It's not the war, stupid - it's the occupation

The 40 year mark of the Six Days War is coming, and with it a blizzard of articles, books, lectures and gatherings. The clear political line is now being drawn between two camps: Those who try to commemorate the war, and those more focused on the after-the-war events. The Arab American Institute, for example, has announced a "40 Years of Occupation: Tell Us Your Story" project.

In contrast, most of the American Jewish press (I browsed through many such examples) prefers to deal with the miracle of the sudden victory. Here's one example from the Baltimore Jewish Times.

The international coverage tilts heavily, and understandably, toward the occupation-camp. It is not just the political tendency of most publications (and world governments) but also common sense: The war is over; the occupation is still with us.

In the New Yorker, Editor David Remnick offered his assessment of the book by Tom Segev about the war, now published in English. Remnick compares this book to the Michael Oren bestseller "Six Days of War" and comes up with this conclusion:

"Segev's and Oren's books have their limitations. Segev, by design, ignores the Arab political situation and seems reluctant to credit the Israelis with a legitimate sense of threat; Oren, a more versatile scholar, has taken great pains to read whatever Arab sources are available (most archives are closed) and is more at home with big power politics, but he tends to scant the negative aspects of victory and conquest. The most complete book on the war's aftermath is journalist Gershom Gorenberg's riveting and deeply depressing "The Accidental Empire", which describes how, in the decade following the war, the mainstream Labor governments of Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, and Yitzhak Rabin either feigned ignorance of the growing settlements or blatantly encouraged them. As a result, they helped to legitimatize the settlement ideology of their right-wing successors Menachem Begin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ariel Sharon."

Remnick's conclusion, while reasonable, is political in nature and is reflective of the way this war will be remembered around the world. Not as the huge military success or the justified attack that it was, but rather as the war that brought about the occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights which sent Israel on a path of more conflict and more wars.

However, one of the more interesting aspects of the brewing debate (it will all be over 2-3 weeks from now, not to worry) has to do with the threat-assessment of the days preceding the war. Many of those opposing the occupation also try to argue today that Israel over-reacted by going to war, and that the war could have been, and should have been, avoided in the first place. The school of thought promoting such view tend to argue that the war erupted not because of Arab belligerency but rather as the consequence of socio-economic pressures within Israel. A bizarre claim that finds an audience not for its credibility, but rather for its compatibility with today's image of Israel.

This argument is usually more political than scientific in nature. You will never find a Zionist-hawkish historian arguing that Israel bares the blame for the war. Not for this one. It is always those on the left who use this argument with a clear goal in mind: to strengthen their anti-occupation agenda. As if the occupation was not foolish enough, irresponsible enough, that one has to add to it more blame, for the eruption of the war.

For those still confused about the threat Israel felt at the time, I offer again the protocols I wrote about last month, containing the deliberations of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the days before the war. Here is one paragraph from one of the articles I wrote: "It turns out that the doomsday atmosphere, whose impact on Israel was documented extensively, reached the cool walls of room No. S-116 in the Capitol building. Would Israel survive? Rusk was quite convinced of its strength, but the legislators' remarks show that they had doubts. "If Israel should fall, her [America's] entire interests in the Middle East would be jeopardized, wouldn't they, sir?" Sen. George Aiken (Republican, Vermont) asked Rusk. But no less than they feared for Israel's fate, the senators were disturbed by the possibility that the United States would assume sole responsibility for dealing with the danger."

New

You might have noticed that we launched a new feature today on Rosner's Domain. What To Read is a compilation of reading recommendations, numbers, polls, reports, short comments and more. In short, it will include all the material that I'm not going to write about in a more lengthy fashion -but still worth mentioning. It will be short, easy to read, and hopefully entertaining. The first couple of items include a report on Iran, an interview with Bill Richardson, new hopes for the French new President, and what happened to the name Monica. I hope you enjoy it.