oren emphasizes that war was intended by neither side, rather, as with world war i, war resulted from an escalating series of events, some of them purely accidental. for example, in november 1966 three israeli policemen were killed when they drove over a mine presumed to have been left by palestinian fedayeen operating from jordan (though likely sponsored by syria). for unclear reasons, the usually efficient american ambassador to israel allowed several days to pass before transmitting a condolence message from jordan's king hussein to israel's prime minister. in the absence of a condolence message israel retaliated, reasoning that although the jordanian state was not behind the attack, the people of jordan had offered shelter to the attackers — this became one of the series of episodes that led to war. another example was the decision of the israelis to refrain from parading armour in their 1967 independence day parade in jerusalem: although this was designed to lessen tension as jerusalem was divided by the 1949 armistice, it was actually interpreted as a sign that the israelis were concentrating their armour for an invasion of syria.