The Reckoning: repatriated Israeli POWs in hospital, November 1973.
CHAPTER 14
THE RECKONING
IN 1973, as in 1967 and 1956, the factor that more than any other shaped the war was the surprise achieved by one side—in this case, the Arabs. As pointed out in several studies,1 there was no lack of advance warning: The concentration of 300,000 men with thousands of tanks and guns as well as heavy bridging equipment simply could not escape notice. And neither was there a lack of other indications, from canal-crossing exercises to heightened states of alert to the sudden departure of the Soviet dependents less than forty-eight hours before the offensive. The alarms being sounded by individual officials at various levels were, however, all misinterpreted, ignored, or suppressed. Though subject to various degrees of nervousness, those who mattered—Dayan, Tsur (Dayan’s deputy), and Elazar—were misled by Zeira, who thought he knew there would be no war. Even then, however, it is difficult to imagine that one officer alone could have had such an influence had not many of his underlying assumptions been shared by the rest.2 Relatively ignorant about military matters and feeling isolated among her own defense experts, Ms. Meir, according to her own account,3 acquiesced.
Compared to 1967 the IDF in 1973 started the war while holding excellent lines that were easy to defend—but that (thanks to the fact there no longer was any space separating the opponents) enabled the Arabs to take it by surprise. Once that surprise had been overcome, on the Golan Heights it was able to exploit its forte and engage on maneuver warfare vis-à-vis the Syrians and Iraqis. Not so in the Sinai, where the existence of the Bar Lev Line caused that advantage to be thrown away. The original decision, made in 1968, to hold on to the waterline was probably justified on political grounds; however, when the full-scale Egyptian attack came in 1973 it proved disastrous. On the one hand the line was occupied only by half as many men as it had been during the War of Attrition and with hardly any tanks or artillery to back up the meozim. On the other hand, IDF forces were frittered away in an effort to rescue the troops in their fortifications.
The effects of surprise also explain why, on both fronts during the first few days, IDF command and control was as bad as it could be. This caused entire units (Barak in the north, the advanced regular armored brigade in the south) to be sacrificed as other units stood by and did nothing (the two other regular armored brigades in the Sinai on October 6), acted on their own initiative (7th Armored in the north), or wasted time in purposeless maneuvering (Sharon’s division on October 8). In the north, where personal relations among commanders were good, order was restored from October 8 on. Not so in the south, where Elazar’s distrust of his subordinates resulted in a sort of “reverse optional control” as commanders, compelled to wait for his orders, positioned themselves too far to the rear while their units went on the offensive and consequently lost touch.4 Ultimately it took the failure of a major counteroffensive to bring the IDF to its senses. Even so, Bar Lev, Adan, and Sharon continued to quarrel until the end of the war—and beyond.
Some of the problems were due to the fact that Israel had a surplus of supposedly excellent generals who were veterans of 1967. Whereas one reservist, Major General Lanner, had given a sterling performance, back in Tel Aviv, Elazar found himself surrounded by characters like Yadin, Rabin, Weizman, and Zeevi, former commander of the central front who had just doffed his uniform but came back to serve as a “special assistant” to the chief of staff. They crowded into the Bor (literally hole, the central command bunker), filling it with cigarette smoke and making it almost impossible for Elazar to perform his duties. Others appointed themselves as unofficial “eyes” for GHQ and hitched rides to the fronts. Gonen’s position was the worst of all. The jumped-up 1967 colonel was considered a first-class fighter who, however, was still thinking like a division commander. Unfortunately he had under him not one but two generals (Adan and Sharon) who at one point had been superiors and over whom he was able to exercise little authority. Of the two, Sharon was not only a notoriously difficult subordinate but also affiliated with the opposition Likud Party, which meant that he could not be dismissed without risking a major political uproar. To the extent that henceforward no reservist was allowed to command a unit larger than a brigade, the lesson was learned. However, as we shall see, when Israel next went to war (in 1982) its top-level command structure was in some ways even more rickety than before.
