Transcripts For CSPAN2 Six-Day War 20170618

Doctor laron was a great pleasure to welcome you to this event. Im a christian and i directed the history and Public Policy program at the Woodrow Wilson center, a program that tries to provide Historical Context to current Public Policy issues in washington. Many of you are familiar with one of the subprojects of the history of Public Policy, the program we have run here for 25 years. More than 25 years. A project thats devoted to uncovering, collecting, translating, disseminating, making accessible and discussing new evidence from what used to be the former communist world archived but its crept to what now include really all hard to access archives around the world. We are delighted to launch with this event today, a series of activities discussing, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the sixday war. We will have today the launch of perhaps the most important new publication of International History to come out on the war. I thank you are all in for a treat. We are also doing whats our sweet spot here in the historical universe. We will be publishing a number of new documents from archives around the world and along with some first takes of these documents for our blog, our new history of Public Policy blog entitled sources and methods. There is a link on the blog, to the blog, website both the history and Public Policy program and the cultlike Natural History project and we invite you to check that over the next two weeks. There will be a number of new publications and documents available to you by our digital i cards and this blog. Let me also say, we are delighted to host the session because its yet another step in the direction of an area that in many ways is still a blank spot, not entirely, but in many ways is still a blank spot, are kindly speaking. Cultural and recent International History and the project, the program, is planning in the coming years to spend a lot more time they are in the archives, hopefully, building networks, facilitating access to materials and other historical materials and archival and International History. Before i introduce our keynote speaker, let me think our Sister Program here at the Woodrow Wilson, the middle east program that kindly cosponsoring this event here this afternoon. Let me think my dedicated staff that has been helping to put together this event in place. None of these events happened by themselves, there is a lot of work that goes into this and i want to single out kian byrne who is our lead on the middle east work and also help to validate this event. With that, let me turn to guy, professor guy laron, senior lecturer in International Relations department at Hebrew University of jerusalem. In the past, hes been a visiting scholar at the university of maryland, i see jeff in the audience. Northwestern university at the university of oxford and he was also a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson center with the Cannon Institute in 2008. Hes long been involved with the Cultural National history project and another sister project Nuclear Proliferation history project. His articles have appeared in scholarly journals like the third world quarterly, journal of cultural studies, International Journal of middle east studies. Before the sixday war the breaking of the middle east, he explores the development with a book amplifying the origins of the crisis which we were pleased to publish a number of years ago to the Wilson Centers press. Guy will start us off with some thoughts from the arguments of his book and then we hope to open it up fairly quickly for all of you. We have the better part of an hour to do this and after an hour or so, id like to invite all of you to a reception in the fourth floor. Its two floors down. There will be a reception to celebrate into toast guy on his accomplishment. Let me ask if you would in turn off mind turning off your cell phones and other devices so we dont get interrupted and i think ive cleared it all out. You are on guy. Welcome and congratulations. Thank you, kristian, for this lovely introduction. You will soon realize that i need to think christian in more ways than one. What im going to do today is basically tell you about the biography of the book which means that im going to tell you about how i came to write it. I will talk a lot about myself and also a little bit about the book. The reason im doing that is, not only because im an academic and a narcissist, the reason im doing that is because i want to show you something analog or that the story of how the book was written actually mirrored the story of how the sixday war came to be. In the first chapter of the biography starts here in this very hall. I arrived to the Woodrow Wilson center in 2005, it was my first time in washington, first time in america. I sent to christian and email, he was already the dector for thWoodrow Wilson untrained entrance i sent him a draft of the email which was based on text documents and i was excited by the fact that he agreed to meet me so i knew i had to dress up to this special occasion. I still remember what i wore. I had black jeans, but not white shirt and a sweater with a zipper in the middle. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought i was dressed to kill. Then i entered this building, the elevator stops at 45 and i got out and see all the people with suits and the cufflinks and the ties and i immediately realized i look like an albanian sheepherder. No offense to albanian sheepherders, theyre not known for their sense of fashion. [laughter] then i met christian and he brought the paper along. He was reading it and said with a mixture of surprise and amazement, you are reading check . I said yes and there was silence. I dont like silence in the conversation, i can deal with it. I immediately read it that i read czech but i need to open the dictionary every sentence. He was really surprised and probably in the first meeting he saw selfpromotion but not selfdeprecation. He thought for a second and said well, you might want to improve your czech Language Skills because we might want to work with you in the future. And i did improve my Language Skills. This is how i got attached to the cold war International History projects. The next intervention of christian in my career happened two years later when he invited me to an event in 2007 that then come emanated for years to the sixday war in this very hall. At first, i wanted to say no, i was a student and i had typical television of graduate students and i thought of writing a dissertation about the crisis talking about an event that happened ten years later is like irresponsible future already. When im going to participate in that, and my wife politely remembered that i just applied to 12 graduate programs at post doctorate programs and got a note from all of them, maybe now is not the right time to say no to a major think tank in washington. She was right, obviously. Had about twothree weeks to decide what i was going to do and they sent some documents in arabic, rush russian, czech and i familiarized myself with the historiography of the sixday war by putting out a few articles in reading them on the transatlantic flight. The