Mordechai Bar-On (1928–2021)

Foreword by Moshe Dayan, introduction by Yitzhak Rabin. Profusely illustrated and numerous full-page maps with overlays.

The Israel Defence Forces consist of reservists, with every able-bodied civilian of eligible age a member of a reserve unit. This book is an album of the Six Day War and deals exclusively with the battles of the Israel Defence Forces. The battles alone form the subject of this volume.

ISRAEL DEFENCE FORCES – THE SIX DAY WAR was edited by Mordechai Bar-On (1928 – 2021), an Israeli historian, Chief Education Officer of the Israel Defense Forces and politician, serving as a member of the Knesset for Ratz from 1984 to 1986. He was a senior research fellow at Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem. He served in the Israel Defense Forces as General Moshe Dayan's bureau chief during the Sinai Campaign. The author of the text was Nathan Shaham (1928-2018), an Israeli writer. Shaham was born in Tel Aviv and was a member of Kibbutz Beit Alfa from 1945-2018. He served with the Palmach in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He was the son of Eliezer Steinman, the Hebrew author and essayist. Shaham was editor-in-chief of Sifriat Poalim Publishing House. He was Israel's cultural attaché in the United States from 1977–80, and a former vice-chairman of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. This is a penetrating study of a conflict that, although brief, helped establish a Middle Eastern template that is operational today. The Israeli air force wiped out the entire air fleet of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq within the first few hours and then, over less than a week, Israel’s army pushed the nation’s borders further out. The war had massive repercussions, shifting power away from Egypt to Palestine and Jordan, and it quickened the rise of Islamist and Baathist forces alike, to say nothing of many local sectarian militias.… (mer)

Part of the Stackpole military history series, the book covers the 1936-1939 “Arab Revolt”, the 1948 War of Independence, various actions from 1949-1956, the Sinai War of 1956, the “Water War” over diversion of the Jordan River, the Six Day War, the “Attrition” war of 1969-1970, the Yom Kippur War, counterterrorist operations from 1965-1985, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the 1987-1991 Intifada, and the 2003-2003 Intifada. The essays are all of high quality but very uneven in focus; for example the chapter on the Sinai War of 1956 has very little in the way of description of military action but a great deal of discussion of the politics between Israel, Britain and France (the French were very cooperative, including using a light cruiser to support the Israeli advance; the British wouldn’t even meet face to face with any Israelis), while the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War chapters are more balanced between politics and military.


While all the authors are Israeli (the Introduction hints at some unsuccessful attempts to recruit Arab historians) they are also all fairly open minded and seemingly honest. For example, Yoav Gelber, author of the chapter on the 1948 War of Independence, admits that “driving the Jews into the sea” was never really a goal of the Arab armies. Although I try to follow events in this part of the world, there was quite a bit that was new to me; I hadn’t realized that the ostensible excuse behind French and British involvement in the 1956 Sinai campaign was to keep Israel from seizing the Suez Canal (even though the three parties had coordinated in advance the Israelis moved much faster than the French and British had expected; the Israelis therefore had to halt and mark time in front of the canal to give the others a chance to move in and “block” them. I had also missed that the 1973 Israeli crossing of the Suez Canal was not the first one; the Israelis had launched several commando raids and an armored column (using captured T-55s and BTR-50s painted to look like Egyptian tanks) in 1969 (this last was supposed to have caused Nasser to have a heart attack).


The political discussions are fairly reasonable, but being all on the Israeli side might possibly lack perspective. For example, was the Yom Kippur war merely an attempt to gain some prestige so Sadat could conduct negotiations without jeopardizing his position? The chapters on the Intifadas illustrate something we’ve had threads about before; development and education usually increases revolutionary fervor. By any reasonable measure, Palestinians were much better off under Israeli occupation than under Jordanian or Egyptian control. In Gaza, the pre-1967 per capita income was $80; by 1987 it was $1800. There were no universities in either Gaza or the West Bank pre-occupation; there are now six. In a way, this came back to haunt Israel; I’ve noted in Egypt that “Arab mentality” (I hate to use the term, because it sounds racist – but that’s the way things are) dictates that anybody with a university education must have a white collar job – in government, if possible. This resulted in the usual disaster – disaffected youth unable to work in positions suitable to their notion of dignity and blaming it on everybody else.

There is an assortment of generic photographs of Israeli military equipment apparently selected just so there could be a picture section. The maps are adequate, although given the scope of the book they can only show “big pictures”. They also suffer from use of nonstandard military symbols (at least nonstandard for those of us used to Strategy and Tactics and FM-21); however I was able to figure them out. Well-referenced and indexed, and worth reading.… (mer)