Tom Segev: Why 1967 no longer stirs the Israeli soul as it once did
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 decades after their smashing military victory over Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israelis generally concede that in many ways the war was a disaster. The continued occupation of the West Bank, and control over the Palestinians who live there, has sapped Israel financially, politically, militarily and morally. By now, how it all came to be is only barely understood, or even addressed; with crises in that part of the world occurring almost daily, history seems almost a luxury, and ancient history especially.
Ancient history? 1967? If you don’t think so, picture a time before suicide bombings and settlements; when American support for Israel was not a given; when a majority of the Knesset spoke — and thought — in Yiddish; when Israelis still had no television programs, and Jerusalemites assumed explosions must be earthquakes; when terms like intifada, Hamas and even Palestinian were either unfamiliar or not yet coined; when Israelis argued — with straight faces — that Jews everywhere were safer thanks to them. That’s beyond ancient; it’s prehistoric.
But as Segev writes in “1967,” his illuminating, if exhausting, book on Israel’s most fateful year, even at the time there were Israelis who foresaw what ultimately came to pass. True, conquering East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights helped fulfill the Zionist dream and gave the country more defensible borders. But as various Israeli officials warned, it would also radicalize the Palestinians, intensify Palestinian nationalism and force Israel to act with a brutality and intolerance that, as one put it, “we, as a people and as Jews, abhor.” Besides, King Hussein was doing a fine job neutering the Palestinians, either making them Jordanians or prodding them to emigrate....
Read entire article at NYT
Four decades after their smashing military victory over Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israelis generally concede that in many ways the war was a disaster. The continued occupation of the West Bank, and control over the Palestinians who live there, has sapped Israel financially, politically, militarily and morally. By now, how it all came to be is only barely understood, or even addressed; with crises in that part of the world occurring almost daily, history seems almost a luxury, and ancient history especially.
Ancient history? 1967? If you don’t think so, picture a time before suicide bombings and settlements; when American support for Israel was not a given; when a majority of the Knesset spoke — and thought — in Yiddish; when Israelis still had no television programs, and Jerusalemites assumed explosions must be earthquakes; when terms like intifada, Hamas and even Palestinian were either unfamiliar or not yet coined; when Israelis argued — with straight faces — that Jews everywhere were safer thanks to them. That’s beyond ancient; it’s prehistoric.
But as Segev writes in “1967,” his illuminating, if exhausting, book on Israel’s most fateful year, even at the time there were Israelis who foresaw what ultimately came to pass. True, conquering East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights helped fulfill the Zionist dream and gave the country more defensible borders. But as various Israeli officials warned, it would also radicalize the Palestinians, intensify Palestinian nationalism and force Israel to act with a brutality and intolerance that, as one put it, “we, as a people and as Jews, abhor.” Besides, King Hussein was doing a fine job neutering the Palestinians, either making them Jordanians or prodding them to emigrate....