IS history about to repeat itself in the Middle East? As Israel effectively closed down last night for the 24 hour Yom Kippur fast - the Day of Atonement that marks she most solemn day in the Jewish calendar - the sense of deja vu was unavoidable.
Twenty three years ago, Syria and Egypt launched a joint attack on Israel on Yom Kippur - and Syria came close to recapturing the Golan Heights, seized by Israel six years earlier, before an emergency reserve call up swung the fighting decisively in Israel's favour.
Today, Syria has moved many of its elite units to within striking distance of the Golan - prompting Israeli reinforcements on the other side of the border - and the Egyptian army has just completed its most extensive exercises since she 1973 fighting, putting the troops through their paces in rehearsal for possible confrontation with Israel.
Shortly before the 1973 war, King Hussein of Jordan sent frantic secret messages to Israel's prime minister, the late Mrs Golda Meir, warning her of the imminent attack. Soaring with confidence in the aftermath of the six day victory in 1967, Mrs Meir's government foolishly ignored the warning. Yesterday, King Hussein suddenly invited Mr Dore Gold, most senior adviser to the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, to come by helicopter urgently to Amman, for what were being vaguely described as consultations relating to the peace process.
But Mr Gold is an Orthodox Jew, and would hardly have shuttled off dramatically to Jordan on the eve of the Yom Kippur fast if the king did not have something extremely important to tell him.
While Egypt and Israel have maintained a peace treaty for almost two decades, and the prospect of conflict between these two countries seems remote, the same cannot be said for Israel and Syria. President Hafez al Assad remains bent on retrieving the Golan, and since Mr Netanyahu seems equally intent on retaining it, hostilities cannot be ruled out.
Syria can hardly expect to benefit from an all out assault on Israel. But a limited, sudden land grab - seizing a few strategic hilltops before Israel had the chance to react - would enable Mr Assad to force Mr Netanyahu to the negotiating table on Syrian terms, with the status of the Golan - recognised by the previous Israeli government as being Syrian territory - as the only pressing subject on the agenda.
While Israeli analysts struggle to work out exactly what Mr Assad is up to, Mr Netanyahu is showing himself determinedly unruffled. The weekly cabinet meeting on Friday, remarkably, lasted a mere 23 minutes - and did not feature any crisis assessments.
Nor, incidentally, does the prime minister evince concern that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is now publicly accusing him of breaking a personal pledge to advance the peace process.
Equally remarkable has been the level of criticism for Mr Netanyahu in Israel's tabloid newspapers - which usually maintain a fairly independent stance for fear of alienating pro government readers.
In a strident attack in Ma'ariv at the weekend, for example, the newspaper's editor, Mr Ya'acov Erez, decried Mr Netanyahu's lack of pragmatism, and blamed the prime minister directly for the tensions with Syria - which he said were a consequence of Mr Netanyahu's anti Syrian rhetoric.
Mr Erez also noted that neither the prime minister, who was a commando fighter at the time, nor his three principal advisers (an American immigrant, a Russian immigrant, and an Israeli who spent much of his life in the US) have much personal experience from the Yom Kippur debacle of 23 years ago.
The prime minister should be a little less sure of himself," advised Mr Erez, "and should learn the lessons of his predecessors' failures.
. The Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, telephoned Mr Netanyahu yesterday to wish him shara tova a happy Jewish new year. Mr Netanyahu thanked Mr Arafat and said: "We stand at the start of a year that will be a good year for Israel and the Palestinians."