Once the war began, Rostow saw an opportunity for the United States, writing that the issue "was whether the settlement of this war shall be on the basis of armistice agreements, which leave the Arabs in the posture of hostilities towards Israel, keeping alive the Israeli issue in Arab political life as a unifying force, and affording the Soviet Union a handle on the Arab world; or whether a settlement emerges in which Israel is accepted as a Middle Eastern state". Rostow believed that the possibility of Israel gaining territory would allow a "land for peace" deal which might finally end the Arab-Israeli dispute, which led him to advocate no ceasefire to end the war until Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria as he maintained the Syrians would never make peace until an initiative was provided. Rostow favored having a peace plan calling for "land for peace" deal to be issued by the United Nations, with the negotiations to be mediated by the United States. Rostow made it clear that he did not envision Israel permanently occupying the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the Sinai, believing that an occupation would ensure that the Arab-Israeli conflict would never end. By the third day of the Six Day War, Israeli officials were starting to hint that they were not willing to give up some of their recent territorial gains, especially East Jerusalem. In October 1967, Rostow advised Johnson that with Israel "we lean against them just enough to keep their thinking from becoming too quickly set in the concrete of their current extended territorial possessions". When the nuclear issue resurfaced in January 1968, just prior to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol's visit to the United States, Rostow recommended that the president make it clear that the United States expected Israel to sign the NPT.