A great introduction to the 1967 war and it's causes. The author tries his best to cover what is a very politically charged and still unresolved subject. I found the coverage of the diplomatic moves before the fighting started to be the highlight of the book.

I would recommend it. ( )

Oren's account starts with a question on what to begin the history with
(a point which appealed to me as an Irishman). Oren's appreciation of the complexity of the background to the war is quite astute - from the earliest days of the state's formation nothing had ever been clearly resolved.
Oren spends a large amount of time going through the political background to the war, its place on the world stage (the US was in the middle of the Cold War and becoming ever-more involved in Vietnam).
The psychology of the protagonists is given centre-stage. Much like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the inexorable creep of decision-making, the claustrophobic encroaching of opinion and remaining options pressurises the almost inevitable progress towards hostiliities.
Once we get to the war itself, Oren is less sure than before, almost entirely relating the war's progress by relating/quoting first-hand accounts, but as the war's continuance is in some ways entirely political this is not a serious disadvantage to the work.
In the appendix Oren's value as a historian is apparent. While Arab sources are still not available, he has interviewed as many Arab participants as Israeli during his research. ( )

3628. Six Days of War June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, by Michael B. Oren (read Sept 15 2002) This is undoubtedly the best book read this month. It tells of the Six Day War, putting it in context, from 1948 to 1966, the catalyst for the war itself, the crisis, the countdown and a chapter for each of the six days, and a chapter on events since. The book is tremendously readable since it covers the supremely tense and exciting diplomatic events prior to and during the war, as well as the military account. The military account is NOT boring (as such sometimes can be) but gives enough detail without getting lost in minutiae. This balanced, objective book is definitely a candidate for best book read this year. I cannot say enough good things about it. ( )

Fascinating study of the June 1967 Middle East War in which the author seeks to present a "fair and balanced" narrative, using both Arab and Israeli sources. In Oren's moment-by-moment account, he highlights the complexities of the politics behind the war (such as Johnson's weakness because of Vietnam; the Soviet fear factor; Nasser's love-hate relationship with his military commander Amer; Hussein's vulnerability and fear of Nasser; and the battles within the Israeli government among the strong personalities of Eshkol, Dayan, and Rabin). Oren also elaborates on many small elements of caprice that affected the outcome of the war (for example, when the American Ambassador Wally Barbour decided to take off for the weekend instead of conveying Hussein's letter of apology to Eshkol for a mine accident along the border in November 1966; or the crisis period after Nasser evicted the U.N. from the Sinai, and U-Thant postponed a trip to Cairo for three days because he wanted to wait until his horoscope said it was propitious to travel.) Oren recounts developments that even seem very humorous in retrospect, as when the Israelis confronted Chuvakhin, the Soviet Ambassador to Israel, in May 1967 about the lie that Israeli troops were massing on the border in Syria. Chuvakhin "replied simply that his job was to communicate Soviet truths, not test them." Or when the Israelis entered Nablus on day three of the war to find thousands of people lining the streets to applaud them: the citizens had believed the propaganda that the Arabs were winning, and mistook the Israelis for Iraqis.

Oren presents rich portraits of Nasser, whom he labels "a tragic figure" and Dayan, whom Oren claims in an afterward still not to understand. Although he feels Dayan "was a leader of a caliber virtually unknown in the Middle East today," Oren also calls Dayan "a man of utter contradictions - passionate and cold, creative and close-minded, fearless and fainthearted..." with a "prodigious ego" and enigmatic mind.

Oren posits that the greatest political change wrought by the war of 1967 was the collapse of Nasserism - or secular pan-Arabism - and its replacement by Islamic extremism. Israel also became "more Jewish" from the reclamation of its biblical homelands, while the Arab street became more anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic than ever. (In addition to Arab shame and anger over Israel's military hegemony, Oren attributes this increase to the propaganda that "dominates the Arab press and poisons Arabic school textbooks.")

The discussion of the American involvement (or lack thereof) will be particularly interesting to Americans. Johnson's incapacitation by Vietnam presaged Reagan's weakness after Iran-Contra, and even moreso, the perception that Clinton's impeachment battle affected his ability to respond to the growing terrorist threat from Al Qaeda.

Oren tries to shed light on the still unresolved circumstances surrounding the accidental Israeli attack of the USS Liberty on day four of the war. The Liberty was only thirteen nautical miles from the Sinai coast, in an area declared off-limits by Egypt. Johnson had told the Sixth Fleet stationed 240 miles away not even to turn around, so no one could charge the U.S. with collusion. Many aspects of the incident remain a [classifed] mystery.

Oren asserts that this war, "triggered by [Syrian-sponsored] Palestinian guerrilla raids and Israel's retaliations against them" and yet also due to a myriad of other issues, never really ended. As long as ignorance and falsehoods persist, and unless and until Arab societies develop strong middle classes with vested interests in stability, no real end to the conflict can be contemplated.

(JAF) ( )

1967 Israel-Arab War ( )