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ARK A CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL OREN THE ELUSIVE PEACE OF THE SIX-DAY WAR THE SIX-DAY OF THE PEACE ELUSIVE EWIS AUFMAN THE SEVENTH DAY & COUNTING: COUNTING: & DAY SEVENTH THE OPPENGER A JOURNAL OF CHRISTIANITY & AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY CHRISTIANITY & AMERICAN FOREIGN A JOURNAL OF K C • M NATIVE ARK OBERT • C.S. L : R • M ATAAN LSO MAN B

A INTERVENTION ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO HOURS & FIFTY HOURS YEARS: HUNDREDONE THIRTY-TWO A JOHN PAUL II, RONALD REAGAN, & THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM REAGAN, COMMUNISM RONALD & THE COLLAPSE II, OF PAUL JOHN

SPRING 2017 • NUMBER 7 , June 7, 1967 7, , June

Kotel statement at the Moshe Dayan, Israeli Defense Minister Defense Israeli Dayan, Moshe to live here together with others, in unity.” in unity.” with others, together here live to HOLY PLACES, NEVER TO PART FROM IT AGAIN. IT AGAIN. FROM NEVER PLACES, TO PART HOLY religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem to come not did We rights. and freedom religious added emphasis at this hour—our hand in peace. And to our our And to in peace. hand this hour—our at emphasis added for the sake of other peoples’ holy places, nor to interfere with interfere to nor places, holy peoples’ other sake of the for To our Arab neighbors, we extend, also at this hour—and with this also hour—and at extend, we Arab our neighbors, To ISRAEL. RETURNED WE OUR HAVE OF TO THE HOLIEST Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full promise solemnly we citizens, fellow Christian Muslim and “WE HAVE UNITED JERUSALEM, THE DIVIDED CAPITAL OF UNITED“WE CAPITAL HAVE THE DIVIDED OF JERUSALEM, believers of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and and safeguard entirety, its to in order but faiths, other of believers PROVIDENCE SPRING 2017 | NUMBER 7     FEATURES     ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO 4 HOURS & FIFTY YEARS: A CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL OREN

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Palestine, the blowing of the shofar at the Kotel was     FULPLQDOL]HG DQG IURP  ZKHQ WKH 2OG &LW\ RI -HUXVDOHP ZDV FRQWUROOHG E\ -RUGDQ -HZV ZHUH GHQLHG DFFHVV WR WKH :DOO HQWLUHO\ 7RGD\ LQ accordance to agreements with Muslim authorities, WKH .RWHO LV WKH KROLHVW SODFH RQ HDUWK ZKHUH -HZV DUHDOORZHGWRSUD\3KRWR&UHGLW'DYLG5XELQJHU *RYHUQPHQW3UHVV2̇FH PUBLISHERS MARK TOOLEY ROBERT NICHOLSON EDITOR MARK TOOLEY MANAGING EDITOR MARC LIVECCHE DEPUTY EDITOR ESSAYS MARK MELTON

