ABSTRACT
Students of conflict commonly refer to the outbreak of a war, or say that a war “broke out.” Although this expression often misconstrues the nature of war initiation, in the case of the June war of 1967 it appears fairly accurate. The war seemed to come out of nowhere to those outside the region, and even the participants could not have foreseen it only one month before it happened. For more than a decade since the 1956 Suez crisis, the worst conflicts in the Middle East had been between Arab and Arab, with Egypt’s long involvement in Yemen’s civil war only a prominent example among several. Interestingly enough, the conflict did not begin between Egypt and Israel at all, but between Israel and Syria. The Israelis lodged strong protests with the United States and the rest of the international community when Nasser’s intentions became clear.