Though the 1973 lines were easier to defend, they did not permit Israel to use its position between the Arab countries to the same extent as in 1967. The fronts were now much farther away, allowing only a few units to be transferred from the Golan Heights to the Sinai while hostilities lasted. Even the air force discovered that it was unable to operate as a unified force and during the initial days found itself trying to stem the Arabs on two fronts simultaneously; later it was virtually split into independent forces, each half concentrating on a front. In this way much of the advantage of occupying additional space was wasted, the more so because the attempt to hold on to every last inch of territory took away available room for maneuver.
The confusion at the front was matched by the disorder in the emergency depots. For example, one of Sharon’s armored battalions found that not one of its half-tracks would start. By the time the war ended it had still not received the mortars that figured on the tables of organization and that would have been, had they been available, a great help in combating the Egyptian infantry.5 One armored battalion went to war with twenty-five tanks, a mere two half-tracks, and practically none of its soft vehicles;6 yet another did so without turret-mounted machine guns and, pushing toward the canal on October 8, was reduced to using Uzis instead.7 Nevertheless, having worked through the night of October 6-7, the IDF rank and file mobilized more quickly than expected. In spite of shortages in everything from small arms (which were often inferior to those carried by the Arabs) through night-vision equipment, they fought very well, and calculations have shown that, on a man-to-man basis and in comparison to the 1967 war, the gap between them and their enemies had widened.8 Particularly on the nearby Syrian front, it was a question of hold on or die; in the event of defeat the Israeli public, kept ignorant of whatever it was Peres in 1967 had thought could deter the Arabs, expected no mercy from their enemies. Though obviously not everybody could be equally heroic, the spirit of the times was exemplified by General Eytan. Forced to evacuate Nafeq on October 7, he swore he would not leave the Golan Heights alive.9
Though the IDF found its organization and equipment deficient in some respects, in others it had the advantage. The all-tank doctrine with which it entered the war proved a disaster, but after the first few days it was spontaneously abandoned as individual commanders and units adapted to fighting in an environment that was filled chock-a-block with antitank weapons. Once the initial problems had been overcome, on both fronts the IDF showed itself more adept in maneuver warfare than its enemies. Tank for tank, APC for APC, and gun for gun its heavy weapons proved as good as those of the enemy or better,10 and although Egyptian bridging equipment was easier to handle and repair, that developed by the IDF compensated by carrying the much greater weight of Western-built tanks. The war also provided the IDF with a host of technical and tactical lessons that it incorporated during the following years.
What was true on the ground was even more true in the air and at sea. Thanks in large part to its superior U.S. aircraft, the IAF was able to keep absolute command of the air over Israel proper. This advantage was not as complete over the Golan Heights and the Sinai; on both fronts the short distances enabled air strikes and heliborne strikes against the Israeli ground forces to take place, though their effect was limited. Nevertheless, the IAF was unable to significantly dent the Syrian and Egyptian antiaircraft defenses. Attempts to carry out its missions in the teeth of those defenses proved well-nigh suicidal; during the war it lost as much as one-quarter of its strength. Once the first few desperate days were over, the IAF accordingly found itself constra
ined to change its objectives, as in the case of Syria, or else was limited to using those rare opportunities when the Arabs left their missile cover. Only during the last few days of the war was it able to play a greater role, and then it was largely thanks to the operations of Sharon’s and Adan’s forces on the ground.
In view of these considerations, perhaps the most impressive performance took place at sea. Much that happened remains classified; in particular, it is hard to believe that the Israeli submarines stayed in port and did not operate against enemy bases, particularly for intelligence-gathering purposes. Though the Soviet-made Styx missiles had twice the range of the Israeli Gavriel, the Israelis’ better electronics, a well-thought-out doctrine, and thorough training gave them a decisive edge over their enemies, enabling them to sink several Syrian vessels without loss to themselves. Yet the Israelis, not having stationed major warships in the Red Sea and without a long-range airborne strike capability at their disposal, were helpless in front of the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Bab al Mandeb. This was a shortcoming that they took to heart and set out to correct in the years to come.
