Transcripts For CSPAN2 Booknotes 20240621

Which was a Secular Movement in its most sublime form under Gamal Abdul Nasser of egypt. That war was debunked in 1967. It opened the door to the entry of a new ideology into the middle east. That was an islamic ideology. That has had profound ramifications for everybody both in the middle east and in the United States as well. The sixday war also ended the period when the arabisraeli conflict was a state to state conflict, a conflict between israel and jordan israel and syria and israel and the conflict a new conflict emerged, a conflict that was principally one between israel and the palestinians. Before 67, you really didnt hear about the palestinians. And its not by accident that a year after the war ended, in 1968, the plo under Yasser Arafat emerges as this powerful force in the arab world. And weve been living with that, as well. The 67 war was also also inaugurated the strategic relationship between the United States and israel. People forget that israel fought the 67 war not with american arms but with french weaponry. France was israels principal ally before that. Before 1967, only one israeli Prime Minister one time for one hour had visited the white house, and it wasnt israels founder, David Ben Gurion. It was levi eshkol one time june, 1964. Today ariel sharon or any israeli Prime Minister comes to washington, its obvious that hes going to march right into the white house. That began that very, very close relationship, that cooperation, began in the aftermath of 1967, not before that. Cspan as you acknowledge, one more book on the sixday war there have been a lot of them. Guest yes. Cspan what do you have new . What kind of things do you have. Guest well, if you look at my bibliography, youll see about 300, 400 books on the 67 war. And i always encounter that question. You know, why do we need another book on the 67 war . Well, the principal reason is the phenomenon of the 30year rule. I ride the 30year rule. That is the rule that obtains in most westernstyle democracies in the United States, in britain, in canada and in israel, and which holds that after 30 years, the majority of diplomatic documents that were previously classified as top secret get declassified and they become accessible to researchers. And once you have documents, it opens up an entirely new vista into the decisionmaking process, and thats what this book really is about, is about decisionmaking. In addition, in the last, say, 12 years, soviet documents documents of the former soviet union, have become available to researchers. And the soviets played a pivotal role in the 67 war, a very crucial role. In many ways, they precipitated the crisis. And i was able to go to moscow and to access some of these documents. Theres also been a new opening in at least two of the three major arab participants in the war. In jordan and in egypt, theres a tremendous wave of publications about the war memoirs, studies, even the release of certain documents which is very rare in the arab world, about 1967. The only place this hasnt occurred is in syria. In syria, officially, the war never occurred. There is not one single official book and all books in syria are official about the 67 war. How the average syrian believes that israel came into possession of the Golan Heights that formerly belonged to syria is a mystery to me. Cspan let me go to your bio for a moment. You were born where . Guest i was born in a tiny town in upstate new york, but i was raised in new jersey. Cspan when did you first go to israel . Guest i first went when i was 15 years old. I went to work on a kibbutz, on a farm. I worked in the alfalfa. I worked in the cows. I became a cowboy. I was a lousy farmer, so i went and studied history. Cspan what kind of a jew was your family your father, your mother . Guest my parents were i grew up in a conservative jewish community. My parents were very zionist very proisrael, were supportive of the state of israel, less supportive of my actually moving there. That was a shock to them. Cspan were they both from here . Guest both from here, yes. My father had been a career army officer for a period in the u. S. Army, had served in world war ii and korea, and later on became a hospital administrator. Cspan so you say conservative is that like the orthodox conservative reform . Guest right. Cspan youd be right in the middle, then. Guest correct. Right in the middle. Cspan and so did you fight in the 67 war . Guest no, i was a kid. Cspan you were a kid then. Guest i was. Cspan did you fight in any war in israel . Guest i fought in a couple of them, yes. Cspan which ones . Guest well, i fought in the lebanon war. I was quite involved in the lebanon war. I served in the israel paratroopers. At that point, i was in Israeli Special forces and. Cspan what year . Guest this was in 1982, in june, 1982. For some reason, wars in the middle east occur in june, almost to the day. Its probably good warfighting weather. And i was among the first forces to of Israeli Forces to enter the city of beirut in june 1982. And my actual unit was decimated in an ambush, and we ended up being attached to all sorts of other units for the duration of and the war. Later on, i became one of the few israelis to be a veteran of the gulf war. In a period just before the outbreak of the gulf war, i was assigned as a strategic liaison between the israeli army and the u. S. Sixth fleet in the eastern mediterranean. Thats one its an interesting thing as an historian, as well, because in the book, i point out that israel had repeatedly requested in 1967 precisely such a liaison with the sixth fleet, and the u. S. Denied the request. Well, in subsequent years, the United States acceded to the request, and i was the liaison. And first it was a very interesting job. I essentially went out and partied a lot with american pilots who were on leave in israel. We had a few maneuvers on the ground, nothing too serious. And all of a sudden, it became real. All of a sudden, there was a real war in which the United States and israel had to collaborate strategically. And you may recall that the United States provided israel with patriot missiles as an answer at least, a psychological answer because physically, they actually didnt work a psychological answer to the scud attacks, 41 scud missiles that fell on tel aviv and its environs. And i was a part of the team that brought in the patriot missiles. Cspan and they were in israel, the patriots. Guest they were in israel. Cspan now, go back to your education, then. Where did you go to college . Guest i did my undergraduate i did a b. A. , m. A. All in middle east history at columbia, columbia college, and then i went on to do an m. A. And a ph. D again in middle east history at princeton. Cspan are you both an israeli and an american citizen . Guest i am. Cspan and why did you end up in the 82 war in lebanon . How did that work . Guest well, i had always wanted to move to israel. I saw my future in israel. I wanted to raise my family in israel. And in 1973, at