agreement. Nasser then began the re-militarization of the Sinai, and concentrated tanks and troops on the border with Israel. 

May 23, Egypt closured the Straits of Tiran to all shipments bound for Israel, thus blockading the Israeli port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. Also, Nasser stated, "Under no circumstances can we permit the Israeli flag to pass through the Gulf of Aqaba." While most of Israel's commerce used Mediterranean ports, and, according to John Quigley, no Israeli-flag vessel had used the port of Eilat for the two years preceding June 1967, oil carried on non-Israeli flag vessels to Eilat was a very significant import.  There were ambiguities, however, about how rigorous the blockade would be, particularly whether it would apply to non-Israeli flag vessels. Citing international law  Israel considered the closure of the straits to be illegal, and it had stated it would consider the blockade a casus belli in 1957 when it withdrew from the Sinai and Gaza. The Arab States disputed Israel's right of passage through the Straits, noting that they had not signed the Territorial Sea Convention specifically because of article 16(4) which provided Israel with that right.  In the UN General Assembly debates immediately after the war, many nations argued that even if international law gave Israel the right of passage, Israel was not entitled to attack Egypt to assert it because the closure was not an "armed attack" as defined by article 51 of the UN Charter. Similarly, international law professor John Quigley argues that under the doctrine of proportionality, Israel would only be entitled to use such force as would be necessary to secure its right of passage. 

The few regional forces that might have prevented war quickly crumbled, and President Johnson's proposal of an international maritime force to quell the crisis was not well received. Nasser's pan-Arabism had numerous supporters in Jordan (in spite of Hussein, who felt it threatened his authority.)

May 30, Jordan signed a mutual defense treaty with Egypt, thereby joining the military alliance already in place between Egypt and Syria. President Nasser, who had called King Hussein an "imperialist lackey" just days earlier, declared: "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."  On the other hand, Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban later wrote in his autobiography that when he was told by U Thant of Nasser's promise not to attack Israel he found this reassurance convincing as "...Nasser did not want war; he wanted victory without war".  Writing from Egypt on 4 June New York Times journalist James Reston observed: "Cairo does not want war and it is certainly not ready for war. But is has already accepted the possibility, even the likelihood, of war, as if it had lost control of the situation." 

Several days later Jordanian forces were given to the command of an Egyptian general Abdul Munim Riad.  Israel called upon Jordan numerous times to refrain from hostilities. Hussein, however, was caught on the horns of a galling dilemma: allow Jordan to be dragged into war and face the brunt of the Israeli response, or remain neutral and risk full-scale insurrection among his own people. Army Commander-in-Chief General Sharif Zaid Ben Shaker warned in a press conference at the end of May "If Jordan does not join the war a civil war will erupt in Jordan". 

Israel's own sense of concern regarding Jordan's future role originated in Jordanian control of the West Bank. This put Arab forces just 17 kilometers from Israel's coast, a jump-off point from which a well co-ordinated tank assault could cut Israel in two within half an hour. Although the size of Jordan's army meant that Jordan was probably incapable of executing such a maneuver, the country was perceived as having a history of being used by other Arab states as staging grounds for operations against Israel; thus, attack from the West Bank was always viewed by the Israeli leadership as a threat to Israel's existence. At the same time several other Arab states not bordering Israel, including Iraq, Sudan, Kuwait and Algeria, began mobilizing their armed forces.

In a speech before Israeli National Defense College, Menachem Begin stated that Israel was the one who made the decision to attack: "The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." However, he reminded his audience of the wars where Arabs were the ones who made the final decision to attack. Each of them took a terrible toll in human lives in Israel, up to 1% of the total population in the War of Independence. In this instance, he felt pre-emption was justified, and therefore quickly added: "This was a war of self-defense in the noblest sense of the term."  

Writing in 2002 American National Public Radio journalist Mike Shuster offered the view that Israel "was surrounded by Arab states dedicated to its eradication. Egypt was ruled by Gamal Abdel Nasser, a firebrand nationalist whose army was the strongest in the Arab Middle East. Syria was governed by the radical Baathist Party, constantly issuing threats to push Israel into the sea."  Others would no doubt cite Israel's 1956 Invasion of Egypt (which according to Derek Varble reinforced Israel's tendency to strike first ) and its creeping annexation of the DMZ between Israel and Syria as more tangible and significant background events to the war.  With provocative acts by Nasser, including the blockade of the Straits and the mobilization of forces in the Sinai, creating military and economic pressure, and the United States temporizing because of its entanglement in Vietnam War, Israel's political and military elite came to feel that preemption was not merely militarily preferable, but trans-formative.

