The Six Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East

by Guy Laron

Overview

The author of Origins of the Suez Crisis “mak[es] us look afresh at the events that led to conflict between Israel and its neighbors” (Financial Times).

One fateful week in June 1967 redrew the map of the Middle East. Many scholars have documented how the Six-Day War unfolded, but little has been done to explain why the conflict happened at all. Now, historian Guy Laron refutes the widely accepted belief that the war was merely the result of regional friction, revealing the crucial roles played by American and Soviet policies in the face of an encroaching global economic crisis, and restoring Syria’s often overlooked centrality to events leading up to the hostilities.
 
The Six-Day War effectively sowed the seeds for the downfall of Arab nationalism, the growth of Islamic extremism, and the animosity between Jews and Palestinians. In this important new work, Laron’s fresh interdisciplinary perspective and extensive archival research offer a significant reassessment of a conflict—and the trigger-happy generals behind it—that continues to shape the modern world.
 
“Challenging . . . well worth reading.”—Moment
 
“A penetrating study of a conflict that, although brief, helped establish a Middle Eastern template that is operational today . . . The author looks beyond Cold War maneuvering to examine the conflict in other lights . . . Readers with an interest in Middle Eastern geopolitics will find much of value.”—Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300226324
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	08/11/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	387
Sales rank:	596,694
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Guy Laron is senior lecturer in international relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland, Northwestern University, and Oxford. He is the author of Origins of the Suez Crisis and lives in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Table of Contents

Map of the Six-Day War vii

Preface viii

Introduction: From the Local to the Global 1

1 The Article 13

2 The Baath in Power, 1963-66 23

3 Playing the Israel Card 33

4 The Spy Who Came Back from the Cold 44

5 The Corruption of the Revolution 55

6 Sliding into War 72

7 The Phone Call 86

8 Defying Israel's Founding Father 96

9 Expanding Israel's Borders 106

10 Confronting Syria 118

11 The Self-inflicted Recession 126

12 Rabin's Schlieffen Plan 145

13 From Yemen to Texas 161

14 A Short Tether 176

15 Arming the Middle East 187

16 Secret Liaisons 193

17 Abba Eban's Tin Ear 201

18 One Soviet Foreign Policy or Two? 218

19 Restraining Damascus, Disciplining Cairo 227

20 A Soviet Hall of Mirrors 243

21 A Very Israeli Putsch? 256

22 Last Days 277

Conclusion: Six Days and After 285

Endnotes 314

Select Bibliography 351

Illustration Credits 355

Index 356

Editorial Reviews

"In this fine work, Guy Laron, a young historian at the Hebrew  University of Jerusalem, takes a fresh look at the war and its causes. . . . Like all the best history, Laron’s book is studded with fascinating facts and anecdotes that shed light on his theories."—Michael Sheridan, Sunday Times

"With the occupation now in ripe middle age, an engaging crop of new books is re­examining its consequences —and, in the case of Guy Laron’s The Six Day War, making us look afresh at the events that led to conflict between Israel and its neighbours. Laron, a historian at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, argues that the war was no accident; rather, it was 'designed and even desired by prominent military figures in the warring countries.'"—John Reed, Financial Times

"For Laron, there are no simple binaries. . . . Laron’s critical approach echoes that of Segev, while his diligent and eye-opening archival work complements that undertaken by Oren. He describes the war from a number of different perspectives, and places it in a global context . . . he paints a comprehensive and captivating picture of a complex reality."—Ari Shavit, Times Literary Supplement

"A new history of the lead-up to the war by Guy Laron . . . presents the economic and geopolitical conditions that made the conflict almost inevitable for all the combatants."—Gal Beckerman, New York Times Book Review

"A penetrating study of a conflict that, although brief, helped establish a Middle Eastern template that is operational today. . . . Readers with an interest in Middle Eastern geopolitics will find much of value."—Kirkus Reviews

"Guy Laron’s forthcoming book on the 1967 Six-Day War—fittingly slated for publication in the year of the war’s 50th anniversary—is both impressive and disheartening. And it should be required reading for President-elect Donald Trump. . . . Readers will learn that it’s sometimes much easier for leaders to go to war than to make peace. So perhaps, despite everything else on his calendar right now, this is a book the president-elect should read. At the very least, we ordinary citizens should read it."—Jack Reimer, Jewish News Service

"Guy Laron’s challenging new book, The Six-Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East, is well worth reading."—Moment

“Laron has produced an excellent study. He is not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, and has offered readers an interesting and important account of the [1967 Arab-Israeli] war on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.”—W. Andrew Terrill, Middle East Journal