the end of the 73 war, which i would have missed had i actually been living in israel, i determined that i wasnt going to move just then, i was going to do my b. A. First. I did my b. A. And, as it turns out, an m. A. I ended up working for the Israeli Foreign ministry as an adviser to israels mission to the un during a very tumultuous period. It was the period of the zionism is racism vote arafats speech before the General Assembly, a very, very tumultuous period. And then i moved to israel, and i tried out for this unit in the army the tryouts are rather rigorous and did 17 months of basic training, and got out just prior to the lebanon war. But in israel, we have you serve for a long period, your regular service, and then you do reserve service to the age of 52. Now i have a son in the army who is 19, and in a very elite unit, and i am still doing reserve duty. We actually share uniforms. Very bizarre cspan how old are you now . Guest im 47. Cspan and so you can be called up at any time. Guest i have been, yes. Ive served. Cspan and you. Guest ive served in the latest intifada in a combat role. Cspan where . Guest in nablus. Cspan full combat uniform . Guest well. crosstalk guest im supposed to be semiretired. I now you stop jumping in the israeli army, in the paratroopers, at age 37, and you essentially cease being a combat soldier at age 42. At age 42, 43, i was asked to stay on as an adviser on media relations. Why not . Sounds interesting. You get good briefings. But when the fighting broke out on the west bank, they asked any of these media advisers if they had combat experience, and like a total fool, i said, oh, of course, i have one. And well, we need someone to be attached to the frontline brigade commander, who doesnt speak french, doesnt speak english. And cnn and French Television is running around there. Someone has to interpret for him. So i was quickly outfitted with a new ceramic flak jacket and a helmet and an m16, the whole works, and flown out there on a black hawk helicopter, which had to do a big sort of detour around ramallah because the idf, the israeli army, was convinced that the palestinians had shoulderfired groundtoair missiles. And when we landed, we landed in a hail of gunfire. Ive never seen anything like it since lebanon. It was it was intense. And the brigade commander, as i landed, got shot in the head got a 7. 62 kalashnikov bullet right in the head that was stopped by his newlyissued american kevlar helmet. Israel hadnt had the new kevlar helmets. Hed just got one. And there it was, the bullet was stuck right in the helmet. And i quickly got myself a kevlar helmet. laughter cspan have you ever been wounded . Guest what . Cspan have you ever been wounded . Guest ive been wounded very slightly. Very slightly. Cspan did it ever feel surreal to you . I mean, one day youre at your desk, at home, doing your work or where do you live, by the way . Guest i live in jerusalem. Cspan and next day, youre in a uniform and then. Guest always surreal. The worst part is coming home. The worst it always takes a few days to make that switch. You its bizarre. You get a phone call. You know, this week, im celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary congratulations and i got married on august 5, 1982. As i came home from my wedding and i was unwrapping my gifts, i got a call from the army saying, listen, in three hours, were going to pick you up in a jeep outside your house in jerusalem, and were going to take you to beirut. And i said, wait a minute. I just got married. They said, well, thats not our problem. Three hours. And i had to don a uniform, get out of my wedding suit into a uniform. My new wife is crying. My parents, who were there from new jersey, who hadnt seen me in uniform ever, were in a state of shock. And lo and behold, the jeep comes by and picks me up. And making that transition is difficult enough, but coming back from it is even more difficult because you come back from combat, and everyones basically going about their business and buying shoes and getting on buses and its very bizarre. The last two years, however, have been in a category all by themselves. Israel lives from crisis to crisis. Sometimes i think were rather addicted to them. And but this is the last two years have broken the israeli paradigm. The israeli paradigm is theres a war. It breaks out on the Golan Heights. It breaks out in the sinai. You get into your uniform, you go away. You come back in two or three weeks. You take a shower. You try to forget about it. You go back to your team. Over the last two years, however, the war has come to us, and it is no longer out there. The war is our back yards. And where i live in southern jerusalem, its been very, very close to the front. I mean, on a very typical evening with my children around a table, the house will be rocking with gunfire, with machine gun fire, with tank fire. Helicopters have come over my house and fired rockets. And now weve had the suicide bombings. The last major suicide bombing in jerusalem, the bus bombing, blew out the windows of my house. Cspan so you live there fulltime, but you also are associated with an Organization Called is it the shalem. Guest shalem center. Cspan shalem center. Is that a fulltime job . Guest shalem is a very fulltime job. Shalem center is a young, very Dynamic Research center that was started about seven years ago through the generosity of the Zalman Bernstein foundation. And it promotes the study of israel, the study of the middle east, jewish history, zionism. It was founded by several young people, graduates of princeton. And now there are about 100 people working there. Cspan did i read that bill kristol, the weekly standard. Guest hes on our board. Cspan . Publisher is on your board . Any other americans that we know . Guest who you would know leon kass is on our board. Cspan the bioethics. Is guest right. Cspan . Associated Leader Associated with president bushs. Guest right. Cspan . Administration. Guest yes. Ronald lauder. Cspan new york. Guest . Roger hertog of alliance capital. Cspan ok, go back to in the early part of the book, you say you wanted to write an unbiased. Guest right. Cspan . View of the 67 war. After hearing your background, is that possible to do that . Guest not easy. Not easy. Today, in history, its very fashionable in postmodernist, relativist history to say, you cant write objective history. Dont even bother trying. So write subjective history. And i adhere to that very quaint 19thcentury notion that there is an historical truth out there and that we, as historians though we can never really reach that truth completely we have an obligation to strive toward it. And therefore, if we have prejudices and of course, we all have them if we have biases, that we have to regard them not as opinions to be indulged but as obstacles to be overcome because if we want to understand this war and this is a war that, as i said before, so profoundly impacts our lives in israel, in the middle east, even in the United States if were going to