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Introduction
The 1967 War, one of the largest precursors to the conflicts today in the Middle East
surrounding Israel, has faced scrutiny on all levels. The occupation of the West Bank, Gaza,
Golan Heights, and Sinai Peninsula (the last being handed back to Egypt in 1979) remain an
issue between Israel and its Arab neighbors today. However, the war itself created normative
issues surrounding the concept of warfare as well. It led to an expansion of the idea of pre-
emptive warfare, as the Israeli government originally claimed it was aimed to liberate Israel
from encirclement and preventing assault by the United Arab Command (Oren, 158). This
justification drew upon multiple events in the days leading up to the 1967 War, including
Egyptian and Syrian military mobilization, the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran, the
expulsion of UN forces from Gaza and the Sinai, and Arab support for groups conducting terror
attacks along Israels borders. This paper will seek to examine two of the events leading up to the
1967 War: the Egyptian mobilization and the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran. This
paper will first set out the background for these actions, detailing the given justifications. It will
then examine both the morality of statists view (Michael Walzers primarily) for jus ad bellum
(justification for war) on both actions, as well as a brief examination of jus ad bellum through the
cosmopolitan (both deontological and consequentialist) lens. This paper hopes to establish that
there was significant jus ad bellum through both worldviews, given the blockade and
mobilizations.

Background: Setting the Stage
The events of what some refer to as the Six Day War can be traced back to years before
the actual outbreak of fighting. Articles from Mann seek to establish Syria as the precipitator,
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looking at the February 1966 overthrow of the Baath in Syria by what would be called the neo-
Baath, who placed importance on escalation with Israel (Mann, 547). Others place the blame
on rising use of air power by Israel, culminating in an air strike deep in Syria on April 7, 1967
(Gat, 1189). Cohen attempts to explain that at least partially, the conflict was based on Israels
nuclear capabilities growing (Cohen, 191). All of these events and more can be argued to have
led to the blockade and mobilization by Egypt. However, arguably the most important factor in
the mobilization of Egyptian military forces in the Sinai and the blockade of the Straits of Tiran
was the false Soviet intelligence stating that Israel planned to launch a strike on Syria.
Gamal Abdel Nasser, then-President of Egypt, had mobilized Egyptian troops in the Sinai
on the basis of an escalating situation along the Syrian-Israeli border, militant speeches by
Israeli officials, and an ill-informed Soviet intelligence report (Popp, 285). On May 14, 1967,
the mobilization began, followed by the expulsion of UN forces on the May 18 and the closure of
the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping on May 23. Nasser, in his speech announcing the closure,
claimed On May 13, we received accurate information that Israel was concentrating on the
Syrian border huge armed forces of about 11 to 13 brigades (New York Times, May 26, 16). He
would later mention that Egypt had entered a state of complete mobilization in the Sinai and
Gaza. The justifications for mobilization on Egypts behalf being preventative are another issue
entirely, but we now must examine the events through the Israeli lens, to understand the
justifications for the pre-emptive strike on Egypt that followed.
Israel, facing the blockade and mobilization, had not actually mobilized along the Syrian
border prior to the Egyptian mobilization. The Soviet report, likely based on misinterpretations
of minor troop movements north or a misjudged piece of information, had led Egypt to prepare
for war, and Israel responded with similar preparations (Popp, 287). Israels Prime Minister, Levi
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Eshkol, also responded with a speech aimed at defusing tensions. He clarified that We do not
intend to launch an attack (New York Times, May 23, 16), and hoped that Egypt would
reciprocate Israels actions. Following this speech, a frenzied attempt to open the Straits of Tiran
began. Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir had, in a speech to the UN General Assembly in
1957, declared that interference with Israeli ships in the Gulf of Aqaba and through the Straits of
Tiran would be treated as a casus belli (reason for war). By June 1, Israel was prepared for war
(having begun an army reserve mobilization on May 20), as Nasser noted to his senior officers
on June 2. However, his calls went largely unheeded (Middle East Journal, 176). By June 4,
Israel had made the decision to go to war, and it opened hostilities on June 5, 1967, with the air
attack on Egypt. Knowing the rough timeline of events, the examination will now move into the
ethical justifications for the war through the morality of states and cosmopolitan views.

