THE SHORT ANSWER TO TOM SEGEV: One answer to Tom Segev's question What if Israel Had Turned Back? (see here) is given by Michael Oren:

"The biggest myth going is that somehow there was not a real and immediate Arab threat, that somehow Israel could have negotiated itself outside the crisis of 1967, and that it wasn't facing an existential threat, or facing any threat at all," said Oren, who is a senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at Jerusalem's Shalem Center and author of Six Days of War: June 1967. He noted that this was the premise of Tom Segev's book, 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East. "What's remarkable is that all the people alleging this - not one of them is working from Arabic sources. It's quite extraordinary when you think about it. It's almost as if Israel were living in a universe by itself. It's a deeply solipsistic approach to Middle East history."

You mean Israel is not living in a universe by itself?
Can someone notify the West, quick?!

[Hat tip: Cosmic X]

UPDATE: See also Q & A With Michael Oren:

Andrew White, London: Tom Segev's new book on the Six Day War received a gushing review in this week's Economist (26 May 2007). Is this the beginning of Six Day War revisionist history?

Michael Oren: Alas, it's not the beginning. Segev's primary thesis, namely, that the Six-Day War was the product of irrational Israeli fears and war-mongering, has been around for many years. It is implicit in Jimmy Carter's recent book, which describes Israel-quite wrongly-as having attacked Jordan and Syria pre-emptively in 1967. It is crucial to note, however, that neither Segev nor Carter employ even one Arabic source. In essence, the Arabs simply do not exist for them. The end result is not only an injustice to Israel but moreover gross discrimination toward the Arabs, who are treated as two-dimensional figures, incapable of independent decision-making and political dynamics.

UPDATE II: Mmmm, looks like the short answer is getting longer. Again, from Michael Oren; this time from The Jewish Press: Did Israel Seek War In 1967?

Papers released by Britain’s Public Record Office and the United States National Archives, for example, provide fresh insights into the diplomacy of the 1940’s and 1950’s, particularly in relation to the Arab countries, whose archives remain closed indefinitely. But when it comes to Arab-Israeli history, no collection can rival the Israel State Archives, which in addition to the wealth of firsthand accounts it contains, is particularly liberal in its declassification policy.

These documents, tendentiously read and selectively cited, have been marshaled to substantiate the most radical of revisionist theories about the 1948 War of Independence and the 1956 Sinai Campaign. With the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War now upon us, the same methodology is again about to be applied to smashing the “myths” of 1967.

... Israeli “fear had no basis in reality,” Haaretz journalist Tom Segev writes in his newly translated book 1967. “There was indeed no justification for the panic that preceded the war, nor for the euphoria that took hold after it.”

But can these conclusions stand up to straightforward historical scrutiny? Can the assertion that Israel wanted the war, did little or nothing to avert it, or even instigated it, be substantiated by Israeli declassified documents from the period, the favored weapons of the new historians?

Files from the Israel State Archives reveal a great deal about Israeli policymaking and diplomacy of the time, and about what Israel’s leaders thought, feared and strove for during three weeks of intense diplomatic efforts leading up to June 5, 1967. Far from even hinting that Israel deliberately brought about the conflict, the record shows that Israel was desperate to avoid war and, up to the eve of battle, pursued every avenue in an effort to avert it – even at great strategic and economic cost to the nation.

Israeli diplomatic documents from the period leading up to June 5, 1967 offer overwhelming evidence against any suggestion that Israel sought war with the Arabs. Nor do the tens of thousands of declassified papers contain a single reference to any desire to divert public opinion from the economic situation, to overthrow Arab rulers, or to conquer and occupy the West Bank, the Sinai or the Golan Heights.

Read the whole thing.

See also: Oren Rebuts Segev's Book

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