understand it then indulging my opinions is not going to help us very much. And on a sort of daily methodological level, in writing every page, every paragraph, and sometimes even every sentence, id have to stop and ask myself, ok, am i letting my prejudices, ideas, opinions impinge on what im writing here . How might i write this if i was completely objective . And very often, id change the text. Very often, i changed the text. The best compliments ive had from this book, brian, have come from arab scholars. And the reaction from the arab world has been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, ive really had no negative reactions. Ive been written about in the egyptian press. Ive been asked to interview on al jazeera. Ive given lectures at universities where arab scholars were present at oxford and at harvard recently. Its been very its given me a tremendous amount of satisfaction, that reaction. Cspan by the time you got to the 67 war, how many wars had israel fought in . Guest as i said, the 67 war was israels third war. Sometimes its referred to as the third arabisraeli war. Cspan what were. Guest in 1948, which was israels war of independence the 1956 war, which was israels the israels call the sinai campaign, the arabs call it the tripartite aggression. Its one of the things about total war we even have different names for our war. The arabs call the 1948 war the nakba, the disaster, all right . But this was this was not a disaster for the israelis. It was israels war of independence. The 67 war is called by the israelis the sixday war. Its referred to in the United States as the sixday war. But the arabs take great umbrage at that term. It simply means, oh, the israelis beat you in six days. I actually used it once accidentally in an interview with a jordanian former jordanian general. He almost ended the interview right then, he was so insulted. They prefer to refer they refer to it as the setback. They have a number of euphemisms for the war, but mostly they refer to it as the june war, sort of an anodyne term. Cspan after the 67 war and of course, well go back to it but how many wars have there been since 67 . Guest well unintelligible we even count the wars differently. The israelis identify a war of attrition which broke out along the suez canal shortly after the end of the sixday war and continued to august 1970, in a United Statesbrokered ceasefire. And then there was the 1973 war the arabs refer to the the egyptians, in particular, refer to the 67 war, the war of attrition and the 73 war as one long war, all right . The 73 war is called known in israel as the yom kippur war in egypt and the arab world, its either referred to as the october war or the ramadan war. June, 1982, the lebanon war, which in one way or another continued until may of 2000. And the gulf war, which wasnt exactly an arabisraeli war but it had, certainly, an arabisraeli component to it, as i mentioned earlier. And now weve had the outbreak of two intifadas, if you can say those words in the plural, the first from 1987 to 1992, and the last from september 2000, to the present. Cspan by the way, how Many Americans are living in israel and have dual citizenship . Guest you know, i dont know. Its probably around 70,000 to 80,000. Cspan go back to 48 for a moment. When did the un declare israel to be a country . Guest the decision of the the un came on the 29th of november, 1947, when the Un General Assembly voted to create a jewish and an arab state in palestine, to partition palestine into two states, all right . Upon this declaration, the palestinians declared war on the jewish half. That effort was frustrated ultimately by jewish defense. And when the partition resolution came into being on may 14th, 1948, seven arab armies invaded the new jewish state, the nascent jewish state, in an effort to prevent its emergence. And that was all that effort was also rebuffed. Cspan what was the size of the jewish state after the vote in the un and they partitioned it off . Guest let me well, ill rephrase the answer a little bit. The jewish state that emerged as the state of israel at the end of the war of independence, at the beginning of 1949, was 30 percent larger than the jewish state created by the un in november of 1947. The Israeli Forces had succeeded in pushing the arabs back. Now, the israelis had conquered no sovereign arab territory, but that 30 percent would have been part of the palestinian arab state, had that state, in fact come into being. As it happened, the area that was supposed to that had been earmarked for the palestinian state was taken up by israel, by jordan, which annexed the west bank the west bank was supposed to have been part of that palestinian state and by egypt, that occupied which occupied gaza strip. Cspan so israel didnt have gaza, didnt have the west bank. Guest did not. Cspan what part of jerusalem did they not have . Guest they did not have the eastern part of jerusalem. Cspan did they what about the old city . Guest the old city was part of east jerusalem. Cspan and that didnt belong. Guest no. Cspan it belonged to jordan. Guest that belonged to jordan. Jordan annexed it by american terms, annexed it illegally. The annexation of the west bank and jerusalem was recognized only by two states in the world, by britain and pakistan. Cspan now, how long did that israeli state Stay Together until it was i mean, in 56 what was that war all about . Guest the 56 war was about, on the israeli side, the fear that nasser had become a proxy of the soviet union, had acquired mass amounts of soviet arms. Cspan he was the head of egypt. Guest he was the head of egypt. And he had been sending palestinian guerrillas fedayeen, as they were called then to attack deep within israel, and it was only a matter of time before nasser used this massive soviet weaponry in an offensive war of destruction. And israel sought to launch a preemptive strike. It found an opportunity in the suez crisis. You recall that nasser nationalized the suez canal in july, 1956. Britain and france, as the principal shareholders in the suez canal company, tried to negotiate through american mediation a solution to the suez crisis. When no solution could be found, britain and france elected to retake the canal by force of arms and enlisted israels help in that effort. So israel saw an alliance of convenience between britain and france and herself and launched this war. Cspan i want to just show on this map here where the lines, the diagonal lines one at the bottom is the sinai. And then over here is the gulf of suez. Just for the audience to look around and see where jordan is located. Jordan used to control that area right there in the middle of israel, which is the west bank. And then you have syria up at the top, and lebanon. The 56 war lasted how long . Guest well, for the british and the french, it lasted about about three days. The israelis, it continued a little bit longer, about three four days, because israel started it the french anglofrench invasion of the suez canal really occurred