Six days which changed the Middle East

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At the end of 1948, Israel's Arab neighbours had invaded to try to destroy the new state, and failed. The Egyptian army had been beaten, but a force surrounded in a piece of land known as the Falluja pocket refused to surrender. A group of young Egyptian and Israeli officers tried to break the impasse. Among them was Yitzhak Rabin, a 26-year-old Israeli military prodigy who was head of operations on the southern front, and the 30-year-old Egyptian Major Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Just a few years after the Nazis had killed six million Jews, the dream of establishing a state in their biblical homeland had come true. Palestinians call 1948 "al-Nakba", or "the Catastrophe". Up to 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from the land that became Israel, and were never allowed back.

For the Arabs, defeat at the hands of the fledgling Israeli state was a seismic political moment that led to years of upheaval.

Nasser became a hero in the Arab world in the wake of the Suez crisis
Feeling betrayed, humiliated army officers seized power. Syria had regular military coups. Four years after the end of the war, Nasser led a group of young officers who overthrew the king of Egypt.

Both sides knew that another war would come, sooner or later
By 1956, Nasser was president. In the same year, he defied Britain, France and Israel in the Suez crisis, and became the hero and leader of the Arab world. In Israel, Rabin continued his military career. By 1967, he was chief-of-staff, the most senior officer. Arabs could not get over the pain of defeat; the Israelis never forgot that their neighbours tried to destroy them. Both sides knew that another war would come, sooner or later.

Read more at BBC
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