Ways the pivotal event for the creation of the modern middle east, the middle east that is the source of so much tension and controversy and bloodshed. The obvious reason we want to go back is to find out how the west bank, gaza, jerusalem, principally but also the Golan Heights came into possession of israel. That happened in june 1967. The war was a pivotal event for many profound reasons. For example, the sixday war really spelt a death nell for the movement of arab nationalism which was a Secular Movement in its most sublime form under Gamal Abdul Nasser of egypt. That war was debunked in 1967. It opened the door to the entry of a new ideology into the middle east. That was an islamic ideology. That has had profound ramifications for everybody, both in the middle east and in the United States as well. The sixday war also ended the period when the arabisraeli conflict was a state to state conflict, a conflict between israel and jordan, israel and syria and israel and egypt. This became a new conflict that emerged, one between israel and the palestinians. Before 1967, you really didnt hear about the palestinians. Its not by accident a year after the war ended in 1968, the p. L. O. , under yasser arafat, emerges as this powerful force in the arab world. We have been living with that as well. 1967 war was also inaugurated the strategic relationship between the United States and israel. People forget that israel fought the 1967 war not with american arms but with french weaponry. France was their principal ally. Before 1967, one israeli Prime Minister one time for one hour had visited the white house. It wasnt israels founder. June 1964. Today ariel sharon or any israeli Prime Minister comes to washington, its obvious he will march into the white house. That began that very, very close relationship, that cooperation began in the aftermath of 1967, not before that. As you acknowledge, one more book on the sixday war. There have been a lot of them. What do you have new . What kind of things . Look at my bibliography. I always encounter that question why we need another book on the 1967 war. The principle reason is the phenomenon of the 30year rule. That is the rule that attained to most western style democracies in the United States in britain and canada and in israel which holds that after 30 years the majority of diplomatic documents previously classified as top secret are declassified and become accessible to researchers. Once you have documents, it opens up an entirely new vista into the Decision Making process. Thats what this book is really about, its about Decision Making. In addition, in the last say 12 years, soviet documents, documents of the former soviet union have become available to researchers. The soviets played a pivotal war in the 1967 war. They precipitated the crisis. I was able to go to moscow and access some of these documents. Theres been a new opening in two of the three major arab participants in the war. In jordan and in egypt, theres a tremendous wave of publications about the war, phepl oeurs, studies, even the release of certain documents which is rare in the arab world about 1967. The only place this has not occurred is in syria. In syria, officially the war never occurred. There is not one single official book and all books in syria are official about the 1967 war. How the average syria believes israel came into possession of the Golan Heights is a mystery to me. You were born where . I was born in the tiny town in upstate new york but raised in new jersey. When did you first go to israel . I first went when i was 15. I went to work on a farm. I worked in alfalfa, i worked in the cows, i became a cowboy. I was a lousy farmer. I went and studied history. What kind of a jew was your family, your father, mother . My parents grew up in a conservative jewish community. My parents were zionist, proisrael. Were supportive of the state of israel. Are they both from here . Both from here, yes, yes. My father had been a career army officer for a period in the u. S. Army and served in world war ii and korea and later became a hospital administrator. So you say conservative, orthodox conservative reform . Right in the middle. Did you fight in the 1967 war . I was a kid. You were a kid. Did you fight any war . I fought in a couple of them, yes. I fought in the lebanon war. I was quite involved in the lebanon war. I served in the israeli paratroopers. I was in the Israeli Special forces. What year . June 1982. Wars in the middle east occurred in june, almost to the day. Its probably a good war fighting weather. I was among the first forces to of Israeli Forces to enter the city of beirut in june 1982. My actual unit was decimated in an ambush and we ended up being attached to all sorts of other units for the duration of the war. Later on, i became one of the few israelis to be a veteran of the gulf war. In a period just before the outbreak of the gulf war, i was assigned as a strategic liaison between the army and the u. S. Fleet. In the book, i went out that israel had repeatedly requested in 1967, precisely such a liaison with the sixth fleet. The u. S. Denied the request. In subsequent years, the United States gave to the request and i was the liaison. It was an interesting job. I went out and partied a lot with american pilots on leave in israel. We had a few maneuvers on the ground, nothing too serious. All of a sudden, it became real. All of a sudden, there was a real war in which the United States and israel had to collaborate strategically. You may recall that the United States provided israel with patriot missiles as an answer at least a psychological answer because physically they didnt work a psychological answer to the scud attacks. I was part of the team that brought in the patriot missiles. They were in israel. They were in israel. Go back to your education, then. Where did you go to college . I did a b. A. m. A. Of middle eastern history at columbia college. An m. A. And b. A. In middle eastern at princeton. Israeli and