on the 3rd to 4th of november 1956, and israel had launched its attack already on the 29th of october. Cspan who was in charge then . Who led the country in 56 . Guest David Ben Gurion was the Prime Minister, and the chief of the israeli army, chief of staff, was moshe dayan. Cspan and where were people like ariel sharon . Were they still involved in that action . Guest oh, sure. Ariel sharon was involved in a very controversial action. Oh, this gets complicated brian as part of the deal between with britain, france and israel, israel was to create a forward feint at the suez canal by dropping paratroopers in and around the mitla pass. Mitla pass is the great pass that leads from sinai, the interior of sinai, to the canal zone. Britain and france would then issue an ultimatum to both israel and egypt, saying that in order to protect the canal britain, israel and egypt were to remove their forces from the proximity of the canal within 24 hours. It was assumed by the planners of this rather arcane operation that egypt would reject the ultimatum and that britain and france would then use that as a pretext for reoccupying the canal in order to protect it. And welcome to the middle east the israeli commander of the paratroopers, the founder of the paratroopers, who parachuted into the mitla pass was none other than ariel sharon. And to this day, there is a controversy over whether sharon moved his troops exceeded his orders by moving them into the mitla pass and engaging a far superior egyptian force, and in the process, incurred a great number of casualties. The greatest number of casualties in the entire war were from the mitla pass operation. And to this day, its a point of controversy in israel. Cspan how old would he have been then . Guest he was a young man. He was in his early 30s. Cspan some of the other personalities involved Yitzhak Rabin where was he in 56, leading up to the 67 war . Guest Yitzhak Rabin was a commander in the north of israel. He wasnt involved in the war. Cspan where was moshe dayan . Guest moshe dayan was the chief of staff. Cspan where was golda meir . Guest golda meir was a labor party functionary. I believe at that time she was the foreign minister. Cspan where was levi eshkol . And who was he . Guest levi eshkol was the finance minister. Cspan in 56 . Guest in 56. Cspan who were some of the other leaders . Guest who were around at that time . Cspan yeah. Guest abba eban. Abba eban was the had a dual capacity as israels ambassador both to the un and to the United States. Cspan was his name really aubrey solomon . Guest it was. Still is. Cspan hes still alive . Guest he is. Cspan he was born aubrey solomon. Guest he was. Cspan this is abba eban. Guest right. Cspan in capetown, south africa. Guest right. And his wife still calls him aubrey. Cspan when did he change his name . Guest he changed his name when he moved to israel, as so many people do. Most of the people like moshe dayan, David Ben Gurion, golda meir these werent their original names. The notion was to hebraicize ones name, to make immediate contact connection between the Israeli Zionist present and the ancient biblical past. Cspan what was golda meirs name, do you remember . Guest golda meyerson. David ben gurion was david green. Cspan and he was from where, originally . Guest from the ukraine, from eastern europe. Cspan where was Yitzhak Rabin from . Was he a sabra . Guest rabin was a sabra. He was a nativeborn israeli. He was the first nativeborn israeli cspan ariel sharon where was he from . Guest ariel sharon is from russia originally. He still speaks russian. Cspan and moshe dayan . Guest did you know that ariel sharon speaks russian . Not great russian, but passable russian. Cspan and moshe dayan was from where . Guest moshe dayan was born in nahalal in unintelligible cspan what about shimon peres . Guest shimon peres is from poland. Still has a polish accent on his hebrew that is often the butt of humor in israel. Cspan what was his original name . Guest persky. laughter guest its a good thing i remember these things, as a good israeli should. Cspan yeah, youre doing good here. Ok, some of the were leading up to 1967. Guest yeah. Cspan by the way, did israel win 56 . Guest israel won the 56 militarily. There is a pattern always in Israeli Military, diplomatic history that israel wins wars militarily but cannot necessarily win them diplomatically, politically, all right . Certainly, this was the case in 1948. In 1948, israel won an overwhelming victory over the arabs, and yet it didnt secure the one thing that most victorious countries achieve in war. It didnt achieve peace. Didnt end the state of war. In 1956, israel decimated the Egyptian Army, decimated the egyptian air force, and yet did not achieve peace again. In 67, one of the great military victories in all history, all right, in terms of the amount of material lost by the arabs, the men lost, the territory sacrificed by the arab forces it was just an overwhelming victory. Did israel achieve peace in 1967 . No. Cspan so the actually, as you read your book, you get to day one. I mean, you break it up eventually. And day one takes right off from the first paragraph. I mean, it was interesting. Up until then, its a history. Guest right. Cspan and then, boom, youre in the middle of a war. I mean and you say by 7 30, close to 200 planes were aloft. Guest right. Cspan so what, again june 5th, 1967 how big is the Israeli Military . Guest the Israel Military about 100,000, 125,000 men, 200 aircraft. Cspan and what kind of aircraft were they . Guest mostly french aircraft. Cspan no american aircraft . Guest no, no, unintelligible mostly mysteres and mirages. Cspan and what about the. Guest unintelligible jets. Cspan did they i thought i thought i saw a reference to patton tanks. Guest there were a small number of patton tanks. It was the First Americanisraeli arms deal. They sold patton m48 tanks. But israel had a limited number of them. The largest m48 tank force in the middle east was the Jordanian Army, which was almost completely built around the m48. They had about 240 of them. Cspan who started. Guest that was the most advanced tank at the time. Cspan who started the 67 war . Guest well, i think its important to keep in mind, brian, that this is a war that nobody very few people wanted and nobody anticipated. Cspan whos Prime Minister . Guest Prime Minister is levi eshkol. Cspan who is the defense minister . Guest the defense minister is levi eshkol as well up until a few days before the war when moshe dayan is brought in as the defense minister. Cspan and what had he been doing . Guest he had been in an Opposition Party to the government with ben gurion. Ben gurion had broken away from the labor party to form his own party and had been a very vituperative, acerbic critic of the Israel Government of levi eshkol. Cspan was it a Coalition Government . Guest it was a Coalition Government but not with ben gurion in it. Cspan who was the chief of staff of the military . Guest the chief of staff of the military was Yitzhak