Introduction

Summary

The June 1967 War was a turning point in the evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East. A vast literature on this war, popularly known as the Six-Day War, covers the subject from all angles. But the time has come for reassessment. Many previous accounts deal with the military operations on the Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian fronts during the period of 5–10 June 1967. In this volume, the focus is not on the military operations but on the political aspects of the conflict, especially during the prolonged period of crisis that eventually erupted in all-out war. The aim is to reconstruct in some detail and in some depth the history of this fateful war from the perspective of its principal protagonists. These include the great powers and the regional powers. A major theme of the volume is the relationship between the great powers and their local allies on the road to war.

The contributors to this volume are area specialists. One of its strengths is that the authors have examined recently declassified material not only in English, French, and Russian but also in Hebrew and Arabic. The volume, however, is not merely a collection of articles with up-to-date material regarding different aspects of the war by different scholars. All the contributors were guided by the same overarching plan. Our collective aim has been to reinterpret the history of the June 1967 War by drawing as much as possible from the official documents and primary sources now available in all the relevant languages.