At the Decisive Point in the Sinai

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Even ◽  
Simcha B. Maoz
Keyword(s):  
Suez Canal ◽  
The Political ◽  
Commanding Officer ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Yom Kippur ◽  
Individual Decisions ◽  
Major General

The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War or the October War, was fought by Israel against a coalition of Arab nations, led by Syria and Egypt. The war lasted nineteen days, with the pivotal moment being Major General Ariel Sharon’s crossing of the Suez Canal, which is known as the crossing battle In this narrative Jacob Even and Simcha B. Maoz consider the war and Sharon’s leadership as a case study of generalship for the benefit of new generations of senior field commanders. By focusing on the divisional command, Even and Maoz balance the macro view of the war (in the context of the political atmosphere of the time) with the micro view (as a cascade of individual decisions made by each commanding officer).

Yom Kippur War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina Rezk
Keyword(s):  
Henry Kissinger ◽  
Military Capability ◽  
Arab Culture ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Intelligence Failure ◽  
Yom Kippur ◽  
Radical Revision ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Military Victory

The Yom Kippur War was a critical game changer in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the politics of the Middle East. Henry Kissinger famously explained the ‘intelligence failure’ of Yom Kippur thus: ‘Our definition of rationality did not take seriously the notion of starting an unwinnable war to restore self-respect.’ The most recently released material suggests that Kissinger’s explanation requires some revising. This chapter demonstrates that British and American analysts understood perfectly well Sadat’s intentions, specifically his desire for a limited military victory to gain ‘face’ at home and leverage abroad. Instead analytical weakness lay in assessments of Egypt’s military capability where there was a unanimous consensus of Egypt’s impotency. Ideas about Arab ‘culture’ seem to have played a key role in this underestimation: the notion of a fatalistic Islam for example, prevailed in numerous analyses. In a radical revision of the conventional wisdom about the strengths and weaknesses of Western intelligence agencies, the Yom Kippur war provides a revealing case study whereby the West excelled in understanding the ‘mystery’ or intentions leading to war, but simply did not believe that Egypt possessed the capability to act effectively, and so perilously dismissed the prospect of an Egyptian attack.

Failures in National Intelligence Estimates: The Case of the Yom Kippur War

1976 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 348-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avi Shlaim
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Theory Of Intelligence ◽  
Intelligence Failure ◽  
Yom Kippur ◽  
Intelligence Failures

The principal question which this article seeks to answer is: Why was the intention of the Arabs to launch the Yom Kippur War misperceived despite the fact that Israeli Intelligence had ample and accurate information on enemy moves and dispositions? In this anatomy of the Israeli intelligence failure, extensive use is made of the report of the official commission of inquiry that investigated the events leading up to the war. The article is equally concerned with the phenomenon of strategic surprise in general, and this case study is used to explore the psychological and organizational roots of intelligence failures. Some safeguards and institutional reforms for reducing the frequency of failure are examined. However, there is no suggestion that surprise can ever be eliminated altogether. In conclusion a case is made for developing a theory of intelligence through case studies and systematic research.

scholarly journals From "silent generation" to cyber-psy-site, story and history: The 14th Tank Brigade battles on public collective memory and official recognition

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miri Gal-Ezer
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
State Level ◽  
Military History ◽  
Generation Gap ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Public Recognition ◽  
Yom Kippur

This audience research case study focuses on the Israeli 14th Tank Brigade veterans, who were involved in the 1973 Yom Kippur War horrific battles against the Egyptians in the Sinai Desert. In 2007, this offline traumatised remembrance community constructed an online commemorative and historical website to advance their unrelenting struggle on public recognition in the Israeli national collective memory and military history. The theoretical framework combines diverse perspectives: the Yom Kippur War and its consequences on Israeli society; theories of generations and media generations, war and trauma, war and remembrance; and Israel's collective memory and culture of remembrance. An integrated methodology offline and online was conducted: multi-sited and multimodal "Thick Description" ethnography and netnography; critical discourse analysis and semiotics of texts and artifacts; and in-depth interviews with veterans and historians. Findings are constructed on three levels: first - analysis of veterans’ interrelations with common Israeli culture of memory, and their active participation as a "remembrance community" in creating cultural artifacts offline and online; second – interpretation of Israeli cultural codes in battlefield "actuality", even under the most traumatic conditions; and third - the universal state level, analysis of the deep conflict impelling the remembrance community to write the Yom Kippur War battles also as history in their cybersite, thus attaining public recognition. This case study demonstrates the war veterans’ ability of "Breaking the Silence", empowering their traumatised community by bridging the "generation gap" of their "actual" "media generation", by merging their comradeship and high cultural capital, towards official affirmation within Israeli military history.