event that took place here was a book launch of ather book titled the one the main claim, the main argument of they want the soviet wanted a war to erupt in the summer of 1957 and this is a known argument in literature that they took it a step further and argue that the soviet union wanted to destroy through that war the Nuclear Reactor in dimona and thus prevent israel from acquiring nuclear weapons. From the documents i read, before i came here, i thought they were wrong. What i saw was that the soviets were as surprised by the rapid turn of events in the middle east in may 1967 is all outside observers were. In this event and the fact that some people approach me and said very interesting document, can you translate them for us . And send them to us . I thought if those were interesting then i will write an article about them. So, this is how i started my project about the sixday war. For me, it was a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. The riddle was a certain event that happened on the 13th of may 1967. The soviets and the kgb and other channels delivered an intelligence memo to the egyptians in which the alleged that israel will attack syria in the second half of me. Now, at that point in time, egypt has a military pact with syria so there like the three musketeers, all for one, one for all and if syria is attacked, it must intervene. Indeed, after receiving that intelligence memo, nasser, the egyptian president mobilize the Egyptian Army and send it into sinai which was demilitarized and egyptian tanks started flowing towards the border with israel. Thus, started a matching of events that led on the fifth of june 1967 to the eruption of the sixday war. So, its all about the soviets. Now, i think the soviets lied or someone lied to them. I didnt think the soviets lied on purpose and i was trying to figure out who lied to them. The main suspect was the Syrian Regime and when i was doing the search, read about in hebrew with the not so sexy title of struggles in the kremlin and their influence in our region. From the footnotes i gathered that he was able to see a semi clandestine publication of the syrian party and that looks like a very promising avenue. So, 40 years after he wrote the book, the book was published in 1917, i called the Telephone Company and he lived in a small settlement in galilee. They located his number, i called him after 40 years after he wrote the book, he picks up the telephone. He said hello. Im doing research and im doing research on the sixday war. And i want to see the intelligence. He was in his accident hebrew he told me that i gave them to the Justice Center. Thank you very much, i called the Justice Center and we dont know what youre talking about. We dont have an archive or paper. So, one of the worst places to be in the world . Between me and the information i need for my research. I called him again, the man was 80, what else is he had to do in this world but answer my phone calls. Hello. Its not at the Justice Center. Where is it smart that me think. I think it was in 1948 is mike im pulling my hair, hes senile and he doesnt remember can only locate the papers. Then another voice, more mature personality in my headset weight, try to make him talk about that time. Maybe he will recall so i asked him how those documents came to be in his possession in the first place. Then he told me a story i can relate to because it turned out he was as obsessed about his research as i was in the story is that in 1965, two years before the sixday war, he wrote a book about arab socialism, found a lot of materials on egyptian socialism but not so much. Socialism because it was a very secretive state. On the 11th of june when israel is rejoicing in its longest, decisive victory against the Arab Coalition and he thanks one thing, if you go up to Golan Heights, which was part of syria to them, and you reach the regional capital, maybe he can find the local. [inaudible] and there to find related publications. So, he hitchhiked his way along the Golan Heights, tanks and all, days after the war ended and he meets locals and they point him out to the local branch and he tells me, i arrived a little bit too late because the riserva soldiers were starting to use the paper is the paper. Some was left and he climbed into a sack everything find he went back to. [inaudible] and there, rummaging through the materials, he saw headlines that interested him a secret report about the village of our delegation to the soviet union in april 1966. There he found that the syrians were telling there were rival factions in the kremlin in formal settings, the syrians were told not to provoke israel into war but in oral conversations and corridor conversations, they were told to actually it was okay to conduct hawkish foreign policies via israel. Then he recalled he gave the papers. Of course, it was in the Archive Center in Tel Aviv University in arrived there a few days later. All those papers have waited there for 3035 years without anyone looking at them. When i finished taking photos with my digital camera, i was looking like a coalminer. I was covered in the dust of documents, you want nothing more as a archival historian. After i had those documents, i started reading around and i was really surprised when i discovered about syria, at the time. When i was with the research, syria was a very boring place, closed society, held by the iron grip of the nasser family and in the 50s60s, they experienced this kind of slowmotion civil war with the society torn by really strong tensions between rural farmers, for minority and they were extremely poor and they were fighting against the rich sunni landowners, industrials living in the big cities and i didnt know all that. Apparently, its a good background to what is happening in syria right now. Then i wrote a couple of articles, one said the syrians did it in the other said it was just no part of the soviet union and they had their own interest to do what it did. Then i left it at that. A couple of years later, i got tenure position at the Hebrew University, that like the holy grail, some find it but many dont. From day one i was told grants, grants, grants. If you dont get a grant, you wont get tenure. And not getting tenure is almost as bad as death for academics. So i applied. I applied to two funds and i didnt expect to receive either but i received both and now i had to do something with the money. So, i hired a few research assistants, it was a true tower of babel, one was a polish and one german. Another translated documents for several. [inaudible] and so forth. I had a dataset what social scientists call it. But i didnt know what i wanted to do with it. Years later, i get the news that ill have a fellowship, one year without teaching. I loved my students but one year without teaching . Thats fantastic. You can get a lot done. I became a megalomaniac. I had a year off and then it was june 2014 and i didnt know if it happened to you but you wake up from a night sleep and you have this whole complete thought in your head like you thought about it before night. My thought was that in three years, it will be exactly the 50 anniversary the sixday war. If i start working fast during the