The Egyptian generals were amazed that the Israeli senior military and political leaders were caught flatfooted by the Egyptian/Syrian attack in 1973. If these Egyptian generals knew how many warning  from the highest levels and  the most impeccable sources that warned the Israelis they  would have been even more flabbergasted.To be sure the  Israeli troops were not the only ones surprised but most of the Egyptian army’s as well. In a survey of the 80000 Egyptians POWs in the Hands of the Israelis,  indicated only one knew the date of 3 Oct was the planned beginning of the war.Egyptian combat engineers carrying pontoon boats to the edge of the Suez, only realized it was not an exercise when ordered to put the boats in the water.See Chaim Herzog The War of Atonement, October 1973. BTW Despite being being one of the older books on the war it has the best  Military lessons learned of any the newer books.

Eli Zeira Chief of AMAN. Villain or scapegoat?

We now know that the Israelis had prior warning from the son-in-law of Abdul Nasser,  (Ashram Marwan)  and Gold Meir was warned by King Hussein of Jordan that war was imminent. Most damming was the fact  that Israeli commandos   had installed super sophisticated listening devices on all the Egyptian communication nodes.  Despite Egyptian super secret anti detection and deception measures there is no way they could have kept the Israelis unaware of the launch of the war. The problem was that they were considered so secret and vulnerable to detection that they were to be turned on only in case of a war imminent within hours or days .These taps were known as “special means.” The head of the AMAN ( Israeli Military Intelligence), Eli Zeira, was so convinced that there would be no war he refused to turn them on. There were many other sources and analyses from lower sources that indicated war was at the threshold. The other problems  was the top Israeli commanders though they had been turned on ( or they claimed so), and since no urgent  war warning was received they assumed there was nothing to worry about…at least not right away.

Ari Sharon. Israeli hero 1973 war. Villain of war in Lebanon. “War is hell” kind of guy. Like Patton probably not a sweet guy to work for but he got the work done. He had very little good things to say about his fellow generals, many were defeatist and failed to command.

His funeral. We could use a few Sharons in the US army. He would have probably fired a good number of the current US army leadership

So why were all these sources the  ignored? Two main reasons. Hubris and the ” e g conception.” The conception ran as follows. The Egyptians cannot start a war until they have air power parity …and they were a long way from that, secondly the Syrians would not go to war unless Egypt did so. The hubris centered around the conviction deeply embedded in the Israeli psyche that the Arabs were hopeless at war and were no match from the IDF.

Egyptian POWs in 67 war. The Hubris of the Egyptian leadership and their total incompetence made a not- so -great Israeli army look great.

A quote from Ariel Sharon (  An Autobiography:Warrior. by Ariel Sharon and David Charnoff tells the tale quite well. “I stood on the dunes there, the scene unfolding in front of me. As tanks and APCs withdrew past the observation  post,I stopped some of them to talk to the officers and saw something strange on their faces– not fear but bewilderment. Suddenly something was happening to them that had never happened before. These soldiers had been brought up on victories–not easy victories maybe, but  nevertheless victories . It was a generation that never lost. Now they were in a state of shock. How could it be that the Egyptians were crossing the canal right in our faces? How was it that they were moving forward and we were defeated.?”

General Gonen’s ( southern Front commander) had the typical Israeli view of the Egyptians, i.e.  he failed to properly assess the situation  but relied on his “intuition” based his earlier experience leading him  to view the Egyptians with “deep contempt.”

Israeli POWs in 73. Israeli soldiers were mostly from the “strongpoints” of the Bar-Lev line, along the Suez Canal. They were  overwhelmed by the massive Egyptian offensive and mostly abandoned by the unready Israeli forces.

Unfortunately the villain or scapegoat ( depending on who you read) was Eli Ze’eri head of military intelligence known as AMAN. He inherited the “concept” but then embraced it with  all consuming faith. No evidence to the contrary was admitted. He often referred to contrary reports as “bull shit,”He refused to turn on the “special means”  listening devices, even when the breathe of war was becoming a storm. Ze’eri was a capable combat commander  and had little time for the endless debates on  social theory or intelligence assessments. He was an action man. He was also apparently very persuasive  and demanding, and no one, not even Gold Meier questioned his opinions.Backing him up were two other intelligence officers, the Egypt  AMAN desk officer, Col.  Yona Bandman and the head of the research section BG Arye Shalev. Asked his assessment  of the Egyptian Armed Forces Shalev opined that they would “disintegrate”  in battle. Of course after the Agranat Commission hearing on the 73 war, all three of the above were fired. One can say at least the Israelis  did the right thing unlike  the Americans who allow debacles like the  Vietnam, Afghan, and Iraqi wars  pass into history without any culpability laid on the the those  most responsible. Of course even the Agranat commission  went limp on Moshe Dayan who was absent during most of the war, having totally fallen apart, as did a number of other Israeli  generals. He should have been named as one of the reasons for the “near thing” in the result of the war.

In August 1966  Moshe Dayan left  to Far East to be close to the Vietnam War. To study the secrets of the modern war, he joined the US troops, participating in ambushes in jungles of South Vietam. Dayan published his war impressions in many world wide and Israeli magazines. Unfortunately  what he learned was not useful in 73

All this leads to my thesis that  next to total destruction of an army the worse thing that can happen is an easy conquest….such as the Six Day war in 1967.  It was the albatross around the Israelis neck. All the wrong lessons are learned and become  imbedded. The Israelis, based everything on the tank and the airplane ,and forgotten was artillery and Air Defense,  and most importantly well trained and well equipped infantrymen. See Herzog.

Israeli soldiers celebrate after the 67 war. Israeli women in the forefront of combat is mostly mythology. But it made for good copy in the US.

The best account of the day today war, militarily and politically, is The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter that Changed the Middle East,  by Abraham Rabinovich, although I disagree with some of the conclusions. I’m not convinced that it “transformed the Middle East.” But it was a very good thing for the Israeli society ( except  for those who lost lives or limbs). Why?

Because there are  no more articles like after the 6 Day War , depicting Israelis  as “super Jews,” and other supercilious nonsense. Their army  lacked discipline, and combat training. Chasing Palestinian terrorists around the West Bank in “whack a mole,” operations was not sufficient to keep the combat edge among the troops -just as the same type American operations in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq has severely undermined the combat readiness of our army.  The Israelis know they are mere mortals like the rest of us and have no unique qualities that allow them to shortchange military discipline, training., and most importantly realistic assessments of their enemy.

Typical Arab depiction of Jews. When I was in the Egyptian cantonments in 81-82, these posters were everywhere. I think they are a little more media conscious now but has the thinking changed? somehow I doubt it. That’s why I don’t think the Middle East has “transformed.”

It should also be pointed out that if societies were without a certain hubris there would be a lot less wars. No quick, technic, bloodless wars as we tend to believe now. Has Putin Learned?  The Arabs in 48 and 67 went to war imbued with the  belief,  that as Ibn Khaldun  had written, the Jews were a servile race,  and generations of Arab propaganda has embedded the belief that Jews were unable to stand against the Arab  warriors. Unfortunately ( for the Arabs and Muslims in general) many still think that way.