Michael Oren reviews "revisionistnew historian" Tom Segev's book, 1967:
...Laboring to prove his point forces Segev not only to contradict himself but also to commit glaring oversights. The book repeatedly asserts that war might have been averted if Israel had accepted an American plan to break the Egyptian blockade by sending an international convoy through the Straits of Tiran. But the American plan, code-named Regatta, was rejected by Congress, as well as by 24 of the 26 nations invited to contribute to the convoy. Segev knows this fact but throughout the book pretends that a diplomatic option remained. Similarly, his need to demonstrate Israel's strength before the war compels him to overlook Soviet support for the Arab war effort and France's last-minute decision to back the Arabs. The French move is mentioned only at the end of the book and then -- bizarrely -- as one of the reasons that Israelis clung to their newly conquered territory.
But the most telling omission relates not to the Israelis or to any foreign power but rather to the Arabs. Segev's book is all but devoid of Arab calls for Israel's destruction and the slaughter of its citizens. There is no mention of pro-war demonstrations, of Egypt's willingness to use poison gas against its enemies, or of the detailed Arab plans for conquering Israel. Segev even ignores the Khartoum resolution after the war, in which the Arab states refused to negotiate with Israel and to grant it peace and recognition. These omissions inflict an injustice on the Arabs by treating them as two-dimensional props in a solipsistic Israeli drama...
Making a political point with half the story, it's all the rage this season. After a brief jaunt through ancient Egypt, the Ghost reviews the BBC's presentation of history:
...The piece systematically distorts the fact of Arab fascism and particularly as this was demonstrated in the three weeks leading up to the war. War crimes? The Jews, including loving descriptions of supposed murder of prisoners of war and, inevitably, the attack on USS Liberty. Soviet fascism hardly rates a mention, suffering civilians universally Arab and the war itself fought with "Palestine", a country which did not exist.
This is sickening stuff. Lies. Blood libel. Treason. The suicide of civilization. No guesses what some future specialist in whatever passes for archaeology in the Thousand Year Umma will have to say about the remains of Broadcasting House...
