A Look at Michael Oren

We were all excited to hear that Michael Oren, an OUP author, was appointed to be Israel’s Ambassador to the United States.  To celebrate we are posting two tasty tidbits for you.  The first is an anecdote of Niko Pfund’s, OUP’s academic and trade Publisher, about Oren’s book Six Days of War.  The second is a short excerpt from the book about the effect of the Six Day War on the Middle East.  Enjoy!

Niko Pfund

Upon hearing the news of Michael Oren‘s appointment to be Israel’s Ambassador to the United States I was immediately reminded of the following episode that happened one day on my way to lunch with the editor of Oren’s Six Days of War, Peter Ginna. We were walking down 35th Street together. I’d been reading the book and was finding it just an excellent read, and so was talking to Peter about it. Specifically, we were discussing the debate in the Israeli government as to whether to wait for the attack that they presumed was coming and thus be at a disadvantage militarily (but then be viewed as the victim of aggression in the court of world opinion) or whether to preemptively attack and gain the upper hand militarily (while likely being vilified in some circles as the aggressor).

Israel obviously opted for the latter and as a result destroyed a large part of the Egyptian air force before it ever left the ground.

Peter and I were discussing the ways in which the Egyptian military commanders, when asked by Nasser how things were going, responded very positively, even triumphantly, that they were making excellent progress and expected to report a stunning victory shortly, in a desperate attempt to buy themselves time, since they knew that their air force had been crushed and that Nasser’s wrath would be fearsome as a result.

Just as we were talking about their dilemma, I was suddenly confronted by a man in a FedEx uniform, angrily jabbing his fingers at me and saying, in heavily accented English, “Egyptians are not a stupid people, my friend, no, no! Egyptians, we are not a stupid people!!”

Naturally, I was taken aback but also dismayed that our conversation was being misinterpreted and so tried to calm the man down and explain that we were in no way mocking the Egyptian military, much less Egyptians on the whole, but simply marveling that they were in such dire straits that they felt their only recourse was to lie outright to the president as a means of buying some time. We stood there on the street talking for a
bit, in increasingly temperate and friendly tones, and by the end of the conversation we had agreed that:

–Egyptians are not a stupid people.

–Egyptians are in fact a wonderful people.

–America is a terrific place–yes, a land of opportunity–even with its
challenges and problems it poses for immigrants.

–We both love New York City.

After a hearty handshake, much smiling, and patting on the back, we went our own separate ways.

Excerpt From Six Days of War

Even from the perspective of thirty-five years, the answer to the question, “Did six days of war truly change the Middle East?” remains equivocal. Events in the region that previously converged only toward conflict could also, post-1967, surge in the direction of peace. Diplomatic breakthroughs once deemed inconceivable became almost commonplace in the following years, facilitated by special mediators and leaders of both courage and vision. Violence, nevertheless, continued to plague the lives of millions throughout the Middle East, and to threaten to pitch not only the region, but the entire world, into war.

Along with opportunities for peace, the Six-Day or June War opened the door to even deadlier conflagrations. Basic truths persisted: for all its military conquests, Israel was still incapable of imposing the peace it craved. Though roundly defeated, the Arabs could still mount a formidable military campaign. The status of territories could be negotiated but the essential issues—Israel’s right to exist, the demand for Palestinian repatriation and statehood—remained. If the war was indeed a storm that altered the region’s landscape, it also exposed the underlying nature of the Arab-Israel conflict—its bedrock. The modern Middle East created in 1967 was therefore a hybrid: a region of incipient promise but also of imminent dangers, a mixture of old contexts and new.

At the time of this writing, the Middle East is once more in the grip of turmoil. The Palestinians have taken up arms, Israel has retaliated, and the peace process has run aground. Familiar patterns of terror and counterstrike, incursion and retribution, have resurfaced. Nor has the bloodshed been confined to the Arab-Israeli arena, but has burst beyond in the form of massive terrorist attacks against the United States and America’s reprisals against Islamic extremists.

Today, Arab demonstrators, many bearing posters of Nasser, are demanding a showdown with the West and with Israel. The Israelis wait, meanwhile, and weigh the risks of preemption. The war that never quite ended for statesmen, soldiers, and historians, is liable to erupt again.