The same discussion was occurring in reverse in Egypt. Nasser gained effective military control over the forces of Jordan on May 30th with an alliance, and already had an alliance in hand with Syria. At the same time, Nasser believed that the Israeli's striking first would be disastrous for Israel's standing in world opinion. Some of his commanders believed that Egypt was in no position to fight. A third of its troops were bogged down in a civil war in Yemen, while Egyptian military communication and supply lines were in bad shape. Kenneth Pollack observes that Nasser's ambivalence about his goals and objectives was reflected in his orders to the military. The general staff changed the operational plan four times in May 1967, with each change requiring the redeployment of troops to a new location, with the inevitable toll on both men and vehicles. Towards the end of May Nasser finally forbade the general staff from proceeding with the Qahir ("Victory") plan, which called for a light infantry screen in the forward fortifications with the bulk of the forces held back to conduct a massive counterattack against the main Israeli advance when identified, and ordered a forward defense of the Sinai.  In the mean time, he continued to take actions intended to increase the level of mobilization of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, in order to bring unbearable pressure on Israel.

Israel viewed the closure of the straits with some alarm and the U.S. and U.K. were asked to open the Straits of Tiran, as they guaranteed they would in 1957. Jordan was asked by the Jewish lobby in the USA through numerous channels, weeks before the war, to refrain from entering the conflict.

Christopher Gelpi writes that the Israeli cabinet met on May 23 and decided to launch a pre-emptive strike if the Straits were not re-opened by May 25. Following an approach from US undersecretary of state Eugene Rostow to allow time for a nonviolent solution Israel agreed to a delay of ten days to two weeks. 

Egyptian Field Marshall `Abdel Hakim `Amer had devised a plan to launch an attack on Israel with the aim of cutting off Eilat at dawn on May 27.  According to Egyptian Vice-President Hussein al Shafei as soon as Nasser knew what Amer wanted he cancelled the operation.  On May 26, 1967, Foreign Minister of Israel Abba Eban landed in Washington with the goal of ascertaining from the American administration its position in the event of the outbreak of war. As soon as Eban arrived, he was handed a cable from the Israeli government, and in it the false information that Israel had learned of an Egyptian and Syrian plan to launch a war of annihilation against Israel within the next 48 hours. Eban met with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, and finally with President Johnson. The Americans said their intelligence sources could not corroborate the claim; the Egyptian positions in the Sinai remained defensive. Eban left the White House distraught. Historian Michael Oren explains his reaction: "Eban was livid. Unconvinced that Nasser was either determined or even able to attack, he now saw Israelis inflating the Egyptian threat - and flaunting their weakness - in order to extract a pledge that the president, Congress-bound, could never make. 'An act of momentous irresponsibility... eccentric...' were his words for the cable, which, he wrote, 'lacked wisdom, veracity and tactical understanding. Nothing was right about it'."  In a lecture given in 2002, Oren said, "Johnson sat around with his advisors and said, ‘What if their intelligence sources are better than ours?’ Johnson decided to fire off a Hotline message to his counterpart in the Kremlin, Alexey Kosygin, in which he said, ‘We've heard from the Israelis, but we can't corroborate it, that your proxies in the Middle East, the Egyptians, plan to launch an attack against Israel in the next 48 hours. If you don't want to start a global crisis, prevent them from doing that.’ At 2:30 AM on May 27, Soviet Ambassador to Egypt Dimitri Pojidaev knocked on Nasser's door and read him a personal letter from Kosygin in which he said, ‘We don't want Egypt to be blamed for starting a war in the Middle East. If you launch that attack, we cannot support you.’ `Amer consulted his sources in the Kremlin, and they corroborated the substance of Kosygin's message. Despondent, Amer told the commander of Egypt's air force, Major General Mahmud Sidqi, that the operation was cancelled." 

