The commitment to a strong military came about as a necessity, as leaders in the Arab world have threatened Israel and denounced its right to exist since those first formative years. These threats boiled over in the 1948 Arab Israeli war, which saw Israeli repel Arab military thrusts, and claim over 75% of Palestinian territories, far more than was allotted them under the UN Partition Plan. There have been dozens of skirmishes since this initial conflict -- with Israel living under constant fear of siege -- but the two most famous are the Six Days War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

In May 1967, as reaction to Israeli-Syrian tensions, Egypt amassed 1000 tanks and 100,000 soldiers on the Israeli-Egyptian border and called for a multilateral Arab movement against Israel. In response, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against Egypt's air-force, beginning the 6 Day War, which quickly saw the entry of Jordan into the fray. In a week's time, Israel had gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Some saw Israel's actions as just retribution against Egypt for her aggression; others peg the war's result a shameless Israeli land-grab.

The war exacerbated the humiliation of the "Wandering Palestinian", as even more land was lost to Israel, and more refugees were uprooted and placed in temporary camps in economically depressed areas in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Either way, the end results of this conflict continue to affect Middle East politics, even today, some forty years after the fact.

Image: (FILES) File picture dated June 10, 1967, shows two Israeli US-made Super-Sherman tanks patroling in East Jerusalem. Four decades later, the six-day war that dramatically reshaped the Middle East in 1967 continues to scar the region, deeply affecting the lives of Israelis, Palestinians and their neighbours.
Photograph: Pierre Guillaud/AFP/Getty Images

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