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SNOWDENISM: JOSEPH LOCONTE A MORAL ASSESSMENT 37 ASSOCIATE EDITOR SUSANNAH BLACK CHRISTOPHER L. KOLAKOWSKI CONTRIBUTING EDITORS FLICKERING FORLORN HOPE: MARK AMSTUTZ THE BATTLE OF BATAAN 44 FRED BARNES NIGEL BIGGAR MARK TOOLEY J. DARYL CHARLES PAUL COYER AMERICAN INTERESTS MICHAEL CROMARTIE & HUMAN RIGHTS 50 DEAN CURRY ALAN DOWD THOMAS FARR ALAN DOWD MARY HABECK IN THE INTEREST OF HUMANITY 54 REBECCAH HEINRICHS WILL INBODEN JAMES TURNER JOHNSON ROBERT G. KAUFMAN HERB LONDON TIMOTHY MALLARD IN DEFENSE OF AQUINAS: PAUL MARSHALL PREEMPTION, PREVENTION, FAITH MCDONNELL & DECISIVENESS AS JUST WAR STAPLES 64 WALTER RUSSELL MEAD PAUL MILLER JOSHUA MITCHELL LUKE MOON REVIEWS ERIC PATTERSON JONATHAN LEEMAN MACKUBIN THOMAS OWENS AN EXCEPTIONAL CRISIS GREG THORNBURY John Wilsey’s American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea 71 INTERNS MATTHEW ALLEN GEORGE BARROS JOSHUA CAYETANO BOOKSHELF SAVANNAH HUSMANN JESSICA MEYERS THE QUARTERMASTER’S BOOKSHELF: LOGAN WHITE Recommendations for further reading & a survey of newly available books 75 LAYOUT & DESIGN JOSEPH AVAKIAN PRINTED BY AD ORIENTEM LINEMARK ROBERT NICHOLSON BASIC SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE JUSTICE IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT 80 $28 FOR A YEAR, FOUR ISSUES. STUDENT RATES AVAILABLE. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: [email protected] SPONSORED BY WEBSITE: PROVIDENCEMAG.COM ISSN 24713511 FEATURE

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 THE SEVENTH DAY & COUNTING: THE ELUSIVE PEACE OF THE SIX-DAY WAR JOSHUA MURAVCHIK

n May 13, 1967, Anwar Sadat, the then-Speaker of Egypt’s ONational Assembly, returned from a visit to Moscow to pass along to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser a bit of intelligence that the Kremlin had revealed to him. Israel, it said, was mobilizing forces on its northern border to attack Syria. This “intelligence” was completely false, and to this day we have only contending theories about the Kremlin’s motives in concocting it. But it set off a chain of events unforeseen by any of the actors, including especially the Soviet government, which came away one of the episode’s big losers.

Within a day, Arab officials were publicly seized the entire peninsula but evacuated it repeating the accusation, although Israel’s in exchange for the placement of the UN force leaders strenuously denied it. Israel even and the lifting of Egypt’s 1951 ban on Israeli invited Soviet representatives to join them shipping through the Straits of Tiran. (The for a flight to the border to see for themselves Straits, a narrow waterway through which that no Israeli forces were massed, but the Israel could reach the Indian Ocean, were offer was spurned. Within two days, however, legally international waters, but they were tanks could be heard rumbling through Cairo, bordered on one side by Egypt and readily and Egyptian forces began to flood into the controlled from there.) Sinai desert. Cairo Radio broadcasted: UN Secretary General U Thant promptly The existence of Israel has continued complied with Nasser’s demand, having little too long. We welcome the Israeli ag- other choice since most of the forces came gression. We welcome the battle we from India and Yugoslavia, two close allies have long awaited. The peak hour has of Egypt. A few days later, Nasser announced come. The battle has come in which we that Egypt was renewing its blockade of Israeli shall destroy Israel. shipping through the Straits of Tiran, which under international law constituted an act Then, Nasser demanded the withdrawal of of war. the UN Emergency Force. These soldiers had taken up positions on the Egyptian side These belligerent acts were reinforced by of the border with Israel as part of an agree- a drumbeat of incendiary broadcasts and ment settling the 1956 Sinai War. Israel had proclamations. Nasser boasted that “[t]he

 armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon would not have America’s support if it initi- are poised on the borders of Israel…while ated hostilities. But Israel’s military planners standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, calculated that whichever side struck first Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab was likely to win. nation.” And he warned that if war came, “Our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.” The country still hoped to avoid war, but the Would it come? Egypt’s main official news- Arab mobilization on its borders and the paper, Al Ahram, said it was “inevitable.” blockade of the straits constituted a casus Likewise, other Arab officials made similar belli, not only in a strict legal sense but for boasts; for example, Iraq’s President Abdul practical reasons, too. Like so many other Salam Arif said, “Our goal is clear—to wipe countries, Israel depended on imported oil, Israel off the map.” Ahmed Shuqairy, the lead- and that oil necessarily came mostly from er of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the east, meaning through the straits. And, echoed this phrase, adding piquantly, “no too, Israel could not withstand a prolonged Jew will be left alive.” mobilization of forces since, unlike the Arab armies, Israel’s consisted mostly of mobilized Israel, meanwhile, sent appeals for peace in civilians. If they were mobilized for long, the public statements and through diplomatic economy would grind to a halt. channels. A major radio address by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, perhaps the least char- President Johnson appealed to Israel to bide ismatic of that country’s leaders, sounded so its time while he organized a flotilla of ships conciliatory and was delivered so haltingly as from the U.S. and several allied countries to to project fear. Itzhak Rabin, then the young sail through the straits and break the block- and dynamic chief of staff of Israel’s armed ade. But after days passed, it became apparent forces and later a celebrated prime minister, that Washington had no luck in assembling disappeared from sight for a few days. It any participants. Meanwhile, another omi- was said he had overdosed on coffee and nous event occurred. cigarettes. It is now generally acknowledged that he had a nervous breakdown, although Jordan had long been the most moderate of he recovered in a few days. the Arab states. King Hussein’s grandfather and predecessor, Abdullah, had been the sole Israel was indeed afraid. It had prevailed in its Arab leader prepared to accept a compromise war of independence of 1948, but one percent with the Zionists. For this he had been mur- of its people had perished. It had triumphed dered before the eyes of the then-teenaged again in the 1956 Sinai campaign, but with Hussein. The boy, who soon acceded to the the tactical advantage of taking the initiative throne, continued his grandfather’s moder- and with Britain and France having its back. ation but was cautious about offending more Now, the Arabs had the initiative, and no one militant Arabs and inviting his grandfather’s had Israel’s back. fate. Now, in the heat of the moment, Hussein flew to Cairo, patching over longstanding In those first decades of Israel’s life, Israel’s antagonism with Nasser, and announced main patron and arms supplier was France, that he was placing Jordan’s military under while the United States, unlike today, at- Egyptian command. tempted to be evenhanded in the Israel-Arab conflict. But when Israel’s envoy met urgently For Israel, the fat was now truly in the fire, with French President Charles de Gaulle, he and early on June 5, ignoring ongoing Western warned that France would withdraw support appeals for patience and claiming falsely that if Israel fired first. De Gaulle embargoed the other side had opened fire, Israel struck. further arms deliveries to Israel, even of those Its target was the Egyptian air force. Although already bought and paid for. U.S. President Israel was outnumbered in personnel, guns, Lyndon Johnson, his hands more than full tanks, planes, and other weaponry, it held with the Vietnam War, also warned that Israel clear advantages in the élan of its soldiers

 ,VUDHOLWURRSVDGYDQFHRQWKH*RODQ+HLJKWV3KRWRE\$VVDI.XWLQ6RXUFH,VUDHOL*RYHUQPHQW3UHVV2IILFH and in intelligence. In particular, Israel’s his hand.) Or perhaps he sensed that Nasser commanders knew exactly where Egypt’s was lying but calculated that it would be less air forces were stationed, the times its planes costly to absorb defeat in the field than to would be on the ground, and even the hours incur the suicidal ignominy of abandoning Egyptian pilots would be busy breakfasting. the Arab cause. In that first wave of strikes, Israel’s bombers all but destroyed the Egyptian air force on Jordan’s offensive unleashed the war’s clos- the ground and thus determined the war’s est-quarter battles, the most costly ones for outcome. Egypt’s superior tank numbers Israel, and the ones of most portentous result, counted for little while Israel controlled the as Israel’s soldiers wrested East Jerusalem skies over a vast desert battlefield with little and the surrounding area from Jordan. place to hide. Emblematically, Jewish soldiers danced with Torah scrolls before the , this While focusing on Egypt, its most powerful remnant of Judaism’s holiest site returned to enemy, Israel held Syria at bay and attempted Jewish hands after two millennia. to keep Jordan out of the fight altogether. Placing hopes in King Hussein’s disposition Then, with quiet on the Egyptian and to moderation, Israeli officials appealed to Jordanian fronts, Israel turned to Syria, him through American diplomatic channels, which had, with Soviet connivance, triggered promising not to attack Jordan if he did not the war. Syrian guns atop the 2,000-foot-high attack. Had he heeded them, the Golan Heights habitually shelled Ein and East Jerusalem, including the , Gev immediately below as well as scores of would still be part of Jordan today. other farms and settlements within artillery range. Fighting up this steep and rocky incline But Hussein ordered his forces into the fray. was a daunting military challenge, but by this Perhaps he believed Nasser, who called to stage momentum and confidence, as well as tell him falsely of great Egyptian victories at air power, rested entirely with the Israelis the war’s outset and to urge him to get in on while on the other side morale was sinking. the spoils. (Hussein’s early gesture of placing Once at the summit, Israeli forces fanned out Jordanian forces under Egyptian command to occupy a swath of elevated plain of perhaps had been all for show; they remained firmly in 500 square miles. When fighting concluded

