A crucial moment in the history of Israel’s oscillation between diplomatic and military “activism” took place on the eve of the 1967 war. That crossroads exposed a deep cleavage between the young, self-confident Israeli-born generals, who were spiteful of the older generation’s “submissive” attitude, and the Diaspora-born politicians who, haunted by Holocaust memories and existentially fearful of international isolation, resisted making a break with the old politics of diplomatic Zionism.