LGF reader Riverman contacted the Oxford University Press to let them know about Arab News editor John R. Bradley’s venomous hatchet job on Michael Oren’s brilliant book Six Days of War. In response, the editorial director of Oxford University Press USA, Peter Ginna, has written a letter to the Arab News, and he graciously gave permission to reprint it. Since my post about Bradley’s review generated 65 comments, I’m sure a lot of you will be interested in Mr. Ginna’s reply. (And kudos to Riverman for bringing it to the OUP’s attention.)

————————————-

To the Editor:

John R. Bradley’s recent review of Michael B. Oren’s book SIX DAYS OF WAR: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East calls it “crude Zionist propaganda” and accuses the author of “insidiously subverting the truth for ideological ends.” Bradley implicitly criticizes Oxford University Press, where I am this book’s editor, for publishing it. Mr. Bradley is, of course, entitled to disagree with Michael Oren’s views about Israel, but his vitriolic review is biased, inaccurate, and misleading to readers.

As Bradley acknowledges, books published by Oxford are considered authoritative because they are submitted to a thorough review process and read by multiple scholars in the field. SIX DAYS OF WAR was no exception. Oxford accepted it for publication because several expert readers found that it was an outstanding work of history, based on the most thorough research any author has yet conducted into the June 1967 War. Oren studied primary sources, many recently declassified, in Israel, the U.S., the Soviet Union, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria, as well as interviewing many surviving participants, and he wove this material into a comprehensive narrative of the war. No serious student of the war, whether or not they share his sympathy for Israel, can fail to recognize Oren’s contribution to scholarship. Bradley says “Oren’s is the kind of flawed, illogical history” that even Israel’s New Historians have called into question; but SIX DAYS OF WAR has been praised for its thoroughness by some of the New Historians most critical of pro-Israel historiography, such as Benny Morris and Avi Shlaim.

More than half of Bradley’s review is devoted to criticizing the introductory chapter of Oren’s book, “The Context,” which is a brief summary of events leading up to the 1967 war— principally on the grounds that, in Bradley’s opinion, Oren ignores the colonialist roots of Israel and ignores Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians in the founding of the state. Both suggestions are false. Bradley himself notes that Oren explicitly discusses the forced removal of a million Palestinians. And on page 3, Oren writes of 1940s Palestine, “Centuries-established, representing the majority of [Palestine’s] population, the Palestinian Arabs regarded the Yishuv [Jewish community] as a tool of Western imperialism….Independence under Jewish dominion could never be an option for the Arabs, only a more odious form of colonialism.” Indeed, a consistent theme of Oren’s narrative is the way that European colonial powers—and after them, the Cold War superpowers, the U.S. and U.S.S.R.—dealt with, and tried to manipulate, Middle Eastern states to their own advantage. .

Hostile as he is, Bradley can find little to criticize in the remaining chapters, which constitute nine-tenths of the book. One can only conclude that this is because, like other readers, he is compelled to recognize the accuracy and historical value of Michael Oren’s meticulous account of the War of June 1967—a war whose consequences, Oren is surely right to argue, we are still living with today. I trust your readers will recognize Bradley’s intemperate attack for what it is, and that they will want to examine this important work for themselves.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Ginna
Editorial Director
Oxford University Press USA

“