The Italian communists and socialists’ reading of the six day war and its consequences

The Six-Day War (5-11 June 1967) represents an essential turning point not only in the history of the Middle East, but also concerning the relationship between the Left and the Jewish world. The decision of the Eshkol government to respond to Nasser’s threats and provocations with a preemptive war, the Israeli territorial conquests and the consequent re-emergence of the Palestinian question had profound repercussions on the Israel’s image as well. By retracing the heated polemics between Italian Communists and Socialists during the third Arab-Israeli conflict and in the years immediately following, this essay intends to highlight some particularly significant aspects of their analysis and argumentations, focusing on their ideological-cultural matrices, and questioning their implications, also in relation to the inheritance of Resistance’s values and the complex issue of the boundary between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.