Forty years ago this week Israel defeated the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, tripling the burgeoning nation's land in a conflict that lasted for just six days.
But it also acquired areas that have continued to be the source of bitter contention: east Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula.
Some Israelis wonder if their decisive victory in the Mideast War, which began on June 5, 1967, may have actually cost the country its long-term security.
"We think we will stay here forever," historian Moshe Amirav, a former Israeli paratrooper, told Â鶹´«Ã½ on Tuesday. "We can stay here forever -- but live on our sword."
Former Israeli Cabinet minister Shulamit Aloni told Israel Radio that politicians have failed to make peace, after initially celebrating the country's military success.
"We reached such a state of euphoria and such excitement that we were blinded, because with such a success we could have brought peace," said Aloni. "Today we can make peace and we aren't trying."
But Yitzhak Yifaat, who served as a paratrooper in 1967, still remembers one of the defining victories of the war -- when soldiers reached Judaism's holiest city, Jerusalem, and then finally came upon the Western Wall, one of the last remnants of Temple Mount.
Some consider the still-standing Western Wall proof that, despite catastrophes, God has never forgotten the Jews.
"After 2,000 years, to liberate something very special...it's hard to explain," said Yifaat.
As the troops reached the Western Wall an iconic photograph was taken of three soldiers standing at the holy site, with Yifaat in the middle.
Amirav recalled that "reaching the Wailing Wall was a kind of messianic feeling that God was with us. I mean, without God, how did we do it?"
But in the follows days and months, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and encouraged religious nationalists to settle the captured land.
Palestinians mark the occupation of the area as a black day that forced another generation from their homes.
Saeb Erekat was just 12 when Israelis seized control of his hometown of Jericho. Four decades later, his two daughters are about to get married.
"So I will have grandchildren born under occupation," he told The Associated Press. "This should not be tolerated. Forty years of occupation and violence is enough."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned Tuesday that his people are inching towards civil war, with factional fighting between his Fatah members and militant Hamas fighters.
Skirmishes throughout May killed dozens of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and Abbas said an escalation in the violence could be worse than the Israeli occupation.
"Regarding our internal situation, what concerns us all is the chaos, and more specifically, being on the verge of civil war," he said.
Former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said the infighting "proves how much we are responsible for a large part of the failures we are suffering today."
Amirav said the key to peace in the region may be the same holy place that Israelis rejoiced in taking in during the war.
"Jerusalem, in a way, can be a key, the big key, for reconciliation with the Muslim world," he said.
"That's my vision: that we will be large enough and smart enough to understand that Jerusalem is bigger than all of us."
With a report by CTV's Janis Mackey Frayer in Jerusalem and files from The Associated Press
