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 the conflict a new conflict emerged, a conflict that was principally one between israel and the palestinians. Before 67, you really didnt hear about the palestinians. And its not by accident that a year after the war ended, in 1968, the plo under Yasser Arafat emerges as this powerful force in the arab world. And weve been living with that, as well. The 67 war was also also inaugurated the strategic relationship between the United States and israel. People forget that israel fought the 67 war not with american arms but with french weaponry. France was israels principal ally before that. Before 1967, only one israeli Prime Minister one time for one hour had visited the white house, and it wasnt israels founder, David Ben Gurion. It was levi eshkol one time june, 1964. Today ariel sharon or any israeli Prime Minister comes to washington, its obvious that hes going to march right into the white house. That began that very, very close relationship, that cooperation, began in the aftermath of 1967, not before that. Cspan as you acknowledge, one more book on the sixday war there have been a lot of them. Guest yes. Cspan what do you have new . What kind of things do you have. Guest well, if you look at my bibliography, youll see about 300, 400 books on the 67 war. And i always encounter that question. You know, why do we need another book on the 67 war . Well, the principal reason is the phenomenon of the 30year rule. I ride the 30year rule. That is the rule that obtains in most westernstyle democracies in the United States, in britain, in canada and in israel, and which holds that after 30 years, the majority of diplomatic documents that were previously classified as top secret get declassified and they become accessible to researchers. And once you have documents, it opens up an entirely new vista into the decisionmaking process, and thats what this book really is about, is about decisionmaking. In addition, in the last, say, 12 years, soviet documents documents of the former soviet union, have become available to researchers. And the soviets played a pivotal role in the 67 war, a very crucial role. In many ways, they precipitated the crisis. And i was able to go to moscow and to access some of these documents. Theres also been a new opening in at least two of the three major arab participants in the war. In jordan and in egypt, theres a tremendous wave of publications about the war memoirs, studies, even the release of certain documents which is very rare in the arab world, about 1967. The only place this hasnt 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 67 war. How the average syrian believes that israel came into possession of the Golan Heights that formerly belonged to syria is a mystery to me. Cspan let me go to your bio for a moment. You were born where . Guest i was born in a tiny town in upstate new york, but i was raised in new jersey. Cspan when did you first go to israel . Guest i first went when i was 15 years old. I went to work on a kibbutz, on a farm. I worked in the alfalfa. I worked in the cows. I became a cowboy. I was a lousy farmer, so i went and studied history. Cspan what kind of a jew was your family your father, your mother . Guest my parents were i grew up in a conservative jewish community. My parents were very zionist very proisrael, were supportive of the state of israel, less supportive of my actually moving there. That was a shock to them. Cspan were they both from here . Guest both from here, yes. My father had been a career army officer for a period in the u. S. Army, had served in world war ii and korea, and later on became a hospital administrator. Cspan so you say conservative is that like the orthodox conservative reform . Guest right. Cspan youd be right in the middle, then. Guest correct. Right in the middle. Cspan and so did you fight in the 67 war . Guest no, i was a kid. Cspan you were a kid then. Guest i was. Cspan did you fight in any war in israel . Guest i fought in a couple of them, yes. Cspan which ones . Guest well, i fought in the lebanon war. I was quite involved in the lebanon war. I served in the israel paratroopers. At that point, i was in Israeli Special forces and. Cspan what year . Guest this was in 1982, in june, 1982. For some reason, wars in the middle east occur in june, almost to the day. Its probably good warfighting weather. And i was among the first forces to of Israeli Forces to enter the city of beirut in june 1982. And my actual unit was decimated in an ambush, and we ended up being attached to all sorts of other units for the duration of and 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 israeli army and the u. S. Sixth fleet in the eastern mediterranean. Thats one its an interesting thing as an historian, as well, because in the book, i point out that israel had repeatedly requested in 1967 precisely such a liaison with the sixth fleet, and the u. S. Denied the request. Well, in subsequent years, the United States acceded to the request, and i was the liaison. And first it was a very interesting job. I essentially went out and partied a lot with american pilots who were on leave in israel. We had a few maneuvers on the ground, nothing too serious. And 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. And you may recall that the United States provided israel with patriot missiles as an answer at least, a psychological answer because physically, they actually didnt work a psychological answer to the scud attacks, 41 scud missiles that fell on tel aviv and its environs. And i was a part of the team that brought