1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East

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1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East

3.71 of 5 stars 3.71 · rating details · 128 ratings · 20 reviews

From Israel's leading historian, a sweeping history of 1967--the war, what led up to it, what came after, and how it changed everything

Tom Segev's acclaimed works One Palestine, Complete and The Seventh Million overturned accepted views of the history of Israel. Now, in 1967--a number-one bestseller in Hebrew--he brings his masterful skills to the watershed year when

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Hardcover, 688 pages

Published May 29th 2007 by Metropolitan Books (first published May 28th 2005)

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Aug 16, 2012 Electriczen rated it 3 of 5 stars

David Margolick's review is so much better than mine:

Peace for Land
By DAVID MARGOLICK
Published: July 15, 2007

During the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War last month, an Israeli friend invited me to hear Tom Segev, the Israeli commentator and historian, discuss his new book on the subject. Once, the occasion might have been a celebration. But no more. My friend, in fact, described it sardonically as a yahrzeit — that is, in Jewish tradition, the date marking the death of a loved one.

Four decad...more

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Dec 07, 2009 Charles Matthews rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle:

War, that bluntest of the instruments of policy, seldom produces the precise results that its proponents expect. Forty years ago, the Israelis fought a war that ended in a swift six days and was hailed by many as a glorious victory. They’re still living with its consequences: terrorist attacks and reprisals, the domestic and international tensions that followed the occupation of the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and E...more This review originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle:

War, that bluntest of the instruments of policy, seldom produces the precise results that its proponents expect. Forty years ago, the Israelis fought a war that ended in a swift six days and was hailed by many as a glorious victory. They’re still living with its consequences: terrorist attacks and reprisals, the domestic and international tensions that followed the occupation of the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israeli journalist Tom Segev’s “1967” is not a military history so much as a social and political history, a portrait of Israel and its government in the days before, during and immediately after the Six-Day War, a name that was officially adopted by the government in July 1967. “There was something businesslike about the name,” Segev writes, “statistical almost, and yet it also evoked the six days of creation, in the spirit of the messianic euphoria that had spread through the country.”

Before the war, Segev observes, Israel was suffering from a kind of malaise. It was crippled by the economic recession of 1966 and divided by ethnic tension between Ashkenazim, Jews whose roots were European, and Mizrahim, Jews from Arab countries. Although the latter now constituted a majority of Israelis, they had, for example, only 25 of the 120 members in the Israeli legislature, the Knesset. The state of Israel had been founded by Ashkenazim, and some of them saw the population explosion among the Mizrahim as a threat to the very identity of the country: “Israel is taking on an Oriental tone,” grumbled one newspaper editorial writer.

“In the gloomy, doubt-ridden atmosphere that pervaded Israel, the IDF” – the Israeli Defense Forces – “was practically the only institution still enjoying public confidence,” Segev writes. And this caused some problems for the prime minister, Levi Eshkol, in the days leading up to the war. Eshkol was forced to bring into his cabinet, as defense minister, the swashbuckling Moshe Dayan, who “revealed himself to be … ruthless and hungry for power.”

Cautious, even vacillating, Eshkol was at a disadvantage in any battle that pitted his ego against Dayan’s. In discussing with two university professors the problem of refugees after the occupation, Eshkol said, “First, I don’t know what I want. Second, I would like to do something.” Segev comments, “It would be difficult to find any statement that better expressed Eshkol’s position on almost everything at any given time.” Dayan, on the other hand, knew exactly where he stood. He finessed Eshkol out of the glory after the war, telling the prime minister that it was too dangerous for him to visit Jerusalem, then flying in by helicopter and carefully staging the photographs of his own entrance into the Old City.

But Segev is careful not to reduce any of the figures in his narrative to caricature. Both Dayan and Eshkol are treated with nuance and, when they deserve it, sympathy. And the strength of his book is that he tells the story not just through the actions of the big power players, but also through the people in the streets and the soldiers in the field. It’s a book enlivened by their voices. A major narrative thread is based on the diaries and letters of a soldier, Yehoshua Bar-Dayan, who provides an anti-heroic account of the victory.

