The Six-Day War, also known as the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, was fought between Israel and Arab neighbors Egypt and Syria. The nations of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Algeria also contributed troops and arms to the Arab forces.

In May 1967, Egypt expelled the United Nations Emergency Force from the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt amassed 1000 tanks and 100,000 soldiers on the border, blockaded the Straits of Tiran (the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba) to Israeli ships, and called for unified Arab action against Israel. On June 5th Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against Egypt's airforce fearing an imminent invasion by Egypt. Jordan then attacked western Jerusalem and Netanya. At the war's end, Israel had gained control of eastern Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. The results of the war affect the geopolitics of the region to this day.

Recently, it has been suggested that the USSR deliberately engineered the Six Day War to destroy Israel's nuclear program. The chief spokesman of the Russian Air Force, Col. Aleksandr V. Drobyshevsky, has confirmed in writing for the first time that it was Soviet pilots, in the USSR's most-advanced MiG-25 "Foxbat" aircraft, who flew highly-provocative sorties over Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona in May 1967, just prior to the Six Day War.

During this period the USS Little Rock was Sixth Fleet Flagship (VADM William I. Martin) deployed in the Mediterranean.