Six Days of War

Michael Oren

Understand the Six Day War War and you understand the Middle East today, it seems. Michael Oren's book establishes the causes, describes the course of the fighting and explains the outcome. Most of all he describes how the lessons of the war continue to influence the parties in the conflict right up to the present day.

Almost half the book is devoted to the period just before war broke out (with its emphasis on powerful Arab forces closing in on Israel). So, when war comes, the descriptions of Israel's spectacular successes and the distintegration of their opponents are all the more striking. But Oren finds little difficulty in explaining the collapse of the Arab side in June 1967. The Israelis were, by a margin, better trained, more organised and better motivated (Israel was literally fighting for its life, "breathing with a single lung" as foreign minister Eban put it in his speech to the United Nations).

The other side were hopelessly disorganised. Egypt, Syria and Jordan were formally allied but relations were poisoned by mistrust. Israel was able to prioritise her enemies and pick them off one by one; firstly the Egyptians (reckoned by the Israeli leadership to be "strong but far away"), then the Jordanians ("weak but on our doorstep") and finally the Syrians ("weak AND far away"). The Egyptians, formidable on paper, proved the flimsiest opponents of all. It turned out Nasser's army had been built for show. One Egyptian brigadier complained afterwards "Israel spent years preparing for this war, whereas we prepared for parades".

And what of the lessons of the war? Israel would never again have to breathe with a single lung. As for the Arabs, there was only trauma and bitterness. The Six Day War demonstrated what every historian knows; that democracies fight better than dictatorships. To ordinary Egyptians and Syrians, who had been fed news of victories right up until the ceasefire, the result was a terrible blow. Ironically Israel's leaders, for various reasons, had kept the extent of the advance secret from their own population.

One of the Arab populations to absorb an important lesson were the Palestinians. According to Oren the birth of PLO was a direct result of the June 1967 war as Palestinians learnt they could not rely on their Arab neighbours to drive the Israelis into the sea.

The typeface is tiny so Six Days of War is not Six Days of Reading unless you're one of the Barn's turbocharged readers. But the maps are excellent and the footnotes and extras at the end are useful.