Segev is also a meticulous deconstructor of the postwar myths. He examines how one popular oral history of the war, “Soldiers Talk,” compiled from transcripts of war memories by members of several kibbutzim, was edited “to suit the words to the image of innocent young soldiers, humanists in distress.” The published version omitted, for example, the words of some soldiers who “likened IDF operations against civilians to Nazi acts. ‘I felt like a member of the Gestapo,’ said one. … ‘Soldiers Talk’ met a profound need among many Israelis to be not only strong and victorious, but also just.”

“1967” barely pretends to be a comprehensive history of the Six-Day War. Anyone who wants that should turn to such books as Michael B. Oren’s “Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.” Segev’s angle of vision on the war is that of a saddened and skeptical Israeli with access to a wide variety of sources in his country and in the United States. But his book lacks the voices and experiences of Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians, and is thinly documented when it comes to the wider military and diplomatic background, such as the role played by the Soviet Union in the conflict.

Segev believes that the war was unnecessary and calamitous, that “There was … no justification for the panic that preceded the war, nor for the euphoria that took hold after it, which is what makes the story of Israel in 1967 so difficult to comprehend.” His book makes it a little more comprehensible, although the key enigmas remain. When the Israeli security cabinet met on June 15, 1967, Segev observes, “They were partners to a decision on questions that had been with the Zionist movement since the beginning: What kind of state would Israel be? How would it live with the Arabs? The argument has not ended, and it is doubtful whether there are any ideas that were not voiced at that government meeting in June of 1967.”
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Apr 05, 2011 James Rivers rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to James by: Matan Hatav

This book is the history of the 1967 war between Israel and all its neighboring countries. The book startes with a detailed description about Israel before the war. Tom Segev includes the daily life of an Israeli up until war. Tom Segev also writes about the war it's self from a private named Yehoshua Bar-Dayan in the Isreali Defense Force at the time. The book disscus the aftermath of the war and what Israel did with all the refugees, it also disscus how the boarders were desided. The book goes...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

Good overview of the Israeli side of things and the state of Israeli society on the eve of the war. Tons of interesting hitherto-unused archival materials, especially on the wake of the war and Eshkol's government's attempts to deal with the refugee problem and the newly occupied territories. Segev is a fine writer, but his style is inconsistent. He begins the work by detailing day-to-day events in the lead-up to war via people's diaries (IDF soldiers, housewives, etc.) but loses those voices on...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Paul Harris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Tom Segev has written an impressive and extremely well researched account of the pivotal year in the modern history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Once again (as with the excellent 'One Palestine, Complete') he has presented as unbiased and objective account of this topic as you are likely to find. There is no agenda with Segev except well written history. The book covers in great detail the situation both within and without Israel in the years leading up to the Six Day War of 1967; the events an...more Tom Segev has written an impressive and extremely well researched account of the pivotal year in the modern history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Once again (as with the excellent 'One Palestine, Complete') he has presented as unbiased and objective account of this topic as you are likely to find. There is no agenda with Segev except well written history. The book covers in great detail the situation both within and without Israel in the years leading up to the Six Day War of 1967; the events and thoughts of those - both public and private individuals - in the period immediately before, during, and after the war; and the fascinating political and sociological implications of the aftermath of the war. Among the well-known leaders and politicians involved, there are numerous intriguing portraits of the likes of Levi Eshkol, David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon, Ezer Weizman, Menachem Begin, Lyndon Johnson, Abba Eban, Gamal Nasser and King Hussein - as well as many other key political, military and intelligence aides and commanders.