Rabin. There were some very prodigious personalities in this government. There was the National Religious party, which today is, by the way, is a pretty outspoken right wing party. Then it was an outspoken left wing party. There was the unintelligible which was the kibbutz party that was in many ways so far left wing it came around and was right wing, sort of labor hawks cspan so lets go over them quickly. Who ran jordan . Guest king hussein. Cspan who ran syria . Guest there was a triumvirate of what they called the doctors government because they all had doctorates in psychology or philosophy but there was a baathist regime, a a radical marxist regime that had a front of a civilian government but behind it was a military junta in which the principal figure was hafez alassad. Cspan and his son now is in control . Guest right. Cspan and King Husseins son is now in control . Guest right. Cspan who ran saudi arabia . Guest saudi arabia was run by the saudi family. There was king saud. Cspan did they get involved. Guest and assad. Cspan did they get involved in the 67 war at all, the saudis . Guest they sent a force to the border saying that they were going to join the war and then they didnt join the war. Cspan who ran iraq . Guest secretly they were telling the americans, we hope the israelis get rid of nasser. Cspan who ran iraq . Guest iraq was also run by a baathist regime. It was president aref who is no more, a radical. The arab world was divided between conservatives and radicals, the conservatives being the monarchies, jordan saudi arabia, the persian gulf states, and the radicals being egypt, syria and iraq and algeria. Cspan where was arafat . Guest arafat was running an Organization Called alfatah which remains his basic organization today. Cspan living where . Guest he was operating out of damascus at the time and he was conducting terrorist operations against israel with the specific objective, a longterm objective of creating instability in the middle east and dragging the whole area into war. I opened this book, a discussion of the 67 war with alfatahs first terrorist operation against israel on new years eve 1965. It was an abortive operation and then i show how a series of these attacks led to an escalation of tensions in the middle east and eventually succeeded in plunging the region into war, far beyond expectations of even the syrians who were promoting these operations. Cspan now you mentioned nasser earlier. Where was sadat . Guest sadat was an underling of nasser. He was the spokesman of the national assembly, a person not highly regarded in egypt, though he did have a key role in the outbreak of the sixday war. On may 11th and may 12th, sadat had been sent on a state visit to north korea. Remember egypt at this time is a radical state. They have connections with north korea. On the way back from north korea, sadat pays a Courtesy Call to moscow and there he is told by soviet leaders that the soviet union has learned of an impending israeli invasion of syria. Cspan whos running the soviet union . Guest the soviet union is also run by a triumvirate. This is a day of troikas. There was podgorny, brezhnev and kosygin and there were tremendous divisions between them but in the brezhnev camp there was an interest in lessening pressures on north vietnam, which at that time was being bombed by the United States by fomenting a crisis in the middle east. Cspan so as sadat lands in moscow in may of 1967, what is the readiness of the israeli army at that point and the air force . Guest not very ready. Cspan i mean you would have been at your desk at the. Guest no, the reserves havent been called up. Theres general tension in the area particularly with the syrians. The syrians had been firing on border settlements in northern galilee. The syrians had been attempting to divert the jordan river before it reached israel and to really dry up the jewish state by diverting this river and israel had responded to this project by bombing the syrian earth work projects. Cspan who controlled the sea of galilee at that time . Guest israel. Cspan so it was not a part of. Guest the syrians were only ten meters off on one part of the Eastern Shore and it was not uncommon for israeli fishing boats to be shot at or shelled. There were a number of incidents. There was constant tension on the northern border but the estimate of israeli intelligence, which had such a high reputation, was that war in the middle east would not break out for at least another three years. Nobody foresaw the war. Cspan and it ended up breaking out june 5th, right after the may visit of sadat. Guest right. Well, sadat arrives in moscow and the soviets tell him that theres this plan by the israelis to invade syria, to capture damascus the syrian capitol. Sadat goes back and tells this to nasser. Nasser sends his chief of staff fawzi to damascus to see if theres any evidence of this. See the soviets had told sadat of between 13 and 15 israeli brigades massing on the northern border. So fawzi lands in damascus. Cspan northern border of . Guest of israel on the southern border of syria, and fawzi goes to damascus and very quickly ascertains from the syrians that the syrians know nothing of this. The syrians arent on alert. He actually takes a small plane up to look at the border doesnt see any Israeli Forces massing there and he reports this to nasser. Nasser decides for political reasons to ignore the advice of his chief of staff and to act as if the soviet warning is true that israel indeed intended to invade syria and he send his entire army into sinai, sends 100,000 men into sinai, a thousand tanks. Cspan and the sinai is about how far from jerusalem if you got in a car and drove . Guest if you got in a car and drove it would be about five hours. Cspan and if you got all the way to the end . Guest the closest point is about two and a half hours, take it back. Cspan how long does it take you to drive across to sinai . Guest sinai is like about four or five hours from tip to tip. Cspan so now mr. Nasser sends the troops up to the border of the sinai . Guest on the long Israeli Border. Cspan along the Israeli Border . Guest yes. Yes. Now the question is. Cspan sinai is controlled by the egyptians . Guest right, but at the end of the 1956 war in return for israels withdrawal from sinai sinai was also taken by the israelis in 56, the United Nations put in a Un Peacekeeping force into sinai. The United Nations emergency force, unef. Cspan how many men . Guest at that time about 15,000 and nasser when he begins to send forces into sinai informs unef that theyre going to have to leave. Cspan how can he do that . Guest because egypts rights, visavis unef, were very ambiguous. Dag hammarskjold who was really the architect of unef in 1957, early 1957, described the arrangement as the good faith agreement, that is essentially the unef was situated on sovereign egyptian territory it was there at the discretion of egypt. Once egypt decided to oust unef, it certainly had a sovereign right to do that, but before it did