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mburnamfink 's review for:
Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
by Michael B. Oren
Six Days of War is a comprehensive, deeply researched, if not exactly unbiased account of the Six Day War. An Israeli academic (and subsequently Ambassador to America), Oren mostly reiterates the consensus Jewish position that the Six Day War was a righteous triumph for the Jewish state; one which secured its place on the global stage while failing to resolve basic issues such as Arab acceptance of Israel, or the future of the Palestinian people.
This book is a day by day, sometimes hour by hour account of the war and its lead-up. The basic story is one we know well: With tensions rising along the Sinai border and at the vital Straits of Tiran, and diplomatic efforts failing at the UN, the Israeli government launched a preemptive strike against the Egyptian air force, annihilating it on the ground, followed by bold attacks that in sequence captured the Sinai, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
It's impossible to have much sympathy for the Arab states. Though Israel fired first, it was only after years of escalations and provocations. From public radio propaganda and private diplomatic cables, Arab leaders, especially Nasser, wanted a war but were unable to cope with the maelstrom of violence that they unleashed. Egyptian and Syrian commanders are both incompetent and brutal; daring war but breaking at the first reversal. Only Jordan's King Hussein comes off as halfway sympathetic. By contrast, the Israelis are decisive, diplomatic, and while flawed still heroic. Certainly, when faced with the ultimate test of statecraft they succeeded beyond all measure.
I'm not sure that I fully buy Oren's argument about contingency and chance. Sure, the fact that the war played out precisely when it did and how it did could not have been foreseen, but war would still have happened no matter what. Israel and Egypt had fundamentally different visions of the Middle East, and both believed that they would lose at any 'even' negotiating table. The quality of the armies was not a matter of luck, but of decades of building a military, and the fragility of authoritarian states compared to the resilience of pluralistic ones.
This book is a day by day, sometimes hour by hour account of the war and its lead-up. The basic story is one we know well: With tensions rising along the Sinai border and at the vital Straits of Tiran, and diplomatic efforts failing at the UN, the Israeli government launched a preemptive strike against the Egyptian air force, annihilating it on the ground, followed by bold attacks that in sequence captured the Sinai, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
It's impossible to have much sympathy for the Arab states. Though Israel fired first, it was only after years of escalations and provocations. From public radio propaganda and private diplomatic cables, Arab leaders, especially Nasser, wanted a war but were unable to cope with the maelstrom of violence that they unleashed. Egyptian and Syrian commanders are both incompetent and brutal; daring war but breaking at the first reversal. Only Jordan's King Hussein comes off as halfway sympathetic. By contrast, the Israelis are decisive, diplomatic, and while flawed still heroic. Certainly, when faced with the ultimate test of statecraft they succeeded beyond all measure.
I'm not sure that I fully buy Oren's argument about contingency and chance. Sure, the fact that the war played out precisely when it did and how it did could not have been foreseen, but war would still have happened no matter what. Israel and Egypt had fundamentally different visions of the Middle East, and both believed that they would lose at any 'even' negotiating table. The quality of the armies was not a matter of luck, but of decades of building a military, and the fragility of authoritarian states compared to the resilience of pluralistic ones.