Sol Salbe comments: Everything I have heard and read about this docu suggests that it is very good indeed. I strongly recommend you watch it. An Australian friend who is a documentaries maven who has seen it rates it highly. The program has already been shown in Israel. But before quoting Gideon Levy’s lavish praise for it one should point out that SBS is being coy in describing it as coming from France. It is an international co-production as you can verify on the program’s website:
The driving force is the Israeli-American director Ilan Ziv, and the three producers are an Israeli, a Canadian and a French person. SBS has bungled before describing an Israeli program as Palestinian. [On that occasion both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian letter writers thought the mistake deliberate and that it supported the other side.] In my view anyone who thinks that a more honest description would have reduced the audience size is wrong.
Gideon Levy reviewed the program in the 7 June Hebrew Haaretz:
“This is the way television ought to be at its best…Channel 10 justified its very existence with the impressive series “Six days in June” (Creator and producer: Arik Bernstein. Director: Ilan Ziv.) It’s been a long time since a such a fascinating, far-sighted work has been shown here in Hebrew. Yes even after 40 years it contains so much new. Bouquets to Bernstein and Ziv…“’Six Days in June’ shows that war in a different light than it was shown inthose days during that religious-nationalist orgy… Above all that amazing war is suddenly shown as a tragedy of errors; neither the Prime Minister of Israel nor the president of Egypt wanted that war…. False intelligence provided by the Russians to [Egyptian President] Nasser created the vortex that sucked everyone in.…After all those years in which we were taught that Israel was on the eve of destruction, up comes Major-General Shlomo Gazit and says: “Even in their worst dreams nobody contemplated an existential threat.’Don’t miss it!
Many thanks to Australians for Palestine for forwarding this item from SBS.
You can also read the Forward’s review
As It Happened - Six Days In June - (The Six Day War)
The shooting lasted only six tense days in June 1967, but the Six Day Warhas never really ended. Every crisis that has ripped through this region inthe ensuing decades had its roots in these fateful days. On the 40thanniversary of the war, the region remains trapped in conflict. This war has long been seen by Israel as the miraculous victory of their "little state" this enclave surrounded by an "ocean" of tens of millions of Arabs from all over the Middle East. For the Arab states, this was a humiliating defeat suffered at the hand of imperialistic plotters. Our wo-part film tells the true story of the Six Day War beyond the images and propaganda clichés.
(From France, in English, Hebrew and Arabic, English subtitles) (Documentary
Series) M CC.
PART 1: Friday June 22 8:30 PM – SBS
PART 2: Friday June 29 8:30 PM - SBS