polish of your try to book, i might make a buck out of it. That looked promising. So, then the race started. Basically, the race to write the book in time. Then while reseahing the book, i realized that i wanted to write Something Different from the kind of articles i had produced a couple of years before hand. Then after my dissertation, i call it writing from the trenches, basically, the Main Driving Force the essays i wrote then was this is an interesting document and its interesting because i found this interesting document in the next paragraph is another interesting document, you get the view of the infantry corporal fighting in the trenches. I wanted a book that would give a wider view, the general standing on the hill looking at the battlefield sees. Yeah, thats the point im trying to tell you about the book. So, what i figured out after reading a few books written about the war is that all of them focus on the war itself. What happened on those six actionpacked days on the battlefield in the corridors of the un, in moscow, in washington and theres not enough that explains why the war happened in the first place. Now, being in israel, you shouldnt be surprised that im trying to understand how wars happen. They disrupted my life. In fact, one war is responsible to the fact that i exist. My generation, in israel, is known as the winter of 1973 generation. What happened the winter . There was a war. Lots of young husbands went back from the front and they wanted to deal with the fact that they almost died by creating new lives. When i was eightnine there was the first lebanon war and my stepfather was recruited. He was serving at the front and i remember how my mother and i would watch the news every night because the last segment was the one in which they read those who had been killed in action. It was a little bit like the vietnam war, each day brought a new drip of people that died in front. Then, in 1991 theres the first gulf war there was this unrelated regional crisis in the gulf and suddenly missiles started raining on israel and i had to see my holocaust surviving grandfather put a gas mask on his head so, im obsessed with the question of how the war starts. And how wars in general start. Talking specifically about the sixday war, i came to the understanding, or at least my argument, that you should see the war in a global context because even before we deal with what asserted in the 13th of may and why he d what he did when he received a memo, we should think about the fact that the whole developing world is experiencing severe economic crisis at the time and all the countries that fought the sixday war were developing countries. Some, more developed than others. Israel more than egypt but they were all developing countries. What happened in the mid 60s . It was the end of a Business Cycle, a decade before hand in the mid 50s, everybody looks at places like the us, in washington, in new york, even in moscow, they looked at the developing world like people looked at china. Until two years ago or before hand the way people looked at japan and thought it would rule the world. They sought rapid growth rates and they extrapolated it into the future. What happened was that developing countries got a lot of foreign aid both to the soviet union and the United States in eastern and western europe but the money was mis invested so there was rapid growth at first and then it tapered off. You see specifically around the mid 60s that there was statistically more cases of military coups in the third world and its related to balance of crisis. What happened is that there were civilian leaders in developing countries, they preside for a decade over a booming economy and when the music stops, when the economic crisis steps in, then they lose their legitimacy, they lose their popularity and what kind of institutions steps in . Usually the military. Its a it can be used as a tool for oppression or by pursuing adventures abroad to seek victory that you cant achieve anymore. In the context of national economy. In the mid 60s there was a economic crisis in israel and in egypt and in syria the military takes things into its own hands by february 1966. The military was willing syria so, the title i gave the book was general at the helm because this is what happened. Generals were more dominant in the decisionmaking process and they preferred hawkish Foreign Policy to make things worse there was a superpower intervention and up to the early 1960s, when the superpowers looked at the third world, they started an area for economic rotation both the soviet union and the United States gave billions of dollars in aid money in order to get access to the markets and developing countries. After 63, after kennedy was murdered, after 64 when khrushchev was ousted, there is new management both in moscow and in washington and theres a rethink of the whole policy toward the third world and this decision is made to cut back on foreign aid. Looking at the third world as an arena for military docking and specifically in the middle east what you see is that johnson stops the shipments of subsidized wheat that we sent to egypt approximately one half billion of subsidized meat and instead of that they send weapons to various countries in the middle east. Iran, syria, jordan, to the tune of 800 million in the years preceding the war. The soviet union, not only selling weapons to syria and egypt, but also promising more if those countries would give the soviet fleet permanent access to civil tees in alexandria, and egypt and syria. The superpowers exacerbated the crisis by not getting foreign aid exactly when developing countries, specifically middle Eastern Countries needed it the most, and by pursuing policies that basically strengthen the hand of general that were pursuing hawkish Foreign Policy. So, when we get to the summer of 1967 we have a situation where a war doesnt have to happen but its very, very likely. So, these two stories, the one i told you about how i came to write the book and the story about how war erupted, the answer was the perennial question in history do great men in history or are they slaves of circumstances beyond their control . Now we have the answer because you might plan to do a Research Project on something not related to the sixday war or you might plan not to have a war if youre a leader in the middle east in the 1960s and then things come up and you get a grant, you get an economic crisis, you get a fellowship, you get generals that were more and then you stumble into fighting the war, writing a book, you didnt plan on doing in the first place. You for listening,. [applause] thank you, guy. The floor is now open for your questions. Im sure hell be happy to talk more about other dimensions of the book. If you could please, intuition, wait for the microphone, state your name and affiliation, please. My affiliation after listening carefully and specifically because i thought the book talked about dimona was total rubbish. I cant comment on that. I understand, did the syrians feed the soviets disinformation . Window, and supported the idea of bringing it back to egypt . And my last question, how in the world, knowing that nasser was the epicenter