Sword of Isael: Voice of the Arabs

In June 1967, Israel needed just four days to crush the armies of Egypt and Jordan, and then two more to finish off Syria. It was an overwhelming defeat for the Arab powers, and it has shaped the power politics of the Middle East and the world at large ever since.

But that’s not the story the Egyptian public heard. The powerful radio station Voice of the Arabs, located in Cairo, pumped out an absurd set of “alternative facts” regarding the course of the war. In this tale, the Egyptians and their allies were beating the hell out of the Israelis and on their way to an overwhelming victory.

What made this even stranger, was that the story seems to have been based on the actual Egyptian war plan. When the Israelis figured this out, they located the approaching Iraqi 3rd “Salah ad-Din” Armored Division exactly where Voice of the Arabs said it would be, and where the IAF then pounded it into scrap iron. The radio version also accurately predicted where the Jordanian armored brigades would be located.

Voice of the Arabs is a Campaign Study (a short book of scenarios and history) based on the story of the 1967 Six-Day War as the radio station told it: with the Egyptians and their allies overcoming the well-trained and well-equipped Israelis. It is and it isn’t alternative history: the battles never happened, but the Egyptian-sponsored fake news said they did.