Western tourists in Israel shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967 captured by a Dutch photographer

[Third Arab-Israeli War (Six-Day War) - Photographs] Dony, Bianca. Album with photographs showing parts of Israeli captured territories including the Golan Heights, the West Bank, parts of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.

€ 4,500.00

A rare collection of fascinating original photographs capturing the first Western tourists in Israel and Israeli captured territories approximately a month after the Six-Day War in 1967 by Dutch journalist and photographer Bianca Maria Dony. The 44 photos in the album show the passenger ship SS Pegasus, soldiers, local people in the streets of Jerusalem and other cities, an early war monument, checkpoints, destroyed military vehicles and other remnants of the war. The album is from the archive of the photographer; some of these photographs were sold to and published in national (Dutch) and international newspapers and magazines, while others remained unpublished.

Bianca Dony was part of a group of 150 Christian tourists from various European countries, who were now - after the Israeli capture of these areas - able to visit the holy places in the old city of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and other places that had previously been inaccessible. "It is perhaps self-evident to suggest that military conquest shares something with tourism because both involve encounters with "strange" landscapes and people. [...] The gradual dissolution of borders between Israel and its newly occupied territories in war's aftermath generated numerous new possibilities for Israeli travel to places that had been inaccessible since 1948. What resulted was a tourist event of massive proportions, passionately documented by the Israeli popular media of the period" (Stein, p. 647). The tourists in the present photographs were the first of many and Dony took this opportunity to not only document the trip itself but also the general aftermath of the war.

The Six-Day War is also known as the June War, the Third Arab-Israeli War, or Naksah, and it was a brief war that took place from June 5 to June 10 1967. It was a conflict between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, including Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq, over Israel's supposed plan to invade parts of Syria and other neighbouring countries. The war ended in a decisive Israeli victory, which included the capture of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the old city of Jerusalem, and Golan Heights by Israel. The status of these territories has since then remained a major point of contention in the general Arab-Israeli conflict.

With an additional leaf in the inside front pocket of the album containing notes of how many photographs were sold to different newspapers and magazines (including 10 to the "Haagsche Courant"), written in blue and red ink and in pencil. Added to the first photograph in the album is a newspaper clipping from the "Jerusalem Post" with the headline "Haifa direct to old city for first time" about the first tourists visiting Israel after the Six-Day War. Some of the clear plastic inserts have small round white stickers on them with different abbreviations, connecting the photographs to the newspapers and magazines that (possibly) printed them (for example "HC" for Haagsche Courant etc.). 3 photographs are loosely inserted into the album and 2 of these are duplicates of other photo's in the album, the 2 duplicates contain a blue stamp "foto bianca dony 147 Malakkastraat Den Haag - Tel. 5582540 Giro 303814" and a manuscript caption in red ink on the back. Most other photographs are simply numbered in pencil on the back. This rare collection of 44 historically significant photographs is in very good condition.