inflammation of power and the only obstacle of bringing was israel, one would think that soviets could convince answer that syria syria had right from the moment he bece the leader of egypt, how could this revel ever become such a best seller . Three questions, all of them excellent. So, let me tell you in shorthand the story of the soviet intelligence memo i started my talk with, the one delivered on the 13th of may. Im obsessed with the story. I think i found the answer. What happened is Something Like this syria gave host to operations against israel. The option was either israel lunches and offensive against syria and then it complicates things because syria has attacks with egypt and syria is also backed by soviet union. So, it might not be a regional the army convince itself, the Israel Generals, convince themselves that they can localize the war. The Prime Minister didnt think so. The syrians are getting more and more cheeky toward may 1967 and its clear to everyone in israel at the moment the decision is upon us and, i thk, as a last resorthe used a secret weapon which was a double agent that israel employed visavis the soviet kgb,. [inaudible] that was the person that delivered the secret of speech in the very 1966 and he delivered it to the muscovites. Then they delivered it to the cia. He was a secret weapon that the russians thought he was working for them when he was actually working for us, as meaning israel. And he was fed with reliable information to deliver to the soviet Contact Person but also he was said with some false information and specifically, one day before he gets the alert reaching to moscow theres a Cabinet Meeting israel and theres a decision, secret decision, to deliver a warning to the syrians through a thirdparty and the third party were the soviets. Thats psychological operation number one. Then theres psychological operation number two and its happening in damascus, even before these news word letter to moscow from the eighth of may, the Syrian Regime was on the collapse and huge riots in the streets, you cant bread, milk, eggs, nothing. A complete shutdown of commercial life and they started to say that israel was about to attack us and they will do it with jordan and he run and so what happened first was that information is delivered by the double agent to the soviets and they authorize to inform the syrians. When the syrians the report they think yes, not only will they attack us but theres already israel troop concentrations on our border, 11 for grades. They were not 11 for grades in the whole is really army at the time. The soviets by that. They deliver it to the news and egypt and egypt was already hearing from the syrians that israelis was planning a war against. The syrians are known for crying wolf. We dont believe them but now they have a cooperation for moscow. So that was reliable and on top of that the political system in egypt was pretty tense. Nasser had to take consideration the option that if he wont allow his chief of staff to deploy egyptian troops in sinai there might be a clue. It was a possibility. Thats the story of how this intelligence alerts came to be and this is why egypt made a major erroofudgment in tting volved in all of this. They thought they would puff their way to this crisis. Then things started to be more and more complicated for them and they didnt back down. Factions in the kremlin. Basically, it was a faction led by. [inaudible] he was a moderate. He represents the kind of civilian intelligence that the people who are run factories, the people who are on the ministry and they didnt want war in the middle east and he felt an Important Role in the story because hes the only person to meet with the egyptian minister of war about a week before the war starts. He does everything he can to warn him that they should climb down the trees that they should open the tyrant streets. Then theres the faction led by aggression of and he supported the party, secret services and most probably the military. Its the soviet military that insists that the egyptian that the intelligence memo delivered on the 13th of may is true even when the egyptians get information saying there are no israeli troops concentrations on the syrian border, the soviet secretary of defense insists that yes, its true, the israels only postpone the operation but they will launch it eventually and then, most famously, when that egyptian minister pulls moscow one week before the world, after all the words just before he sees. [inaudible] and gives him a bear hug he says, you know, we are in the mediterranean, and with weapons that you are not aware of their enormity and if something happens we will fight by your side, if you need us, just whistle and we will appear in every place you need us. Thats quite a commitment. Thats exactly what was reported to the answer. The fact that the kremlin was talking from the two sides of its mouth influenced it. Jeff. Yes, first i want to make a comment in the defense of scholars and academics. We are not, by definition, narcissists affect we are just the opposite. We try and focus on things that are not us. So, i dont know what your argument is because you spent most of your time talking about yourself. So, thats a problem. Im not convinced. Heres a simple. How are you not convinced . Well, im not sure ill read the book but the question is this, theres a simple explanation for the sixday war. This is that nasser and the leader from syrian thought they could destroy the state of israel and made a bunch of misjudgments based on a lot of hatred and these misjudgments led to disaster. Fortunately, israel was prevented them from her, she what they wanted to do. That is in accord with everything that nasser was saying publicly, what he did in the weeks preceding the war, the israelis had every reason to believe that the united arab republic and iraq and jordan were intent on destroying the state of israel in the field. So, my question to you, now im giving you an opportunity to explain your basic thesis, is why is that assertion, that interpretation of the origins of the war, wrong . Because what you offered was a variance of economic reductionism. Mainly i have an argument. It was not elaborated in a good deal but basically there was a crisis in the Business Cycle and in order to get out of domestic problems these people and war. That is an argument in view of all the internet of evidence about why these nations went to war that strains credibility. Your offering an argument that is up against a lot of evidence over many decades and im giving you an opportunity to justify it in more depth back. So, you raise an interesting question. Beyond what people say publicly, lets set aside intentions. Lets talk about capabilities. Thats something i researched in depth because i wanted to Say Something about that and im a big i wanted to be truthful to this. The situation was like this and Israel General staff knew it quite well. Because Israel Intelligence had knowledge of air capabilities was excellent. It goes beyond the fact that israel had two top highlevel spies up to the mid 60s, both in damascus in cairo. They also used secret commander units to plan bugs on major telephone lines both in sinai and in