International Law on Blockades and Mobilization
Blockades have had varied uses throughout history, and with varying degrees of success.
Most, however, associate them with being implemented during wars rather than before. The
cases of the blockade of the United States South during the Civil War, the British blockade of
Germany in World War I, and the Ottoman Blockade of Lebanon in World War I, are some
notable examples. However, there have been numerous examples of blockades outside of wars as
well. The Soviet Union had blockaded West Berlin in 1948, as on example. Egypt had also
blockaded the Straits of Tiran in 1956 prior to the Suez Crisis. Further, the blockades outside of
war did not always lead to war itself, as in the cases of the Soviet blockade and the United States
quarantine of Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Therefore, it remains to be examined
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what international law surrounds jus ad bellum with regards to blockades, alongside a
comparison of Israels and Egypts attempts to comply with those laws.
The most commonly cited case of international law (in modern times) regarding
blockades comes from the UN Charters Article 42, which states that the Security Council may:

take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore
international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and
other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

In adopting this line, many claim that the UN Charter provides the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) with the authority to determine when a blockade is legal. This draws on UN
Charter Article 39, which denotes that the UN Security Council will be the judge of any threat to
peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression. However, the UNSC did not pass any
resolutions relating to the blockade or mentioning it specifically, nor is the UN Charter the only
international law regarding blockades. The Geneva Conventions adopted in 1949 do not argue
that blockades are justifications for war, but do point out that blockades cannot restrict
consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship
intended only for civilians (Geneva Conventions, Article 23). Egypt, having ratified the
Geneva Conventions in 1952, would therefore be bound according to international law by these
restrictions. However, it is important to note here that a violation of international law cannot be
deemed a complete casus belli according to the UN Charter.
With regards to mobilization of armed forces, the UN Charter once again provides guidelines for
the outbreak of war. As mentioned previously, the UN Charter sets the UNSC as arbiter of the
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existence of threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression (UN Charter,
Article 39). However, Article 51 qualifies this by stating that:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective
self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the
Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and
security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be
immediately reported to the Security Council... (UN Charter, Article 51).

Still, this does not explicitly justify Israels pre-emptive strike, because it delineates the right of
self-defense to a case where an armed attack occurs. However, the question of an imminent
armed attack remains in this regard, and one must examine the imminence of the attack alongside
the war. Thus, we are launched into the Morality of States view, which will cover the imminence
of attack.

Morality of States and Cosmopolitan View: Sufficient J us Ad Bellum in 1967?
Morality of statists views on war are generated along the sovereignty of states. Walzer
posits that the international arena forms a society of independent states, and that This
international society has a law that establishes the rights of its members above all, the rights of
territorial integrity and political sovereignty (Walzer, 175). In discussing these rights in light of
justifications for war, Walzer also implicitly provides a type of list that one can reference, that
consists of seven factors in jus ad bellum thought: proportionality, last resort, just cause, right
intent, just peace, chance of success, and proper authority. These will be explored during the
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following examination of the blockade and mobilization. One important note is that Walzer, in
1977, justified the Israeli pre-emptive strike as a clear case of legitimate anticipation
(Walzer, 85), but did not explain how it met his criteria; this led to the inclusion of Walzers
formulae as below for examination.
On the other hand, cosmopolitans take what can usually be seen as a simpler view of
international relations. They assign a minimal (at best) importance to state boundaries. The
fundamental cosmopolitan claim is that it is because all persons should be respected as
sources of ends that we should not allow all states to claim a right of autonomy (Beitz, 81).
Cosmopolitans such as Charles R. Beitz, who work on the basis of consequentialist (end-results-
based) ideals, seek to examine the empirical benefits of actions taken by states, as they can be the
best judges of a states action against other states. Deontological-cosmopolitans are similar in
their premises on state boundaries, but view moral actions differently. The foundation of
deontological cosmopolitanism drawn from Kant concludes, The basis for international
morality must remain for Kant what it is for domestic morality: the moral demand of reason
(Donaldson, 140). In this sense, Kants cosmopolitanism reduces the question down to: would all
rational beings consent to an action given the opportunity? Now, launching into the checklist of
just war theory, this paper will examine the aforementioned views as they relate to the 1967 War.
The Checklist and Justifications:
The checklist, handling the aforementioned six criteria, can be summed up as:
proportionality, last resort, just cause, right intent, chance of success, and proper authority. These
can be expanded on as illustrated by the work of Orend, who contends that for the resort to
force to be justified, a state must fulfill each of the [six requirements] (Orend, 526). An
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abridged version is found below:

Proportionality: Are the universal goods likely to result from the war going to outweigh
the universal harms expected to result?
Last Resort: Have all plausible, peaceful alternatives been exhausted prior to war?
Just Cause: Is the war being launched for the right reason (ie. self-defence, protection of
innocents, punishment of wrongdoing, etc.)?
Right Intent: Is the war only being fought for the sake of the just cause?
Chance of Success: Is the war going to lead to futile mass violence, or will it likely
succeed in accomplishing the objectives of proportionality?
Proper Authority: Has the decision to go to war been made by the proper authorities, and
have its own citizens and the citizens of the enemy state(s) been made aware by public
declaration of the war?