in the patriot missiles. Cspan and they were in israel, the patriots. Guest they were in israel. Cspan now, go back to your education, then. Where did you go to college . Guest i did my undergraduate i did a b. A. , m. A. All in middle east history at columbia, columbia college, and then i went on to do an m. A. And a ph. D again in middle east history at princeton. Cspan are you both an israeli and an american citizen . Guest i am. Cspan and why did you end up in the 82 war in lebanon . How did that work . Guest well, i had always wanted to move to israel. I saw my future in israel. I wanted to raise my family in israel. And in 1973, at the end of the 73 war, which i would have missed had i actually been living in israel, i determined that i wasnt going to move just then, i was going to do my b. A. First. I did my b. A. And, as it turns out, an m. A. I ended up working for the Israeli Foreign ministry as an adviser to israels mission to the un during a very tumultuous period. It was the period of the zionism is racism vote arafats speech before the General Assembly, a very, very tumultuous period. And then i moved to israel, and i tried out for this unit in the army the tryouts are rather rigorous and 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 service, and then you 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, and i am still doing reserve duty. We actually share uniforms. Very bizarre cspan how old are you now . Guest im 47. Cspan and so you can be called up at any time. Guest i have been, yes. Ive served. Cspan and you. Guest ive served in the latest intifada in a combat role. Cspan where . Guest in nablus. Cspan full combat uniform . Guest well. crosstalk guest im supposed to be semiretired. I now you stop jumping in the israeli army, in the paratroopers, at age 37, and you essentially cease being a combat soldier at age 42. At age 42, 43, i was asked to stay on as an adviser on media relations. Why not . Sounds interesting. You get good briefings. But when the fighting broke out on the west bank, they asked any of these media advisers if they had combat experience, and like a total fool, i said, oh, of course, i have one. And well, we need someone to be attached to the frontline brigade commander, who doesnt speak french, doesnt speak english. And cnn and French Television is running around there. Someone has to interpret for him. So i was quickly outfitted with a new ceramic flak jacket and a helmet and an m16, the whole works, and flown out there on a black hawk helicopter, which had to do a big sort of detour around ramallah because the idf, the israeli army, was convinced that the palestinians had shoulderfired groundtoair missiles. And when we landed, we landed in a hail of gunfire. Ive never seen anything like it since lebanon. It was it was intense. And the brigade commander, as i landed, got shot in the head got a 7. 62 kalashnikov bullet right in the head that was stopped by his newlyissued american kevlar helmet. Israel hadnt had the new kevlar helmets. Hed just got one. And there it was, the bullet was stuck right in the helmet. And i quickly got myself a kevlar helmet. laughter cspan have you ever been wounded . Guest what . Cspan have you ever been wounded . Guest ive been wounded very slightly. Very slightly. Cspan did it ever feel surreal to you . I mean, one day youre at your desk, at home, doing your work or where do you live, by the way . Guest i live in jerusalem. Cspan and next day, youre in a uniform and then. Guest always surreal. The worst part is coming home. The worst it always takes a few days to make that switch. You its bizarre. You get a phone call. You know, this week, im celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary congratulations and 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 were going to take you to beirut. And i said, wait a minute. I just got married. They said, well, thats not our problem. Three hours. And i had to don a uniform, get out of my wedding suit into a uniform. My new wife is crying. My parents, who were there from new jersey, who hadnt seen me in uniform ever, were in a state of shock. And lo and behold, the jeep comes by and picks me up. And making that transition is difficult enough, but coming back from it is even more difficult because you come back from combat, and everyones basically going about their business and buying shoes and getting on buses and its very bizarre. The last two years, however, have been in a category all by themselves. Israel lives from crisis to crisis. Sometimes i think were rather addicted to them. And but this is the last two years have broken the israeli paradigm. The israeli paradigm is theres a war. It breaks out on the Golan Heights. It breaks out in the sinai. You get into your uniform, you go away. You come back in two or three weeks. You take a shower. You try to forget about it. You go back to your team. Over the last two years, however, the war has come to us, and it is no longer out there. The war is our back yards. And where i live in southern jerusalem, its been very, very close to the front. I mean, on a very typical evening with my children around a table, the house will be rocking with gunfire, with machine gun fire, with tank fire. Helicopters have come over my house and fired rockets. And now weve had the suicide bombings. The last major suicide bombing in jerusalem, the bus bombing, blew out the windows of my house. Cspan so you live there fulltime, but you also are associated with an Organization Called is it the shalem. Guest shalem center. Cspan shalem center. Is that a fulltime job . Guest shalem