syria. They had lots of ways and knowing what was going on on the other side. Both the syrian and Egyptian Army had plans for limited attacks, not major offensive. They had no way of actually doing that, why . They were not trained, nor were they equipped by the soviets to launch a major offensive. One example is what if the egyptian goes to the israelis what they have done to them. With a have wiped the Israeli Air Force. They never gave the egyptians planes with enough range to reach major israeli airfields and they had only one square of heavy bombers and it wasnt trained in the way that wouldve allowed them to evade israeli system. So, beyond that theres the fact that there were lines of fortification, both on the Golan Heights in sinai and millions of dollars were invested by the soviet union and the whole doctrine of fighting, both the egyptians and the syrians was basically to hide behind them. For israel to break its peace against these bunkers and trenches and then, perhaps, lounge or counterattack. Didnt have the capabilities, weapons, leadership, didnt have the training, forgot to mention the fact that they didnt have the army so that the Egyptian Army had the best units were in yemen. Most of people on the front lines were farrs, hastily scripted and they were slow to the desert like corrupt dictatorships, no food, no order, no uniforms, no weapons, the israelis know that and there listening to their radio transmitters and they hear them wail to their commanders that they dont supply them with water, they are in the desert and theyre not getting any. They also captured a few egyptian prisoners of war before the war started and they interrogated them and knew exactly what was going on. Things were a mess. The commander of the Egyptian Army was a drunkard and hes moving the units from place to place even the basic plan of defense and what he ruined it. It was less a case of israel under a military at the essential crisis and more of a case of israeli general staff quietly knew they would win the war take. They had an excellent plan and they were professionals. They had planned for that for over a decade and they were absolutely ready. From the first move which was wiping out the arab air force, two armored warfare israelis, you have to give them credit. They were real professionals in the israeli army. Its not just me talking, its the cia. The cia set all the time Egyptian Forces were in a defensive posture they dont have a chance in the world to win against israel. If the israelis attack, it will win in a week. If israel attacks, itll win in a week. Thats what the cia said and thats what they wrote in a memo that they delivered to lyndon johnson. I dont think the arabs have done it. A call on unicycle. Let me ask what you do that in your talk about the issue of sources. Talk about the sources that went into that you consulted for this book and perhaps, talk about the areas where the evidence was fragmentary and thin ice, perhaps. Okay. I regret the fact that i didnt have more time or internal security documents because those would have been valuable. I dont think ill ever see them. I think they are waiting to be declassified and when the date arrives they shred them, thats what i was told. I didnt have access to syrian or egyptian archives. You can mitigate the fact for egyptian archives by the fact that people in egypt like other countries, take documents back home with them after they finished their roller function and they used it for political purposes, later they publish them so i have the full protocol of the meeting between chancellor egyptian and you can see in telegrams that were delivered by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and, of course, the british, the american archives, the israeli archives, they were very helpful if i inferred anything from western sources i felt pretty certain that in my conclusion because there was a czech telegrams or german documents and i talk a lot about it in the book but the rivalry between nasser and his commander, Supreme Commander of the Egyptian Armed forces, because after the war the version that nasser gave was, i didnt do it, he did. He was supposed to prepare the army and i didnt know anything about what was going on inside the army because he was conspiring to launch a coup against me. Its a version after the fact so a lot of egyptian memoirs to talk about this and people that worked with nasser say that. Then i had checked documents that they were reports from cairo and they said explicitly a few days before the crisis starts that nasser is seeking to cut. [inaudible] i didnt have all the sources i wanted on the soviet and arab side but i had enough to cooperate my assumptions and my theories. Thank you. Well take a couple questions, start up front here. Thank you so much for an interesting presentation. Abraham, retired foreign service. Thank you for an interesting presentation. I look forward to reading your book. My question relates to the role of the europeans, in particular france, and getting ready for the war. I happened to serve in the Israeli Air Force in the Army Lieutenant in the 60s were and to the best of my regulation, all the planes were french. The mirage, the lead fighter, the transport plane which moved soldiers from one point to another, they were all french. After low altitude flying on the morning of the fifth, they officially bombed the egyptian airfields on both sides of the suez canal and the nile river. Later on the air force also was very helpful with the advancing three sinai desert by june the ninth israeli tank was rolling swimming in the suez canal. So, your point about the bunkers and fortification, they had a huge advantage, the take core was there 11 years earlier in the suez operation, they knew the train, to the mountain passes, the take commanders knew where they were going which is a huge advantage. Your question. My question is not france. What was their role in perforation for the war . Lets take another question so we can bundle them of it. Thankou. Ne thomas and i teach a course for the Nuclear Policy in the air force. I thought about asking you to compare what youve done to Michael Orens book but i thank you pay well explain the differences there. You might want to comment. Anyway, i do have a question, you refer to the cia and theres always this unasked question of why the attack various expeditions offered and none of them seem particularly convincing. I ask you to do that. If you want to compare the orange book to yours, id appreciate it. Your sources are very good, by the way. So its a good question on the french role in the crisis. Its a common misconception to assume that israel one of the war thanks to to american weapon systems. Israeli victory in the sixday war was manufactured in western europe. Two thirds of the tanks in the israeli army brigades, 1000 tanks at the time and i remember this information for a couple of years and then ill forget it altogether but i still do of thousand takes in the idea on the eve of war and about 650 were century and tanks in the uk and 100 of the planes and is really air force were french made. Now, this leads to more interesting stories. What the Israeli Air Force told it to the world and