The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences

346 Pages·2012·1.79 MB·English

by  Wm Roger Louis

The1967Arab-IsraeliWar
OriginsandConsequences
TheJune1967Warwasawatershedmomentinthehistoryofthemod-
ern Middle East. In six days, the Israelis defeated the Arab armies of
Egypt,Syria,andJordanandseizedlargeportionsofterritoryinclud-
ingtheWestBank,EastJerusalem,theGazaStrip,theSinaiPeninsula,
andtheGolanHeights.Withthehindsightoffourdecadesandaccess
torecentlydeclassifieddocuments,twoveteranscholarsoftheMiddle
East bring together some of the most knowledgeable experts in their
fieldstoreassesstheoriginsofthewaranditsregionalreverberations.
Eachchaptertakesadifferentperspectivefromthevantagepointofa
differentparticipant,thosethatactuallytookpartinthewar,andthe
worldpowers–theUnitedStates,SovietUnion,Britain,andFrance–
thatplayedimportantrolesbehindthescenes.Theirconclusionsmake
forsoberreading.Attheheartofthestorywastheincompetenceofthe
EgyptianhighcommandundertheleadershipofGamalAbdelNasser
and the rivalry between various Arab players who were deeply suspi-
ciousofeachother’smotives.Israel,ontheotherside,gainedaresound-
ing victory for which, despite previous assessments to the contrary,
therewasnomasterplan.
Wm. Roger Louis is the Kerr Professor of English History and Cul-
ture at the University of Texas at Austin and Honorary Fellow of
St. Antony’s College, Oxford. A past President of the American His-
toricalAssociation,heistheeditor-in-chiefofTheOxfordHistoryof
theBritishEmpire.HisbooksincludeTheBritishEmpireintheMiddle
East,1945–1951(1984)andEndsofBritishImperialism:TheScramble
forEmpire,Suez,andDecolonization(2006).
AviShlaimisaFellowatSt.Antony’sCollegeandProfessorofInterna-
tionalRelationsattheUniversityofOxford.Heistheauthorofmany
books, including The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2000);
Lion of Jordan: King Hussein’s Life in War and Peace (2007); and
Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations (2009). He
editedwithEugeneRoganTheWarforPalestine:RewritingtheHistory
of1948,SecondEdition(2007).

Cambridge Middle East Studies
EditorialBoard
CharlesTripp(generaleditor)
JuliaClancy-Smith,F.GregoryGause,YezidSayigh,AviShlaim,
JudithE.Tucker
CambridgeMiddleEastStudieswasestablishedtopublishbooksonthe
nineteenth-totwenty-first-centuryMiddleEastandNorthAfrica.The
aimoftheseriesistoprovidenewandoriginalinterpretationsofaspects
ofMiddleEasternsocietiesandtheirhistories.Toachievedisciplinary
diversity, books are solicited from authors writing in a wide range of
fieldsincludinghistory,sociology,anthropology,politicalscience,and
political economy. The emphasis is on producing books offering an
original approach along theoretical and empirical lines. The series is
intendedforstudentsandacademics,butthemoreaccessibleandwide-
rangingstudieswillappealtotheinterestedgeneralreader.
Alistofbooksinthisseriescanbefoundaftertheindex.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli War
Origins and Consequences
Edited by
Wm. ROGER LOUIS
UniversityofTexasatAustin
AVI SHLAIM
UniversityofOxford
cambridgeuniversitypress
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Firstpublished2012
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The1967Arab-Israeliwar:originsandconsequences/editedby
Wm.RogerLouisandAviShlaim.
p. cm.–(CambridgeMiddleEaststudies;36)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn978-1-107-00236-4(hardback)–isbn978-0-521-17479-4(paperback)
1.Israel-ArabWar,1967. I.Shlaim,Avi. II.Louis,WilliamRoger,1936–
ds127.a55 2012
956.04(cid:3)6–dc23 2011021659
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Contents
NotesonContributors pageix
ChronologyoftheJune1967War xiii
Acknowledgements xvii
Introduction 1
1 Israel:PoorLittleSamson 22
AviShlaim
2 Egypt:DangerousIllusions 56
LauraM.James
3 Syria:PlayingwithFire 79
DavidW.Lesch
4 Jordan:WalkingtheTightRope 99
AviShlaim
5 ThePalestinianNationalMovement 126
WendyPearlman
6 TheYemenWarandEgypt’sWarPreparedness 149
EugeneRoganandTewfikAclimandos
7 TheUnitedStatesandthe1967War 165
CharlesD.Smith
8 TheSovietUnion:TheRootsofWarandaReassessment
ofHistoriography 193
RamiGinat
9 Britain:TheGhostofSuezandResolution242 219
Wm.RogerLouis
vii
viii Contents
10 FranceandtheJune1967War 247
Jean-PierreFiliu
11 The1967WarandtheDemiseofArabNationalism:
ChronicleofaDeathForetold 264
RashidKhalidi
12 TheTransformationofArabPolitics:DisentanglingMyth
fromReality 285
FawazA.Gerges
Index 315
Notes on Contributors
Tewfik Aclimandos is based in a research centre in Cairo. He was an
associateprofessoratCairoUniversity(2000)andtheAmericanUniver-
sity of Cairo (2007), and a visiting professor at the Sorbonne (2008).
His doctoral thesis is on the rise of political activism in the Egyptian
armyduringtheearly1950s.HehaswrittenseveralarticlesontheMus-
lim Brotherhood. He is currently writing a biography of Gamal Abdel
Nasser.
Jean-Pierre Filiu is an associate professor at Sciences Po in Paris. He
was a visiting professor at Columbia and Georgetown universities. An
Arabist and historian, he has published several books in French with
LibrairieArthe`meFayard,includingMitterrandandPalestine(2005),The
BoundariesofJihad(2006),andTheNineLivesofAl-Qaida(2009).His
ApocalypseinIslam(UniversityofCaliforniaPress,2011)wasawarded
theAugustin-ThierryPrizebytheFrenchHistoryConvention.
FawazA.GergesisProfessoroftheInternationalRelationsoftheMiddle
East and director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of
Economics. He is author of two recent books: Journey of the Jihadist:
Inside Muslim Militancy (2007) and The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went
Global(2005,secondedition2009).HisotherbooksincludeTheSuper-
powers and the Middle East: Regional and International Politics (1994)
andAmericaandPoliticalIslam:ClashofCulturesorClashofInterests?
(2000).
RamiGinatisProfessorofMiddleEasternStudiesintheDepartmentof
PoliticalStudies,Bar-IlanUniversity,Israel.HisbooksincludeTheSoviet
ix