THE COLD WAR'S LONGEST COVER-UP: HOW AND WHY THE USSR INSTIGATED THE 1967 WAR

Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) ^ | September 2003 | Isabella Ginor

[GOP_1900AD]

Disinfo from the Kremlin? Who'd a thunk it!

[DannyTN]

Too long. Quit reading. What was the point?

[ModelBreaker]

My eyes crossed about half way thru. The author has a lot of info but the writing style is turgid and very hard to follow.

[Andy from Beaverton]

Only 153 footnotes???

[reagan_fanatic]

I think I broke my scroll wheel going down this one.

[Paleo Conservative]

This article is so convoluted, it's hard to figure out anything more complicated than the Soviet Union wanted to provoke what became the Six Day War to destroy Israel. I've never figured out why it was that the Soviet Union wanted to destroy Israel, but it is consistent with their later actions in 1973.

[mmercier]

yikes, i broke my mouse.

in any case, if the kgb did instigate the war it appears they miscalculated on a rather grandiose scale.

nothing like taking a proactive action to prove to the world that your military hardware is nothing more than battlefield debris waiting to happen.

putting it in the hands of illiterate third world savages is always helpful in the extreme too...

[jimtorr]

I don't think the Soviets cared about the existence of Israel, as such. An Arab war with Israel was just an excuse for the Soviets to intervene, and insert large numbers of troops into the ME.

[DannyTN]

"I think I broke my scroll wheel going down this one."

lol

[elbucko]

The author has a lot of info but the writing style is turgid and very hard to follow.

As well as using thousands of words in an article that, properly edited, would have been no more than a few hundred.

During the Six Day War, I was in Basic Combat Training at Fort Bliss Texas. The Drill Sergeants were having a field day telling the recruits that they were going to be sent to the Middle East. Therefore, I have more than a passing interest in this subject. However, the plethora of minutia implanted gratuitously within this dissertation rendered any information of elucidation pertaining to the actual detailed activities of the subversive belligerents irrelevant.

[robowombat]

The author's first language is Hebrew and the translation into English shows this. However, read carefully it is full of fascinating revelations both about how the Soviets provoked the 7 day War were fully ready to militarily intervene to clinch victory if their Arab proxies seemed close to succeeding in order to gain a firm foothold at the strategic crossroads of the Middle East. This article goes a long way to totally discredit Donald Neff's widely repeated thesis from 'Warriors for Jerusalem' that the Israelis manipulated inept and foolish Egyptian and Syrian responses to violent Israeli provocations over control of the headwaters of streams flowing into Lake Tiberius. According to this thesis the Israelis knew the Egyptians were just engaging in noisy bluffing actions in the Sinai to save face over not being able to keep the Israelis from beating up on the Syrians in the water war.

Neff's relentlessly anti-Israli interpretation of history since 1947 have gained a lot of traction in academic circles and his clear writing style will unfortunately be more read than this convoluted article written in poorly expressed English. However, this article is important for driving a stake through the 'Jews did it' thesis on the 7 Day War. As piece of the continuing rancor over rights and wrongs in the Israeli-Arab struggle it has contemporary value. Also it shows just how dangerous the Soviets could be.

[Publius6961]

Long read, but worth the time for those not intellectually inert.
Saving most of it to read later over a glass of sherry.

One nagging feeling persists, after reading the first thousand words or so:

Granted, muslims are not known for rational thoughts and deed, and modern Egyptians are certainly not the sharpest tools in the drawer.
Nevertheless, the Syrians had possession of the Golan heights, it would have been effortless for them actually to walk over and look for themselves if "11 to 13 brigades" were amassed on their border.
Even in 1967, there was a plethora of means of communications, enabling Egypt to verify the astounding claim. Mindles reaction to an easily verifiable indication of major hostilities is a bit much to accept even from the incompetent Egyptian military.

So what's going on here? I hope to learn more after reading the remainder of the article, but I am not optimistic of a satisfying explanation.

[Publius6961]

Only 153 footnotes???

LOL
That ought to preempt the mindless self-styled intellectuals who know next to nothing but insist on "citations" for the most simple statements of historical fact.

[Jimmyclyde]

ping

[FreedomCalls]

Bump.

[Convert from ECUSA]

Ping!

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[Grampa Dave]

Fascinating reading. Would suggest you use the speed reading skills you have and were taught.

[RKV]

Agreed, but then I like to read Solzhenitsyn. World War 3 really would have started if the Russian troops had landed.