released 17 aug 03 / last mod 01 jun 07 / greg goebel / public domain
* Michael Oren's SIX DAYS OF WAR: JUNE 1967 & THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST is, as the author explains in his introduction, an attempt to put together a comprehensive and reasonably impartial history of the June 1967 Middle East War, or "Six-Day War".
Mr. Oren details the background of the story, in which Jewish settlement of Palestine led to the creation of the state of Israel and a bitter confrontation with the Arabs living in the region, and then describes the tensions that led to the 1967 war, with Arab states competing to see who could be the loudest to denounce the "Zionist entity" (they refused to call it "Israel"). Arab leaders became believers in their own propaganda and refused to see the risks inherent in their actions, taking satisfaction in Israel's increasing fearfulness without seriously considering the possible consequences.
Egypt almost pulled the trigger first, but Egyptian President Gamel Nasser hesitated and the Israelis beat the Arabs to the punch. US President Lyndon Johnson and his administration felt that the Israelis would win a shooting match, and this belief was quickly borne out when it became apparent that the Arab forces were poorly trained, very badly led, and the Arab leaders were almost as hostile to each other as they were to Israel. The result was an Israeli triumph and an Arab disaster.
This is a story of war and personalities: the charismatic and shrewd Nasser, who was taken in by his own rhetoric and lived to acknowledge his blunders; Egyptian Field Marshal Amer, whose hysteria did much to lead to the disaster; Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, whose wish to chart a safe and peaceful course through troubles failed; Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, a naturally low-key man who fractured but did not quite completely break under the strain; Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, a real-life action hero with a marvelous ability to say one thing and do another; and Jordanian King Hussein, who was the most reluctant of the Arab leaders to go to war, was the most earnest in fighting it once he did, and suffered the greatest humiliation.
In sum, Mr. Oren does seem to have achieved his goals in writing this book. Its impartiality might be argued in places -- Mr. Oren is Israeli -- but he has clearly made a conscientious effort to give both sides of the story, with the source material for this book including many interviews on both sides of the fence.
I would have to say that this book requires a certain amount of work and, though it is of moderate length, if not brief, it is still somewhat more than a person who isn't a hardcore student of Mideast politics could reasonably absorb or retain in full. That isn't really a complaint, such limitations being inescapable in writing a book that tries to be definitive, and there are good reasons to want to write such a definitive book, which Mr. Oren neatly outlines in the introduction.
That being said, I can highly recommend this book, not merely to students of military matters but of history in general. We are still living with the consequences of the Six-Day War, and it is somewhat fascinating to find out that there were those at the time who had a perfectly good idea of what the consequences might be. Those who would like to learn more may be interested in the set of outline notes I wrote up from my readings.