ISRAEL:Forty years on, Israelis look back on the Six Day War with equanimity, writes Michael Jansenin West Jerusalem, Silwan and Maale Adumim
The Shifa Shoh supermarket is deeply embedded in comfortable, middle-class West Jerusalem. Its shelves are loaded with cut-price foodstuffs, its customers a cross-section of Israeli society.
We ambush Edna, a well-dressed, middle-aged lady, to ask about the legacy of the war Israel fought in June 1967. Jerusalem-born Edna says: "We had better relations with the Arabs before that war. My brothers fought in 1967 and my two sons took part in the second Lebanon war," last summer.
On the settlers, she observes, "They have courage, but they put themselves and their children at risk.
"I am against what they are doing but I don't think they endanger peace." She prefers not not to give her full name.
Avraham Azoulay wheels his cart outside into the parking lot before speaking to us. His home is in the southern town of Sderot, a prime target of the home-made qassam rockets fired from Gaza by Palestinian fighters.
He was a foreman for the electricity company and head of the soldiers' welfare society until he retired for health reasons and moved to Jerusalem to be with his family.
"Sixty-seven is a war I would fight again," he states. "I was in the Great Bitter Lakes region of [ Egyptian] Sinai. We put our dead in containers and brought them home whenever we could. It was very difficult for us. But the war gave great pride to Israel. The Arabs did not surrender even when we surrounded them so they could not get away. They had no water, we did, so we gave them some."
His overall commander was Ariel Sharon. "I spent six months in Sinai but my family made a lot of problems because my wife was giving birth and she wanted me to be there.
"Later I was stationed at Tiran next to Sharm al-Sheikh on a mobile anti-aircraft battery. We were taken from place to place." He is not optimistic about peace.
"The Arabs who want peace are scared by the extremists. We gave [ the Palestinians] Gush Katif [ a large Gaza settlement] and we got qassams."
We drive through East Talpiot, past the house where the British colonial governor lived, and descend into Silwan, where ideological settlers are moving in on Palestinians.
Pausing by a car decorated with pink and blue ribbons for a wedding, we ask settler Rotem Metzger what he thinks of the '67 war.
"The Israeli people came home, that's all I have to say. We have to go and pick up the groom."
At the Israeli archaeological park next to the walls of the Old City, we meet an extremely articulate 24-year-old airman called Yitzik from an agricultural station near Beersheba. "The '67 war improved the deterrent capacity of the IDF [ Israeli armed forces] and taught us to learn from our mistakes."
What then do you think of Israel's two Lebanon wars? I ask. "Both were mistakes. We were too confident." He opposes settlements.
"I served in the West Bank and don't think it is reasonable to send a combat regiment to protect a few caravans."
He says Israel will soon be at war with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. "I know. I am training for this war. The whole army knows. It's just a matter of time."
At the luxurious shopping mall in Maale Adumim, Israel's second largest West Bank settlement built on hilltops due east of Jerusalem, we encounter Ariel Ben Horim, a taxi driver of Iraqi origin, and his wife, Navi, whose family came from Iran. She is holding a bouquet of balloons for their daughter who is returning from a trip abroad.
"There will never be peace," he asserts. "We have no good partner."
They are not prepared to remain if Maale Adumim is handed over to the Palestinians under a peace agreement.
Ina (34), a Russian immigrant who has lived in Israel for 17 years, is leafing through large volumes at Steimatzky's bookshop. Of '67 she says: "I don't know if the intention was to get Jerusalem but we succeeded."
She does not expect peace. "I am ready to trade land for peace but if one day I am in the sea that will be as a result of our donation."