Sublime

More than half a million Jews now lived beyond what was commonly called the 1967 borders, but which were in fact the armistice lines delineated in 1949 after Israel’s War of Independence.

By 1953, the State of Israel was five years old. The War of Independence had ended more than four years earlier, but Israel’s citizens now faced regular attacks by these Palestinian infiltrators crossing the Jordanian and Egyptian borders. The attacks were relentless. In the three years following independence, there were thousands of such

Following the 1967 Six Day War, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) analyzed the performance of their main battle rifle, the Fusil Automatique Léger (FAL) and found it wanting. It did not perform well in the dusty desert environment in which the IDF primarily fought. Examination and testing of Egyptian and Syrian AK-47s and AKMs recovered by the IDF

The Labor Party won the postponed elections in December 1973, but Golda Meir resigned in April 1974 and was succeeded by Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin had a smaller majority than Meir had had in her first term, and with the country still seething, he was in many ways presiding over a party whose hegemony was about to end.

But the talks produced no progress. Abbas once again wanted to discuss borders first while Netanyahu responded that Israel could not discuss borders without knowing how those lines could be defended.