We strike and defeat the proxies, one after another, and deliver a crushing blow to the hostile Middle Eastern power. This victory radically transforms the region and results in significant progress towards peace, but the process takes time. A decade will pass before the full impact of Israel’s military triumph will be registered.
Nasser was not only the president of Egypt but also the champion of the Pan-Arab movement, which sought to unite the entire Middle East into a unified Arab state. In such a region, there was certainly no place for a Jewish state.
It’s important to remember that the radical changes that took place in the Middle East as a result of the Six-Day War did not happen immediately. Nasser remained in power for another three years, and his successor, Anwar Sadat, made war against us in 1973. But the idea of Pan-Arabism never recovered, and ten years after the 1967 war, that same Sadat visited Israel and began negotiating peace.
Michael OrenPhoto: Avi MualemThe discredited Pan-Arabism was replaced by Pan-Islamism as represented by Iran and its jihadist allies. The current war may have the same effect of discrediting Pan-Islamism and its leaders. But this, too, may take time. Significantly, the Ayatollahs are no longer emphasizing the Islamic foundations of their regime but rather emphasizing Iranian nationalism. That is precisely the process that occurred in post-1967 Egypt.
