![]() When the nuclear issue is mentioned, it is in passing and treated as anecdotal rather than essential. These narratives also tend to shy away from the nuclear issue the Israeli nuclear program plays almost no role in those narratives. Yet all these narratives share the fundamental idea that the crisis sprung from a series of miscalculations that ultimately led to the failure of conventional deterrence. Other narratives divide responsibility between various players-Arabs, Soviets, Israelis, and even the United Nations. Meanwhile, Arab-inspired narratives assert that Israel’s provocative statements against the Syrian regime induced Nasser’s reaction. Israeli-inspired narratives typically cite false Soviet intelligence reports of imminent Israeli attack on Syria as the trigger that launched Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser on a series of miscalculated decisions (massing troops in the Sinai, removing the UN Emergency Force deployed there after the 1956 Suez crisis, and closing the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping) that ultimately made war inevitable. The conventional wisdom among historians is that a series of mishaps and missteps -deceptions, miscalculations, misperceptions, and the like-led each party into a war that neither leader planned for nor desired. How, then, did a major war erupt seemingly against the wishes of both sides? ![]() This is particularly true for the leaders of Israel and Egypt: Levi Eshkol and Gamal Abdel Nasser. While potential for renewed Arab-Israeli hostility simmered in early 1967, most regional actors neither expected nor sought a new military confrontation. ![]() Old and New Narratives of the 1967 Crisis It was fifty years ago that Israel first crossed the nuclear threshold, making the 1967 crisis a landmark in global nuclear history. Furthermore, at that same juncture, some senior Israeli officials even considered how to detonate a nuclear explosive for demonstrative purpose in the unlikely case of a “doomsday” scenario. Second, and more significantly, those testimonies reveal now that Israel, during the May–June 1967 crisis, first assembled its first rudimentary nuclear devices. First, Israel’s nuclear program played a vital role on the threat perception of both sides. On this 50th anniversary of the 1967 war, the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP) has released historical testimonies and documents revealing that the crisis had an underlying twofold nuclear dimension. On this issue, both sides remain bonded together by layers of taboo, silence, and secrecy. Yet, one important aspect remains obscure and untold: the crisis’ nuclear dimension. Volumes of studies have been produced over the five decades since. The 1967 Six-Day War is probably the most important and most researched event in the Middle East since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. The stunning defeat initiated the demise of his brand of secular pan-Arabism that was once an assertive ideological force in the Arab world. Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt and the most prominent Arab leader at the time, survived the war but his leadership never recovered. For those “on the line of confrontation,” as Arab states bordering Israel were called, the war brought the loss of vast territories and crushing humiliation, all the more so for the Palestinians. The consequences for the Arab coalition were similarly transformative. The war transformed Israel from a nation that perceived itself as fighting for survival into an occupier and regional powerhouse. In those six days, Israel defeated three Arab armies, gained territory four times its original size, and became the preeminent military power in the region. Six memorable days, known to Israelis as the Six-Day War and to Arabs and others as the 1967 War, redrew the region’s landscape in fundamental ways. The 1967 Six-Day War: New Israeli Perspective, 50 Years Later Introduction įifty years ago, war transformed the Middle East. Careers, Fellowships, and Internships Open/Close.Wahba Institute for Strategic Competition.Science and Technology Innovation Program.Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative.The Middle East and North Africa Workforce Development Initiative.Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.Nuclear Proliferation International History Project. ![]()
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