the israeli public that they were jewish geniuses. They came up with this idea of how to circumvent around soviet radars and surface to air missiles because they are geniuses. They invented it all from scratch. That is not true. That is not true. What happened on this exciting, amazing operation that they conducted on the first three hours of the sixday war in which they surprised the Egyptian Air Force and then did the same to the romanians and syrians and iraqis. That was an implementation of French Technology and french doctrine on soviet weapons. This is exactly how it was supposed to work but not in the middle east. It was supposed to work in europe, this was the french doctrine. This is how they wanted to start their wars against the warsaw pact. They planned everything in advance and they planned for planes like the mirage that will be able to fly low, they compromised on the weight that the mirage would be able to take with it, the payload would be lower but it would be able to drop the bombs from low altitude. The idea was that they would be able to drop Nuclear Bombs from low altitude and that was the reason why israel insisted purchasing those planes from france as israel was developing nuclear weapons. The commander of the Israeli Air Force was a big supporter of the Israeli Nuclear project. Eventually, it was translated into a conventional rather than a Nuclear Attack but everything that happened on those three hours including the fact that the israelis were able to suppress a soviet signal that was also french equipment and i was french equipment for Electronic Warfare and it worked on the first hours of the war. So, france had a big role to play. They were not pleased by the results but they basically equipped israel and the way that helped him win the war even though de gaulle announced an embargo and the French Defense industry, reliable clients, a showpiece to what french reference could do. They surprised israel until the very first hours of the war. They told israel, everything you need, will tell tell us and was a pioneer. It was like an air trade coming from paris to tel aviv and the same thing was happening in the uk. The british were doing the same. Publicly, they were not supportive but behind the scenes, they helped israel get the hardware to the very last minute. Liberty. Ill tell you the truth. Liberty was not essential to the kind of argument that i was trying to make. I love conspiracy theories but the kind of sources didnt suggest a major, major mistake. Their descriptions for being the israeli chief of staff, when he heard what happened to the liberty he almost fainted. He was gripped with hysteria. This depicts his state of mind throughout the whole war but thats another story. All of the seniors decisionmakers from israel were shocked to hear what happened to the liberty. The explanation that i know of seems to be the most plausible. My book is better. Seriously, i think my book is a prequel to orrins book because the title of ore wins book is six days of war. You get day one, 80 page day two, 90 pages. Day three, and so on. So, orrins book does a wonderful work of recreating events as they happened in a very short span of time, but i dont think he talks about what happened before hand. One might argue that this is also political decision because if you look at things from the Vantage Point of the 14th or the 15th of may, egypt is the aggressor clearly. Enters sinai and then sets down the israeli navigation through the straits. However, if you look at things from three, four years earlier, you might want to secondguess, military operation by israel that pushed nassar into a corner where he felt he had to do something, otherwise he will be completely destroyed in terms of being a regional leader. Thank you. Go over here and then david fishman, george mason university. You said a little bit about the soviet unions situation with co being day tent oriented and brezhnev more of a hawk. How did the nate nature of the u. S. Soviet relationship in terms of starting the waugh, exacerbating and it making it come to an end. The necked question. Bob eye isaacson. You spoke about your sources. There is a smoking gun for your argument about the role of economics and shaping our arab policy to go to war . There is a standout document or documents where we can trace causality here . Second, with your remarks on the limited capacity of the arab states for offensive war ask the use of the israeli archives, can you speak about the pitfalls of talking about the israel in. Ill start with your third question. I wasnt relying only only Israeli Intelligence sources. I said that the israelis knew very well what was going on but the heal recreation of events, the Arab Military doctrine, something that egyptian generals tell in their memoirs. They thought that egypt shouldnt have even planned for an offensive that was a complete folly on either side to think about it. We had a good plan, called the conqueror. We had a good plan, and had we stayed where we were supposed to stay, if we didnt try to block the straits or tehran, which never appeared in our contingency plan, we had a fair chance to hold our own against the israelis. So, what i said wasnt based only on israeli sources. What you said about that the Israeli Intelligence failed spectacularly on the eve of yom kippur and thats the thing you have to discern. Israeli intelligence always great about capable, always great about capability. Always terrible about intentions. And it made the same mistake on the eve of the sixday war. What the Israeli Intelligence told the got for three or four years, we do operation against syria, bomb here or there. Nassar would never intervene. So it knew everything about the egyptian arm and bungled the intelligence assessment and thats usually because the intelligence chief always dependent on the opinion of the government and the chief of staff. Want to prove you can localize the conflict with syria and thats what the Israeli Intelligence said. Smoking gun. You dont find a smoking gun for this type of argument. Youishly have circumstantial evidence. No one would say, you know what . Were in an economic crisis. We need a short victorious war. This is why were going to war. Not a thing that politicians not a thing you would say in a Cabinet Meeting. Had this discussion with a professor in my department. Do you have a smoking gun for your arguement . I said, wait, when we have the meet examination we argue about things, did anyone ever declare the real interest in the debate . He said, no. I said its the same thing. The american role in the crisis. So, heres where my book, i think, differs with oorrins book with other book about the american role. The usual story or the accepted story is that washington wanted to solve the crisis by diplomatic means, organize an international armada that would navigate through the straits or tehran and show the world that nassar has no intention to implement his blockade. But the truth of the matter is yeah, the rest of the story is that after a few weeks, washington realized it had no partners to do that. It was deeply involved in vietnam. It couldnt have allowed itself to find itself fighting a war against the Egyptian Army