6.

Because he portrays Israel as reacting to an "existential threat" in June 1967, Oren devotes relatively little space to its political motives for attacking. He briefly recalls that, like France during the Algerian war, Israel was "at war with Arab nationalism," and that Ben-Gurion's "nightmare" from the early 1950s onward was that Nasser might emerge as "another Ataturk" uniting the Arab world (SDW: p. 10). He also points up (but without probing its meaning) Israel's fear of losing its "deterrence power" (SDW: pp. 79, 81, 87-9, 123). In effect, Israel conceived any independent, modernizing movement in the Arab world as potentially undercutting its regional dominance and accordingly threatening its existence. The emergence of Nasser - and Nasserism - incarnated this challenge of "Arab nationalism" to Israel's "deterrence power." To meet this threat Israel sought to cut Nasser down in 1956, but failed owing to US opposition. In June 1967 a new opportunity arose: "Our objective is to give Nasser a knockout punch," Rabin declared on the eve of the war. "That, I believe, will change the entire order of the Middle East" (SDW: p. 151). With U.S. officials finally blessing this goal at the end of May and early June, the last obstacle to administering the "knockout punch" was removed (I&R: pp. 142-3).

Oren maintains that Israel's sole objective in the June war was "eliminating the Egyptian thrust and destroying Nasser's army." The conquests of the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, West Bank and Golan Heights weren't "planned or even contemplated." In formulations strikingly reminiscent of Benny Morris's account of the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem ("born of war, not by design"), Oren avows that the Israeli offensives had been "determined less by design than by expediency" and by "the vagaries and momentum of war, far more than by rational decision making." In fact, just as Morris's formulation apologetically distorted the dynamics of the 1948 expulsions, so Oren's formulations apologetically distort the dynamics of the 1967 conquests. (SDW: pp. 311-12, 259-60; cf. p. 291)

Unsurprisingly, many external circumstances shaped the course of Israel's offensives: Arab resistance (or the lack thereof), international public opinion, U.N. diplomacy, Soviet threats and American responses, and so on. There also wasn't a tactical or strategic consensus among Israelis on exactly how to proceed with the offensives. For example, despite pressures, Dayan temporarily held off conquering the West Bank and Golan Heights apparently because, attaching top priority to the Egyptian Sinai, he dreaded a multi-front war (SDW: pp.187, 190-1, 195, 232, 253, 260-2, 276, 279). Finally, Israel required pretexts - however flimsy - to launch the offensives: on the Egyptian front it alleged that Nasser's belligerence justified a preemptive strike, while on the Jordanian and Syrian fronts it pointed to armed hostilities. Oren dramatically reenacts the Jordanian actions - "Two batteries of the American-made 155-mm `Long Tom' guns went into action, one zeroing in on the suburbs of Tel Aviv.The Jordanians gradually escalated the fighting,.introducing 3-inch mortars and 106-mm recoilless rifles.Arab Legion howitzers launched the first of 6,000 shells on Jewish Jerusalem" (SDW: pp. 184-7) - whereas in van Creveld's rather more sober balance-sheet Hussein responded to Israel's preemptive strike against Egypt with "two symbolic thrusts," and a "few" artillery shells and air attacks (against Israeli airfields) because "he had no choice but to do something, all the while hoping to avoid serious retaliation." And, for all his purple prose depicting a "massive artillery barrage" here and a "Syrian thrust" there, Oren seems to concede that Syrian hostilities were largely symbolic (to ward off the accusation that "Syria was willing to fight to the last Egyptian"), and that Israel desperately sought the "right pretext" to attack Syria (SDW: pp. 229-31, 260, 262, 276, 278, 291).

