The Lion's Gate

May 19, 2014
The 1967 Six Day War radically changed the balance of power between Israel and its neighbors, and, according to Moshe Dayan, inaugurated the image of the warrior Jew. Excerpting from 63 hours of interviews with Israeli soldiers, Pressfield (The War of Art) provides an up-close-and-personal, if one-sided, view of the war. The soldiers' and flyers' accounts are particularly notable on Operation Mokedâthrough which Israeli pilots effectively won the war in its first hour by destroying the Egyptian Air Forceâand on the battle for the Jerusalem's Old City. For Israelis, the moment when Israeli paratroopers stood at the Western Wall constituted an emotional high point, even a kind of moment of redemption; one soldier, referring to his ancestors who had been killed in the Holocaust, told Pressfield, "if they could know, somehow, even for one second, that I, their grandson, would be standing here... they would suffer death a thousand times and count it as nothing." Pressfield too often sketches scenes without following through with necessary details, and the book could have benefitted from more maps, but it is a colorful and informative view of the war that made contemporary Israel. Photos and maps

April 1, 2014
A "hybrid history" of the Six Day War made up of oral histories by numerous participants and stitched-together bits of biography from Israeli military leader Moshe Dayan (1915-1981). Drawing on "techniques from a number of disciplines--from journalism and academic history, from conventional nonfiction and narrative nonfiction, and from New Journalism," novelist Pressfield (The Profession, 2011, etc.) nimbly pulls together these accounts, starting with the waiting period in late May 1967 when the reserves were called up, leaving entire Israeli villages emptied of life. Other citizens were glued to their radios, alarmed by Cairo's propaganda radio, the "Voice of Thunder." The Israelis had been preparing for another war since the Sinai campaign of 1956, engineered brilliantly by then-army chief of staff Dayan, after which the international community compelled Israel to relinquish the peninsula to United Nations peacekeepers; and before that, when Jordan's army had taken Jerusalem's old city during the War of Independence of 1948. These are important events in the memories of the Israelis, who were nervous about President Nasser's pan-Arabism, ties with the Soviet Union, and most important, the buildup of combat aircraft and closing of the Straits of Tiran. The voices that narrate events throughout these fraught few days include two brothers and highly decorated soldiers, "Cheetah" and Nechemiah Cohen, involved on the front line from the first day; Yael Dayan, Moshe's daughter, who was posted with Gen. Ariel Sharon's headquarters at the Egyptian border; numerous pilots who destroyed Arab airfields on that key first day of Operation Moked ("focus"); infantry soldiers who moved into the Sinai; and Dayan himself, appointed minister of defense at the eleventh hour to mastermind the take-back of Jerusalem with his commandment to "be strong." Stirring voices from a nation determined to be reckoned with.

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June 1, 2014

On June 5, 1967, Israel launched an attack against Egyptian forces that had been amassing at the border, and six days later Israel had defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and gained control of the Gaza Strip, West Bank, the Sinai peninsula, and Golan Heights. Pressfield (The War of Art) here attempts a "hybrid history" of the Six Day War by conducting scores of interviews with members of the Israel Defense Forces who participated in the conflict. The book is not a battle-by-battle account but rather a compilation of stories, some of them inconsistent, of the soldiers' experiences. Pressfield, who is not a historian, admits to "taking liberties," including adding material from previously published works to the interviews and documenting a conversation with a man who has been dead for more than 30 years, using the subject's memoir as well as Pressfield's "speculation." No context for the accounts is provided so readers without knowledge of the war may have difficulty understanding the discussions. Furthermore, rather than providing a new perspective on events, as many oral histories do, the text reads like a celebration of the Six-Day War. VERDICT While the individual stories included here can be compelling, the book leaves too many questions about its methodology unanswered and should be approached with caution.--Jason Martin, Stetson Univ. Lib., DeLand, FL

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2014
The geopolitical effects of the Six Day War, in 1967, have continued to exert immense power over both the Middle East and the wider world. So it is useful to be reminded that the war was fought over relatively small territories by generally young and inexperienced men on both sides. Pressfield has compiled an impressive collection of firsthand accounts by many men and women who took part in the war on the Israeli side. Some of these recollections are from professional soldiers who were veterans of the Israeli War of Independence or the 1956 Sinai campaign. But most interesting and poignant are the accounts by youthful citizen-soldiers who reveal their fears, hopes, and even their impatience with their political leaders as their nation moves toward war. Of course, this is a highly skewed collection, since we hear nothing from Egyptians, Syrians, or Palestinians. Still, this is an effective recounting of soldiers thrust, in a compressed time span, into life-and-death situations for themselves and their nation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)