Non­fic­tion

The Bride and the Dowry: Israel, Jor­dan and the Pales­tini­ans in the After­math of the June 1967 War

Avi Raz
  • Review
By – August 1, 2014

The Bride and the Dowry focus­es on the two years after the Six Day War and comes to some very dis­turb­ing conclusions. 

Avi Raz, a for­mer Israeli jour­nal­ist who is now a research fel­low at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty, presents evi­dence that after the war the King of Jor­dan and Pales­tin­ian lead­er­ship tried to cre­ate a rea­son­able solu­tion to the Israel prob­lem” — even a work­able peace. He asserts that the process failed because the Israelis were bogged down in bureau­cra­cy and inter­nal fight­ing. He main­tains that it was Israel that sab­o­taged diplo­mat­ic efforts to resolve the prob­lems cre­at­ed by the Six Day War. 

In straight­for­ward lan­guage, the author sug­gests that, in the peri­od fol­low­ing the war, Israel was not real­ly inter­est­ed in a solu­tion of any sort. 

Some of Raz’s asser­tions are very hard to read and dif­fi­cult to assim­i­late into our present day think­ing, giv­en the tra­di­tion­al his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive to which we are accus­tomed. Though one might dis­agree with its con­clu­sions, this book is still a very impor­tant read.

Relat­ed content:

  • 1967: The War and the Year That Trans­formed the Mid­dle East by Tom Segev
  • Like Dream­ers: The Sto­ry of the Israeli Para­troop­ers Who Reunit­ed Jerusalem and Divid­ed a Nation by Yos­si Klein-Halevi
  • Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Mak­ing of the Mod­ern Mid­dle East by Michael B. Oren
  • Mic­ah D. Halpern is a colum­nist and a social and polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor. He is the author of What You Need To Know About: Ter­ror, and main­tains The Mic­ah Report at www​.mic​ah​halpern​.com.

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