Book Received:

Six Days of War

June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
by Michael B Oren, Senior Fellow, Shalem Center, Jerusalem
ISBN 0-1 9-51 51 74-7
Oxford University Press
US $30.00 £25.00 (Hardback)
446 pp
Web: www.oup.co.uk

A gripping account of one of the pivotal events in modern Middle Eastern history - on the 35th anniversary of the war
Six Days of War is based on rich new source material from the Arab states, newly released Soviet files, previously unseen Israeli documents, and oral histories from major participants.
In 1967 the future of the State of Israel was far from certain. But with its swift and stunning military victory against an Arab coalition led by Egypt in the Six Day War, Israel not only preserved its existence but redrew the map of the region, with fateful consequences. The Camp David Accords, the assassinations of Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, the Intifada, and the current troubled peace negotiations - all of these trace their origins to the Six-Day War.
In Israel and the West it is called the Six-Day War. In the Arab world, it is known as the June war, or simply as "the setback". Never has a conflict so short, unforeseen and largely unwanted by both sides, so transformed the world. The Yom Kippur War, the war in Lebanon, the Camp David accords, the controversy over Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the intifada and the rise of Palestinian terror: all are part of the outcome of those six days of intense Arab-Israeli fighting in the summer of 1967.
Most important, Oren has unearthed some dramatic new findings. He has discovered that a top-secret Egyptian plan to invade Israel and wipe out its army and nuclear reactor came within hours of implementation. He also reveals how the superpowers narrowly avoided a nuclear showdown over the Eastern Mediterranean.

Also examined are the domestic crises in each of the battling states, and the extraordinary personalities - Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yitzhak Rabin, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin - that precipitated this earth-shaking clash.