in the middle east. What found is that the washington, just like moscow, was talking from the two sides of its mouth. There was a state department, there was the pentagon, they war looking at things strategically, they were more critical toward israel. They wanted to take a harsher line toward israel. And then there was the white house, and at the white house was very political, and from the very beginning of the crisis, the signals from the white house and the cia were like, dont ask us. Dont ask us. re not going to tell you what to do. Understand the hint. And some people just didnt want to understand the hint. The foreign minister didnt want war, so they latched on to the signaled from the state department. Now, during the war itself thats the interesting thing. Just one day no, three days before the war starts, the head of the massad was in washington. He always transcribed his mission to washington as crucial and faith. Found the american documents and he was like an elephant in a china shop, but he told the americans one thing that was important and was implemented during the war. The mayor elite, his name, he told his counterpart, the head of the cia, we dont need your help. We can win the arabs without your help. We want you to sit aside, say nothing, but the crucial thing is if the soviets try to intervene, you would move to neutralize them. And that happened on the very last hours of the war because people in moscow are livid that the israeli army is about to mash of damask and theres a message to the white house saying we will tack any measure to stop this, including military. Including military . So you take the sixth navy and move towards the met tarean. The eastern mediterranean. Nothing came out of it eventually, all the sides backed off. But washington kept its side of the deal. I was wondering. Produce yourself. I was wondering whether you could say a little bit more about the soviet side in particular also about the journal the junior allies so a little bit more about that. And russ johnson right behind. Ross johnson. The runup to the war in israel was there a thought, assumption, that the outcome would be a large israel and was there postwar planning, a thought about what one would do with New Territory . Youre asking the first question . I didnt hear it clearly. Its one question. In israel, in the runup to the war was. Was there post war planning and thinking about what one would do with expanded territory, and would one annex, administer, what . There was a post war planning. It wasnt very good. So, the post war planning to the occupation of the west bank and gaza. That was met meticulous. Prepared years in advance. There was a military adviser to 1963. Later be the president of the state of israel. He would be recruited once a year for months. He would get intelligence briefings. He recruited his own people and they started to devise the shape of military occupation and then there was also the legal branch in the idf, and they also planned everything since 1963. In 1963 they thought they were on the verge of conquering the west bang. Seemed king hussein what about to fall from power. Ever since then they prepared kits for the judges that would sit in the west bank, even divided the west bank to districts. Knew exactly how many courts they want to create in them. Translated into hebrew several books about International Law regarding military occupation, even translated translated the n book of laws to decide which laws they want to uphold and which laws to abolish. Indeed the Israeli Occupation of the west bank and gaza in the first years went on swimmingly. It was a success generally speaking. The other stuff is what they thought about doing with the territory they conquered. Again, im talking only about the military was the only institution that was planning and was also the Main Institution thatas thinking of usg the next war in order to conquer more chunks of arab territory. The argument was always, if we get to the suh suez, the Golan Heights. The natural line of defense. An antitank hurdle. The canal, the river, the mountainous terrain over the Golan Heights, and then be secure. One thing they never calculated is the number of troops theyll need in order to hold the lines. And then only after the war its like, wow, we have such a long line of defense against egypt, and then they started becoming addicted to magical thinking and depend say the government, maybe its good to give back the sinai. We have no real chance of effectively defending the line. Instead shay say were much more superior than the arabs technologically, could 80 to 60 tanks in go lab heights Golan Heights can stop the avalanche of syrian tanks. That whats first thesis, the second was that there would bev 200 tanks in the suez canal and that will stop the attack of an army of half a municipal people, and to add to that, the israelis didnt have buffer zones anymore, so before the war they knew that if the Egyptian Army is getting into sinai, thats a sign for israel to prepare for war. After the war the posions are 60 to 80 meters. So, that post war planning worked disastrously and proved faulty in the first few days of the yom kippur war. Thank you. Okay. I didnt answer the question about soviet allies. You know, they didnt have a lot of faith before the war but it is an interesting story what appeared after. Before the war the european allies were even more critical about the whole uof foreign aid. They told the soviets, were giving way too much money to those third are world countries. Theyre unstable, ungrateful. Were losing good money after bad. We should stop this. Soviet union should stop this, and especially country odd who have nothing to sell, poland, for example. They couldnt sell potatoes to egypt, for example. So they were against that. And obviously wait a second. During the war itself, panic. Okay . In warsaw, in east germany, people are convinced theyre on the verge of world war ii. Start to pull money out of banks. Start avoid food. Super markets are empty. At a few days they understand its not going to be like this. After the war two things. These two are worried that the nato forces would do to the warsaw pact what the israelis did to edescriptions. A rational intention. Going back to what i said earlier, that that the israelis did th the application of French Technology on soviet technology, and inn several discussions of the warsaw pact, no less than three summits of the warsaw pact would devoted to the crisis in the middle east. Many of them tried argue thats a good sign for us to stop investing in other people and start investing in ourselves, in the eastern bloc. Other countries were gung ho about using the opportunity to get greater access to our markets. Germany was one of those countries. Also yugoslavia. I think reading those discussions is interesting. Did they have a really input on what they decided in the soviet union . No. They didnt have a large input either in 1968. This is one of the reasons that the eastern bloc fell apart. It was never integrated enough. Final question. Malcolmburn Malcolm Burne over here. The interesting part of the story this state of mind of the key players especially the israeli leaders were know about