 on this front, the guns of the Six-Day War that amendment, and it was dropped. The fell silent. intent of the sponsors was that Israel should withdraw from some of the occupied territory, Of course, the guns didn’t just fall silent. probably from most of it, but not necessarily Rather, firing ceased in accordance with a res- from all of it. olution of the UN Security Council. Resolution 242, introduced by the United Kingdom and Israel’s representative, Abba Eban, a man supported by the United States, affirmed from the dovish side of the Israeli spectrum, in its preamble “the inadmissibility of the deplored Israel’s prewar borders as “Auschwitz acquisition of territory by war,” then called borders” because they left the country only on “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from nine miles wide at its center and thus painful- territory occupied in the recent war” and the ly exposed to attack. Moreover, those borders “termination of all claims or states of bellig- had little legal dignity, having derived from erency and respect for and acknowledgment the ceasefire lines of the 1948 war that had of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and never been codified into any treaty. From

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political independence of every State in the Israel’s view, its victory in a war in which the area and their right to live in peace within other side had threatened its annihilation secure and recognized boundaries free from justified its insistence on redrawing the map threats or acts of force.” to make itself less vulnerable.

What this all meant was that the Arabs had And what about the “inadmissibility of the to make lasting peace with Israel, accepting acquisition of territory by war”? Well, for one its presence within the region, while Israel thing, that language was only in the preamble, had to withdraw from territory it had seized perhaps a statement of general principles from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, territory far rather than a binding determination. And, larger than Israel as a whole had been at too, there is perhaps a modicum of difference the war’s outbreak. There was, however, a between offensive and defensive war. Is ac- nuance to the text. The Soviet representative quiring territory in the course of self-defense proposed inserting the word “the” before the same as acquiring it “by war”? Scarcely the phrase “territory occupied in the recent more than twenty years earlier, the borders of war.” But the resolution’s sponsor rejected Europe were redrawn especially to the benefit

 of the USSR, but these acquisitions in the so I learned later, was quickly mobilized to course of self-defense were little challenged the front. His tank paused somewhere in the (even though the largest Soviet acquisition Sinai, and Tzvika emerged from the turret came at the expense of Poland, which was a to survey the battlefield. As soon as he did, victim and not an aggressor). an Egyptian sniper’s bullet tore through his neck, killing him instantly, a heartbreaking The intent of the resolution was to lay the token of that brief moment of Israeli hubris groundwork for a negotiation in which Israel that followed the great victory of 1967. would pull back in exchange for Arab recog- nition and peace. When an interviewer asked Israel survived in 1973 thanks to the indi- Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Dayan, what vidual heroics of young soldiers who held off comes next, he replied that he was “waiting vastly superior forces while Israel’s citizen for a phone call” from Arab leaders to launch army mobilized and thanks also to a massive the bargaining. But that call never came. emergency airlift of American arms ordered Instead, the Arab League met in Khartoum by President Nixon. Although Nixon was two months later and issued a defiant decla- later revealed to have spoken disparaging- ration: “no peace with Israel, no recognition ly of , he was a savior to Israel. When of Israel, no negotiation with Israel.” In short, Kissinger proposed proceeding cautiously and just as the war had disappointed the hopes of secretively with the shipments, Nixon over- the Arabs to be rid of Israel, so it disappointed ruled him, saying, “It’s got to be the works… Israel’s hope the Arabs would be forced to We are going to get blamed just as much for come to peace terms. three planes as for 300.”