is a very fulltime job. Shalem center is a young, very Dynamic Research center that was started about seven years ago through the generosity of the Zalman Bernstein foundation. And it promotes the study of israel, the study of the middle east, jewish history, zionism. It was founded by several young people, graduates of princeton. And now there are about 100 people working there. Cspan did i read that bill kristol, the weekly standard. Guest hes on our board. Cspan . Publisher is on your board . Any other americans that we know . Guest who you would know leon kass is on our board. Cspan the bioethics. Is guest right. Cspan . Associated Leader Associated with president bushs. Guest right. Cspan . Administration. Guest yes. Ronald lauder. Cspan new york. Guest . Roger hertog of alliance capital. Cspan ok, go back to in the early part of the book, you say you wanted to write an unbiased. Guest right. Cspan . View of the 67 war. After hearing your background, is that possible to do that . Guest not easy. Not easy. Today, in history, its very fashionable in postmodernist, relativist history to say, you cant write objective history. Dont even bother trying. So write subjective history. And i adhere to that very quaint 19thcentury notion that there is an 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. And therefore, if we have prejudices and of course, we all have them if we have biases, that we have to regard them not as opinions to be indulged but as obstacles to be overcome because if we want to understand this war and this is a war that, 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 then indulging my opinions is not going to help us very much. And on a sort of daily methodological level, in writing every page, every paragraph, and sometimes even every sentence, id 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 . And very often, id change the text. Very often, i changed the text. The best compliments ive had from this book, brian, have come from arab scholars. And the reaction from the arab world has been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, ive really had no negative reactions. Ive been written about in the egyptian press. Ive been asked to interview on al jazeera. Ive given lectures at universities where arab scholars were present at oxford and at harvard recently. Its been very its given me a tremendous amount of satisfaction, that reaction. Cspan by the time you got to the 67 war, how many wars had israel fought in . Guest as i said, the 67 war was israels third war. Sometimes its referred to as the third arabisraeli war. Cspan what were. Guest in 1948, which was israels war of independence the 1956 war, which was israels the israels call the sinai campaign, the arabs call it the tripartite aggression. Its one of the things about total war we even have different names for our war. The arabs call the 1948 war the nakba, the disaster, all right . But this was this was not a disaster for the israelis. It was israels war of independence. The 67 war is called by the israelis the sixday war. Its referred to in the United States as the sixday war. But the arabs take great umbrage at that term. It simply means, oh, the israelis beat you in six days. I actually used it once accidentally in an interview with a jordanian former jordanian general. He almost ended the interview right then, he was so insulted. They prefer to refer they refer to it as the setback. They have a number of euphemisms for the war, but mostly they refer to it as the june war, sort of an anodyne term. Cspan after the 67 war and of course, well go back to it but how many wars have there been since 67 . Guest well unintelligible we even count the wars differently. The israelis identify a war of attrition which broke out along the suez canal shortly after the end of the sixday war and continued to august 1970, in a United Statesbrokered ceasefire. And then there was the 1973 war the arabs refer to the the egyptians, in particular, refer to the 67 war, the war of attrition and the 73 war as one long war, all right . The 73 war is called known in israel as the yom kippur war in egypt and the arab world, its either referred to 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 it had, certainly, an arabisraeli component to it, as i mentioned earlier. And now weve had the outbreak of two intifadas, if you can say those words in the plural, the first from 1987 to 1992, and the last from september 2000, to the present. Cspan by the way, how Many Americans are living in israel and have dual citizenship . Guest you know, i dont know. Its probably around 70,000 to 80,000. Cspan go back to 48 for a moment. When did the un declare israel to be a country . Guest the decision of the the un came on the 29th of november, 1947, when the Un General Assembly voted to create a jewish and an arab state in palestine, to partition palestine into two states, all right . Upon this declaration, the palestinians declared war on the jewish half. That effort was frustrated ultimately by jewish defense. And when the partition resolution came into being on may 14th, 1948, seven arab armies invaded the new jewish state, the nascent jewish state, in an effort to prevent its emergence. And that was all that effort was also rebuffed. Cspan what was the size of the jewish state after the vote in the un and they partitioned it off . Guest let me well, ill rephrase the answer a little bit. The jewish state that emerged as the state of israel at the end of the war of independence, at the beginning of 1949, was 30 percent larger than the jewish state created by the un in november of 19