TOP SECRET protocols released this week reveal the disarray and confusion among the Israeli leadership at the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when a surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian forces caught Israel off guard.
Israeli intelligence failed to predict the outbreak of hostilities exactly 37 years ago, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
On the morning of October 6th, 1973, only six hours before the Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked, senior political and military leaders convened in Tel Aviv. A senior Mossad spy in Egypt had passed on credible information that war would break out later in the day. Israeli intelligence also reported that the families of Russian advisers based in Egypt and Syria were being speedily evacuated. But despite the warnings, the Israeli leadership was not convinced that war was imminent.
In 1967, when Israel believed Arab forces were planning a war, Jerusalem launched a pre-emptive air strike, destroying the bulk of the Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces within a matter of hours, securing victory in what became known as the Six-Day War.
But on the morning of October 6th, 1973, the newly-released protocols show that prime minister Golda Meir, in the most difficult decision of her life, resisted calls for another pre-emptive strike. Even though she knew that such a move could have saved many Israeli lives, she told ministers the most important consideration was that Israel would not be perceived by the international community as the aggressor.
When a ceasefire was declared later in the month, Israeli forces had reversed their initial setbacks and were only 25 miles from the Syrian capital, Damascus, and just over 60 miles from Cairo. But more than 2,500 Israelis were killed; and the first few days of the war, when Egyptian armoured divisions thrust into the Sinai, and Syrian tanks battled Israeli forces on the Golan Heights, marked the most traumatic period in Israel’s history.
In a dramatic cabinet meeting the day after hostilities broke out, defence minister Moshe Dayan told ministers that the situation was so dire that wounded soldiers would have to be left behind.
“Where we can evacuate we will evacuate. In places we can’t evacuate we will leave the wounded. Those who make it, make it. If they decide to surrender, they’ll surrender.
“We have to tell them, ‘We can’t reach you. Try to bust through or surrender’.” He admitted that the security establishment had badly miscalculated and had underestimated the Arab military capability. Israel, he warned, was now fighting a war of survival because the Arab aim was “to conquer Israel and finish off the Jews.”
The following day Dayan informed the cabinet that Israeli troops on the Golan Heights had been ordered to fight to the death and not to retreat under any circumstances.
But the cabinet rejected his proposal to bomb Damascus in order to “break the Syrians”, fearing many civilian lives would be lost.