Michael Oren and the Six Day War
Paul Eidelberg
Israel’s current degradation may be traced to its government’s failure to translate the miracle of the Six-Day War of June 1967 into public policy. Before elaborating, ponder some remarks from Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War.*
Historian Oren notes that On Day One, in little more than half an hour, the Israel Air Force destroyed 204 planes—half of Egypt’s air force—all but nine of them on the ground (while destroying six Egyptian air fields, four in Sinai and two in Egypt).
“The Israelis,” says Oren, were stunned. No one ever imagined that a single squadron could neutralize an entire air base” (p. 175).
On Day Two, our historian continues, Col. Avraham Adan, watching the rout of the Egyptian army, was “stupefied.” “You ride past burnt-out vehicles and suddenly you see this immense army, too numerous to count, spread out of a vast area as far as your eyes can see . . . It was not a pleasant feeling, seeing that gigantic enemy and realizing that you’re only a single battalion of tanks” (p. 216).
Oren also remarks that Moshe Dayan was no less puzzled: “Though Israel had gained command of the skies, Egypt’s cities were not bombed, and the Egyptian armored units at the front could have fought even without air support” (ibid.).
Again our historian: Gen. Avraham Yoffe: “There was no planning before the war about what the army would do beyond the al-’Arish-Jabal Libni axis, not even a discussion. Nobody believed that we could have accomplished more or that the [Egyptian] collapse would be so
swift” (ibid.).
At this point, Michael Oren, even though he is secular, might cited Leviticus 26:8: “Five of you shall chase away a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight . . .” Surely it would have added at least some color to his otherwise pedestrian narrative. After all, the remarks of the generals he quoted, witnessed what they themselves deemed “puzzling” if not if not miraculous phenomena.
Never mind Mr. Oren aside. Consider the government. Serious recognition of the hand of God in the Six-Day War required the government—it was a national unity government—to declare Jewish sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, which the Israel Defense Forces conquered along with the Sinai and the Golan Heights. But to fully appreciate this miracle, a brief survey of contemporary circumstances will show that Israel’s government could indeed have created a “Greater Israel.”
In June 1967 the United States was bogged down in Vietnam and was very much concerned about Soviet expansion in the Middle East in general, and Soviet penetration of the oil-rich Persian Gulf in particular (on which the entire economy of the West, indeed, the world depends). Recall that Egypt and Syria and Libya were then Soviet clients, and that Egypt had sought to
gain control of strategically situated Yemen. Recall, too, that Israel employed French planes and weaponry in its stunning victory over Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.
That victory awakened Washington to Israel’s strategic value, for it resulted in the closing of the Suez Canal to the Soviet Black Sea fleet. This important arm of the Soviet navy was then compelled to sail through the Straits of Gibraltar and around the Cape of Good Hope in order to project Soviet power along the east African littoral and in the Indian Ocean, the sea lanes of oil tankers from the Persian Gulf. Israel’s superb air force could also help protect NATO’s southern flank in the eastern Mediterranean.
America needed a strong and stable ally in the volatile region of the Middle East. A minuscule Israel, confined to its precarious 1949 armistice lines, could hardly serve this function.
Accordingly, in a now declassified secret memorandum dated June 27, 1967, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that Israel retain control of the Judean and Samarian mountain
ridges overlooking its vulnerable population centers on the coastal plain, as well as control of Gaza, the Golan Heights, and a portion of the southern Sinai to secure Israel’s access to the Red Sea through the Strait of Tiran.
Historian Michael Oren, however, without the strategic knowledge of the American Joint Chiefs, would yield this land to Israel’s sworn enemies. Only a superficial observer would fail to appreciate and record the “coincidence” of the Six Day War and the America’s plight in Vietnam.
As for Israel’s government, only a feckless and faithless government would trivialize the historical significance of Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War by not declaring Jewish sovereignty over the land conquered by the IDF. In fact, it was entitled to do so not only under Israeli law, but even under international law, as attorney Howard Grief has brilliantly shown in scholarly essays.
But of course, this is beyond the competence or mentality of historians like Michael Oren. Suffice to point out that underlying the thesis of his book is cultural relativism. “My purpose,” he writes, “is not to prove the justness of one party or another in the war, or to assign culpability for starting it” (p. xv). Mr. Oren will make a curious champion of Israel’s cause if serves as Israel’s ambassador to the anything but neutral United Nations.
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*Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War (NY: Ballantine Books, 2003). Page references in the text.
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