These aren’t standoffs, you think I’m talking about Russia, where yes MAD prevents either from attacking, I’m talking about the people living outside the small group of countries that have nukes. Iran isn’t covered by MAD, the u.s. could nuke Tehran tomorrow and nothing would be done besides severe diplomatic push back. Any “enemy of the u.s.” that doesn’t have nukes is subject to the constant fear of the u.s. war machine, which may not nuke you but will definitely relentlessly bomb your territory with drones. That doesn’t give them the right to attack the u.s. because they feel threatened.
Maybe they did act recklessly, that doesn’t make it right to attack them. Reckless is such a subjective term in that it’s heavily dependent on the party you sympathize with. You sympathize with Israel so you think the Arab states acted recklessly for the above reasons. I sympathize more with the Arab states because they were just blockading a single port to a country which they saw as being a serial bad actor in the region. This wasn’t some existential threat to them, they were still better off than near landlocked Jordan since they have a ton of Mediterranean coast. And again Israel was also fully mobilized, apparently a lot more then the Arab states.
Either way you and I can argue back and forth all day on who behaved more recklessly, just like north Koreans and south Koreans can argue back and forth all day on whose behaving recklessly, they won’t get anywhere because it’s a subjective opinion. This is why “preemptive strikes” are against international law, they always rely on these subjective terms like “threatening” and “reckless” such that any major power with significant sway in the international sphere can use them to justify any attack.
You keep assuming the Arab states were going to attack when there is no evidence of that. It’s just the fact that Israel felt threatened, when every country feels threatened. The way nations form is the basic narrative that there is an enemy out there threatening you and you have to band together to take on that enemy. Even countries as secure as the u.s. will contrive threats from China or the cartels to point to an enemy.
Again I’m not going to argue which party fealt more threatened because that’s a subjective experience. There are countries that are just as threatened as Israel was and they don’t attack.
All the points you just made could be made for enemies of the u.s. like Iran, north Korea and Cuba. North Korea also suffered a horrific bombing campaign by a country on there border and suffers far more from economic sanctions then Israel ever did when the straits were closed. The embargo on Cuba has repeatedly been called out as against international law. If Cuba or north Korea demanded an end to sanctions or it would be war, and then the u.s. poured troops in to surround them on there borders would it be right for them to launch a first strike against Seoul or Florida?
No you’d probably say they made a threat to the u.s. with that ultimatum and the u.s. deploying troops was a valid response to that threat. Any sort of ultimatum that involves war should be considered a threat and an escalation. You don’t get a pass because you were treated horribly before.