May 30 Nasser responded to Johnson's request of eleven days earlier and agreed to send his vice-president, Zakkariya Muhieddin, to Washington on 7 June to explore a diplomatic settlement in "precisely the opening the White House had sought".  US Secretary of State Dean Rusk was bitterly disappointed by Israel's pre-emptive strike on June 5 as he had been certain he would have been able to find a diplomatic solution if the meeting had gone ahead.  Historian Michael Oren writes that Rusk was "mad as hell" and that Johnson later wrote "I have never concealed my regret that Israel decided to move when it did". 

Within Israel's political leadership, it was decided that if the US would not act, and if the UN could not act, then Israel would have to act. 

June 1, Moshe Dayan was made defense minister, and on June 3 the Johnson administration gave an ambiguous statement; Israel continued to prepare for war. Israel's attack against Egypt on June 5 began what would later be dubbed the Six-Day War. Martin van Creveld explains the impetus to war: "...the concept of 'defensible borders' was not even part part of the IDFs own vocabulary. Anyone who will look for it in the military literature of the time will do so in vain. Instead, Israel's commanders based their thought on the 1948 war and, especially, their 1956 triumph over the Egyptians in which, from then chief of staff Dayan down, they had gained their spurs. When the 1967 crisis broke they felt certain of their ability to win a 'decisive, quick and elegant' victory, as one of their number, General Haim Bar Lev, put it, and pressed the government to start the war as soon as possible". 

The confidence of Israel's leaders was well founded. In May 1967 the Egyptian army had a nominal strength of around 150,000, but 50-70,000 troops, including the elite units, were fighting in the civil war in Yemen.  Jordan's army had a total strength of 55,000 , but it too was embroiled in the fighting in Yemen. Syria's army had 75,000 troops.  The IDF had a total strength, including reservists, of 264,000.  James Reston, writing in the New York Times on 23 May 1967 noted,

"In discipline, training, morale, equipment and general competence his [Nasser's] army and the other Arab forces, without the direct assistance of the Soviet Union, are no match for the Israelis...

Even with 50,000 troops and the best of his generals and air force in Yemen, he has not been able to work his way in that small and primitive country, and even his effort to help the Congo rebels was a flop."

Of particular concern to the Israelis were the 30 TU-16 Badger medium bombers, capable of inflicting heavy damage to Israeli military and civilian centers.  

June 5 at 7:45  Israeli time, as air alarms sounded all over Israel, the Israeli Air Force left the skies of Israel, sending all but twelve of its jets in a mass attack against Egypt's airfields. Egyptian defensive infrastructure was extremely poor, and no airfields were yet equipped with armored bunkers capable of protecting Egypt's warplanes in the event of an attack. The Israeli warplanes headed out over the Mediterranean before turning towards Egypt. Meanwhile, the Egyptians didn't help themselves by turning off their air defense radars at that time: they were worried that rebel Egyptian forces would shoot down the Egyptian military leaders, who were about to perform an inspection. The Israelis employed a mixed attack strategy; bombing and strafing runs against the planes themselves, and tarmac-shredding penetration bombs dropped on the runways that rendered them unusable, leaving any undamaged planes unable to take off, helpless targets for the next wave. The attack was successful beyond the wildest dreams of its planners, destroying virtually all of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground with few Israeli casualties. Nearly 300 aircraft and 350 combat pilots were lost. The Israelis lost 19 of their planes mostly to operational losses. This attack guaranteed Israeli air superiority during the rest of the war.

The northernmost Israeli division, consisting of three brigades and commanded by Israel Tal, one of Israel's most prominent armor commanders advanced slowly through the Gaza strip and El-Arish, which were not heavily protected. The central division (Avraham Yoffe) and the southern division (Ariel Sharon), however, entered the heavily defended Abu-Ageila-Kusseima region. Egyptian forces there included one infantry division (the 2nd), a battalion of tank destroyers and a tank regiment.

