As far as I know it's pretty well documented (correct me if I'm wrong) that Israel in the 50s, especially people like David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan, actively wanted to provoke Egypt into either starting a war or doing something that would give Israel a legitimate reason to do so themselves. Culminating in the Suez Crisis in 1956. Do you know if there is anything as explicit leading up to 67, or if the Israeli attitude was different?
I don't know of anything so explicit, no. I would say that there are important differences in each case. On a regional level, pre-Suez Nasser was something of an unknown quantity but obviously a rising star with the potential to guide an Arab alliance to a another round of confrontation, whereas by 1967 his regional prestige had declined considerably due to a series of failures, and the Israelis had a better idea of who they were dealing with. Not that they weren't always open to any opportunity to humble him, but the same level of urgency about it wasn't there in the mid-60s as compared to a decade before.
In terms of immediate causes/escalations, the pre-Suez confrontation with Nasser was fueled by Egyptian-sponsored cross-border infiltration from Gaza and harsh Israeli responses, culminating in Suez and more than a decade of relative quiet on the Gaza frontier. It was gradual escalation with Syria in the north from 1966 onward that helped produce a more proactive and provocative policy as 1967 approached, with repeated Israeli warnings of strong measures should Syrian-sponsored cross-border attacks continue. But at the crucial moment in May, it doesn't seem that the Israelis were looking for conflict with Syria, given they offered to give the Soviet ambassador a tour of the north to disprove the claims of a military buildup there.
I've only read reviews of it, but apparently Tom Segev's
1967 argues that the war was primarily produced by a combination of Israeli anxieties and chauvinist expansionism in a context of economic downturn and social unrest. However I'd note that this is an explicitly revisionist take, and the one other book of his that I have read -
One Palestine, Complete - would make me question his reliability as a guide in these matters. Most accounts emphasize the context of inter-Arab rivalries and the Cold War in producing the crisis, and in particular the Soviet role in triggering the immediate escalation that May.*
*(Edit) Example, this is from a great book called
The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East by the American Arabist diplomat Richard B. Parker:
"None of the parties to the conflict seem to have anticipated war in the spring of 1967. There was tension along the Israeli-Syrian border, but that was normal. Egypt was thought to be too involved in Yemen, where the best third of its army was tied down, to undertake any military initiatives. Jordan wanted peace along its border, and so did Lebanon. Syria was being troublesome but was too weak to attack Israel, and the Israelis had no interest in a major war with anyone.
In retrospect it is clear that the political-military solution was super-saturated and all that was required to make it precipitate was for someone to drop in a crystal of solute. That act was performed by the Soviet Union."
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