Abraham Rabinovich - The Yom Kippur War

The Boats of Cherbourg

The Battle for Jerusalem

Jerusalem on Earth: People, Passions, and Politics in the Holy City

Israel

Jerusalem: The Measure of the Year

Copyright 2004, 2017 by Abraham Rabinovich

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Schocken Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in slightly different form in the United States by Schocken Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 2004.

Schocken Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rabinovich, Abraham.

The Yom Kippur War: the epic encounter that transformed the Middle East /

Abraham Rabinovich.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9780805211245 (hardcover) ISBN 9780307429650 (ebook)

1. Israel-Arab War, 1973. I. Title.

ds128.1.r33 2004 956.048dc21 2003054353

Ebook ISBN9780307429650

www.schocken.com

Cover photograph courtesy of the Government Press Office, State of Israel

Cover design by Oliver Munday

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TO MICHAL AND GUY,

DANA AND ELAN,

YARDEN, DAVID, BENNO, TAL, AND ELIYA

On Rosh Hashana it is written and on the day of the fast of Kippur it is sealedwho shall live and who shall diewho by water and who by fire, who by the sword

from the Yom Kippur Prayer Book

Israel and Its Neighbors

I N THE YEARS SINCE The Yom Kippur Wars first publication, in 2004, many of the wars deepest secrets have emerged, after more than three decades of censorship. These are spelled out in this updated edition. An invaluable new source is the official history of the Israeli general staff during the war, Milkhama BYom Hakipurim (Decision Making in the Israeli High Command in the Yom Kippur War) by Shimon Golan. Published forty years after the war, the 1,300-page volume, in Hebrew, is compiled from official transcripts and tape recordings and places the reader at the table where critical decisions are being shaped. Rare access to Israels intelligence community during the war is provided by former Israeli intelligence analyst Uri Bar-Joseph in his books and articles. Other information has emerged in academic and military forums, military journals and the media. I have also profited from interviews with former Mossad chief Zvi Zamir and others.

Following are some of the revelations incorporated into this edition:

Two Egyptian informants, working separately for the Mossad, provide information that dramatically affects the course of the war. A warning from one of them, the son-in-law of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, enables Israeli units to blunt the massive Syrian attack on the Golan Heights. The other agent provides a vital clue for Israels crossing of the Suez Canal, the wars turning point.

Israeli commandos, infiltrating into Egypt before the war, install sophisticated listening devices on key military communication nodes intended to provide a fail-safe warning of a surprise attack.

The head of Israeli military intelligence refuses to activate these taps in the critical days before the war because he is convinced there will be no war. His superiors, however, are led to believe the devices are working and that they show no sign of a pending enemy attack. Only when the Israeli public learns this four decades later does it have an explanation for the bizarre complacency of Israels leadership in 1973 as Arab armies mass on its borders while Israels reserves remain unmobilized.

We gain for the first time an insight into Israels thinking on the nuclear option. As the army reels, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan seeks to prepare a nuclear demonstration, presumably over the desert, to warn off the Arab armies. Prime Minister Golda Meir rules it out.

On the fifth day of the war, Chief of Staff David Elazar concludes that Israel cannot win the war because of its heavy losses and its misreading of the Arab armies. He asks the government to seek a cease-fire. No one knows how weak we are, he says. When Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is told of this, he almost tore his hair out, according to the Israeli official who briefs him. This means you lost the war, dont you understand this, exclaims Kissinger.

Jordans King Hussein, who had tried to warn Mrs. Meir of the planned Arab attack, is pressured by Arab leaders to send a tank brigade to Syrias assistance. He sends a message to Mrs. Meir asking Israel to refrain from attacking this unit, if at all possible. In the end, combat is unavoidable but Israel pulls its punch.

The Israeli command decides on a high-risk crossing of the Suez Canal in order to pressure Egypt into a cease-fire. We see how, amid the chaos of the battlefield, the army succeeds in pushing two armored divisions across the waterway at night through the heart of the Egyptian army. As it regains its psychological balance, Israel no longer seeks a cease-fire, but victory. Division commander Ariel Sharon spearheads the bold operation but his constant challenging of orders comes close to bringing his dismissal. We track the improvisations that lead to Israels stunning reversal of fortune on the battlefield.

O N YOM KIPPUR AFTERNOON 1973, the Israeli army was staggered by a surprise attack on two fronts with its reserve forcestwo-thirds of its strengthstill unmobilized. As the front lines in Sinai and on the Golan Heights gave way before massive attacks, the nation was gripped by existential fear. When fighting ended less than three weeks later, however, Israeli tanks were threatening Cairo and Damascus. It was a turnabout of epic dimensions but Israel emerged from the war chastened rather than triumphant.

I covered the war as a reporter. When I reached the Golan Heights on the fifth day, the battlefield was eerily quiet. A vastly outnumbered Israeli force had just stopped a Syrian attack by close to one thousand tanks. A counterattack was to have begun this day but exhausted crewmen were falling asleep whenever their tanks stopped moving.

I would learn much of this only twenty years later when I wrote a magazine article on the battle for The Jerusalem Post. Although I thought myself well informed about the war, I discovered that what I knew were only disconnected episodes in a fuzzy matrix. In writing this book, I spent five years trying to understand the war as a coherent narrative in which everything connects. The research included interviews with more than 130 participants, from generals to tank gunners, and study of written sources. The deeper I got into it, the more fascinating it became.