At that moment, Sharon initiated an attack, precisely planned and carried out. He sent out two of his brigades to the north of Um-Katef, the first one ordered to break through the defenses at Abu-Ageila to the south, and the second to block the road to El-Arish and to encircle Abu-Ageila from the east. At the same time, a paratrooper force was landed there and destroyed the artillery, preventing it from engaging Israeli armor. Combined forces of armor, paratroopers, infantry, artillery and combat engineers attacked the Egyptian disposition from the front flanks and rear, cutting the enemy off. The breakthrough battles which were in sandy areas and minefields, continued for 3 and-a-half days until Abu-Ageila fell.

Many of the Egyptian units remained intact and could be scrambled to prevent Israeli units from reaching the Suez Canal or engage in heavy combat in the attempt to reach the canal. However, when the Egyptian Minister of Defense, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer heard about the fall of Abu-Ageila, he panicked and ordered all units in the Sinai to retreat. This order effectively meant the defeat of Egypt.

Due to the Egyptians' retreat, the Israeli Command decided not to pursue the Egyptian units but rather to bypass the Egyptian units and destroy them in the mountainous passes of West Sinai. Therefore, in the following two days (June 6 and 7) all three Israeli divisions (Sharon and Tal were joined by an armored brigade each) rushed westwards and reached the passes. Sharon's division first went southward then westward to Mitla Pass. It was joined there by parts of Yoffe's division, while its other units blocked the Gidi Pass. Tal's units stopped at various points to the length of the Suez Canal.

Israel's blocking action was only partially successful. Only the Gidi pass was captured before the Egyptians approached it, but at other places Egyptian units did manage to pass through and cross the Canal to safety. Nevertheless the Israeli victories were impressive. In four days of operations, Israel defeated the largest and most heavily equipped Arab army, leaving numerous points in the Sinai filled with hundreds of burning or abandoned Egyptian vehicles.

On 8 June, Israel had captured the Sinai by sending infantry units to Ras-Sudar on the western coast of the peninsula. Sharm El-Sheikh, at its southern tip, had already been captured a day earlier by units of the Israeli Navy.

Several tactical elements made the swift Israeli advance possible: first, the complete air superiority the IAF had achieved over its Egyptian counterpart; second, the determined implementation of an innovative battle plan; and third, the lack of coordination among Egyptian troops. These would prove to be decisive elements on Israel's other fronts as well.

Prior to the war, Jordanian forces included 11 brigades (total of around 55,000 troops), equipped by some 300 modern Western tanks. Of them, 9 brigades were deployed in the West Bank and 2 in the Jordan valley. The Jordanian ground army was relatively well-equipped and well-trained. Furthermore, Israeli post-war briefings claimed that the Jordanian staff acted professionally as well, but was always left "half a turn" behind by the Israeli moves. The Royal Jordanian Air Force, however, consisted of only about 20 Hawker Hunter fighters, obsolete by all standards.

Israeli Central Command forces consisted of five brigades. The first two were permanently stationed near Jerusalem and were called the "Jerusalem" brigade and the mechanized "Harel" brigade. A paratrooper brigade was summoned from the Sinai front, Mordechai Gur's 35th. An armored brigade was allocated from the General Staff reserve and brought to the Latrun area. The 10th armored brigade was stationed north of Samaria. The Northern Command provided a division (3 brigades) which was stationed to the north of Samaria and led by Elad Peled.

On the morning of 5 June, Jordanian forces made thrusts in the area of Jerusalem, occupying Government House used as the headquarters for the UN observers and shelled the city. Units in Qalqiliya fired in the direction of Tel-Aviv. The Royal Jordanian Air Force attacked Israeli airfields. Both air and artillery attacks caused little damage. Israeli units were scrambled to attack Jordanian forces in the West Bank. In the afternoon of that same day, Israeli Air Force (IAF) strikes destroyed the Royal Jordanian Air Force. By the evening of 5 June, the infantry Jerusalem brigade moved south of Jerusalem, while the mechanized Harel encircled it from the north.

June 6, the Israeli units attacked: The reserve paratroop brigade completed the Jerusalem encirclement in the area called "The Ammunition Hill" (which was the site of a bloody battle). The infantry brigade attacked the fortress at Latrun capturing it at daybreak, and advanced through Beit Horon towards Ramallah. The Harel brigade continued its push to the mountainous area of north-west Jerusalem, linking the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University with the city of Jerusalem. By the evening, the brigade arrived in Ramallah.