It did, however, establish Israel’s military Israelis later spoke with wonder and gratitude superiority. The country was never again to for the air bridge of C-5s and C-141s, immense appear so vulnerable as it did on the eve of transporters that disgorged a desperately that conflagration. Indeed, the pendulum was needed resupply of arms, tanks, and even of to swing in the opposite direction. Israelis, fighter planes. Planes were airlifted within so filled with fear during the run up to war, planes like massive matryoshka dolls. Such now grew complacent. ponderous shipments required refueling en route, but no European country would allow This was personified for me by Tzvika, the the American planes access. Indeed, they diminutive nickname for the common Israeli even denied overflight rights until Nixon name, Tzvi. In 1972, I led a delegation of Young twisted the arm of our most vulnerable ally, Socialists from the U.S. on a tour of Israel the anachronistic military regime of Portugal, hosted by the youth section of Israel’s ruling which granted refueling stops in the Azores. Labor Party, and Tzvika was one of our hosts and guides1. Like every Israeli, he had served Why were America’s allies so uncoopera- in the military and, as a tank commander, was tive? Because they were desperately afraid active in the reserves. Redheaded and slight of the oil boycott that the Arabs unleashed of build, he was warm, outgoing, and playful, in conjunction with the war. But the shift of and exuded the confidence characteristic of European countries away from friendliness post-1967 Israel. He told me that if the Arabs to Israel toward embrace of the Arabs had started another war, Israel would win in fewer begun already in 1967 with de Gaulle. The than six days, but if the Soviets joined them consummate realpolitiker, de Gaulle made in combat it would take a few weeks. plain that French interests must come first, and these dictated aligning with the side that A year later, Egypt, having sent Soviet advi- had greater numbers and resources. Until sors packing, launched an attack in coordina- 1967, France had been Israel’s primary patron tion only with Syria. It was Yom Kippur, and and armorer; but in the aftermath of that Israel, taken by surprise and thinly defended, war, the United States and Israel drew close, was nearly overrun. My lovely friend Tzvika, and France became a champion of the Arabs.