Overall the balance of strength in this war was much worse than in 1956—when the Israelis fought on a single front and enjoyed superiority over the Egyptian forces in the Sinai—and not too different from what it had been in 1967 (although, of course, both sides had reinforced their forces very considerably).11 Losses also increased to 2,800 killed and 8,300 wounded, as against 980 and 4,500 in 1967 and 190 and 900 in 1956. The average number of dead amounted to a little more than one hundred per day compared to fifteen in 1947-1948. However, the War of Independence had been fought by a population one-fifth as large, leading to the surprising conclusion that despite the vast advance in the quality of weapons and the amount of firepower, the intensity of the two conflicts in terms of daily losses per capita was not radically different. Calculated on the basis of Israelis killed in action per Arab division encountered, the figures for the three campaigns were 76:1 in 1956, 98:1 in 1967, and 200:1 in 1973 (against the PLO and Syrians during the first week in Lebanon they were to be around 113:1). By this rough measure it is clear that militarily speaking the October War was by far the most difficult and costliest ever fought by the IDF.
Yet once again statistics cannot convey the shock to Israel, which for the first time since 1948 saw its armed forces reeling and unable to decisively defeat the enemy. The public felt betrayed, and its belief in the IDF’s superiority was shattered. This feeling was reflected in spontaneous antigovernment demonstrations as well as horrible jokes, such as the one that had children welcoming their father, just back from the front, with the words od avinu chai (and yet our father lives, a traditional Hebrew phrase referring to the Lord). Before the war Israelis had become overconfident and even arrogant, but not, it must be stated, without encouragement from the Western world, much of which liked to see the Arabs beaten and humiliated. They referred to the enemy as Arabushim (roughly translatable as despicable Arabs), and adopted Dayan’s so-called bird theory, which, following his early experiences with the Syrians at Degania, envisaged the Arab armies scattering after a few bangs, like birds. Once again it was a poet, Jonathan Gefen, who best described the atmosphere that characterized the years before the war and the shock that followed:12 I am going to look at the sea, hoping
It is still great and blue, at least the sea.
Lonely and defeated I returned from the desert
Everything that was close seems so far away.
I am going to look at the sea.
III
RUNNING OUT OF STEAM, 1974-1997
THE END OF THE October War saw the IDF in a state of considerable demoralization. Public faith in it, as well as its own self-image, suffered badly. Commanders accustomed to being treated as demigods suddenly saw their professional expertise questioned and their social status steeply declining. The title of the very first book published about the war said it all: Ha-mechdal (The Oversight). The cover showed a weeping Ms. Meir, and the term mechdal gave rise to a family of related terms such as mechdalnik (an officer who by virtue of his affiliation with the IDF was regarded as sharing responsibility for the mechdal ) and mechdalit (the car IDF officers drove). Previously any attempt to criticize the IDF had resulted in protest, as in 1971 when a play named Malkat Ambatia (Bathroom Queen) caused its audience to run wild and had to be withdrawn. Now, however, and for the first time in Israel’s history, it became possible for people to make a name for themselves by touring the country and explaining all the things that the IDF had not done right.
More seriously, the months immediately after the war saw pressure build for an investigation. The government, which at first tried to resist, was forced to give in. A commission of inquiry was put together with the state comptroller and two former chiefs of staff (Yadin and Laskov) as its members; its chairman was High Court Justice Shimon Agranat, and the fifth member also a High Court justice. The commission was given a mandate to examine the events that led to the war as well as the first three days of operations. In its report it subjected the IDF to scathing criticism, including the failure to build up sufficient stores and to properly maintain those available. The chief of intelligence, the CO Southern Command, and the chief of staff were pilloried: the first for having failed to serve advance warning; the second for his conduct of operations during the first three critical days; and the third for having failed to order mobilization in good time. All three were forced to resign, and Elazar died soon after. Much to the former chief of staff’s chagrin, the commission exonerated Dayan, who thereby gave one last display of his knack for avoiding responsibility. However, the former national idol was crucified by public opinion. When Ms. Meir resigned in April and was replaced by Yitschak Rabin, Dayan was left out of the government.
