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Israel
The October 1973 War
The Meir government's
rejection of Sadat's peace overtures convinced the Egyptian president
that to alter the status quo and gain needed legitimacy at home
he must initiate a war with limited objectives. On Yom Kippur,
the Jewish Day of Atonement, October 6, 1973, Syria and Egypt
launched a surprise attack against Israel. In the south, waves
of Egyptian infantrymen crossed the Suez Canal and overran the
defense of the much touted Bar-Lev Line. In the north, Syrian
forces outnumbering the Israeli defenders (1,100 Syrian tanks
against 157 Israeli tanks) reached the outer perimeter of the
Golan Heights overlooking the Hula Basin. In the first few days
of the war, Israeli counterattacks failed, Israel suffered hundreds
of casualties, and lost nearly 150 planes. Finally, on October
10 the tide of the war turned; the Syrians were driven out of
all territories conquered by them at the beginning of the war
and on the following day Israeli forces advanced into Syria proper,
about twenty kilometers from the outskirts of Damascus. The Soviet
Union responded by making massive airlifts to Damascus and Cairo,
which were matched by equally large United States airlifts to
Israel. In the south, an Egyptian offensive into Sinai was repelled,
and Israeli forces led by General Ariel Sharon crossed the canal
to surround the Egyptian Third Army. At the urgent request of
the Soviet Union, United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
went to Moscow to negotiate a cease-fire arrangement. This arrangement
found expression in UN Security Council Resolution 338, which
called for a cease-fire to be in place within twelve hours, for
the implementation of Resolution 242, and for "negotiations between
the parties concerned under appropriate auspices aimed at establishing
a just and durable peace in the Middle East." Following Kissinger's
return to Washington, the Soviets announced that Israel had broken
the terms of the cease-fire and was threatening to destroy the
besieged Egyptian Third Army. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev informed
Nixon that if the siege were not lifted the Soviet Union would
take unilateral steps. The United States pressured Israel, and
the final cease-fire took effect on October 25.
The October 1973 War had a devastating effect on Israel. More
than 6,000 troops had been killed or wounded in eighteen days
of fighting. The loss of equipment and the decline of production
and exports as a consequence of mobilization came to nearly US$7
billion, the equivalent of Israel's gross national product (GNP--see
Glossary) for an entire year. Most important, the image of an
invincible Israel that had prevailed since the June 1967 War was
destroyed forever. Whereas the June 1967 War had given Israel
in general and the declining Labor Party in particular a badly
needed morale booster, the events of October 1973 shook the country's
self-confidence and cast a shadow over the competence of the Labor
elite. A war-weary public was especially critical of Minister
of Defense Dayan, who nonetheless escaped criticism in the report
of the Agranat Commission, a body established after the war to
determine responsibility for Israel's military unpreparedness.
Israel's vulnerability during the war led to another important
development: its increasing dependence on United States military,
economic, and diplomatic aid. The war set off a spiraling regional
arms race in which Israel was hard pressed to match the Arab states,
which were enriched by skyrocketing world oil prices. The vastly
improved Arab arsenals forced Israel to spend increasingly on
defense, straining its already strapped economy. The emergence
of Arab oil as a political weapon further isolated Israel in the
world community. The Arab oil boycott that accompanied the war
and the subsequent quadrupling of world oil prices dramatized
the West's dependence on Arab oil production. Evidence of this
dependence was reflected, for example, in the denial of permission
during the fighting for United States transport planes carrying
weapons to Israel to land anywhere in Europe except Portugal.
The dominant personality in the postwar settlement period was
Kissinger. Kissinger believed that the combination of Israel's
increased dependence on the United States and Sadat's desire to
portray the war as an Egyptian victory and regain Sinai allowed
for an American-brokered settlement. The key to this diplomatic
strategy was that only Washington could induce a vulnerable Israel
to exchange territories for peace in the south.
The first direct Israeli-Egyptian talks following the war were
held at Kilometer 101 on the Cairo-Suez road. They dealt with
stabilizing the cease-fire and supplying Egypt's surrounded Third
Army. Following these talks, Kissinger began his highly publicized
"shuttle diplomacy," moving between Jerusalem and the Arab capitals
trying to work out an agreement. In January 1974, Kissinger, along
with Sadat and Dayan, devised the First Sinai Disengagement Agreement,
which called for thinning out forces in the Suez Canal zone and
restoring the UN buffer zone. The published plan was accompanied
by private (but leaked) assurances from the United States to Israel
that Egypt would not interfere with Israeli freedom of navigation
in the Red Sea and that UN forces would not be withdrawn without
the consent of both sides. Following the signing of this agreement,
Kissinger shuttled between Damascus and Jerusalem, finally attaining
an agreement that called for Israel to withdraw from its forward
positions in the Golan Heights, including the return of the Syrian
town of Al Qunaytirah. The evacuated zone was to be demilitarized
and monitored by a UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
After the signing of the Israeli-Syrian Disengagement Agreement
in June 1974, the public mood in Israel shifted against concessions.
In part, Israel's hardened stance was a reaction to the 1974 Arab
summit in Rabat, Morocco. At that summit, both Syria and Egypt
supported a resolution recognizing the PLO as the sole representative
of the Palestinian people. The Israeli public viewed the PLO as
a terrorist organization bent on destroying the Jewish state.
Throughout 1974 Palestinian terrorism increased; in the summer
alone there were attacks in Qiryat Shemona, Maalot, and Jerusalem.
Another important factor underlying Israel's firmer stance was
an internal political struggle in the newly elected government
of Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin had narrowly defeated his chief rival
Shimon Peres in bitterly fought internal Labor Party elections
in late December 1973. Peres, who was appointed minister of defense,
forced Israel into a less flexible posture by blocking any concessions
proposed by Rabin. In addition, the issuing of the Agranat Commission
report and the return from the front of reservists mobilized for
the war further fueled public clamor for a stronger defense posture.
In Washington, President Gerald R. Ford, facing a recalcitrant
Israel and under pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, decided to
sweeten the offer to Israel. The United States pledged to provide
Israel US$2 billion in financial aid, to drop the idea of an interim
withdrawal in the West Bank, and to accept that only cosmetic
changes could be expected in the Second Syrian-Israeli Disengagement
Agreement. In addition, in a special secret memorandum Israel
received a pledge that the United States would not deal with the
PLO as long as the PLO failed to recognize Israel's right to exist
and failed to accept Security Council Resolution 242. In September
1975, Israel signed the Second Sinai Disengagement Agreement,
which called for Israel to withdraw from the Sinai passes, leaving
them as a demilitarized zone monitored by American technicians
and the UNEF.
Data as of December 1988
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