 In the years following the Six-Day War, oth- Palestine, a territory unacceptably occupied er Europeans began to follow Paris’s lead, by the Jews. The PLO’s founding document spurred by their fear of terrorism. The up- made no mention of a Palestinian state or surge of international air piracy, bombings, Palestinian sovereignty. and other forms of terrorism was another indirect consequence of that war. One of the miscellaneous thinkers who had hit on the idea of Palestinian nationality was Over the preceding decades, the dominant a young teacher who had grown up in Cairo idea in the Arab world had been pan-Ara- and lived now in Kuwait, Yasser Arafat. He bism, also called Arab nationalism. If all became the leader of a small group in Kuwait Arabs would join in a single omnibus state, of men whose origins were in Palestine, they could regain a place of power and glory and they called their group “Fatah.” It pub- among the nations of the world. This was the lished a newsletter propounding the idea of hot idea of the time, firing the imaginations Palestinian nationality, and in 1967 some of young people in the coffee shops of Cairo, of its numbers traveled to the front to join Baghdad, and Damascus, much as radical the brief fight against Israel. Their military Islam was to do a generation or two later. One contributions were nil, but enabled them strain of this ideology was Ba’athism, which afterwards to don a cloak of bravery while came to dominate Syria and Iraq, but there most of the Arab armies were in disgrace. were others, too, and the leading exponentA LAN DOWD of Arab nationalism was Egypt’s Nasser, who So marginal had Fatah been that it had been was the most popular leader ever in the Arab excluded from the PLO, but in the war’s after- world—and remains so to this day. math it was admitted and by 1969 had taken over, with Arafat becoming PLO chairman. The first task of Arab nationalism was to elim- It set to work fostering a sense of Palestinian inate Israel, and the Arabs’ ignominious defeat identity among the Arabs of Palestine, in part in 1967 was seen above all as a humiliation through propaganda and in part through of Nasser. Indeed, he resigned as president “propaganda of the deed,” that is, spectacular before street crowds, probably in part ginned acts of international terrorism in the skies and up by Egypt’s intelligence agents and in part across Europe and the Middle East. spontaneous, beseeched him to resume office. Resume he did, but all the air had gone out These hijackings and killings drew the world’s of the balloon of Arab nationalism. attention to the Palestinian cause, brought fame on the perpetrating groups, stirred the This deflation made space for the reasser- blood of Palestinian Arabs, and served to in- tion of other nationalisms among the Arabs, timidate Europeans and moderate Arabs. The and in particular for the birth of Palestinian most famous of these acts was the 1972 attack nationalism. Until this point, Palestinian on the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics nationalism scarcely existed. At most it had in which eleven Olympians were slaughtered, been a thought tossed out by miscellaneous and its aftermath reflected tellingly the tem- Arab thinkers now and again since World per of the times. War I, but it had gained no traction. Of the eight perpetrators, five died in a True, the Palestine Liberation Organization shootout with German security personnel, had been formed in 1964. But it was not found- while three were taken into custody. The ed at the initiative of Palestinian Arabs, but trio was held for all of a month before being rather of Nasser. He appointed the PLO’s first exchanged in an airplane hijacking that the head, Ahmed Shuquairy, a pan-Arab factotum German government appeared to have collab- who had served at various times as a diplomat orated in staging. Arafat’s deputy, Abu Iyad, for Syria and Saudi Arabia and an officer of explained, “German authorities, moved by the Arab League. The PLO’s purpose was not a sense of guilt or perhaps out of cowardice, the liberation of “Palestinians,” but rather of were clearly anxious to have the captured

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Fedayeen off their hands.” The German re- have served to def lect terrorist acts away from action was far from atypical. The 1HZ

