On October 4, a day before learning that Russian civilians were leaving Egypt and Syria, Military Intelligence reported the chances for war were low. The Egyptian buildup was also similar to one that occurred in May 1973 that had not led to war.
That intelligence could not be confirmed and was dismissed. Similarly, in the north, a warning was passed on to the commander that Syria planned to attack on October 2. None of those indicators were apparent before the invastion. For example, Israeli soldiers on the southern front were given a secret document that provided 14 signals that would indicate an Egyptian attack was forthcoming. intelligence officials, Israeli analysts were skeptical about the threat of war.Īccording to documents declassified in 2012, the failure to anticipate the Arab attacks was a result of a number of intelligence failures. Golda’s Fateful Decisionĭespite the conventional wisdom that Israel was surprised by the attack that did eventually come, the truth is the Israelis began to prepare for battle on October 5 and were convinced war was imminent the following morning.
intelligence realized at the beginning of October 1973 that the Arabs were about to attack, Nixon might have been able to prevent the war through diplomacy or threats. Hosni Mubarak, however, claimed it was Yasser Arafat who warned the Israelis. Jordan’s King Hussein met with Prime Minister Golda Meir on September 25, 1973, supposedly to warn her of an impending war. “As recently as the day before, the CIA had reported that war in the Middle East was unlikely.” “The news of the imminent attack on Israel took us completely by surprise,” President Nixon said later. In fact, almost up to the start of the shooting, no one expected a war. But it was the same threat he had made in 19, and most observers remained skeptical. In an April 1973 interview, Sadat again warned that he would renew the war with Israel. Sadat’s response was to abruptly expel approximately 20,000 Soviet advisers from Egypt. The Soviet Union was more interested in maintaining the appearance of détente with the United States than a confrontation in the Middle East therefore, it rejected Sadat’s demands. Simultaneously, Sadat appealed to the Soviets to bring pressure on the United States and to provide Egypt with more offensive weapons. Throughout 1972 and for much of 1973, Sadat threatened war unless the United States forced Israel to accept his interpretation of Resolution 242 - total Israeli withdrawal from territories taken in 1967. With no progress toward peace, Sadat began to say that war was inevitable and that he was prepared to sacrifice one million soldiers in the showdown with Israel. During the summer of 1972, Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Munich Olympics and murdered 11 Israeli athletes. Moreover, Sadat could not negotiate an agreement until Egypt erased the shame of 1967.įor all the talk of peace, though, it was still violence that grabbed the headlines. The suggestion was a nonstarter from Israel's point of view. Later, many people would claim Israel missed an opportunity to avoid war, but the truth was that Sadat expected Israel to ignore the threats that led to the 1967 War and to capitulate to Egyptian demands without any guarantee of peace. In 1971, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat raised the possibility of signing an agreement with Israel, provided that all the territories captured by the Israelis were returned. And the Gulf Arab states were beginning to take greater control of their oil resources and use the revenues to flex their political muscle. The Soviet Union was doing its share to stoke the flames of war by pouring arms into the region. Rather than reconciling themselves to Israel’s existence, the Arab states looked for a way to avenge the humiliation of their defeat. The growing level of terrorism, combined with increasingly ominous threats from Egypt, made peace seem further away than ever. The Yom Kippur War: Table of Contents| War Maps| "Myths & Facts"Īfter the exhilaration of the victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, Israelis became increasingly dispirited.
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