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Book Review: Who Started the Six-Day War?

[Washington Post] Michael Oren - The scenes flashed across the TV screens: tens of thousands of Arab troops massing on Israel's borders, frenzied demonstrations in every Arab capital demanding the demise of the Jewish state, the leaders of the Soviet bloc proclaiming unqualified support for Arab war aims while the French - Israel's only ally - abruptly changed sides. Egyptian President Nasser, who ousted UN peacekeepers from the Egypt-Israel border and blockaded Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran, foresaw a "total war...aimed at Israel's destruction." "We shall destroy Israel and prepare boats to deport the survivors," the Palestine Liberation Organization pledged, "if there are any." Tom Segev's 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East aims at overturning what Segev deems the most hallowed of Israeli myths - namely, that the Six-Day War was a just and existential struggle that Israel, isolated and outgunned, had no choice but to wage. Substantiating these claims requires Segev to engage in rhetorical acrobatics, not only contradicting himself but also committing glaring oversights. But the most telling omission relates to the Arabs. Segev's book is all but devoid of Arab calls for Israel's destruction and the slaughter of its citizens. There is no mention of pro-war demonstrations, of Egypt's willingness to use poison gas against its enemies, or of the detailed Arab plans for conquering Israel. The writer is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and the author of Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.
2007-06-15 01:00:00
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