 of the act. In recent times, Arab and Muslim Union, who numbered a few million. Because terror, albeit not Palestinian, has come back religion, especially the Jewish religion, had to bite Europe ferociously. been suppressed and derided in official pro- paganda for fifty years, few of these Jews It was not only by intimidation that the worshipped or had much knowledge of Jewish Palestinian cause gained adherents, but faith or culture. But they knew they were also by ideology. Arafat’s predecessor and Jews; indeed, the regime forced them to know sometime mentor as leader of the Palestinian because the identity “Jew” was stamped into Arabs was Haj Amin el-Husseini, grand mufti their internal passport, a document every of Jerusalem. In World War II, al-Husseini Soviet subject had to carry. aligned closely with Hitler, basing himself in Germany, doing propaganda broadcasts from A movement was kindled among them to there, and even traveling in Europe to recruit explore their Jewish identity, to study Hebrew, Muslims for an SS brigade. In the 1970s, and, most astonishing, to move to Israel. The however, Arafat, guided by Algerian revolu- Soviet Union did not allow its citizens to leave, tionaries who had vanquished France, repo- but this marked it as more repressive than sitioned the Palestinian cause from Right to non-Communist dictatorships and black- Left. He made pilgrimages to Hanoi, Beijing, ened its reputation as the Jewish demand and Moscow, and the PLO claimed a place to emigrate brought it to light. Despite the alongside the Viet Cong and other Communist refusals and arrests, the movement of Soviet and revolutionary guerrilla movements across Jews seeking to go to Israel grew, nurtured the “Third World.” by support from Jews abroad. It became the first substantial protest movement in the The Soviet Union, although having lost the history of the Soviet state and ate away at romantic appeal it enjoyed in the 1930s and the sinews of totalitarianism. 1940s to younger Communist regimes in Cuba and Vietnam, nonetheless still com- Israel’s victory even served as inspiration manded an unmatched worldwide network to non-Jews under the Soviet yoke. Poland, of propaganda resources. These were now Hungary, and Czechoslovakia had each been deployed in calumniating Israel. As their role subjected to Communist rule by the Soviet in instigating the 1967 war with false tales army at the end of World War II. Hungary illustrated, the Soviets were already aligned had rebelled, and Poles had rioted against against Israel. But the outcome of the war Communism, though these risings were each redoubled their antipathy, expressed in a time brutally quashed. For the most part, crude and anti-Semitic propaganda campaign they were kept in thrall through the aura of against the bugaboo “Zionism.” Its capstone Russian and Communist invincibility, convey- was a resolution pushed through the UN ing relentlessly the message that opposition General Assembly in 1975 by the Soviets and to the status quo was hopeless. the Arabs condemning Zionism as “racism.” Now, however, little Israel had thoroughly The reason behind Moscow’s venom was defeated much larger opponents who were that along with Nasser and the Arabs, the seen as Soviet surrogates. This planted the Kremlin was the war’s big loser. The Arabs idea that resistance was not hopeless at all, were equipped with MiG aircraft and other however much it might seem against the odds. Soviet arms, while Israel deployed French Indeed, the Czechs peacefully but massively Mirage jets and other western equipment. rebelled a year later. And the Poles mounted Israel’s overwhelming victory was seen to repeated waves of resistance through the signify the inferior quality of Soviet weaponry. 1970s, culminating in the rise of Solidarity.

The harm to the Soviets went beyond this Thus, all of the initiators of the Six-Day War humiliation. Israel’s against-the-odds tri- had reason to regret their acts. Nasser was umph lit a spark among Jews in the Soviet to die of a heart attack in 1970 without ever

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having recaptured his former prestige. The Hussein signed a peace treaty with Israel, Syrian regime was overthrown in 1970 by but he had already ceded claim to the West its Defense Minister, Hafez al-Assad, who Bank and East Jerusalem to the PLO, thanks eventually passed power to his son, creat- to the “climate of terror” that the PLO had ing a dynasty that has presided over the de- created (in the boastful words of Abu Iyad). struction of that country. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, its ramparts weakened by Peace with the Palestinians remains the elu- the protest movements of Soviet Jews and sive piece needed to bring this century-long Eastern European dissidents that the war conflict to an end. But the Palestinians are had aroused. also at war with themselves. One faction— Hamas—swears it will never make peace Security Council Resolution 242, the fruit of with Israel. The other—Fatah, now led by that war, remains the basis on which hopes Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas—says for an eventual peace between Israel and the it wishes but refuses to negotiate. The Six- Arabs rest. Those hopes were partially ful- Day War reshaped the conflict, but sadly its filled when the remarkable Anwar Sadat, who final resolution remains somewhere over the had carried the Kremlin’s poisoned “intelli- horizon. gence” of May 1967, succeeded Nasser and, after making one more war, opted decisively Joshua Muravchik is a distinguished fellow for peace. In the 1990s, Israel offered Syria at the World Affairs Institute and the author the return of the Golan Heights, but the deal of, among other works, 0DNLQJ'DYLG,QWR foundered over the division of the narrow *ROLDWK+RZWKH:RUOG7XUQHG$JDLQVW,VUDHO. sliver of land separating the heights from the Sea of Galilee. Given recent events in Syria, 1. I am no longer a socialist and, alas, no longer young, but I hasten to add that even then the group I was part of was it is unlikely any Israeli government will ever not very far out. We were not Communists, but rather in the renew the offer. Also in the 1990s, Prince mold of European social democrats.