american citizen . I am. Why due end up in the 1982 war in lebanon . I always wanted to move to israel. I saw my future in israel. I wanted to raise my family in israel. In 1973, at the end of the 1973 war which i would have missed had i been living in israel, i determined i wasnt going to move just then. I was going to do my b. A. First. I did my b. A. Which turned out as an m. A. I worked as an advisor to the Israeli Administration to the u. N. Arafat speaking for the General Assembly. Very tumultuous period. I moved to israel and tried for this unit in the army. The tryouts are rather rigorous. I did 17 months of basic training. And got out just prior to the lebanon war. But in israel, we have you serve for a long period your regular serve and do reserve service to the age of 52. Now i have a son in the army who is 19. And in a very elite unit. I am still doing reserve duty. We share uniforms. Very bizarre. How old are you now . Im 47. You can be called up at any time . I have been. I served in the latest intifada. In a combat role. Where . In nablus. Full combat uniform . Im supposed to be semiretired. You stop jumping in the israeli army in the paratroopers at age 37 and cease being a combat soldier at age 42. At 42, 43, i was asked to stay on as an advisor on media relations. Why not . Sounds interesting. Get good briefings. When the fighting broke out in the west bank, they asked any of the media advisors if they had combat experience. Like a total fool, i said oh, of course, i have. We need someone to be attached to the front line Brigade Commander who doesnt speak french, doesnt speak english. Cnn and French Television is running around so someone has to interpret for him. I was outfited with a new ceramic flack jacket and a helmet and m16, the whole works and fought out there in a blackhawk helicopter which had to do a big sort of detour around ramallah because the israeli army was convinced that the palestinians shoulderfired ground to air missiles. When we landed, we landed in a halo of gunfire. I have not seen anything like it since lebanon. The Brigade Commander, as i landed, got shot in the head. Got a 7. 62 bullet in the head that was stopped by his newly issued american kefla kevlar mel met. The bullet stuck in the helmet. I quickly got myself a kevlar helmet. Have you been wounded . Very slightly. Does it ever feel surreal . One day youre at your desk at home doing your work. Where do you live . In jerusalem. Next day in a uniform. The worst part is coming home. It takes a few days to make that switch. Its bizarre. You get a phone call. You know, this week im celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary. I got married on august 5, 1982. As i came home from my wedding and i was unwrapping my gifts, i got a call from the army saying listen, in three hours were going to pick you up in a jeep outside your house in jerusalem and take you to beirut. And i said i just got married. They said well, thats not our problem. Three hours. I had to get out of my wedding suit and into a uniform. My new wife is crying. My parents were there from new jersey who had not seen me in uniform ever were in a state of shock. Low and behold a jeep comes by and picks me up. Making that transition is difficult. Coming back from it is more difficult. You come back from combat and everyone is basically going about their business and buying shoes and getting on buses and its very bizarre. The last two years, however, have been in the category by themselves. Israel lives from crisis to crisis. I think were rather addicted to them. But this the last two years have broken the israeli paradigm. Theres a war. It breaks out in the Golan Heights, breaks out in sinai. You get in your uniform, go away come back in two or three weeks, take a shower and try to forget about it and go back to your routine. Over the last two years, however the war has come to us. It is no longer out there. The war is in our backyards. Where i live in southern jerusalem, its been very, very close to the front. I mean, very typical evening with my children around a table, the house will be rocking with gunfire, machine gunfire, tank fire, helicopters coming over my house and fire rockets. And now we have had the suicide bombings. The last major suicide bombing in jerusalem, the bus bombing, blew out windows of my house. So you live there fulltime but you also are associated with an Organization Called the shalem center. Its a young, Dynamic Research center that was started about seven years ago through the generosity of the bernstein foundation. It promotes the study of israel, study of middle east, jewish history, zionism. Was founded by several young people, graduates of princeton. Now there are about 100 people working there. Did i read that bill crystal, the Weekly Standard is on your board . Mmhmm. Any other americans we would know . Deon kats. Bioethics Leader Associated with president bushs administration. Ronald lauter. Roger herzog. Go back to the early part of the book, you say you wanted to write an unbiased view of the 1967 war. After hearing your background, is that possible to do that . Not easy. Not easy. Today in history, its very fashionable in post modernist, relativist history to say you cant write objective history, dont bother trying so write subjective history. I adhere to that quaint 19th century notion that theres a historical truth out there and that we as historians, though we can never really reach that truth completely, we have an obligation to strive toward it. Therefore, if we have prejudices and, of course, we all have them if we have bias, we have to regard them not as opinions to be indulged but obstacles to be overcome. If we want to understand this war this is a war as i said before so profoundly impacts our lives in israel, in the middle east, even in the United States if were going to understand it, indulging my opinions will not help us very much. On a sort of daily methodological level, in writing every page, every paragraph, sometimes even every