Publisher Description
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. As we approach its fiftieth anniversary, 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.
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“Since the thirty-year declassification rule opened up the Israel State Archives to researchers in 1997, a number of books…have recast the David and Goliath myth that had risen up around the events of May and June 1967. Israel is no longer seen as the weak and passive actor threatened with a second Holocaust and forced into a pre-emptive attack, but as a confident strategist taking advantage of Egypt and Syria’s blundering brinkmanship to fulfill a long-planned expansion…A new history of the lead-up to the war by Guy Laron, The Six-Day War…reinforces this narrative..This was a boost to uncompromising nationalistic visions on both sides, giving birth to a messianic settler movement and violent strains of Palestinian terrorism.”
—
New York Times
