Six Days that Shook the Middle East

By ZIV HELLMAN

SIX DAYS OF WAR
June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
By Michael Oren.
512 pages. Oxford University Press. $30.

Unless you are living on a remote desert island out in the Pacific Ocean without access to newspapers, cable, wireless communication devices or the Web (in which case how are you reading this?), it is nearly impossible nowadays to avoid hearing a tremendous number of daily updates on what Israelis have come to call the 'matzav' or 'situation'. The tragic and heartrending killing and maiming of civilians peacefully going about daily life in cafes and pizzerias, the passions expressed by both Israelis and Palestinians, the frightening specter of terrorist techniques in the Middle East being exported to countries in the West, the struggles around holy sites and the sheer drama of the conflict in Israel have generated intense world interest. For Jews who have an emotional attachment to Israel and the future of the Jewish people, the urge to remain informed on the latest developments in Israel can be overwhelming.

At the same time, keeping up with the rapid pace of events and attaining a real comprehension of an immensely complicated state of affairs can be taxing, even for those with more than a casual interest. Media reports filed from Israel routinely mention subjects and buzz-words such as 'the 1967 borders', 'the West Bank and Gaza Strip', 'Palestinian autonomy', 'occupied territories', 'refugees', in addition to a bewildering array of complex interrelationships between Arab states, the Palestinians, Israeli leaders and the Israel Defense Forces, European countries and the United States. The only way really to get a strong grasp on the issues involved and how they interrelate is first to understand the historical background that has brought us to where we are today.

We often perceive the world to be "ready made", putting great efforts in our initial years into learning to recognize and comprehend it "as it is" in the present. With time, we gain an understanding that there was a past out of which the present developed. Events and decisions from the past can continue to have profound implications for us, now and perhaps into the future. As our sophistication increases, we may also come to comprehend how little is new and novel in the present and recognize that the past has seen patterns and challenges not all that different from those we see today. We can then analyze the events and decisions of the past, for better or worse in order to try to learn from them. One of the most fascinating aspects of reading history is precisely the opportunity to compare and contrast what was then with what we face now, working out the threads of events, following the dramas of years past, and in the process coming to a better understanding of where we are now.

In an extraordinarily well-researched book, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Michael B. Oren skillfully provides the material for doing just that. At the same time, Oren tells a gripping tale of nations and human beings trying to make difficult decisions in a murky environment of competing interests and incomplete or often misleading information. Very importantly, the facts are marshaled effectively – Oren made extensive use of both declassified documents and a long list of interviews with major actors in the drama in order to comprehend 'what were they thinking'.

As the subtitle aptly puts it, this was an extremely compressed time period that literally 'made' the modern Middle East, causing cataclysmic changes in the region. The Israel Defense Forces in 1967 were armed primarily with French weapons, France having been a more reliable ally for Israel than the US in the 1950's and early 1960's. As the crisis loomed, Israel's Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, flew first not to Washington but to Paris and London – the US administration at the time was preoccupied with the Vietnam War and wary of triggering hostilities with the other super-power, the Soviet Union. The Israeli public of the time, as depicted by Oren, was wracked by military self-doubts and second-guessing.

Yet against this backdrop, the familiar keeps showing through – fittingly and dramatically with a description of a terrorist infiltration into Israel on New Year's Eve in 1965. The failed attack was conducted by an organization led by none other than Yasser Arafat, as only the first step in a long campaign of terror countered by Israeli reprisals. The Arab countries, although militarily weaker than Israel, routinely produced false claims of victories and wishful thinking that only ended up backfiring as they deny themselves clear views of reality. The UN tried to play a leading role, only proving its own weakness in contrast with the real decision makers in the capitals of sovereign states. Most interestingly, then as now, Israeli leaders tried to strike balances between competing pressures and goals – attaining both security and international approval, showing willingness for peace without appearing militarily weak, wishing to be connected to sites filled with biblical and holy meaning but wary of taking responsibility for a large Palestinian population – seemed to make up their strategy as events unfolded. For one of the greatest military victories in history, the Six Day War contained an amazingly high number of fateful decisions made not as part of an overall plan but rather due to on the spot, often mercurial, recalculations.

And in the end, a victory for Israel was attained. Emerging from a strangulating encirclement on the part of enemy forces within easy striking distance of all its population, Israel ended up controlling vast tracts of land beyond 'the 1967 borders, taking what would be called 'the occupied territories' including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, returning to the historical and religious sites with its army now training its guns on Arab capitals, and cementing a special but extremely complex relationship with the United States. In those heady days, many Israelis believed that this would be the moment in which an elusive peace with the Arabs could finally be attained. Some even spoke openly about taking the opportunity to form a Palestinian autonomy and seeking an end to the refugee problem. Tragically, instead of sowing the seeds of peace, the events of June 1967 now seem to be only another, albeit major and fateful, link in the long history of Israel's struggle for peace and security.

Reprinted with permission from The AVI CHAI Bookshelf, where birthright israel alumni can order free books and periodicals.