On the 45th anniversary of the war, the Israeli government has declassified intelligence information from the state archives suggesting that it could have thwarted the attack.
It confirms what was already known, that a day prior to the attack, Israeli intelligence had warned the government about the pending attack. But it also contains a startling revelation. Not only had a spy told Israel that an attack was imminent, he had also suggested a way for Israel to thwart the attack.
The shocking warning had come from Ashraf Marwan, a confidant of then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and son-in-law of former president Nasser. Israeli generals had noted that the Egyptians and Syrians had moved their troops close to the border and were “capable of attacking in a very short amount of time.”
However, Israel’s head of Military Intelligence had dismissed these reports and noted that the odds of a coordinated Arab attack were “lower than low.” In the early 1960’s, Marwan had offered his services as an “asset” to the Mossad, the Israeli secret service. The Mossad had signed him up and code named him “The Angel.” For decades, Marwan was one of the most important assets at the Mossad’s disposal.
However, some in Israel thought he was a double agent, and heavily discounted his intelligence. Two days before the outbreak of the war, Marwan had contacted his handler in the Mossad and requested an in-person meeting to provide details of the impending Egyptian-Syrian attack including tactics and maps. The requested meeting never took place.
What has now become known is that Marwan had also offered a solution to Israel for thwarting the attack. The idea was brilliantly simple. Israel would issue a warning that it had picked up intelligence about an imminent Arab attack and had put all its forces of full-alert. This information would be posted on Israeli media. The message would get back to the Arabs and they would call off the attack.
That was never done and when the surprise attack happened, Israel was caught on the back foot. Ultimately, it recovered and mounted a counter attack but only after substantial losses had been sustained. The war ended on October 25.
Why did the Arabs attack? The Israeli victory in the Six Day War of June 1967 took away the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Jerusalem from them. In 1970, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt died a heart-broken man.
Israel’s head of Military Intelligence had dismissed these reports and noted that the odds of a coordinated Arab attack were “lower than low”
The Arabs, led by Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, were thirsting for revenge. In 1973 Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, fell on the 6th of October. Sadat had planned a surprise attack on Israel on its holiest day. To disguise the threat, he had made sure that a large number of his troops had gone to perform the lesser pilgrimage in Mecca during Ramadan. Meanwhile, Israel had become delusional about its superiority. When the Israeli air chief was asked if the Egyptian air force posed a threat to Israel, he had asked, “What Egyptian air force?”
At 4 am on October 6, Egyptian sappers using water cannons cut passes in the Bar-Lev line that Israel had built along the Suez Canal, allowing 500 Egyptian tanks to pour into the Sinai. Egyptian President Sadat had been prepared to absorb 10,000 deaths in the crossing of the Canal but the success of the sappers allowed him to achieve this objective with only 208 deaths.
The ensuring war yielded several lessons. First, the impact of tactical surprise can be devastating. It acts as a force multiplier, as Israel had shown with its preemptive air strikes in June 1967 and now the Arabs had returned the favor.
Second, success in war is ultimately tied to the accuracy of intelligence estimates. Expecting an attack in May 1973, Gen. David Elazar, the chief of Israel Defense Staff (IDF), had ordered a partial mobilization. He wanted to carry out a preemptive strike but was forbidden to do so by then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. When the Arab attack did not materialize, the Israeli intelligence was quick to say, I told you so. The vindication of their estimate in May would be a major factor in the mistaken Israeli evaluation in October.
Third, a pressed enemy is likely to launch a counter-thrust. Israeli forces led by Maj.-Gen. Ariel Sharon crossed the Canal into Egypt proper on October 15. Within a day, they were endangering the Egyptian Third Army and possibly Cairo. This time, the Egyptians were caught on the back-foot.
Fourth, wars cannot be fought without the right technology. To overcome Israeli advantages in air power and armor, Egypt deployed a powerful array of Soviet-supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.
Israel’s first counterattack on Oct. 8 was a miserable failure and in the early hours of Oct. 9, senior Israeli leaders brought up the idea of using Israel’s doomsday weapons. By that time Israel had lost some 50 combat planes and more than 500 tanks. Indeed, the scale of Israeli tank casualties led some to argue (prematurely) that the tank had been rendered obsolete in modern warfare.
Fifth, small countries cannot ignore the realities of Great Power politics. To overcome Israeli losses, America flew US$2.2 billion worth of arms and ammunition to Israel aboard its giant C5 Galaxy planes. Involving more than 560 sorties, it was the biggest such operation since the airlift to Berlin after the end of World War II. In retaliation, eleven Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal imposed an oil embargo on October 17. The embargo reduced oil supplies in the “free world” by nine percent and world trade in oil by fourteen percent.
Sixth, it’s best to conduct a timely inquiry into the war. Indeed, just a month after the war ended, Israel established the Agranat Commission to study the war and derive its key lessons. After doing extensive interviews and reading scores of documents, the commission recommended the dismissal of the IDF chief, the head of the intelligence directorate, and the head of southern command.
The Commission did not fault Defense Minister Moshe Dayan or Prime Minister Golda Meir. However, the publication of a 40-page extract from the report in April 1974 caused a public outcry, causing Meir’s resignation. Yitzhak Rabin who succeeded her excluded Dayan from his cabinet. On the Arab side, Sadat retained his position as did Assad in Syria. While Sinai was eventually returned to Egypt, Jerusalem remains in Israeli hands to this day and Israel continues to be at war with the Palestinians.
The writer is a defence analyst and economist. He has authored ‘Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan’ (Ashgate Publishing, 2003). He can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, October 8th 2018.