The Jordanian forces in Samaria amounted to 4 divisions, one of them being the elite armored 40th. The IAF caught the 60th Jordanian Brigade on the road from Jericho to reinforce Jerusalem and destroyed it. One battalion from Peled's division was sent to check Jordanian defenses in the Jordan Valley. A brigade belonging to Peled's division captured Western Samaria, another captured Jenin and the third (equipped with light French AMX-13s) engaged Jordanian Pattons main battle tanks to the east.

June 7, heavy fighting ensued. Gur's paratroopers entered the Old City of Jerusalem via the Lion's Gate, and captured the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. The Jerusalem brigade then reinforced them, and continued to the south, capturing Judea, Gush Etzion and Hebron. The Harel brigade proceeded eastward, descending to the Jordan river. In Samaria, one of Peled's brigades seized Nablus; then it joined one of Central Command's armored brigades to fight the Jordanian forces which held the advantage of superior equipment and were equal in numbers to the Israelis.

Again, the air superiority of the IAF proved paramount as it immobilized the enemy, leading to its defeat. One of Peled's brigades joined with its Central Command counterparts coming from Ramallah, and the remaining two blocked the Jordan river together with the Central Command's 10th (the latter crossed the Jordan river into the East Bank to provide cover for Israeli combat engineers while they blew the bridges, but was quickly pulled back because of American pressure).

June 7th and 8th passed in this way. At that time, a debate had been going on in the Israeli leadership whether the Golan Heights should be assailed as well. Military wisdom, however, suggested that the attack would be extremely costly, as it would be an uphill battle against a strongly fortified enemy. The western side of the Golan Heights consists of a rock escarpment that rises 1700 feet from the Sea of Galilee, and the Jordan River to a more gently sloping plateau. Moshe Dayan believed such an operation would yield losses of 30,000, and opposed it bitterly. Levi Eshkol, on the other hand, was more open to the possibility of an operation in the Golan Heights, as was the head of the Northern Command, David Elazar, whose unbridled enthusiasm for and confidence in the operation may have eroded Dayan's reluctance. Eventually, as the situation on the Southern and Central fronts cleared up, Moshe Dayan became more enthusiastic about the idea, and he authorized the operation.

The Syrian army consisted of about 75,000 men grouped in 9 brigades, supported by an adequate amount of artillery and armor. Israeli forces used in combat consisted of two brigades (one armored led by Albert Mandler and the Golani Brigade) in the northern part of the front, and another two (infantry and one of Peled's brigades summoned from Jenin) in the center. The Golan Heights' unique terrain (mountainous slopes crossed by parallel streams every several miles running east to west), and the general lack of roads in the area channeled both forces along east-west axes of movement and restricting the ability of units to support those on either flank. Thus the Syrians could move north-south on the plateau itself, and the Israelis could move north-south at the base of the Golan escarpment. An advantage Israel possessed was the excellent intelligence collected by Mossad operative Eli Cohen (who was captured and executed in Syria in 1965) regarding the Syrian battle positions.

The IAF, which had been attacking Syrian artillery for four days prior to the attack, was ordered to attack Syrian positions with all its force. While the well-protected artillery was mostly undamaged, the ground forces staying on the Golan plateau (6 of the 9 brigades) became unable to organize a defense. By the evening of June 9, the four Israeli brigades had broken through to the plateau, where they could be reinforced and replaced.

On the next day, June 10, the central and northern groups joined in a pincer movement on the plateau, but that fell mainly on empty territory as the Syrian forces fled. Several units joined by Elad Peled climbed to the Golan from the south, only to find the positions mostly empty as well. During the day, the Israeli units stopped after obtaining maneuver room between their positions and a line of volcanic hills to the west. To the east the ground terrain is an open gently sloping plain. This position later became the cease-fire line known as the "Purple Line".

In contrast, the Arab air forces never managed to mount an effective attack: Attacks of Jordanian fighters and Egyptian TU-16 bombers into the Israeli rear during the first two days of the war were not successful and led to the destruction of the aircraft (Egyptian bombers were shot down while Jordan's fighters were destroyed during the attack on the airfield).

