How Israel Broke Pan-Arabism

• The 1967 Six-Day War: Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had mobilized a coalition of Arab nations (including Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) with the goal of erasing Israel. Israel launched a swift preemptive strike that destroyed Arab air forces on the ground and captured the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

• Collapse of Nasser's Prestige: The humiliating military defeat—referred to as the Nakba ("Setback") in the Arab world—shattered the myth of Arab military unity and destroyed Nasser's political aura as the champion of Pan-Arab nationalism.

• Shift in Regional Politics: As detailed in historical analyses like Time Magazine's Archive on Pan-Arabism, the defeat marked the turning point where Arab states gradually abandoned dreams of a single unified Arab super-state, paving the way for individual national interests and later peace treaties (such as Egypt and Jordan's peace deals with Israel).

• Rise of Islamism: With the decline of secular Pan-Arab nationalism, alternative movements—including political Islam and militant groups—gradually filled the ideological vacuum in the Middle East.

How Israel Broke Pan-Arabism And can defeat its successors too.

Back when radical Islam was still a movement on the sidelines, and long before the rise of its vicious Shiite variant, pan-Arabism was the organizing Middle Eastern ideology that gave hope to idealists, motivated ordinary people, and directed hatred at the Jewish state. It is also an ideology that has vanished, in large part because Israel managed to defeat it—first through force of arms and then through sound diplomatic judgment, in cooperation with one of modern Arab history’s savviest statesmen. This is the interpretation of events that Dan Schueftan sets forth in conversation with Haviv Rettig Gur. (Video, 76 minutes. Audio also available on podcast platforms.)