Although a plurality of circumstantial factors plainly came into play during Israel's offensives, it's plainly untrue that these offensives weren't "planned or even contemplated." Rather the contrary; with external constraints temporarily in abeyance, internal differences provisionally resolved and just barely credible pretexts in hand, Israel implemented - albeit hesitantly and in piecemeal fashion - long-incubating plans to conquer the Sinai, Gaza, West Bank and Golan Heights. Ironically, Oren himself copiously documents that Israeli elites had contemplated and meticulously prepared for these offensives over many years. He reports that on the southern front "contingency plans" had been developed after conquering the Sinai in 1956 "for moving tanks over desert wastes that were widely believed insurmountable"; on the eastern front "the dream of completing the War of Independence and freeing the Land of Israel" had "guided" the "military planning" of "all" Israeli commanders, and "a drawer full of plans" had been developed to "knock out Jordanian artillery concentrations on the West Bank and lay siege to East Jerusalem"; and that on the northern front an "array of contingency plans for dealing with Syria" had been developed "from a limited assault on the Golan ridge.to.conquering the entire Heights," and "to conquer[ing] the enemy's capital within eighty hours" (SDW: pp. 211, 155, 154, 302; cf. p. 284). Even as Oren claims that Israel never "even contemplated" anything beyond neutralizing the Egyptian military threat, he reports that in the weeks leading up to the June war (or before hostilities actually broke out on the Jordanian and Syrian fronts), different IDF commanders expected to "conquer Gaza"; "strike Egypt, and then we'll fight Syria and Jordan as well"; "advanc[e] into Sinai and.to the Jordan headwaters in the north and the Latrun corridor leading to Jerusalem"; "advance westward to al-`Arish and, time permitting, beyond in the direction of the Canal"; "take care of the Syrians"; "eliminate the Egyptian army and.seize the initiative on other fronts as well"; "get to the Canal and to Sharm al-Sheikh"; "eliminat[e] the Jordanian air force even without provocation"; and "take Jenin" in the West Bank. With his eye riveted on conquering "all of the Sinai Peninsula," Dayan declared in early June, according to Oren, that "Our success.will be judged not on the number of Egyptian tanks we destroy.but on the size of the territory we'll seize" (SDW: pp. 81, 87, 90, 91, 122, 133, 155, 187, 208, 153; cf. 88, 152).

Oren uncritically quotes Yigal Allon's avowal that "Israel sought no territorial gain" (SDW: p. 122). Yet, he ignores Allon's seminal article written just before the June war analyzing Israel's prospects in the event of a preemptive strike: "In case of a new war, we must avoid the historic mistake of the War of Independence and, later, the Sinai Campaign. We must not cease fighting until we achieve.the territorial fulfillment of the Land of Israel." Oren reports that just after the June war Allon "led" the Cabinet ministers urging retention of the occupied territories (SDW: p. 314). It seems he didn't exactly undergo - as Oren's account suggests - an overnight conversion. In fact, the planning for and anticipations of the June offensives reflected Israel's long-standing territorial desiderata. From just after the first Arab-Israel war, many Israeli leaders lamented not conquering the West Bank and Gaza, and accordingly envisaged as part of the 1956 "Sinai campaign" annexing them, as well as the Egyptian Sinai. In many respects, 1967 was simply a replay of 1956 - but, crucially, with the U.S. now on board. Oren himself reports that Weizman reputedly claimed "the right to Hebron and Nablus and all of Jerusalem"; that Chief of Central Command Uzi Narkiss "regretted Israel's inability to seize the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1948" and saw the June war as an "opportunity to rectify Israel's failure in 1948, a miraculous second chance," declaring at a postwar briefing that "Central Command fulfilled its natural aspirations and established Israel's borders on the Jordan"; that "shortly before the outbreak of hostilities" Rabin exhorted troops on the Jordanian front to "complete what we were unable to finish" in 1948, and "many" officers "shared that sentiment"; and that already on the third day of the war Israel contemplated retaining the West Bank, Gaza and the Sinai (SDW: pp. 135, 155, 192, 257, 191, 253-5). Oren also quotes uncritically Eshkol's claim that "Of course, we don't want a centimeter of Syrian territory." Yet he himself repeatedly notes that Eshkol "went a little crazy" coveting the Jordanian headwaters in the Golan (SDW: pp. 122, 228-9, 261; cf. p. 23, 280), while Moshe Dayan - in a postwar interview not quoted by Oren - stated with "absolute certainty" that the main impetus behind Israel's seizure of the Golan was not Syrian shelling but "good land for agriculture..lust for that ground."

According to Oren, Israel's territorial conquests during the June war "came about largely through chance": they just happened (SDW: p. 312). To judge by the historical record, however, they were just waiting to happen.