Amira Howeidy finds a strange ambivalence in commemorating the 40th anniversary of the defeat of 1967 Tuesday morning, Cairo, 5 June 2007, and passengers rushing to the metro were in for a surprise. The fixed rate LE1 ticket had been reduced to 75 piastres for the day to "celebrate" 5 June. "We're celebrating the defeat?" asked a horrified looking woman in her late 30s. No, it's World Environment Day, the ticket seller responded, and Egypt is now celebrating it. The "defeat" itself, at least on the official level, was not to be commemorated, even if the entire region still reels from its repercussions. It is 40 years since Israel defeated three Arab states -- Egypt, Syria and Jordan -- in just six days, 135 hours that have since been known as the Naksa. Egypt was the main target of the attack, and Israel destroyed its armed forces. It also occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the Golan Heights and Sinai. Approximately 150,000 Palestinians fled the West Bank and Gaza to nearby countries, mainly Jordan, when Israel launched air strikes against them during the six-day war. Today, 4.5 million Palestinian refugees, forced from their homes in 1948 and 1967, are scattered across the globe, though the majority still face destitute conditions in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Egypt quickly rebuilt its armed forces and engaged in a war of attrition with Israel for two years, paving the way for the successful crossing of the Suez Canal and retaking of a strip of the Sinai Peninsula in 1973. Yet the repercussions of 1967 continue to define the Middle East. The ripples from 40 years ago daily fill news reports. The clashes now ongoing between the Lebanese army and Islamic groups in two Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon would not be happening if Palestinians had not been forced from their homeland four decades ago. Gaza would not nightly flash across television screens, threatened once again with occupation. Yet the marking of the 40th anniversary of 1967 in Egypt appeared curiously out of sync with its impacts. With the exception of two opinion columns, Al-Ahram, Egypt's leading daily, ignored the anniversary in its 5 June issue. In contrast, Al-Akhbar ran four pages on the defeat while the "independent" Al-Masry Al-Yom ran an interview with the post-Naksa defence minister. The day's headlines were otherwise taken up with a controversial fatwa (religious edict) issued by Egypt's mufti, the ruling National Democratic Party's preparations for Shura Council elections and a parliamentary plea to the government to "control" inflation. State-run TV broadcasts stuck to their usual schedules, though a couple of talkshows did raise the spectre of the defeat. In Israel the event was marked differently, with extensive debates on how to deal with its spoils of war, Gaza and the West Bank, and those who are spoiling it, the 1.3 million Arab population of Israel. The difference in approaching the memory of 1967 is not the outcome of military defeat, argue many commentators. "Egypt made up for the military defeat by rebuilding the army and achieving 1973", said ex-judge and historian Tarek El-Bishri. "Yet 1967 caused a fracture in the political system, it exposed its defects and led to its demise." "When Egypt's political will waned," El-Bishri said, "so did the Arabs', not because we lost militarily -- that we made up for in 1973 -- but because the political establishment chose another path. Following 1967 the Arabs had three no's: no to negotiation, no to reconciliation, no to recognition. Following 1973 the no's were replaced by yes's. The first yes was to political defeat," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. Since then, he argues, the Arabs have been immersed in real or imaginary internal disputes and "not their dispute with Israel". "Even when local TV attempted to mark the anniversary," says novelist and writer Radwa Ashour, "it was, deliberately or not, reduced to a superficial 'we lost in 1967 but we won in 1973' and that's the end of the story. Which, of course, it isn't." She notes a general trend in the press to focus on domestic politics at the expense of regional developments, "as if we are no longer part of the Arab region, as if all these fires around us are none of our business... it is as if all the tragedies surrounding us are not enough and we are expected to be confused as well." But confusion, says Ayman El-Sayyad, managing editor of the cultural monthly Weghat Nazar, seems to be the order of the day. "Because the regime doesn't appear to have a clear policy towards the Arab- Israeli conflict, the media, naturally, responds with its own confusion. They don't seem to know how to cover the conflict anymore, let alone its roots," he told the Weekly. This, he added, is inline with the "official" discourse that supports the notion that "the Arabs are incapable of achievements, that the lesson learned from 1967 is that the 'foolish' revolutionary discourse led to our defeat. Now we should be "realistic" and settle for what is given is to us, no matter how unfair it is. And this is a very worrying policy." Ironically, the only serious attempt to mark the anniversary of the 1967 War wasn't in any of the three states defeated by Israel 40 years. Instead it was the Gulf Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV station, which devoted a series of shows to the event and, on 4 June, aired a long documentary, The Open Wound, which chronicled the defeat and its continuing impact. "Because they enjoy a certain degree of professionalism, they understand the significance and importance of this event and its impact on our people. We're not only lacking such professionalism, we seem to lack any position at all," says Ashour. As Israel continues to capitalise on its illegal occupation 40 years after the event, with yet more land grabs, house demolitions and massacres against the Palestinians and, more recently, the Lebanese, its relations with Arab governments have improved though, according to opinion polls, the hostility of Arab peoples has increased. "In ignoring or underestimating 1967 we are being asked to live without a memory," argues Ashour. "But this is impossible. With every Israeli air strike and every Israeli violation we cannot but link the present with the past."