that, it was understood that egypt would first inform the General Assembly that there would be a General Assembly discussion about whether unef had fulfilled its historic mission. Now nasser ignored that part of the good faith agreement and simply informed the unef that they had to leave. Now the secretary general of the un was u thant at the time and rather than raising a protest to nasser unintelligible move, he immediately acquiesced and ordered unef to remove itself. Cspan you imply that u thant was he a burmese . Guest yes. Cspan who was head of the un or secretary general . Guest secretary general. Cspan was a weak character . Guest i dont think he was the strongest character in the world. I think that was the understanding of the United States as well. Cspan had dag hammarskjold been a strong character . Guest he had been a much stronger character, very dominant character. Cspan so you have and what kind of a let me jump off track just a second here because you got some interesting personal stuff. You say, i mean you talk a lot about nasser and his chief of staff. Guest yes. Cspan that at one point in this whole thing that they contemplate suicide or at least amir contemplates suicide. Guest the relationship between amir is the de facto head of the Egyptian Army, abdul hakim amir. Nasser is the president of egypt. He is by any other terms hes a military dictator. He came to power in a military coup and he has been the unchallenged leader of egypt since the egyptian revolution in the early 1950s. But amir begins to acquire power beginning in the late 1950s, early 1960s. He becomes the commander of the army and the army is the base of power for this military regime. He acquires all sort of other titles. By 1966, hes also the head of the egyptian soccer federation. He acquires considerable wealth and influence. And, amir and nasser have this extraordinarily complex and convoluted relationship. On one hand, amir poses the greatest threat to nassers rule. He is nassers most bitter political rival. On the other hand, nasser and amir are best friends. They live next door to one another. They go on vacations together. Their families marry with one another. They have nicknames for each other and they love each other. So you have this strange mixture of fear and affection and it greatly confuses egyptian decisionmaking. Ill give you just one example. About the question of unef, we talked about the un forces before, nasser wanted unef to pull back from the border and to remain in Sharm Elsheikh. Now Sharm Elsheikh is an area of the Sinai Peninsula that overlooks the straits of tiran at the entrance to the red sea. Those straits had been blockaded to israeli shipping. If you look on a map, brian, youll see that the red sea leads up to israels southern port of eilat, and from eilat, israel could reach the ports of asia and africa, and once you sealed off those straits, those straits were only about a mile and a half wide, israel was effectively blockaded from the sea and that was an act of war under International Law as well its a causes belly, a reason for going to war. Nasser did not want the un forces to be moved from Sharm Elsheikh because he knew that once they were removed from Sharm Elsheikh he, as an egyptian, would not be able to sit there and watch israeli boats pass by. He would have to blockade those straits again and that could cause a war. So he sent instructions to his officers, who were to meet with the heads of unef, telling them we want you to move back from the border but we want you to stay in Sharm Elsheikh. We also want you to stay in gaza. Amir changed the orders. He changed the orders for personal reasons. He actually was interested in precipitating a war with israel so he could regain some glory that he had lost in the 56 war he changed the orders and we know this for a fact now. We actually have the protocol of the meeting that the egyptians who came to the un, the un forces in sinai said, we need you to pull out entirely from Sharm Elsheikh, from gaza. At the same time, amir sent Egyptian Paratroopers to occupy Sharm Elsheikh. Once he did that. Cspan where did you find this information . Guest we found this information in the un archives. Un archives also operate according to the 30year rule. Theyre in terrible disarray. There are thousands upon thousands of documents in stacks on the floor. Cspan where . Guest at the un archive on 29th street. Cspan in new york city . Guest in new york city, and you sit there and you sift through these and you eventually come up to reports from the field. I received them from egyptian sources, from memoirs of the officers involved, from egyptian documents that existed in one particular archive in cairo, the and unintelligible archive, and a very interesting source for me i also rely heavily on oral histories, and i really went around. Cspan which you did . Guest which i did in most cases. I didnt go to syria, ill tell you. Cspan thats the only place you didnt go . Guest yes. Cspan you went to jordan, went to egypt . Guest yes. Cspan did you go to saudi arabia . Guest no. There were no interviews in saudi arabia. Cspan iraq . Guest no. Cspan lebanon. Guest only the three countries in which interviews took place in the arab world are syria, jordan, and egypt. Cspan and you didnt go to syria . Guest no, i had an assistant go to syria. Its a little problematic. I could as am american citizen but. Cspan because youre a jew . Is your assistant a jew also that went to syria . Guest no, but not because im a jew because im an israeli. Cspan any israelis go to syria . Guest there have been israelis go to syria on foreign passports but its risky. Why risk it . And, i have an excellent assistant. Cspan how many oral histories did you capture . Guest theres a long list there. I think theres maybe. Cspan a hundred . Guest close to 100 maybe. Cspan and over what period of time . Guest in the soviet union former soviet union, over three years, the former soviet union in the United States, in france cspan over how many years did you do this . Guest three years. It was a threeyear project. Cspan and you finished this book when . Guest the beginning of this year. I finished this book just around september 11th. Cspan of 2001 . Guest 2001. Cspan ok. I want you to skip some of this personal stuff. Time goes by so fast in this. You learn in here that Yitzhak Rabin, who is the chief of staff of the army, had a nervous breakdown . Guest he did, physical and nervous breakdown, yes. Cspan did he ever admit this . Guest eventually he did yes. Cspan and when did he have this . Guest he had it about a week into the crisis, a week after Egyptian Forces enter sinai and a week after the egyptians evicted unef. Cspan but before the june 5th attack . Guest well before, two weeks before. Cspan you also learn that moshe dayan had a nervous breakdown in the 73 war . Guest in the 73 war he did, yes, very similar to rabins. Cspan did he admit that . Guest he basically had it very publicly. It was difficult to not admit it. Cspan and what does it look like, a