While Orend notes these as the traditional interpretations of just war tradition, he also notes that
The criteria for a just resort to force which Walzer defends are strikingly similar to, though at
times importantly different from, these six traditional norms (Orend, 526). Further, it is evident
that not all of these considerations apply to a cosmopolitan, who would be concerned only with
some of the questions based on their consequentialist or deontological slant. It is now appropriate
to examine the actual checklist as it applies to the 1967 War, to discuss whether Israel satisfied
the above qualifications in launching its attack on Egyptian forces.


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Proportionality:
One can easily examine the proportionality in 1967. It is clear, from the Israeli
discussions on the subject, that they believed the proportionality question to be sufficiently
resolved early on. Defense Minister Moshe Dayans decision concerning the strike pointed to
a multi-front attack that threatens Israels existence (Oren, 158). Indeed, since 1948, the
Arab states had refused to officially recognize Israels right to exist, a condition that persisted
until Egypts recognition was given in 1979. In fact, the last Arab statement on the subject
persisted from the Arab League Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine in May 1948, which
said, the only solution of the Palestine problem is the establishment of a unitary Palestinian
State (Israel Foreign Ministry). Israel, therefore, had legitimate reason to believe that its
existence was threatened, which satisfies the proportionality question: the goods of a states
preservation outweigh any war that does not seek the same result to the opposite party. From a
consequentialist-cosmopolitan point of view as well, the question is answered too; Israels
destruction would have led to far more deaths than a short war with the chances of success as
examined later in this section.
Last Resort:
The lead-up to the war was fraught with attempts to reach a diplomatic solution before
military action was taken. Walzer notes that diplomacy is preferable to war, but notes that there
can be no such thing, strictly speaking, as a last resort (Orend, 534). Despite the mobilization of
Egyptian forces, and removal of UNEF troops, Prime Minister Eshkols response to this
development was a model of moderation (Mutawi, 93). Israel, from the start, had attempted to
convince Egypt that it was not mobilizing along the Syrian border, and that it had no motive or
plan to attack any Arab nation. The Egyptians remained unconvinced, in part due to faulty
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communications between their own internal organizations. Egyptian Chief of Staff Muhammad
Fawzi left for Syria on May 14 to investigate, and ended up reporting, that neither Egyptian
nor Syrian intelligence could confirm any Israeli mobilization (Brown, 18). However, the
Foreign Ministry was not informed of this report. Diplomatic overtures from other parties were
ignored as well, with Soviet leadership [requesting] to de-escalate, [stating] that this could be
done only by reassuring the Americans that Egypt had no intention of starting a war and by
agreeing to open the strait for oil shipments to Israel (Brown, 44). This request, made over four
days of talks between May 22 and May 26, did not alter the situation, and the Egyptian decision
on May 30 to sign a defense pact with Jordan made the war inevitable, nothing more than a
question of timing (Churchill, 60). Even UN officials as part of the UN Emergency Force
(UNEF) were unwilling to leave, with Secretary-General U Thant saying, UNEF cannot be
asked to stand aside in order to enable the two sides to resume fighting (Oren, 70). U Thant
also stressed that there was no impending Israeli attack, but the secretary-general had already
upheld Egypts right to evict UNEF peremptorily, and so Nasser was able to evict them easily.
With regards to the blockade, Israel had agreed to accept a forty-eight-hour consultation
period during which the U.S. would consider mobilizing a multinational convoy to escort Israeli
ships through Tiran (Oren, 89). However, when this (and other) routes had failed through
diplomacy, and Egypt entered the defense pact, Israel found itself satisfying the question of last
resort: it had attempted all plausible, peaceful alternatives and found them empty in the face of
imminent attack. Noting all of the above, a quick note: deontological-cosmopolitanism would
easily posit that the pre-emptive strike was a rational course of action, given the fact that all
rational persons would have noted there being no other plausible alternative to war at this point.
Just Cause:
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In examining the case for just cause, the imminence of attack must be examined. As
Walzer put it, there must have been a last moment attempt to throw up ones arms by Israel
(Kurtulus, 222-223), rather than an attack based on a less-than-concrete stance. This question is
somewhat tied into that of last resort, but is far easier to satisfy. As early as August 15, 1966,
Radio Damascus had said, Israel will be the one on the defensive and the one to complain
(Laqueur, 47). Dayan found it very simple, in claiming, Nasser knew that in closing the Straits
he was initiating war against Israel. Hassanein Heykal made this quite clear in a convincing
article in Al-Ahram on May 26 (Eshkol, 11). The U.S. had already been informed of a plan
called Operation Dawn, which was slated to begin on May 27. The plan, canceled due to U.S.
pressure, nevertheless seemed inevitable due to the Jordanian defense pact of May 30. The
subsequent Jordanian mobilization was seen as yet another threat. Abdel Hakim Amer, Chief of
Staff of the Egyptian Army, played an instrumental part in the lead-up to the war. In fact, In a
