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The Myth of Annihilation and the Six-Day War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2018

Joseph L. Ryan
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Extract

One of the convictions shared by the Israelis on the eve of the Six-Day War has just been seriously shaken. The certainty that the Jewish state was threatened with extermination in May-June, 1967, has attained a status of dogma, which no one could question without the likelihood of being accused of treasor or mental instability."

Thus begins a review of the "annihilation controversy" in Israel, or the "Generals' polemic," as it has been called by an Israeli Jewish journalist, Amnon Kapeliuk, writing in Le Monde. (I am heavily indebted to this important review in early sections of this article.) On June 12, 1967, immediately after the war was over, Levi Eshkol, the Israeli prime minister, stated to the Knesset: "The existence of the Israeli state hung on a thread, but the hopes of the Arab leaders to exterminate Israel were brought to nought."

Type
Research Article
Information
Worldview , Volume 16 , Issue 9 , September 1973 , pp. 38 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1973

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References

Notes

1. (June 3, 1972.) The French original with an English translation is available in The Facts About the Palestine Problem, bulletin of the Arab Women's Information Committee, Beirut.

2. Balfour Brickner, “American Jews, Israel and Public Policy,” Worldview (January, 1972).

3. Kapeliuk, op. cit. See also the Christian Science Monitor (July 17 and 18, 1972); Time (June 19, 1972); Middle East News Review (June 12 and July 3-10, 1972).

4. Kapeliuk.

5. Jerusalem Post (Julv 3, 1972).

6. See Know (June 15, 1972). Also Middle East International (August, 1972).

7. Jerusalem Post (June 5, 1972).

8. Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point (New York, 1971), p. 293.

9. Ibid., p. 296.

10. David Kimche and Dan Bawly, The Six-Day War (New York, 1968), p. 126.

11. New York Times (June 4 and 5, 1967).

12. Le Monde (February 29, 1968).

12. Le Monde (February 29, 1968).