ISRAEL’S DECISION TO GO TO WAR, JUNE 2, 1967
Ami Gluska, MERIA
This article is adapted slightly from Ami Gluska, The Decisive Meeting in Planning the 1967 War, (Taylor and Francis, 2006). It appears in the series on military and strategic issues edited by Barry Rubin. Reprinted with permission. To order this book, click here.
This article discusses the deliberations of Israeli government and army officials in the days preceding the beginning of the Six Day War. It illustrates the conflict and divide between the political and military echelons and the army’s mistrust of the civilian leadership. While the IDF pushed for preemptive offensive action, feeling this was a military must given the circumstances, the government was hesitant. Such delays were viewed by the IDF as potentially disastrous. Israel’s security policy, whose supreme aim had been deterrence and prevention of war, thus failed, resulting in the crisis and war in May-June 1967. However, good military planning and preparation won the war itself.
A similar conflict between the political and the military exists today. Given the fact that all kinds of revisionists are afoot, I thought it appropriate to make this article available