phone conversation with [PLO Chairman Ahmed Shuqayri] on June 4, he expressed the hope
that soon well be able to take the initiative and rid ourselves of Israel once and for all. (Oren,
160). These impending threats make clear the case of just cause for Israel.
Right Intent:
Walzer, here, provides a significant alteration from the just war tradition. He notes that a
pure political will [is]a political illusion (Orend, 531). Walzer merely argues that right
orientation towards just cause is a necessary aspect, but does not argue that it must be the only
aspect, providing more lenience for jus ad bellum. Here, the response comes in a form similar to
the answer to the proportionality question: Israel acted to free itself from encirclement in the face
of a threat to its existence. This was the main goal discussed and listed in justification for war,
and so right intent is a simply answered requirement.
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Chance of Success:
There also had to have been a significant expectation for success prior to the war, as is
necessary for the initiation of hostilities according to the chance of success qualification.
Merely examining the event in hindsight is not sufficient to argue that there was a sufficient
chance of success assessed, at least from an intention-based examination. With this in mind,
Israel expected success as well. Despite the 1.3:1 ratio in manpower (2.4:1 ratio in airpower, and
4.8:1 ratio in artillery pieces) between Arab States (Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) and Israel,
numerous factors contributed to Israels chances for success. Kurtulus points to Israels success
in using the French Mirage against the Russian MiG, and Laqueur concurs that Israel held a
technological advantage. Laqueur claims, Arab soldiers had difficulties in handling certain
prestige weapons which often turned out to be unsuitable for desert conditions (Laqueur, 69).
There were also significant differences in favor of Israel on the manpower end, as there was
Israeli superiority in training, skill, leadership, and motivation (Brecher, 324). These assets,
as well as Israels effective intelligence networkinterior lines of communication, and the
physical separation of her adversaries (Brecher, 324) proved decisive in the war.
The Israelis, indeed, were optimistic about their prospects going into the war, illustrating
that they knew their advantage in both the element of surprise and the human advantages they
had. The National Unity Government, formed on June 1, 1967, faced an agonizing decision in
choosing to go to war. Despite being faced with questions of how to knock out the Egyptian air
force quickly to avoid counterattacks, Dayan was an optimist and his inclusion in the
Government meant that at last there was somebody with a deep understanding of the military as
well as the political situation of Israel (Churchill, 72). Dayan was confident the Air Force would
deliver as promised, and managed to convince the Cabinet as such to the degree (during June 3
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and June 4 secret meetings) that, By the Sunday evening [June 4, 1967] the soldiers and airmen
knew that the following morning they would be at war (Churchill, 71). Clearly, Israel had met
the chance of success requirement as well.
Proper Authority:
The requirement of proper authority is perhaps one of the hardest for Israel to have
satisfied in the case of the 1967 War. While Walzer does not speak much on the question of
proper authority, Walzer claims, The people must, in some public procedure, meaningfully
consent to the launching of a war on their behalf (Orend, 533). In this case, the Israel populace
had already been notified of the imminence of war mentioned already, and had chosen to consent
implicitly. The initiated hostilities, however, should also have included a public declaration of
war in the attack on Egypt. There was no such declaration. Walzer, though, qualifies this
implicitly, by stating that there are no police upon whom [states] can call, [so] the moment at
which states are forced to fight probably comes sooner that it would for individuals in a settled
domestic society (Walzer, 85). This acknowledgment can be applied to the Israeli case, because
Israel not only persisted in a technical state of war with Egypt until 1979, but it had been called
to fight under circumstances one could not have anticipated that threatened its political
independence. In either case, an Israeli declaration of war would have been superfluous and
harmful to its own political independence in restricting its ability to defend itself against a
quantitatively superior force.
Conclusion:
Through the examination of the traditional jus ad bellum checklist, as delineated more
clearly by Walzers amendments, one can conclude Israel acted with sufficient ethical
background from a morality of states viewpoint. The adherence to last resort, proportionality,
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just cause, etc. rules left Israel in the right in launching the pre-emptive attack from that lens.
Further, because the questions of right intent/just cause/last resort are inherently the same as the
deontological-cosmopolitan view, and because the chance of success/proportionality questions
are inherently the same as the consequentialist-cosmopolitan view, one can reach the conclusion
that by the cosmopolitan view, the pre-emptive attack was justified as well. Thus, it is fair to
conclude that the Egyptian mobilization and blockade of the Straits of Tiran did provide
sufficient jus ad bellum for Israel, and that the Six Day War gives us a clear example of a
justified pre-emptive strike following that jus ad bellum, at least through the two international-
relations views examined in this paper.