sentence, i have to stop and ask myself, ok, am i letting my prejudices, ideas, opinions impinge on what im writing here . How might i write this if i was completely objective . Very often i change the text. Very often i change the text. The best compliments i have had from this book have come from arab scholars. The reaction from the arab world has been overwhelmingly positive. I have had no negative reactions written about me in the egyptian press. I have been asked to interview on aljazeera. I have given lectures at universities where arab scholars were present, at oxford and harvard recently. Its been given me a tremendous amount of satisfaction, that reaction. By the time you got to the 1967 war, how many wars had israel fought in . The 1967 war was israels third war, sometimes referred to as the third arabisraeli war. 1948 was the war of independence. The 1956 war which was israelis call the sinai campaign. One of the things about total war, we have different names for our war. The arabs call the 1948 war, the disaster. This was not a disaster for the israelis. The 1967 war is called by the israelis the sixday war as referred to in the United States. The arabs tame great upl pwrapblg at that term. It means the israelis beat you in six days. I actually used it once accidentally in an interview with a former jordanian interview. He almost ened the interview right then he was so insulted. They refer to it as the setback. They have a number of y a numbee tpheufpls for the war. Most refer to it as the june war. After the 1967 war, we will go back to it, but how many wars since 1967 . We even count the wars differently. The israelis identify war of attrition which broke out along the suez canal shortly after the sixday war and continued until august 1970 in a United States brokered ceasefire. Then there was the 1973 war. And the arabs refer to the egyptians particularly refer to the 19 fp war as the war of attrition and the 1973 as one long war. The 1973 war is the yom kippur war. In egypt and the arab world, referred to the as the october war or the ramadan war. June 1982, referred to the as the october war or the ramadan war. June 1982, the lebanon war. Which in one way or another continued until may of 2000. And the gulf war which wasnt exactly an arabisraeli war but had an arabisraeli component to it, as i mentioned earlier,. And now the outbreak of two intifadas if you can say those words in the plural. The first from 1987 to 1992. The last from september 2000 to the present. By the way, how Many Americans are living in israel and have dual citizenship . I dont know. Probably around 70,000 to 80,000. Go back to 19 4r8 for a moment. When did the u. N. Declare israel to be a country . The decision of the u. N. Came on november 29, 1947 when the u. N. General assembly voted to create a jewish and an arab state in palestine, to partition palestine into two states. Upon this declaration, the palestinians declared war on the jewish half. That effort was frustrated ultimately by jewish defense. When the partition resolution came into being on may 14, 1948, seven arab armies invaded the new jewish state in an effort to prevent its emergence. That effort was also rebuffed. What was the size of the jewish state after the vote on the u. N. And they partitioned it off . Ill rephrase the answer a little bit. The jewish state that emerged as the state of israel at end of the war of independence, the beginning of 1949, was 30 larger than the jewish state created by the u. N. In november of 1947. Israeli forces succeeded in pushing the arabs back. The israelis had conquered no sovereign arab territory, but that 30 would have been part of the palestinianarab state had that state, in fact, come into being. As it happened, the area that was supposed to have been earmarked for the palestinian state was taken up by israel, by jordan which annexed the west bank. And by egypt which occupied the gaza strip. So didnt have gaza, didnt have the west bank. What part of jerusalem did they not have . They did not have the eastern part of jerusalem. The old city. The old city was part of east jerusalem. That belonged to jordan. They annexed it illegally. It was recognized only by two states, by britain and pakistan. How long did that israeli state Stay Together until it was in 1956, what was that war about . It was about on the israeli side, the fear that nasser had become a proxy of the soviet union, had acquired mass amounts of soviet arms. He was the head of egypt. He was the head of egypt. He had been sending palestinian guerrillas to attack deep within israel. It was only a matter of time before nasser used this massive soviet weaponry in an offensive war of destruction. Israel sought to launch a preemptive strike. It found an opportunity in the suez crisis. We call it nationalize the suez canal. Tried to negotiate through american mediation a solution to the suez crisis. When no solution could be found, britain and france elected to retake the canal by force of arms and enlisted israels help in that effort. Israel sought an alliance of convenience between britain and france and herself and launched this war. I want to show on this map here where the lines the diagonal lines, one at the bottom is sinai. Over here is the gulf of suez. For the audience to look around and see where jordan is located. Jordan used to control that area in the middle of israel which is the west bank. Then you have syria at the top and lebanon. 1956 war lasted how long . Well, for the british and french, it lasted about three days. The israelis it continued a little bit longer, about three, four days because israel started it. The invasion of the suez canal occurred on november 3 or 4 and israel launched their attack on the 29th of october. Who led the country then . David was the Prime Minister. Where were people like ariel sharon . Were they involved . Ariel sharon was involved in a very controversial action. This gets complicated, right. As part of the deal with britain and france and israel, israe