Six-Day War and Israeli Self-Defense

The war of June 1967 between Israel and Arab states was widely perceived as being forced on Israel to prevent the annihilation of its people by Arab armies hovering on its borders. Documents now declassified by key governments question this view. The UK, USSR, France and the USA all knew that the Arab states were not in attack mode and tried to dissuade Israel from attacking. In later years, this war was held up as a precedent allowing an attack on a state that is expected to attack. It has even been used to justify a pre-emptive assault on a state expected to attack well in the future. Given the lack of evidence that it was waged by Israel in anticipation of an attack by Arab states, the 1967 war can no longer serve as such a precedent. This book seeks to provide a corrective on the June 1967 war.

'… provides many new insights into the origins of the war … lucid and splendidly readable account of the Six-Day War …' Victor Kattan, International Affairs

John Quigley is the President's Club Professor in Law at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. After earning his AB, LLB and MA degrees at Harvard University, he was a research associate at Harvard Law School. He has written extensively on international law, in particular on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is the author most recently of The Statehood of Palestine: International Law in the Middle East Conflict (2010) and Soviet Legal Innovation and the Law of the Western World (2007).