War at sea was also extremely limited. Movements of both Israeli and Egyptian vessels are known to have been used to intimidate the other side, but neither side has ever engaged the other at sea. The only moves that yielded any result were the unleashing of 6 Israeli frogmen in Alexandria harbor (they were captured, having sunk a minesweeper), and the Israeli light boat crews capturing the abandoned Sharm El-Sheikh.

June 6, the second day of the war, King Hussein and Nasser declared that American and British aircraft took part in the Israeli attacks. This announcement was intercepted by the Israelis and turned into a media frenzy. This became known as "The Big Lie" in American and British circles (see 'Claims of U.S. and British combat' support below).

Two days later, on June 8 the USS Liberty, an American electronic intelligence vessel sailing 13 miles off al-Arish, was attacked by Israeli air and sea forces, nearly sinking the ship and causing heavy casualties. Israel claimed the attack was a case of mistaken identity, but whether or not this is true is still heavily debated to this day (see USS Liberty incident).

The political importance of the 1967 War was immense; Israel demonstrated that it was not only able, but also willing to initiate strategic strikes that could change the regional balance. Egypt and Syria learned tactical lessons, but perhaps not the strategic ones, and would launch an attack in 1973 in an attempt to reclaim their lost territory.

According to Chaim Herzog
"on June 19, 1967, the National Unity Government [of Israel] voted unanimously to return the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria in return for a peace agreements. The Golans would have to be demilitarized and special arrangement would be negotiated for the Straits of Tiran. The government also resolved to open negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan regarding the Eastern border. 

The Israeli decision was to be conveyed to the Arab nations by the United States. The US was informed of the decision, but not that it was to transmit it. There is no evidence of receipt from Egypt or Syria, who thus apparently never received the offer.

Later, the Khartoum Arab Summit resolved that there would be "no peace, no recognition and no negotiation with Israel." However, as Avraham Sela notes, the Khartoum conference effectively marked a shift in the perception of the conflict by the Arab states away from one centered on the question of Israel's legitimacy toward one focussing on territories and boundaries and this was underpinned on November 22 when Egypt and Jordan accepted Resolution 242. 

The June 19 cabinet decision did not include the Gaza Strip, and left open the possibility of Israel permanently acquiring parts of the West Bank. 

On June 25-27, Israel incorporated East Jerusalem together with areas of the West Bank to the north and south into Jerusalem's new municipal boundaries.

Yet another aspect of the war touches on the population of the captured territories: of about one million Palestinians in the West Bank, 300,000 (according to the US State Department) fled to Jordan, where they contributed to the growing unrest. The other 600,000  remained. In the Golan Heights, an estimated 80,000 Syrians fled . Only the inhabitants of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights were allowed to receive Israeli citizenship, as Israel annexed these territories in the early 1980s. See also Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both Jordan and Egypt eventually withdrew their claims to West Bank and Gaza (the Sinai was returned on the basis of Camp David Accords of 1978 and the question of the Golan Heights is still being negotiated with Syria). After Israeli conquest of these newly acquired 'territories' a large settlement effort was launched to secure Israel's permanent foothold. There are now hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers in these territories.

The casualties of the war, far from Israel's anticipated heavy estimates, were quite low, with 338 soldiers lost on the Egyptian front; 300 on the Jordanian front and 141 on the Syrian front. Egypt lost 80% of its military equipment, 10,000 soldiers and 1,500 officers killed; 5,000 soldiers and 500 officers captured  and 20,000 wounded.  Jordan suffered 6,000-7,000 killed and probably around 12,000 to 20,000 wounded.  Syria lost 2,500 dead and 5,000 wounded, plus half the tanks and almost all the artillery positioned in the Golan Heights. . The official count of Iraqi casualties was 10 killed and about thirty wounded 

The 1967 War also laid the foundation for future discord in the region - as on November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242, the "land for peace" formula, which called for Israeli withdrawal "from territories occupied" in 1967 in return for "the termination of all claims or states of belligerency."

The framers of Resolution 242 recognized that some territorial adjustments were likely and deliberately did not include words all or the in the English language version of the text when referring to "territories occupied" during the war, although it is present in other, notably French, Spanish and Russian versions. It recognized the right of "every state in the area" - thus Israel in particular - "to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1982, after the Camp David Accords.