Once some time had passed after the June 1967 war, government figures in Israel began to speak publicly about how it had started. In February 1968, General Rabin sat down in Paris with Eric Rouleau of the French daily Le Monde to talk about the war. An Israeli embassy official went along to listen. Rabin told Rouleau, consistent with the advice Rabin gave the government in private in 1967, that the Israeli leadership understood that Egypt was set up in Sinai for defense. “I do not believe that Nasser wanted war,” Rabin told Rouleau. “The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.” In 2011, Rouleau confirmed to this author the content of Rabin's statements as reported in Rouleau's Le Monde article. Rouleau added that the Israeli official was visibly upset at Rabin's candor.

Rabin's assessment of Nasser's moves was that the situation as it developed in Spring 1967 gave Nasser an opportunity to appear to be saving Syria: “Nasser did not actually think that we were going to attack Syria. He was bluffing; he wanted to put himself forward, with no cost to him, as the savior of Syria and thus to win great sympathy in the Arab world.” This motivation, said Rabin, accounted for Nasser's request for the withdrawal of UNEF. “The propaganda of the anti-Nasser Arab states pushed him to extreme action by constantly accusing him of ‘hiding behind the international forces.’” Rabin said that the Egyptian forces were in “defensive positions” when the IDF attacked.