A Concise History of the Middle East

The June 1967 War • 333

Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights (see Map
18.1). Almost a million Arabs, most of them Palestinians, had come under
Israeli rule. Israel had not anticipated this. No one had drawn up contin¬
gency plans. Defense Minister Dayan and other Israeli officials had claimed
during the war that they would defend, not expand, Israel's territory. In¬
deed, some Israelis viewed Gaza and the West Bank as a part of their Biblical
patrimony and wanted to absorb them. Most were relieved just to find that

MMMj Israel before 1967

Occupied territory

Mediterranean Sea

Port Said

Suez '

SINAI

EGYPT

0 20 40 60 8!) 100 miles

AO 80 120 160 kilometers

Beirut

LEBANON'

i SYRIA

GOLAN

Haifa HLIGHTS

"1

WEST i

BANK :

TelUviv ( .Amman

\v j

—^Jerusalem

eersheba

ISRAEL

JORDAN

Aqaba

SAUDI ARABIA

^ttmts oj I'iran

s;«jrm al-Shaykh

MAP 18.1 Israel and the occupied territories, 1967-1973