The wide-ranging sources cited by Segev in this account are really the strength of the book. From LBJ's White House machinations to the minutes of the Israeli war cabinet, from myriad private letters of concerned citizens to the various press articles and columns of the day. There is an important consideration given also to the cultural atmosphere in Israeli society whether before, during or after the war. These give the book an intensity of 'putting you right there' in amongst the days of drama. Those less familiar with the personalities discussed may struggle to keep apace of the fast-moving developments and intricacies of both domestic Israeli politics and complex cold war era international relations - this is not 'an ideal introduction' to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But for the interested reader of this subject, Segev's thorough book will prove compelling, well-written, and will quite probably serve to present a perspective on the war that you may not have previously been privy to.

The chapters covering the action of the war itself are based simultaneously on the candid records of minutes and diaries of most of the principals involved, but most interestingly also include large extracts from the diary of one army reservist in particular called up weeks ahead of the conflict. This is Yeshayahu Bar-Dayan, and his diary provides a unique window into the mind of an everyday Israeli called on by his nation to do his duty. He is not a particularly gung-ho commando or special agent or anything as obvious or cliched as that, but a humble mechanic attached to a unit of the Tank Corps. His writing from the battlefield in Sinai is often at times both intimate and profound - an extremely valuable inclusion.

All told, this is an extremely good addition to the shelves of any reader with an interest in post-war 20th century history and/or the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is a particularly in-depth look at the complex Israeli national psyche of the 1960s, and the war which still shapes the fierce debate of the still ongoing troubles in the Middle East. It is a superb addition to the work of one of the finest contemporary Israeli historians around.(less)

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Jan 20, 2009 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is a history of the war in 1967 between Israel and several of the Arab states. The book begins with a lot of detailed information about Israeli culture prior to the war. It then includes a day by day description of the run up to the war, and the war's conduct once it began. Finally, the book assesses the war's aftermath for Israel. The book was very well-written and informative. I would have given it 5 stars except that the descriptions of the war itself were a bit too descriptive and...more

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Jul 31, 2010 Khaya rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Someone with A LOT of curiosity about Israel and the Six Day War

Shelves: israel, readablenonfiction, lord-help-me-im-just-not-that-brigh

When my husband started his doctorate in history, one of the first books he had to read was The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller which introduced me to the concept of microhistory. Trusty wikipedia (among others) defines microhistory as "the study of the past on a very small scale...[e.g.:] the study of a small town or village...looking at individuals of minor importance, or analyzing a single painting." In 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Mid ...more When my husband started his doctorate in history, one of the first books he had to read was The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller which introduced me to the concept of microhistory. Trusty wikipedia (among others) defines microhistory as "the study of the past on a very small scale...[e.g.:] the study of a small town or village...looking at individuals of minor importance, or analyzing a single painting." In 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East, Tom Segev gives us a sense of events before, during, and after the Six Day War through the eyes of a variety of individuals, minor and major -- an army private, a kibbutznik, and a variety of civilians as well as the important political figures of the day. We are treated to diaries, correspondence, and "man on the street" quotes whose content often borders on the trivial but succeeds in fleshing out our sense of time and place. Reading "1967" is like reading not one but several integrated microhistories. Even the descriptions of more significant figures like Levi Eshkol and Moshe Dayan have a microhistory feel to them, focusing on petty infighting as well as on historic decisions.

Unfortunately, this can get old long before page 700. The copious detail, while impressive, weighs down the book and becomes forgettable through its sheer volume. I admit that much of this is because I took frequent breaks and read other books in the meantime (which is arguably telling in and of itself), but I feel like I don't remember a lot about "1967" and can't quite articulate a central theme. Tom Segev is clearly bitter and cynical about the Six Day War and its aftermath, but it's hard for me to explain his reasoning. For example, a chapter titled "The Blunder" describes failed efforts to resettle Palestinian refugees from the territories in the aftermath of the war and appears to view this as the root of many of the difficulties facing Israel today. But I couldn't tell you exactly how or why, and I'm not about to go back and reread it even though this is probably one of the more important chapters in the book.