nervous breakdown, for both of these gentlemen . Guest well, with rabin it happened behind the scenes. Nobody saw it. He just simply disappeared for 36 hours. Dayan had been interviewed on tv and was semicomatose in 73. It was quite clear the man was going through severe emotional stress so it was very difficult to disguise it. The rumor was put out that rabin had suffered a bout of nicotine poisoning and only many years later, he came out and said that the pressure on him, i think this comes out in the book, that this just indescribable pressure on israeli leaders in the period leading up to the war, as they try to find a way not to have a war. Everyone was struggling not to get a war. It just became insufferable. Cspan well go back to nasser for a minute. How long did he live . Guest nasser lived until september of 1970. He negotiated a ceasefire in the jordanian civil war with the palestinians called black september, and then he died, but he was already an ill man by 1967. He suffered from severe diabetes. Cspan how about amir, when did he die . Guest well, thats an issue in egypt to this day. Cspan did he try to commit suicide . Guest the official version is that he tried that he committed suicide in august of 1967 after he tried to launch an abortive coup against nasser. Antinasser forces in egypt today will tell you that amir was assassinated, amir was executed by nasser, and it remains a point of contention within egyptian society. Cspan we need to close the loop on sadats meeting in the soviet union. Guest yes. Cspan when he went to meet with the soviets, they told him that the troops were on the border. Did he come back, did sadat come back and what did he tell nasser . Guest he told him just what the soviets said, that the soviets expect egypt to come to syrias aid. Cspan what was nassers relationship then with the United States . Guest very, very tense, as bad as it could be. Nasser had come to blows almost with president johnson. Nasser attacked johnson repeatedly orally in his speeches to the point that johnson suspended shipments of u. S. Wheat to egypt, and a large portion of the egyptian population was sustained by u. S. Wheat shipments. Johnson cut it out. Cspan how much money at that time was the u. S. Giving israel or giving egypt . Guest israel, several million. There was very little aid, mostly loans. Cspan its not the 3 billion and everything like it is now . Guest that started much much later. Cspan so there is so much here. Guest right. Cspan you cant even begin to get to. I need to get from you, though the first day of this war, what happened . June 5th, what happened and what was the extent of the deaths and the destruction . Guest whats interesting here, brian, is that what later became the sixday war was conceived by the israelis as a twoday war with very limited objectives. The objectives were to knock nasser down a couple of rungs, first of all by eliminating his air force, which was the cream of the Egyptian Military limiting the air force, and then by taking, conquering the first of three defensive lines that the Egyptian Army had set up in sinai. Thats all. No taking the entire Sinai Peninsula, no occupying gaza, no reaching the suez canal, no seizing the Golan Heights, no taking the west bank, and no entering jerusalem, east jerusalem. All of that happened in an unexpected, unanticipated way, and to me thats the fascinating part of the war. How did this war snowball into an event that has had this immense impact on us all . And each stage of that war that was unanticipated is a story unto itself. Cspan so, on the day that it started. Guest right. Cspan . When was the first indication that people either in israel or in egypt knew that this thing was underway . Guest well, israel devised a military plan which was ingenuous and in daring and borderline insane. The israelis determined to send their entire air force, with the exception of eight planes, on a massive attack, surprise attack against the egyptians. Cspan so, were talking about 200 planes . Guest two hundred planes all at once. In the book, i refer to it for american readers and israelis will never understand this, as a hail mary play, right . Cspan yes. Guest and the attack was coordinated at a time in the morning when egyptian pilots had just finished their morning patrols. Their dawn patrols were coming in for coffee. They were sitting down for coffee. Their plan was to destroy first of all the runways, not the planes, so the egyptian planes could not take off, essentially that theyd be bottled on the ground. I interviewed the former chief the commander of the Israeli Air Force, moti hod, and said to me that a plane in the air is the most devastating combat tool but on the ground its completely defenseless, and it was true. They developed special bombs called durendals that penetrated the runways with a retro rocket and blew up huge holes. Some of them were on delays too so the egyptians never knew when they were going to blow up and they werent prepared when they blew up. So once the runways were destroyed, all of these egyptian planes, soviet supply planes migs, tupolevs, were trapped. They were sitting in docks quite literally and then the israeli planes, mostly using canons and rocket fire not bombs, destroyed these planes one after another. The egyptians had never bothered to put them under canopies concrete canopies. They were all out on the runways completely exposed. So within about two hours, israel had destroyed well over 300 planes, so it was the largest single aviation victory in military history. Cspan how many planes did egypt have . Guest about 400. They ultimately lost all but a handful. Cspan and on this day that it starts, are the jordanians ready to go . Guest no. Heres what happens then. Theres a ground Israeli Ground forces also move to take that first line of defense and israel sent a letter to the jordanians. Israel at that time had a pretty open connection with king hussein. In his rhetoric, hussein could be as antiisrael as anybody but secretly he was meeting with israeli emissaries. He had open communications to the american and british embassies. The israelis sent a warning saying listen, this is between the egyptians and us. Stay out of it. You stay out of it and nothing will happen. But hussein had a terrible dilemma. He was afraid if he stayed out of it then the arab world would accuse him of treason and theyd kill him. So he had invited the egyptians to command his army. He put his army under egyptian command and the egyptian commanders had received word in cairo that the Israeli Air Force had been destroyed, that the egyptian Ground Forces were proceeding toward hebron and therefore the Jordanian Forces were to enter the war immediately. So jordan opened fire on west jerusalem. It shelled jerusalem massively. It shelled the outskirts of tel aviv. Jordanian planes strafed lower galilee, and when israelis began to fear that the Jordanian Army was going to move into west jerusalem, as it had in 1948 thats when they struck back. Thats when they