ranins state of mind, and esckol and i wonder if you were able to gain anymore insights into what was going on there second question is youre clearly breaking a lot of dishes here. At least one review i read calls your condition Something Like deeply discouraging and i wonder what the reaction has been in israel so far to the book. Your second question is easy. No response. They dont know the book exists. Its in english. The spokesman of the university tried to convince the daily news show, trying to convince them to interview me about the book. Yale university press. Supposed to impress that. They said, we dont do items on for nonhebrew books. So no response from israel yet. Im planning to publish an article and then ill leave the country or something. About the state of so thats an interesting point. So, rabin collapsed, had a nervous breakdown before the war, and he didnt recuperate from that. He didnt run the war. His deputy did that. And then ash kol collapses more or less. He agrees to appoint dyan and lost the reign or affairs. Dyan was very important and he took everything and once said in a can be net meeting during the war they wanted to do a vote. Do they want to they can the Golan Heights, dont want to dyan told everybody. Im sorry. On these matter us i dont accept democracy, and they feared him so much that they didnt take the vote at all. They accepted his word. But thin after that 20 no less than i dent know 1012 hours later, dyan had his own collapse. He arrives to the pit from which the idea the war of the world is conducted, called the pit. And he gives the order to launch an attack on the Golan Heights, and he had all sorts of i just saw the intelligence and its suggested that the syrians were collapsing. They were not collapsing. Not more than the usual. But later on in interview he gave before his death, an interview in which he told the journalist you will publish it only after im dead. He said, gave up. Had all that pressure on me and i knew people would say after the war that dyan prevent israel from taking the Golan Heights. Im to blamement i couldnt take it on myself. All those stories about rabin collapsing, eshkol. Dyan having a sort of mental collapse in that he gave up, shows you the power of the military as an institution. So theyre important in the state of israel. If eshkol didnt appoint dyan on the 1st of june israel would not have found itself in war four or five days later. Just that every time thats military pushed, the pressure was so strong that even a capable general, very experienced politician, and a hardnosed person like dyan, all of them basicallgive up. Thank you. I think we need to bring this discussion to an end. These are important and sensitive issues. I think your book has raised a lot of questions, as you can tell, from the audience reaction and the comments and questions. I thank you for your questions, for the comments. We will there will be a lot more on the sixday war. Well try to make more documents accessible through the digital archives in the coming days and have a number of scholars from all sorts backgrounds and expertise, provide additional insight into the war. Jeff will be contributing as several others, scholar connected with the project. I invite you to visit our web site and the history and public sol by blog. Sources and methods. And youll come to our blog. A lot more information there we invite you to john that discussion and now id like to invite you to first a reception downstairs on the fourth floor to kin this conversation a bit more informally and invite you to give a round of thanks and applause to our featured speaker this afternoon. Thank you. [applause] by the way think book is on sale outside. Very low price. Just saying. [inaudible discussion] every summer book tv visits capitol animal ask members of congress what youre reading. I just finished up devil in the grove, a book by a guy named gilbert king. About the life of Thurgood Marshall before he judge, fighting for justice. Theres a daniels book i want to read. Its bringing out the best in people, and i think every once in a while its like, you know to get a new perspective on how you lead a team, i always say you lead people and you manage assets. The hampton size book, kingdom of ice, which harry reid recommended and im just wrapping up a novel called all the light we cannot see by anthony dore. From the narrow tried the Department North another novel. Send us your Summer Reading lives via text or video or facebook. On twitter, or email us at booktv at cspan2. Org. The book describes to you a description of the world as it is or my best attempt at a quick description of the world has it is changing. Its a very short book, its meant to be on the one side a manifesto, a declaration of what i think one can draw from the european 20th century, and also a kind of manual, literally a handbook, something you can hold in your hand, carry with you, put in your pocket in your purse in your back pocket. The book about what to do in our present precarious situation. It tries to give a sense of why one ought to do it and why one ought to make a difference. Although it touches on events near and far, remembered, halve forgotten, and talks about how to go through your day. The premise of the bookes were at a moment where history will be made daytoday by each of us through individual choices there are moments in history that are like that. One can choose to look away and say this person is become provocative, but that is precisely looking away. So, let me try to take a stab at joining this very generous introduction to the book, because this book is a kind of departure for me. The other books ive written will not it in your pocket. Right . I do noted a rise you to carry them advise you to carry them around with you or break your purses or backpacks with them. The other books ive written cant be read in a sitting. The other books do not involve catchy lists of things in round numbers. Its aepart few and also an arrival. Im from the United States. I can do other second sents but this is my real accent. Im from the United States and grew up here but then the better part of my adult life has been spent either in eastern and Central Europe or at the very least, learning the languages of those places or reading documents or books from or about these places. This involved a certain cost. It takes a certain amount of time and effort to learn languages one might have spent doing other things like watching baseball games. There is a certain cost in reading enormous amounts of history about the tragedies of the european 20th century. You can imagine its out there connect watching this and other programs online at the tv. Org. This is book tv on cspan to edit television for serious aders. We are on location at the university of arizona and we are talking to a variety of professors who are also authors. Joining us now is professor Jennifer Earl and her book, digitally enabled social change activism in the internet age. First of all, professor, what you do at the university. Im a professor of government and Public Policy where i teach and research about social movements, particularly, digital activism and the study of repression which would probably