The Yom Kippur War and the War in Lebanon, the Intifada and the rise of Palestinian terror, the controversy over Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, the peace process—all resulted from six days of intense Arab-Israeli fighting in June 1967. The Six-Day War, as it is widely known, was totally unique in history. Never has a conflict so short, yielded such profound and far-reaching results. Seldom has a war, unforeseen and mostly unwanted, concluded so astonishingly.

Six Days of War is the first comprehensive study of this towering historical event, the first to explore both its military and diplomatic dimensions, and to spotlight all its participants: Arab, Israeli, Soviet and American. It tells the story of why the war broke out and the shocking ways it unfolded.

Drawing on thousands of formerly top-secret documents, on rare papers in Russian and Arabic, and on exclusive personal interviews, Six Days of War recreates the regional and international context, which, by the late 1960s, virtually assured an Arab-Israeli conflagration. Also examined are the domestic crises in each of the battling states, and the extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yitzhak Rabin, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—that precipitated this earthshaking clash.

Great events and characters combine in this sweeping and singularly engaging narrative. An invaluable resource for students of modern history and international affairs, of Israel and the Arab world, Six Days of War is essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of the Middle East conflict today.

Among many other revelations, readers of Six Days of War will learn about:

• The false Soviet reports of Israel's invasion of Syria—reports that ignited a crisis.
• America's secret plan to break Egypt's blockades of Israel and the danger of embroiling the U.S. in yet another foreign war.
• The drafting of Israeli war plans, including Focus, the most daring operation in aerial combat history.
• The decision of America's Ambassador to Israel to postpone delivering a clandestine message from Jordan, and the chain of bloodshed it triggered.
• The complex relationship between Egypt's President Nasser and the man who was both his best friend and bitterest enemy, and who goaded him into a disastrous war.
• The role of Israel's ultra-secret nuclear project in the outbreak of the Six-Day War.
• Secret Arab war plans to destroy Israeli cities, ports, and airfields, and to conquer most of its territory.
• A minute-by-minute account of Israel's tragic attack on the USS Liberty that definitively answers the question: was the assault deliberate?
• The triangular relationship between President Johnson, the Vietnam war, and the Jews, and its impact on America's Middle East policy.
• America's secret commitment to Israel's security and its inability to honor it.
• The dilemma of Jordan's King Hussein: join the Arab war and risk losing Jerusalem, or remain neutral and possibly forfeit his life.
• Israeli efforts not to capture the West Bank and the Holy Places of Jerusalem.
• The question of whether America gave Israel a "green light" to attack preemptively or whether it wanted Israel to absorb the first blow.
• The eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet fleets in the eastern Mediterranean, and the near eruption of a global nuclear war.
• U.S. brainstorming on peace, beginning on the first day of the war, and the making of UN Resolution 242.

Back To Top