began to strike back on the west bank and jerusalem and thats how that stage of the war started. Cspan how bad did they hit jordan, the israelis . Guest no, they hit the jordanians. The jordanians, by the way fought very valiantly, in many cases to the last man, the last bullet but eventually Israeli Forces overwhelmed the jordanians and they took the west bank, and in a very bloody battle, they took east jerusalem. Cspan what kind of planes were the jordanians flying . Guest jordanians had hawker hunters, british planes most of which never got off the ground. Cspan what about the planes syrians were they flying. Guest migs. Cspan so they were flying russian planes . Guest russian planes. Cspan you were flying, the israelis were flying french planes . Guest french. Cspan and the egyptians were flying russian planes . Guest russian planes. Cspan there was one point early in the history of all this, you say the russians were very proisrael, then they totally flipped . Guest right. Cspan what year did they do that . Guest they flipped, i actually have a date, 1953 they flipped. Cspan what was the reason for it . Guest well, essentially because the reason was that the initial motivation for soviet support for israel was no longer relevant. The soviets had supported the creation of israel as a way of dividing the British Empire in half. Remember the british in the 1940s had their forces along the suez canal. The suez canal was the largest british base in the world. The british were also in jordan the british were in the persian gulf. A british officer in 1945 could get in his jeep and drive from egypt through iraq and still be within a british sphere of influence, so the easiest way to put a wedge through the two halves of the British Empire was to create a jewish state right in the middle. And if you look on the map again youll see strictly the negative desert divides egypt from jordan and mesopotamia, iraq. So they supported and by 1953 israel was an accomplished fact clearly the soviets had more to gain from the arabs. The United States had become very dependent on arab oil and many arab regimes were then, there was a tremendous political upheaval in the middle east. There were coups every week and many of these coups were like the baathist in syria and iraq were prosoviet. So it became natural for the soviets to support these regimes. Cspan we only have a couple minutes left and i want to make sure we get to the end of all this. In the end, there were what, a half million arabs that had troops involved in all this. How many of them died . Guest between 15,000 and 20,000 egyptians died, several thousand jordanians, a thousand some couple hundred syrians. The syrians were the least scathed in this combat. They were the principal factor for precipitating the war and they pretty much stayed out of it to the last day when moshe dayan decided to take the Golan Heights as well. Cspan how many israelis died . Guest between 700 and 800. Cspan how many planes were lost . Guest twenty percent of the Israeli Air Force was lost. In spite of this tremendous victory, israel also paid a very, very heavy price. Many planes were lost. Cspan so when this war was over in six days, why do you say again this is such an important war and it still resonates today . Guest well, as i said earlier, because the map had changed, all right. First of all, you had a relationship between israel and the United States that didnt exist before and that was to play a central role in middle east politics since then and continues to this day to play that role. Nasser was finished. Moreover, not just nasser the individual, but the idea of nasser that there was going to be a nationalist Arab Movement that was going to unite the arab world, that was defunct. Now there would have to be a new idea and that idea, that idiom was going to be islamic and not nationalist. The arab regimes were sick and tired of the arabisrael conflict. Lets give it back to the palestinians. Let the palestinians fight their own fight from now, and thats when you have arafat emerging. And then, you have the physical reality that was different. Israel had more than tripled its size in six days, extraordinary, and israel had the means now to bargain for peace. November, 1967 a few months after the end of the war, the un passes resolution 242, which implies a deal of territory for peace, which remains the basis for all middle east mediation to this very day. That was the document. This is the founding document and israel was later to get a peace treaty with egypt by giving back the sinai. If israel is to have a peace treaty with syria, it is because israel conquered the Golan Heights in 67. And even if there is to be a peace between israel and the palestinians, it will be a basis of a territorial deal that arose as a direct result of the 67 war. Cspan you told us that youre still in the reserves and you have a son now who is how old thats in the reserves . Guest nineteen. Cspan is he on active duty . Guest very active duty. Cspan where . Guest i dont know. He serves in the elite, very elite unit and i dont know where he is. Cspan how many people in israel are under arms right now . Guest we have well the actual numbers of our Standing Army is a state secret. Its large, several hundred thousand all together with the reserves. Israel can field an army of several hundred thousand people cspan by the way, are the israeliarabs in this army . Guest there are israeliarabs who serve in the army. They are under no obligation to serve. There is only one nonjewish population in israel, the druze, who have volunteered to be drafted beginning in 1956. But there are great numbers of bedouins, israeli arabs, both muslims and christians who serve in the army, and circassians serve in the army. Cspan do you still, by the way, have an american citizenship . Guest i do. Cspan were out of time. We got a lot more we could talk about but six days of war is the title of the book. Our guest has been michael b. Oren, who is both an american and an israeli citizen, and we thank you very much. Guest thank you, brian. Next to examines religions role in american democracy through the eyes of seven transformative thinkers including u. S. President john adams, 19th century philosopher William James and jane addams the First American woman to win the nobel peace prize. Good evening. Welcome to book passage here in San Francisco the historic building. We are thrilled to have you here this morning. We welcome cspan tonight as well for a special guest amy kittelstrom. We really do appreciate your being here and its not something we say regularly and it becomes a bit of a cliche but we are quite sincere in pointing out that your being here and youre supporting an independent bookstore means we can introduce writers and authors and bring in childrens authors and have writer sometimes is a lifechanging experience for them. By your being here and supporting the bookstore we will be able to be here for you and bring you events such as this tonight. Amy is taking a break from her re