The Outbreak of War during Conceptual or Doctrinal Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-92
Author(s):  
Meir Finkel
Keyword(s):  
Suez Canal ◽  
Military Organizations ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Yom Kippur ◽  
Operational Concept ◽  
Second Lebanon War ◽  
Concept Of Operations

While conceptual and doctrinal debates are the "bread and butter" of military organizations in peacetime, what happens when war begins before the debate is settled? The chapter explores two cases – the debate over the defensive concept on the Suez Canal line prior to the Yom Kippur War and the IDF's 2006 concept of operations and operational concept for fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon prior to the Second Lebanon War. The aim of the chapter is to illuminate the fact that conceptual debates should be monitored and managed in a way that minimizes the likelihood of conceptual incoherency when war suddenly breaks out.

scholarly journals THE CURRENT SYRIAN POPULAR VIEW OF THE JEWS

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 108
Author(s):  
Alejandra Álvarez Suárez ◽  
Francisco Del Río Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Popular View ◽  
Six Day War ◽  
Yom Kippur

The remaining small Jewish communities of Syria run the risk of disappearing completely due to the marginalization suffered as a consequence of the political situation since 1948. The Eli Cohen affair (1965,) the Six-­Day War (1967,) and the Yom Kippur War (1973) made the Baathist authorities of the country consider definitively the Syrian Jews as suspected Zionists or Zionist sympathizers. Nevertheless, in Syrian popular perceptions, the view of the Jews and Judaism did not always coincide with the ideology and propaganda emanating from the regime. In fact it is very interesting to note how good memories of times past, about an erstwhile coexistence with members of the Jewish community, still survive among many Syrians, both Muslims and Christians, belonging to the so-­called “urban middle class.” This paper evaluates some examples, in the forms of anecdotes, popular sayings and proverbs, dealing with the Jews, and popularized in Syrian colloquialisms, in order to reveal some of the popular views of Judaism and Jews within Syrian society.

Qaddafi, Arab Unity and Islam

Worldview ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 22-24
Author(s):  
Stephen Oren
Keyword(s):  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Islamic Fundamentalism ◽  
The West ◽  
Considerable Part ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Yom Kippur ◽  
Oil Embargo

The January announcement of a Libyan-Tunisian union, short-lived to be sure, was but one in a series of seemingly odd actions by Libyan President Qaddafi. In the Yom Kippur War he refused to participate in the Syro-Egyptian attack–perhaps out of pique at not being consulted beforehand. Two weeks later he angrily denounced the cease-fire and has since refused to participate in inter-Arab conferences called to discuss the post-cease-fire situation. The Israeli-Egyptian disengagement agreement, by which Egypt recovered the Suez Canal and a considerable part of Sinai, evoked only disapproval from Libya. Calling for ever greater oil embargoes against the West, Qaddafi's own adherence to the oil embargo is questionable. Qaddafi, known for his Islamic fundamentalism and fiery anti-Israel rhetoric, seemed for a time eager to join with Tunisia's Habib Bourguiba, a sophisticated modernist who has urged his fellow Arabs to accept the reality of Israel. Seeming contradictions abound. Yet Qaddafi's policies have a rationality of their own which may have as much to do with the Middle East's future as the impulses of those whom conventional wisdom calls saner.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
pp. 355-360
Author(s):  
Isabella Ginor ◽  
Gideon Remez
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Future Study ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Yom Kippur ◽  
Military Support ◽  
Anwar Sadat ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

This chapter poses for future study the question why, after at least initial success of the Soviet-supported Egyptian offensive, the rift between Cairo and Moscow that did not occur, as widely believed, in the summer of 1972 did develop gradually after the Yom Kippur War, with Egypt moving into the US camp in the Cold War. Unlike the present book’s challenge to many conventional assumptions about the 1967-1973 period, here the widespread concept appears to be borne out that once Egyptian President Anwar Sadat opted for peace, he needed US influence with Israel as much as he needed Soviet military support for the military achievement which he required as a precondition. Moscow was involved in the first stages of postwar settlement, such as the reopening of the Suez Canal and the Geneva peace conference. But it was edged out of the subsequent process and did its best to back its remaining allies, mainly Syria and Palestinian groups, in opposing the Israeli-Egyptian peace as far as backing attempts on Sadat’s life.

In the Thick of the Yom Kippur War

2017 ◽  
pp. 337-346
Author(s):  
Isabella Ginor ◽  
Gideon Remez
Keyword(s):  
Suez Canal ◽  
Special Forces ◽  
Transport Aircraft ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Yom Kippur

Recent testimony from a Soviet general and others showed that the transport aircraft which evacuated the dependents of Soviet advisers from Egypt on the eve of the Yom Kippur War also flew in more advisers to assist in the crossing of the Suez Canal. Another indication of Soviet collusion is the immediate start of a Soviet resupply effort as soon as the offensive was launched on 6 October, which proves earlier prepositioning. Both advisers and Soviet special forces were involved in operations across the canal. Soviet SAM batteries were also redeployed in Egypt and Syria, especially after the tide turned against the Arab onslaught after the first days of fighting. .

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