Meanwhile, even as the “First Separation of Forces Agreement” was signed with Egypt in January 1974, the work of reconstruction got under way. At first sight it was highly successful; as we shall see, a combination of massive U.S. aid (financial and technological), plus the mobilization of Israeli resources to an extent never previously attained in peacetime, resulted in the creation of a true juggernaut not only in regional terms but even on a worldwide scale. This army was still capable of spectacular feats, such as the Entebbe raid in 1976 and the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. When it invaded Lebanon in June 1982 its early victories—especially those of the IAF over Syria’s air force and antiaircraft defenses—astonished the world.
Yet something of the earlier enthusiasm was gone. Particularly in the years immediately following 1967, war had been regarded almost as a lighthearted adventure in which heroic Israeli tankmen crashed into (nichnesu be-, Israeli slang meaning, literally, “entered”) second-rate opponents while they themselves were “exposed in the turret.” In 1973 many tankmen had been killed and others suffered horrible burns, however, causing the tanks’ hatches to be closed tight. All at once, war ceased to be a glamorous occasion honored by popular songs; instead it became a bloody, serious business in which many people were killed and others mutilated, wounded, and bereaved. Over time, graffiti reading kol ha-kavod le-TSAHAL (doff your hat to TSAHAL) tended to disappear from the streets. In 1978 Prime Minister Begin tried to turn back the clock by proposing to hold a military parade on Independence Day with himself on the stand and taking the salute; however, neither the public nor the IDF were enthusiastic, and the idea had to be dropped. To substitute for the departed glamour, “strategy” in its Western, intellectual, and instrumental sense invaded Israel, which hitherto had been remarkably free of it. Israel still had no “defense community” to speak of—the IDF being much too proud to take outside advice—so the Center of Strategic Studies was opened as an affiliate of Tel Aviv University, and over the years has done useful if not spectacular work. Books and monographs on the subject multiplied, as did professors who researched and taught it.
Except during moments when they got carried away, the leaders of Israel’s defen
se establishment had always been well aware of the country’s inability to achieve final victory by breaking the will of the Arab countries and forcing them to make peace.1 Now, even as the IDF grew more and more powerful, the limits of its power were demonstrated time and again—against progressively weaker opponents, no less. First in Lebanon and then during the Palestinian uprising it failed to perform as well as expected. In between it showed that it could not protect Israel against missile attack and was made to stand idly by as others smashed Saddam Hussein’s war machine. Even as its size peaked during the mid-1980s, it was becoming bloated and top-heavy. By the end of the decade the IDF’s morale was beginning to decline; by the mid-1990s it was clearly in a bad way. In some important respects it was as if the story of the U.S. armed forces in Vietnam was being reenacted, with the ominous difference that Israel is a mere speck on the map and does not have the Pacific Ocean to separate it from its Arab and, above all, Palestinian opponents.
Recovery and Expansion: female tank instructors, 1979.
CHAPTER 15
RECOVERY AND EXPANSION
WITH MEIR AND Dayan both gone—the former into retirement, the latter having become an ordinary Knesset member and later foreign minister—Israel’s defense was entrusted to a new team. At its head was Prime Minister Rabin. The previous six years he served as Israel’s ambassador to Washington and had lost much of his wide-eyed, young-boy-from-the-provinces air. His minister of defense was Shimon Peres, an old rival, an expert on secret negotiations, and the acknowledged founder of Israel’s military, aviation, and electronics industries as well as the Dimona nuclear reactor. After Labor was thrown out of office in the 1977 elections, Rabin and Peres vented their mutual antipathy, each one going out of his way to tell the public how incompetent the other was in defense-related matters. Yet the fact remains that together they knew more about, and had done more for, Israeli security than anybody else. So long as they remained in power their rivalry did not prevent the IDF from recovering and, later, increasing its might by leaps and bounds.
The Sword And The Olive Page 33