In 1967, Israel had to fight off several Arab armies determined to eradicate the Jewish state.  It did so brilliantly, proving victorious in less than a week.  In what came to be known as the Six-Day War, Israel vanquished Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and his cohorts from other Arab countries.  As the victor, Israel ended up with the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and part of the Golan Heights.

That, at least, is the basic history of the Six-Day War.

But not in the Jan. 26 New York Times, where the paper’s anti-Zionist reporter, Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, is determined to engage in widespread revisionism to darken Israel’s military triumph.

How does she manage it?

By cherry-picking a few Israeli veterans of that war who recount painful memories of  abusing or killing Arab soldiers during those six memorable days (“Disillusioned by War, Israeli Soldiers Muted in 1967 Are Given Fuller Voice”).

Rudoren tells Times readers that the International Criminal Court may consider Israeli war crimes and points the court to a documentary film “showcasing previously unaired admission of brutal behavior by an earlier generation” of Israeli soldiers.

With Israel, in Rudoren’s words, “increasingly in a defensive crouch on the international stage,” she aims to add her part to persuade the court to take a few pokes at the Jewish state.

Harkening back to 1967, Rudoren finds a few Israeli veterans with sufficient remorse about their treatment of Egyptian soldiers to turn the Six-Day War into an Israeli bloodbath.

Here’s Rudoren’s lead paragraph: “A young Israeli soldier, fresh from the front, bluntly recounts the orders from above. ʻThey never said, “Leave no one alive,” but they said, “Show no mercy,”’ he explains. ʻThe brigade commander said to kill as many as possible.’”

Selective journalism at its finest.  Pick a few conscience-stricken soldiers and tarnish the image of Israel’s entire military to a fare-thee-well.  What military conflict is not without a few bad apples?  What counts, however, in the IDF’s conduct is a military that repeatedly has earned kudos for its superb moral behavior under the most trying circumstances.

But that’s not the soiled picture that Rudoren and the Times seek to peddle to their readers.