"Rich in new details about the prewar machinations in Syria, Egypt, and Israel . . . Laron sheds new light on Dayan's stances regarding Israel's esteem and northern fronts."—Michael Rubner, Middle East Policy Council

"Guy Laron's Six Day War: The Breaking of the Middle East is a detailed and impressive account that does much to illuminate the origins of this elusive conflict."—Ray Takeyh, Survival Global Politics and Strategy

"Revealing the long-held Israeli plans for expanding its borders, Laron goes significantly beyond William Roger Louis and Avi Shlaim’s important edited collection The 1967 Arab-Israeli War . . .  Laron shows the extent to which Israel’s General Staff were “eager to use the next war to expand Israel’s borders” and conquer new territories such as the West Bank and Gaza."—Thomas Erlich Reifer, Journal of Palestine Studies
 

“A finely balanced account that puts the politics back into the study of the origins of the June 1967 War. Outstanding scholarship—this new book confirms Laron as a leading authority on the Arab-Israeli conflict.”—Eugene Rogan, author of The Arabs: A History

"This timely and riveting work, drawing upon new archival materials from all the warring sides as well as US, Soviet, and Warsaw-Pact sources, provides a meticulously detailed political and military narrative along with a perceptive analysis of the origins, course, and outcome of the conflict that changed the Middle East and world politics."—Carole Fink, author of Defending the Rights of Others and Cold War: An International History

"Laron uses sources no one else has and challenges all those who would understand these events as confined to its Middle Eastern context. Fifty years after the outbreak of the June 1967 war and there is finally someone with something new to say about it."—Robert Vitalis, author of White World Order, Black Power Politics

"A new and exciting interpretation of the war that broke the Middle East, with the Soviet and Cold War aspects covered in full for the first time.  A very valuable corrective to the existing literature."—Odd Arne Westad, Harvard University, author of The Cold War: A World History

From the Publisher

Guy Laron’s forthcoming book on the 1967 Six-Day War—fittingly slated for publication in the year of the war’s 50th anniversary—is both impressive and disheartening. And it should be required reading for President-elect Donald Trump. . . . Readers will learn that it’s sometimes much easier for leaders to go to war than to make peace. So perhaps, despite everything else on his calendar right now, this is a book the president-elect should read. At the very least, we ordinary citizens should read it.”—Jack Reimer, Jewish News Service

Jewish News Service - Jack Reimer

In this fine work, Guy Laron, a young historian at the Hebrew  University of Jerusalem , takes a fresh look at the war and its causes… Like all the best history, Laron’s book is studded with fascinating facts and anecdotes that shed light on his theories.”—Michael Sheridan, Sunday Times, 13th March 2017.

Sunday Times - Michael Sheridan

Israel today has a raft of ‘post-Zionist’ academics and journalists for whom everything the country has done is a standing moral reproach. Writing more in sorrow than in anger, Guy Laron takes a different approach, examining how and why the war occurred at all.”—David Pryce-Jones, Literary Review, March 2017

Literary Review - David Pryce-Jones

2017-02-22
A penetrating study of a conflict that, although brief, helped establish a Middle Eastern template that is operational today.According to Laron (International Affairs/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem; Origins of the Suez Crisis: Postwar Development Diplomacy and the Struggle over Third World Industrialization, 1945-1956, 2013), the Six-Day War of June 1967 was fairly well settled within hours of its onset. The Israeli air force wiped out the entire air fleet of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq within the first few hours and then, over less than a week, Israel's army pushed the nation's borders further out. The war had massive repercussions, shifting power away from Egypt to Palestine and Jordan, and it quickened the rise of Islamist and Baathist forces alike, to say nothing of many local sectarian militias. On the Arab side, the Baathist military wanted border conflicts, if not outright war, with Israel primarily to "wrongfoot Nasser," as Laron writes of the Egyptian dictator. Internationally, both the United States and the Soviet Union took great interest in a war that by some respects was between them by proxy. The author looks beyond Cold War maneuvering to examine the conflict in other lights, including the economic: none of the nations of the region was doing well, and indeed, as he notes, in January 1967, Egypt had defaulted on loans from the International Monetary Fund. In Israel, too, there was internal tension among factions led by David Ben-Gurion and his rivals, the former of whom had considered the earlier borders as "unbearable" but perhaps was not entirely prepared for the vastly expanded territory. Though readers are left to read between some of the lines, Laron connects many of those events to current trends and developments, including Israel's "cult of the offensive," by which Israeli forces strike hard and decisively—and often first, even as the Israeli military "remains the most powerful institution in Israeli society."Primarily of scholarly interest, though readers with an interest in Middle Eastern geopolitics will find much of value.

Kirkus Reviews