Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East

Jeremy Bowen's "Six Days" is a brilliant chronicle of the 1967 war and its consequences for the Middle East. It is a curious phenomenon to see the amount of attacks leveled at the book on this page. Most of the one star reviews provide little in the form of facts and documentation to refute Bowen's conclusions, instead their principle source of anguish is the fact that Bowen does not subscribe to statist worship. They want a classic, romantic narrative where tiny, God-chosen Israel slays the Arab menace with only the equally divine United States providing friendship and support. But as real students of history know, real life is something else. "Six Days" cuts through the imposed daydream and with a sharp, exciting prose, documents how the 1967 conflict erupted out of an Israeli government seeking to expand its territory and governments in Syria and Egypt who bit off more than they could chew. Bowen's book reads like an epic as it begins with the partition of Palestine, Israel's war of independence in 1948 and the tragic expulsion of the indigenous Arab population as a result of Israeli land grabbing in conjunction with territorial aspirations of the Jordanian monarchy. With fine details, figures and names, Bowen chronicles how the build up to the 1967 war was a long process involving years of hostilities between both sides as Israel coveted more land and regional governments engaged in provocative actions to keep the newly formed Jewish state on edge. The details of the period are well presented as Bowen takes us into a unique era in the Middle East when secular Arab nationalism was sweeping the region and Nasser's Egypt became a beacon of independence from imperialism, especially after the 1956 French-British-Israeli failed invasion. But as Bowen shows, Nasser also suffered from a need to keep his credentials and image intact which lead to Egypt parading itself as a military might which in fact, it wasn't. Syria, at the time suffering from continuous military coups, was also in the same situation. The conditions were ripe for a confrontation where Israel, having a superior and well-disciplined military force (and a newly-established nuclear program), could easily defeat the Arabs without ever having been under any serious, mortal danger. The details of the Six Day War are well-known, especially Israel's dramatic air assault which decimated Egyptian air defenses, Bowen brilliantly captures it all here and those interested in the history of the conflict will not be disappointed. The book is especially worth reading for its exploration of little known, or little discussed incidents such as the Israeli bombing of the USS Liberty, a US ship where several crewmen died. This remains a highly controversial subject and Bowen presents both sides, was it an accident or a deliberate attack? And why did the US simply brush it under the rug? Most likely because after the war Israel proved it was a highly valuable client state in the region. Bowen also reve

Jeremy Bowen explores the causes of the 1967 war initiated by Israel, and why the Israeli decision to attack its neighbors resulted only in the seemingly never-ending disaster in the Middle East. As a Republican, and a strong supporter of Israel, I was quite disturbed by the facts presented, and better understand why the 1967 war can be a perpetual cause of Israel's bad relations with her neighbors, as can be evidenced most recently with the 2006 Lebanese devastation, and the recent massacre of civilians (including 500 children) in Gaza. The drumbeats of the 1967 still beat, as can indisputably heard even now, with the new Israeli government's threats to bombard Iran. My fellow supporters of democratic (albeit apartheid) Israel obviously do not want you to know the full story. You can begin to learn the other side of the story here.