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 show more 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. show less

Here is a very articulate individual who can bridge the is Israeli-American divide. He has a foot in both worlds and can address this first hand.

There are numerous important events that occurred throughout his appointment. However, one of the most interesting aspects of the book is his sterling analysis of Obama. Unprepared and naïve Obama bumbles through the ally’s relationship that the author is careful to characterize as guarded but clearly his actions harmed Israel.

Fascinating study of the June 1967 Middle East War in which the author seeks to present a "fair and balanced" narrative, using both Arab and Israeli sources. In Oren's moment-by-moment account, he highlights the complexities of the politics behind the war (such as Johnson's weakness because of Vietnam; the Soviet fear factor; Nasser's love-hate relationship with his military commander Amer; Hussein's vulnerability and fear of Nasser; and the battles within the Israeli government among the show more strong personalities of Eshkol, Dayan, and Rabin). Oren also elaborates on many small elements of caprice that affected the outcome of the war (for example, when the American Ambassador Wally Barbour decided to take off for the weekend instead of conveying Hussein's letter of apology to Eshkol for a mine accident along the border in November 1966; or the crisis period after Nasser evicted the U.N. from the Sinai, and U-Thant postponed a trip to Cairo for three days because he wanted to wait until his horoscope said it was propitious to travel.) Oren recounts developments that even seem very humorous in retrospect, as when the Israelis confronted Chuvakhin, the Soviet Ambassador to Israel, in May 1967 about the lie that Israeli troops were massing on the border in Syria. Chuvakhin "replied simply that his job was to communicate Soviet truths, not test them." Or when the Israelis entered Nablus on day three of the war to find thousands of people lining the streets to applaud them: the citizens had believed the propaganda that the Arabs were winning, and mistook the Israelis for Iraqis.

Oren presents rich portraits of Nasser, whom he labels "a tragic figure" and Dayan, whom Oren claims in an afterword still not to understand. Although he feels Dayan "was a leader of a caliber virtually unknown in the Middle East today," Oren also calls Dayan "a man of utter contradictions - passionate and cold, creative and close-minded, fearless and fainthearted..." with a "prodigious ego" and enigmatic mind.

Oren posits that the greatest political change wrought by the war of 1967 was the collapse of Nasserism - or secular pan-Arabism - and its replacement by Islamic extremism. Israel also became "more Jewish" from the reclamation of its biblical homelands, while the Arab street became more anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic than ever. (In addition to Arab shame and anger over Israel's military hegemony, Oren attributes this increase to the propaganda that "dominates the Arab press and poisons Arabic school textbooks.")

The discussion of the American involvement (or lack thereof) will be particularly interesting to Americans. Johnson's incapacitation by Vietnam presaged Reagan's weakness after Iran-Contra, and even moreso, the perception that Clinton's impeachment battle affected his ability to respond to the growing terrorist threat from Al Qaeda.

Oren tries to shed light on the still unresolved circumstances surrounding the accidental Israeli attack of the USS Liberty on day four of the war. The Liberty was only thirteen nautical miles from the Sinai coast, in an area declared off-limits by Egypt. Johnson had told the Sixth Fleet stationed 240 miles away not even to turn around, so no one could charge the U.S. with collusion. Many aspects of the incident remain a [classifed] mystery.

Oren asserts that this war, "triggered by [Syrian-sponsored] Palestinian guerrilla raids and Israel's retaliations against them" and yet also due to a myriad of other issues, never really ended. As long as ignorance and falsehoods persist, and unless and until Arab societies develop strong middle classes with vested interests in stability, no real end to the conflict can be contemplated.

(JAF) show less

This is a tremendously entertaining and well-written history of America’s relations with the Middle East from the beginning of our country to the present day. Oren organizes his study around three motifs: power (the pursuit of American interests); faith (the impact of religions on attitudes and policies); and fantasy (romantic notions of the Orient that affected government policy).

The history of religious zeal informing our policies toward the Middle East is especially intriguing. It has show more always been assumed that Zionism was the main driving force. Oren contends that, on the contrary, a much stronger role has been played by the concept of Restorationism, the belief held by evangelical Protestants that “by expediting the fulfillment of God’s promises to repatriate the Jews to their homeland, Christians could re-create the conditions of Jewish sovereignty that existed in Jesus’ time and so set the stage for his reappearance.” Oren tells stories about the lives of American missionaries in the Middle East and points to “the emergence of missionary dynasties capable of exerting far-reaching influence over America’s foreign relations” since leading wealthy missionary families occupied the same social circles as the country’s political elite:

"Through their personal connections with decision makers, the missionaries and their backers could place evangelism and its advocates at the head of America’s overseas priorities, particularly in the Middle East.”

The joy over this empowerment, Oren wryly notes, was not shared by the region’s rulers.

In a rather amusing subplot to the story, Oren recounts how missionary after missionary tried to get Jews to become farmers in Palestine, so as to better approximate the conditions of the land when Jesus was there. The Jews, however, could not be less interested. It was not until the increase in pogroms in Russia in the late 1800’s that the Jews began en masse to see appeal in a safe haven, and then, even farming looked good.

Some other memorable anecdotes: Sol Bloom, impresario of the Algerian Village at the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893, sitting by a piano and making up (but not copyrighting) "a minor-key ditty...later replayed by countless cartoon snake charmers" to accompany the gyrations of Little Egypt; Mark Twain touring Europe, surprised to find himself the victim of antisemitism when the Viennese press dubbed him "Der Jude Mark Twain" (after observing that he had a large nose); and FDR meeting Ibn Saud in the Suez Canal aboard The Quincy - Roosevelt, paralyzed, dying, ashen and weak, and Ibn Saud "scarcely less ill" having to be winched onto the Quincy because he couldn't make it up the gangplank.

Evaluation: I don’t think anyone can come away from this rather long (six-hundred pages) but rewarding history without having learned a great number of fascinating details about our history in the Middle East. Highly recommended. show less