As the crisis escalated, Prime Minister Eshkol decided to deliver a speech to the nation at the end of May. Eshkol's speech turned into a political disaster. It was delivered live over the radio. But it was a stammering and stuttering speech, as Eshkol found difficulty in reading certain corrections that had been made in the text of the speech. And it conveyed the image of a government that was at a loss. There was mounting domestic political pressure on Eshkol to broaden the government as confidence of the people in Eshkol as the leader in this crisis sunk to a new low. And the public pressure was to bring Moshe Dayan, the former famous Chief of Staff of the Suez campaign of 1956, to bring him into the cabinet as the Minister of Defense. And eventually Eshkol succumbed to the pressure, and Dayan was brought in as Minister of Defense and a broad national unity government was established, including the representatives of the political right, Menachem Begin and others from his party, who had never been part of any Israeli coalition. And this was a new legitimization of the political right in Israeli politics. But it created a government that had a much more hawkish color to it. And as we entered the beginning of June, there was greater pressure also coming from the military to strike first. The new cabinet and the pressure coming from within the leadership of the Israeli military gave further ground to the decision that Israel needed to preempt, and indeed war was initiated by Israel with a surprise air attack on the Egyptian Air Force and other Arab Air Forces on June the 5th, 1967. The air attack caught the Arab Air Forces completely by surprise, it was a phenomenal success militarily. And from the moment the air attack was over, it was clear that Israel was on the road to winning this confrontation. After the attack on the Arab Air Forces and the opening of the war with Egypt on the Egyptian front, war also began on the Jordanian front, initiated actually by the Jordanians. Who were fighting under Egyptian command according to the rules of the United Arab command, and in agreement reached by Hussein and Abdel Nasser just a few days before. But as fighting began on the Jordanian front, the Israelis were reluctant to open a war on two fronts at the same time. And the Israelis sent their message to Jordan, to cease their attack. And if they did, Israel would commit itself not to attack the Jordanians in this war. But Hussein, under the the impact of Samu, the belief that the Samu operation in November 1966, was conducted by Israel as a kind of practice run for the occupation of the West Bank. Hussein was convinced that whether he joined the war with Israel or not, whether he continued or ceasefire, that Israel would eventually attack Jordan on the West Bank front. And therefore, the Jordanians decided to continue. And the Jordanians opened fire along the entire front with Israel. Leading eventually to the Israelis embarking on an all full scale attack against the Jordanian forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank. And within a few days the Israelis had defeated both the Egyptian army and the Jordanian army. The Syrians during this time had done very little on their front and they had waged minor warfare against the Israelis on their front. But the Israelis were not about to allow the Syrians to escape scotch free after years of conflict with them. And exploiting the momentum of success, the Israelis opened the front against Syria and within a few days occupied the Golan Heights as well. So within six days in June of 1967. The Israelis had achieved a stunning defeat of the Arabs this was as stunning to the Arabs as it was to the Israelis completely unexpected. The war wasn't plan by either one of this parties and the Israelis hardly expected their victory to be so quick, so total and so stunning.
