The Setback or Naksa 58’
Fifty-eight years ago this June, the Zionist entity known as ‘Israel’ invaded Gaza, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and the Golan Heights. In six days of war (June 5–10, 1967) Israel’s army uprooted and forcibly displaced over 300,000 Palestinians from their homes. Palestinians call this catastrophe the Naksa (Arabic for “setback”) – a continuation of the Nakba of 1948. As Al Jazeera notes, the 1967 Naksa built on the 1948 ethnic cleansing “Zionist forces… expelled some 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland” in 1948, and by 1967 had “expelled another 300,000 Palestinians… and gained territory that was three and a half times its size”. In effect, ‘Israel’ stole what remained of historic Palestine and declared it part of Greater Israel, forcibly displacing tens of thousands more into the diaspora.
The Zionist occupiers long planned this outcome. According to Palestinian writers, the Naksa was “a continuation of…1948” – a pre-planned colonization, not an accident. From its inception Zionist leaders described their movement as colonization. Figures like Herzl and Jabotinsky openly called Zionism “colonization,” and scholars such as Edward Said and Ilan Pappé call it a settler-colonial project. By 1967 ‘Israel’ was acting on a clear illegal and territorial agenda. When Egypt’s Nasser moved troops and closed the Straits of Tiran, ‘Israel’s’ leaders pounced – launching a preemptive air strike on June 5. U.S. archives show Washington signaled it would not oppose the Israeli offensive, effectively green-lighting ‘Israel’ to “destroy Egypt’s military, undermine Nasser’s position… and strike a blow at the Soviet alliance”. In the end, the Zionist entity emerged with all of Gaza, the West Bank (and East Jerusalem), Sinai, and the Golan Heights under its control. This settler-colonial conquest vastly expanded ‘Israel’s’ territory (to 3.5× its size) and cemented its apartheid regime – a single ethno state where Jews hold full rights and Palestinians are treated as subhuman and segregated under brutal Zionist military occupation.
The Naksa also exposed the collapse of the old Arab order. Israel’s invasion shattered the nostalgic Arab unity and pan-Arab power. Egypt’s President Nasser suffered a humiliating defeat (he even offered to resign), King Hussein of Jordan watched East Jerusalem fall, and Syria’s army fled in disarray. As one Palestinian chronicle observes, the aspirations for Arab unity “seemed more distant than ever” after 1967. The lesson was clear that the Arab regimes had failed to defend Palestine. In that failure, the burden fell on Palestinians themselves to resist. New grassroots structures took shape. The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) gathered disparate fighters under its banner, and Palestinian fedayeen (“freedom fighters”) organized guerrilla raids from Lebanon, Jordan and the occupied territories. Indeed, after the Arab armies’ defeat “Palestinian fedayeen groups were united under… the PLO”. In Gaza especially, young fighters waged what was called a “mini-war” against the occupier for years after 1967. Refugee camps became hubs of defiant resistance, not relief. This was popular struggle in its rawest form— Palestinians taking up arms themselves.
The Naksa coincided with a revival of Islamic consciousness in the occupied territories. In the rubble of camps, mosques and religious schools became centers of community and resistance. Concepts like sumud – “steadfastness” – took on new life. (As one analysis notes, sumud “entered political discourse as a national symbol during the 1960s,” embodying Palestinian perseverance on the land. For many Palestinians, Islam’s message of resisting injustice and helping the oppressed gave meaning to their ordeal. It connected the liberation struggle to a higher cause – a moral duty that could not be bargained away.
In the decades that followed, the Naksa’s fallout shaped regional politics. The UN called for Zionist withdrawal from the occupied territories (UNSC Resolution 242), and ‘Israel’ eventually returned Sinai to Egypt under the 1978 Camp David Accords. But as Britannica reports, the Camp David deal returned only Sinai, while Gaza and the West Bank stayed under Israeli military rule
The Naksa clarified who the real enemies and collaborators were. It exposed Arab dictators as unreliable guarantors of Palestinian rights. It showed that international powers (the U.S. and Europe) consistently backed ‘Israel’. (For example, Western nations ignored Israel’s takeover of East Jerusalem and subsidized its military machine.) Palestinians recognized that false friends and feeble rulers had sold them out time and again.
Today, the Naksa’s legacy is one of clear-eyed resistance. The occupier’s face is unmistakable that an apartheid regime of Jewish supremacy, as Human Rights Watch documents, ruling by military decrees and segregated laws over the West Bank. No illusions remain about land-for-peace deals or foreign “liberators.” The tragedy of 1967 taught that only Palestinians themselves – rooted in their homeland, their people, and their faith – can struggle for freedom. In that spirit, generations of Palestinians have embraced sumud and sumud’s companion, muzahara (presence), refusing to leave their land despite walls, checkpoints and exile.
In short, the 1967 Naksa was not a mere six-day war, but a chapter in a century-long Zionist colonial project. Each setback has underscored that the liberation of Palestine will come through the steadfast unity of its people and the justice informed by their faith.
What you’ll find in the sources: Authoritative histories and reports, including Al Jazeera (Naksa analysis), Britannica, UN archives, and rights organizations, document the facts cited above. These sources confirm the forced expulsions, the colonial nature of Zionism, the occupation’s apartheid policies, and the historical arc leading from Naksa to Camp David and Oslo.
Sources: Al Jazeera.
“What is Naksa Day?” Al Jazeera, June 5, 2024.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/5/what-is-naksa-day
Al Jazeera.
“Naksa Day: 56 Years Since the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territories.” Al Jazeera, June 5, 2023.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/5/naksa-day-56-years-since-the-israeli-occupation-of-palestinian-territories
Edward Said.
The Question of Palestine. Vintage Books, 1992.
Ilan Pappé.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications, 2006.
Britannica.
“Six-Day War.” Encyclopedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War
Human Rights Watch.
“A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.” HRW Report, April 27, 2021.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
UN Security Council.
Resolution 242, November 22, 1967.
https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/7D35E1F729DF491C85256EEB0065FDDB
Yezid Sayigh.
Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993. Oxford University Press, 1999.
Sara Roy.
Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector. Princeton University Press, 2011.
Amira Hass.
“Faith in Gaza: How Islam Fuels Steadfastness Under Siege.” Haaretz, May 15, 2021.
Rashid Khalidi.
The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Beacon Press, 2006.