Awards

• Commended for Washington Institute Book Prize 2008

Overview

A groundbreaking history that radically changes our understanding of the Six-Day War, how it started, and what its adversaries were willing to do to win Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez’s groundbreaking history of the Six-Day War in 1967 radically changes our understanding of that conflict, casting it as a crucial arena of Cold War intrigue that has shaped the Middle East to this day. The authors, award-winning Israeli journalists and historians, have investigated newly available documents and testimonies from the former Soviet Union, cross-checked them against Israeli and Western sources, and arrived at fresh and startling conclusions. Contrary to previous interpretations, Ginor and Remez’s book shows that the Six-Day War was the result of a joint Soviet-Arab gambit to provoke Israel into a preemptive attack. The authors reveal how the Soviets received a secret Israeli message indicating that Israel, despite its official ambiguity, was about to acquire nuclear weapons. Determined to destroy Israel’s nuclear program before it could produce an atomic bomb, the Soviets then began preparing for war--well before Moscow accused Israel of offensive intent, the overt trigger of the crisis. Ginor and Remez’s startling account details how the Soviet-Arab onslaught was to be unleashed once Israel had been drawn into action and was branded as the aggressor. The Soviets had submarine-based nuclear missiles poised for use against Israel in case it already possessed and tried to use an atomic device, and the USSR prepared and actually began a marine landing on Israel’s shores backed by strategic bombers and fighter squadrons. They sent their most advanced, still-secret aircraft, the MiG-25 Foxbat, on provocative sorties over Israel’s Dimona nuclear complex to prepare the planned attack on it, and to scare Israel into making the first strike. It was only the unpredicted devastation of Israel’s response that narrowly thwarted the Soviet design.

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9780300136272

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Reviews

'Here is a book that is truly revisionist, challenging what we thought we knew about the origins and conduct of the Six-Day War, Israel's crushing victory over Egypt, Jordan, and Syria 40 years ago. The exact role played by the Soviet Union has always been murky. The authors work their way through the murk, meticulously using every snippet of relevant information from an extraordinary range of sources.' Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs (included in its list of outstanding new books). 'Ginor and Remez, an enterprising pair of Jerusalem researchers who have been trawling Soviet archives and double-agents, explain the war as a Kremlin plot gone wrong... It's a terrifying story, thoroughly sourced, and much of it is entirely new... If you want to grasp the background to tonight's 10 o'clock news, read this groundbreaking book.' Norman Lebrecht, Evening Standard

""'Here is a book that is truly revisionist, challenging what we thought we knew about the origins and conduct of the Six-Day War, Israel's crushing victory over Egypt, Jordan, and Syria 40 years ago. The exact role played by the Soviet Union has always been murky. The authors work their way through the murk, meticulously using every snippet of relevant information from an extraordinary range of sources.' Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs (included in its list of outstanding new books). 'Ginor and Remez, an enterprising pair of Jerusalem researchers who have been trawling Soviet archives and double-agents, explain the war as a Kremlin plot gone wrong... It's a terrifying story, thoroughly sourced, and much of it is entirely new... If you want to grasp the background to tonight's 10 o'clock news, read this groundbreaking book.' Norman Lebrecht, Evening Standard""

Author Information

As journalists for Israel’s leading broadcast and print media and as historical researchers, Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez collaborated for 20 years to expose the extent of Soviet military involvement in the Middle East.

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