Forty Junes Ago

THE Six Day War that broke out on June 5, 1967, just 40 years ago, appeared at the time to be another episode in the ongoing Cold War, alarming but not quite so fraught as the Cuban Missile Crisis five years previously. Out of the blue that April, the Soviet Union accused Israel of mobilizing for an invasion of Syria. There was no truth in the accusation, but Soviet officials, including embassy staff on the spot in Israel, persisted. The lie had the long-term effect of shifting the political scene internationally, leaving the Arab-Israeli conflict virtually insoluble, and dividing Muslims from non-Muslims, and Left from Right everywhere. Here is one of the taproots of the anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism that now nourish Islamist terror in the wider world.

The Soviets at the time had the imperialist aim of extending their influence in the Middle East through the financing and arming of Arab nationalist movements. Brezhnev and Kosygin in the Kremlin thought of themselves as realists rather than adventurers. The leading Arab nationalist of the day was Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had seized the presidency of Egypt following a coup in 1952. Potentially an Arab Fidel Castro, he had reduced his country to an Arab version of a Soviet police state. Syria similarly staked its place in the Soviet orbit.

THE Six Day War that broke out on June 5, 1967, just 40 years ago, appeared at the time to be another episode in the ongoing Cold War, alarming but not quite so fraught as the Cuban Missile Crisis five years previously. Out of the blue that April, the Soviet Union accused Israel of mobilizing for an invasion of Syria. There was no truth in the accusation, but Soviet officials, including embassy staff on the spot in Israel, persisted. The lie had the long-term effect of shifting the political scene internationally, leaving the Arab-Israeli conflict virtually insoluble, and dividing Muslims from non-Muslims, and Left from Right everywhere. Here is one of the taproots of the anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism that now nourish Islamist terror in the wider world.

The Soviets at the time had the imperialist aim of extending their influence in the Middle East through the financing and arming of Arab nationalist movements. Brezhnev and Kosygin in the Kremlin thought of themselves as realists rather than adventurers. The leading Arab nationalist of the day was Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had seized the presidency of Egypt following a coup in 1952. Potentially an Arab Fidel Castro, he had reduced his country to an Arab version of a Soviet police state. Syria similarly staked its place in the Soviet orbit.