ME 101 Discussion of the Six Day War

Reminder: Michael Oren is joining us to discuss his book in about an hour.

All of our subscribers are welcome to sit in, but the discussion is reserved for those who have read Six Days of War—and priority goes to those who’ve been in class since the beginning. I expect many of you will also want to discuss current events with him, so we’ll reserve a bit of time for that at the end.

It’s been about twenty years since the first time I read Six Days of War. When last I read it, the world and particularly the United States were quite different. As I re-read the descriptions of Operation Focus, I allowed myself to engage in an idle fantasy: What if, contrary to all appearance, Ukraine and the United States are now engaged in a massive deception designed to lull Russia into complacency as Ukrainian pilots prepare to annihilate Russian positions, all in a matter of hours, in an exquisitely coordinated and synchronized surprise attack?

The idea is of course absurd. But how telling that it’s absurd.

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Here’s an exercise. If you’ve been reading Six Days of War this week, take out a piece of paper and, before reading further, make a list of all the advantages Israel possessed—material or moral—that allowed it comprehensively to defeat its numerically superior adversaries in a matter of hours. On the right, list every liability—tangible or intangible—that led to the humiliating defeat of the combined Arab powers.

Having done that, read the items below about the causes and consequences of the West’s failure to support Ukraine. Make a list of adjectives you would use to describe the United States’ policy.