The research that went into this book is impressive, but Tom Segev needs either a more selective editor or a reader with a greater attention span.(less)

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Jan 15, 2012 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: middle-eastern-history

1967 covers a pivotal year for Israel that transformed it into a modern state and established it as a power in the Middle East. Tom Segev writes to cover the build up to the war including military, social, political and cultural factors that led to it and then explores how these changed Israel afterwards. I do agree with all of the reviewers that this book is written like a novel and it is not well done. The story is fascinating and it is told well but the organization is lacking and there are s...more

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May 05, 2012 Nirbodh rated it 4 of 5 stars

They correctly predicted what would happen if they occupy West Bank, most of the leaders were themselves against it. Yet, drunk with quick military victory, they did what they themselves advised against. And what an irony, history unfolded as they themselves direly predicted. Eternal human folly.

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Jun 21, 2011 Mick Maye rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: middle-east

The coverage of 1967 in Israel and the events leading up to the 6 Day war. Accounts are taken from several viewpoints and perspectives. Interesting putting reasons and thoughts behind the names involved. At times a dry and hard read, but rewarding over all.

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Oct 21, 2012 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars

Segev did a good job setting the stage for the 6 Days War with a long introduction into what Israel was like in 1967, especially the mindset of ordinary people. Details of the battles are a bit scarce, but the book is a good read

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Nov 17, 2007 John rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book isn't going to change anyone's mind about the Mid-east but it does provide some valuable insights into aspects of the Israeli mindset at the outbreak of teh "six day war" and how some of the attitudes engendered by that most peculiar war continue to haunt the 21st century -both in terms of Israeli politics & the U.S. response. As on would expect from the title the book focuses almost entirely on the Israeli point of view, and sometimes rather buries one under trivial detail, but th...more

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Sep 13, 2008 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This Israeli historian is a very good writer and his books about teh Middle East are full of stuff you don't know even if you read the NYTimes religiously. This book was fascinating about the behind the scenes goings on in the Israeli government, as they first panicked about being wiped out and then panicked about not being able to expand sieze Jersualem and the West Bank before the USA stopped them. But an even better book by him about a formative but little known period is"One Palestine, Compl...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Liam89 rated it 5 of 5 stars

A wonderful, scholarly account of the war which lasted just six days, but whose consequences are still being felt today.

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Jan 11, 2011 Mitchell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arab-israeli-wars

Well written and well researched in depth coverage of the events leading up to and through the Six-Day War.

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Mar 12, 2012 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars

The pacing was too slow for me. Focusing on individual stories of real people, which this book did, helps bring non-fiction to life, but I still had a hard time getting into this book. I felt there was actually too much focus on the details of what was happening in people's lives prior to the war...what was said in letters to relatives in the States, etc. Possibly this aspect would be more interesting to an Israeli reader than it was to me.

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Mar 18, 2008 David Gicza rated it 5 of 5 stars

A balanced and insightful view into the state of affairs in Israel before and after the 1967 war and refreshingly critical of the manner in which decisions were made at the time which affect the region today. A thorough and engaging writer, Segev created an informative book which left a lasting impression on this reader.

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Dec 05, 2011 Kevin Stratton rated it 5 of 5 stars

Great take and perspective on this world-changing event. Took me a while to get through it but well worth the effort to understand from the perspective of an Israeli.

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Jun 03, 2012 Maureen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have now been transformed from a novice on the Middle East situation to someone who would be very uncomfortable attempting to discuss it down the pub.

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Jul 08, 2008 Christine Sandgren rated it 2 of 5 stars

I think I will be 'reading' this one for awhile. I'm over 1/4 through and still no signs of a war.

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May 20, 2013 Beth rated it 3 of 5 stars

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Apr 05, 2013 Philipp rated it 4 of 5 stars

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About Tom Segev

Tom Segev (Hebrew: תום שגב‎) is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's so-called New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives.

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Books by Tom Segev

One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate

The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust

Elvis in Jerusalem: Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel

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