🌊 The 12 Day War

Trump has called the Israel-Iran conflict the 12 Day War. Is it an apt comparison?

June 24, 2025

Netanyahu and Khamenei

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By Max Frost

In May of 1967, the Arab countries were preparing for war. 

After years of developing their militaries, they had acquired substantial weaponry and were prepared to flip the script – namely, to reverse the 1948 war that had seen Israel’s numerous Arab neighbors invade at the moment it secured independence, only to be defeated. The result of that war was the establishment of the state of Israel and the expulsion of 700,000+ Palestinians in what the Arabs referred to as the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe.”

By 1967, after nearly two decades of preparation, the Arab countries – led by Egypt’s charismatic, nationalist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser – believed they were strong enough. Operating on Soviet intelligence, they blockaded Israel, signed alliances, and moved their aircraft and other equipment into position.  

But before they knew it, they had lost. 

At 7:45 AM on June 5, 1967, Israel launched a preemptive airstrike that destroyed over 300 Egyptian aircraft on the ground in just a few hours and then crippled the Syrian and Jordanian air forces within a day. By evening, Israel owned the skies. 

With air dominance secured, Israeli ground forces rapidly moved into the Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt’s military – poorly coordinated and caught off guard – crumbled. 

Within six days, Israel had captured the Suez Canal and Gaza Strip from Egypt to the south; the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan to the east; and the Golan Heights from Syria to the north.

The Six-Day War had far-reaching consequences. Israel tripled its territory, redrew the map of the Middle East, began the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, and proved itself to be the superior regional power. The Arab countries, meanwhile, were humiliated, having suffered a defeat that would haunt their militaries and politics for decades to come. 

Last night – after Iran de-escalated by shooting what Trump called a “weak” and telegraphed missile barrage at a US base in Qatar – President Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. He wrote:

I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR.’ This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will! God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!

Trump’s new nickname for the war was clearly a reference to those events in 1967. So can those events be compared? 

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Editor’s Note

Shortly after Trump announced the ceasefire, VP Vance said that the US strikes had “obliterated the Iranian nuclear program” and left Iran “incapable of building a nuclear weapon.” He predicted one consequence: The “dawn of an economic age of prosperity” in the Middle East. 

Do you agree with that prediction? What do you think will happen next? Let us know by replying to this email.

Speaking of replies, here are a few emails sent in response to yesterday’s article on Trump’s decision to bomb Iran.

Tim from Alabama wrote:

I am neither pro-involvement nor completely against it. As with literally any situation like this, there is a happy middle ground- Iran did pose a serious threat to US and US supporters, so that needed to be dealt with. The US also did not need to get sucked into another military-industrial fundraiser that cost thousands upon thousands of my peers lives. The country is built on the backs of strong young men, so sending them off to the Middle East to die or get PTSD or otherwise messed up tanks the strength of a whole generation. It’s a great way to weaken a country. The US should run the one mission, take out Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and let Israel/everyone else do the cleaning up. We have plenty of in-house work to be done on our own ground before we go digging around in somebody else’s. 

Jessica wrote:

I’m not convinced Iran actually poses a nuclear threat. They have been a “threshold” state and it’s clear they use this for their own political leverage. If they wanted a bomb, they could have one already, and the reason they’d want one is for this exact situation. Now we’ve risked war over a hypothetical, possible, MAYBE situation. 

And Zach wrote:

I’m not sure if you guys actually read this but I’ve been following ROCA since the beginning and love the factual content. 

The question I pose is, if we have know of the IRGC creating, training, and funding the Houthi’s, Hezbolah, etc. that continue to attack our ships (I’m a Navy Vet), why haven’t we destroyed the source to begin with? The war on terror? But we just fight the factions but don’t rip it out at the source? 

I do support the bombing. We can’t allow an unpredictable governing body to possess weapons of mass destruction. The greater likelihood here is the weapon being smuggled into the US and detonated. 

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Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow. 

–Max and Max