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History may repeat itself This week, on Yom Kippur, we will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, one of the worse days, if not the worst, in the history of the State of Israel. We lost more than 3,000 soldiers due to mistakes that could have been avoided. No war can be clear of mistakes, but most of those mistakes are found only in hindsight, by asking the non-scientific questions of ’what if.’ But in the case of the Yom Kippur War, we know that so many lives were lost due to errors that should and could have been avoided on many fronts: Political leadership, military intelligence and army preparedness. A lot of attention has been paid to the terrible mistakes of Israel’s intelligence community: It had all the information but did not interpret it correctly because it was convinced that Egypt was not ready for war and Syria would not start a war on its own. I have read most of the raw intelligence material that arrived on the desks of the heads of our military and civilian intelligence organizations. Nothing was missing except for the exact hour of the opening of the joint Egyptian-Syrian attack. The reason for that was simple — only a handful of people in both countries were privy to the ultimate secret. But this piece of information was not needed for the Israeli forces, regular and reserves, to be on full alert, ready for action, defensive or offensive, and for the government to be able to decide on a pre-emptive strike if needed, or an immediate response when the enemy opened fire. Even just one piece of early warning information that existed in September and early October 1973, should have aroused suspicion that something was afoot in Cairo and Damascus. But there were so many warning signs — the sudden rapprochement between Sadat and Assad, the emergency visit of King Hussein to Golda Meir in Tel Aviv, the sudden evacuation of the families of Soviet advisers and warnings arriving from various international sources, including Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky. THE COMBINATION of all of these signs should have sounded the alarms and put the Israeli army on high alert. But the stubbornness of defense minister Moshe Dayan and the head of Military Intelligence (what an oxymoron) Gen. Eli Zera to stick to their previous conception that Egypt is not ready for war, paralyzed and blinded all the systems. On this side of the coin the main blame lies on the shoulders of Dayan, Zera and their assistants. It does not clear others, below and above them, who did not demand more information. Nevertheless, a significant part of the blame lies on the political leadership, first and foremost Golda Meir. She refused to realize that time was not on our side and that we could not hold all the territories forever without risking another war. After 1967, there were only two choices: Retain all of the territories but be ready for renewal of the war in the most unfavorable circumstances without American or international support, or be ready to negotiate peace and security arrangements in exchange for most of the territories. Between 1967 and 1973, the Labor leadership declared adherence to the second option, but in reality it yielded to those who preferred the first one. Those who wanted comprehensive peace in return for territory, such as Lova Eliav, Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, Abba Eban and Pinhas Sapir, were forced out or silenced. From time to time Yigal Allon or Dayan showed understanding that this situation could not last, but they were afraid to stand up to Golda Meir. Meir and most of her ministers and advisers did not understand the consequences of her choices and where her policies were leading the country. The greatness of former prime ministers Begin and Rabin was in their understanding of the need for an active quest for peace. Unfortunately Prime Minister Netanyahu reminds us more of Golda than of Begin or Rabin. And looking at our military leadership, headed by Defense Minister Mordechai and Chief of General Staff Shaul Mofaz, we are not so sure that our armed forces are fully prepared for a war resulting from any of the government’s political mistakes. The lesson of Yom Kippur 1973 has not been learned, and history may repeat itself.
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