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Abstract
This paper examines the causes and consequences of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war utilizing Waltz’s three levels of analysis: system, state and decision-makers. It first examines the causes, looking at why the M.E.N.A. regional system, but particularly the Arab-Israeli subsystem, was so war prone; assessing why a certain bellicosity was built into both Israel and several of its Arab neighbours; and examining the calculations and miscalculations by leaders on both sides that led to war. 1967 was a ‘war of vulnerability’ and miscalculation for Egypt but for Israel the war derived from a mix of vulnerability (from vulnerable borders) and opportunity (to acquire ‘defensible’ borders). The paper then examines why the 1967 war did not lead to peace, but rather to a chain of new wars. Victory in 1967 reinforced Israel’s territorial ambitions; shifted the power balance decisively toward it; and ultimately shattered Arab unity against it; but because the imbalance in Israel’s favour was insufficient to impose a pro-Israeli peace, the result was new wars in which Arab states sought to reverse and Israel to reinforce the verdict of 1967.
Notes
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6 Gerner, One Land, Two Peoples, 49.
7 Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), 251–90; Samuel J Roberts, Party and Policy in Israel, the Battle between Hawks and Doves (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), 17–21; Charles D Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 157–9; Steven Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 57.
8 Raymond Hinnebusch, ‘Explaining War in the Middle East: Deploying Waltz’s Three Levels of Analysis’, Lecture given at Bologna Institute for Policy Research, 7 April, 2016. Available at https://www.bipr.eu/eventprofile.cfm/idevent=42DBFA89-BF92-BB9F-F820DF2E2F8BC561/Raymond-Hinnebusch-Explaining-War-in-the-Middle-East-Deploying-Waltzs-Three-Levels-of-Analysis&zdyx=1
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22 Avraham Sela, The End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Middle East Politics and the Quest for Regional Order (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998), 52–3, 78.
23 Gerner, One Land, Two Peoples, 70.
24 Steven Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 86–7; Sela, The End of the Arab Israel War, 75–90; Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Jamal Abd al-Nasir and his Rivals, 1958–1970 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 96–128.
25 Stein, ‘The Security Dilemma’, 65–6.
26 Sela, The End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 91–3; Gerner, One Land, Two Peoples, 71; Fawaz Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East: Regional and International politics, 1955–1967 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 213; Stein, ‘The Security Dilemma’, 64.
27 Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East, 218–25.
28 Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel, 51, 67; Gerner, One Land, Two Peoples, 71–2; Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 199.
29 Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel, 247; Roberts, Party and Policy in Israel, 36; Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 192.
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31 Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 211–3.
32 Gerges, The Superpowers and the Middle East, 228, 236.
33 Sela, The End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 27–30, 97–109; Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 235–7.
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35 Gerner, One Land, Two Peoples, 72–5; Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 201, 208–11, 228–30.
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37 Walt, The Origin of Alliances, 117, 120–1, 265–6.
38 Ajami, ‘Arab Triangle’; Alan Taylor, The Arab Balance of Power (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1982), 49–56; Sela, The End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 142–5, 148.
39 Walt, The Origin of Alliances, 117–21; Edward Sheehan, ‘How Kissinger did it: step by step in the Middle East’, Foreign Policy, 22 (1976), 3–70; Muhammed Hassanein Heikel, The Road to Ramadan (New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1975); Smith, Palestine and the Arab Israeli Conflict, 226–8.
40 Sela, The End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 211–3.
41 Sela, The End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 145.
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44 Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 256–8.
45 Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 242–53; Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics, 191–200; Sela, The End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 153–213.
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48 Don Peretz, ‘Israeli policies toward the Arab states and the Palestinians since 1967’, in The Arab-Israeli Conflict, eds. Yehuda Lukas and Abdalla M. Battah, 33–5; Roberts, Party and Policy in Israel, 48.
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