The Yom Kippur War of 1973
The Yom Kippur War of 1973, the most recent ‘full’ war in Middle East history,
is so-called because it began on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the holiest
day of prayer and fasting in the Jewish calendar. The Yom Kippur War is also
known as the October War. At the time of Yom Kippur, Israel was led by Golda
Meir and Egypt by Anwar Sadat.
The Yom Kippur War started with a surprise Arab attack on Israel on Saturday 6th
October 1973. On this day, Egyptian and Syrian military forces launched an
attack knowing that the military of Israel would be participating in the
religious celebrations associated with Yom Kippur. Therefore, their guard would
temporarily be dropped.
The combined forces of Egypt and Syria totaled the same number of men as NATO
had in Western Europe. On the Golan Heights alone, 150 Israeli tanks faced 1,400
Syria tanks and in the Suez region just 500 Israeli soldiers faced 80,000
Egyptian soldiers.
Other Arab nations aided the Egyptians and Syrians. Iraq transferred a squadron
of Hunter jet fighter planes to Egypt a few months before the war began. Iraqi
Russian-built MIG fighters were used against the Israelis in the Golan Heights
along with 18,000 Iraqi soldiers. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait effectively financed
the war from the Arabs side. Saudi troops – approximately 3,000 men - also
fought in the war. Libya provided Egypt with French-built Mirage fighters and in
the years 1971 to 1973, Libya bankrolled Egypt’s military modernization to the
tune of $1 billion which was used to purchase modern Russian weapons. Other
Arabic nations that helped the Egyptians and Syrians included Tunisia, Sudan and
Morocco. Jordan also sent two armored brigades and three artillery units to
support the Syrians, but their participation in the war was not done with vast
enthusiasm – probably because King Hussein of Jordan had not been kept informed
of what Egypt and Syria planned.
Facing such an attack, the Israeli forces were initially swiftly overwhelmed.
Within two days, the Egyptians had crossed the Suez Canal and moved up to 15
miles inland of the most advanced Israeli troops in the Sinai. Syrian troops
advanced by the same distance into the strategic Golan Heights in north Israel.
By the end of October 7th, the military signs were ominous for Israel.
However, on October 8th, Israeli forces, bolstered by called-up reserves,
counter-attacked in the Sinai. They pushed back the Egyptian military and
crossed the Suez Canal south of Ismailia. Here, the Israelis used the Suez-Cairo
road to advance towards the Egyptian capital, Cairo, and got to within 65 miles
of it.
The Israelis experienced similar success in the Golan Heights where the Syrian
forces were pushed back and Israel re-captured lost land. Using the main road
from Tiberius to Damascus, the Israelis got to within 35 miles of the Syrian
capital.
On October 24th, a cease-fire was organized by the United Nations. The United
Nations sent its own peacekeepers to the highly volatile regions affected by the
fighting. Between January and March 1974, Israeli and Egyptian forces disengaged
along the Suez Canal region. Here, the Israelis managed to keep control over the
strategic Sinai Desert – an area that allowed Israel a buffer to ensure any
fighting there did not spill over into Israel itself. In the Golan Heights,
1,200 United Nations troops were sent to keep the peace there in May 1974. They
effectively formed a United Nations buffer between Syria and Israel.
The American Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissenger, acted as a peace broker
between Egypt and Israel. In September 1975, Egypt and Israel signed an interim
agreement which declared their willingness to settle their differences by
peaceful means rather than by military. This was to lead to the American
sponsored talks at Camp David that followed the 1977 ‘Sadat Initiative’.
To some Arabs, Anwar Sadat, leader of Egypt, seemed to have betrayed their cause
and it was to cost him his life when he was assassinated by Muslim
fundamentalists in 1981. In October 1973, Sadat had adopted a warlike approach
to Arab relations with Israel – he was seen by many Arabs to be the spiritual
successor to Nasser and the savior to the Palestinians in Israel. His adoption
of a diplomatic approach to solving the region’s problems was too much for some
Arabs.
The United Nations had played a muted part in the whole war. At the moment of
the war, the United Nations was in a difficult position as its
Secretary-General, Kurt Waldheim, had been implicated in war crimes in the
Balkans during World War Two. Such an association did little to enhance the
reputation of the United Nations.
What did Israel get out of the Yom Kippur War?
Despite the initial successes of the Egyptian and Syrian forces, the war proved
once again how effective the Israeli military could be. After the initial
set-backs, the war served as a huge morale boost to Israelis. Despite a
co-ordinate attack on two fronts, Israel had survived and had pushed back the
nations that had initially broken through Israel’s defenses.
Though the Americans provided the Israeli military with weaponry, they also
provided Israel with something far more important – intelligence. Documents
relating to the American spy-plane, the ‘SR-71 Blackbird’, show that the
Israelis knew where major concentrations of Arab forces were as they were
supplied with this information as a result of a SR-71 flying over the war zone.
With such knowledge, the Israelis knew where to deploy their forces for maximum
effect. What appeared to be intuitive devastating counter-attacks by the
Israelis were based on very detailed information gained from American
intelligence. Basically, the Israelis knew where their enemy was and could
co-ordinate an attack accordingly.
The war also served as a salutary lesson to the Arab nations that surrounded
Israel in that initial victories had to be built on. The failure of the Egyptian
and Syrian forces to defeat Israel pushed Sadat towards adopting a diplomatic
approach. It also encouraged some Palestinians to more extreme actions. On the
diplomatic front, the Camp David talks took place while the actions of the PLO
became more violent.
Why didn’t the Arab nations build on their initial successes?
Clearly, the use of intelligence massively benefited the Israelis. However, as
in 1948, the Arab nations did not fight as one unit. Their command structure was
not unified and each fighting unit (in the Sinai and the Golan Heights) acted as
individual units. With up to nine different nationalities involved on the Arab
side, mere co-ordination would have been extremely difficult.
Secondly, the Israelis had to work to one simple equation: if they lost, the state of Israel would cease to exist. Therefore, for Israel it was a fight to the finish – literally "death or glory". If the various Arab nations lost, they could survive for another day.
The 1973 oil crisis:
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization
of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC (consisting of
the Arab
members of OPEC,
plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia)
proclaimed an oil embargo.
This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military"
during the Yom
Kippur war.
It lasted until March 1974. With the U.S. actions seen as initiating the oil
embargo and the long term possibility of high oil prices, disrupted supply and
recession, a strong rift was created within NATO.
Additionally, some European nations and Japan sought to disassociate themselves
from the U.S. Middle
East policy. Arab oil
producers had also linked the end of the embargo with successful U.S.
efforts to create peace in the Middle East, which complicated the situation.
To
By May, Israel agreed to withdraw from some parts of the Golan Heights.
Independently, the OAPEC members agreed to use their leverage over the world
price setting mechanism for oil to
stabilize their real incomes by raising world oil prices. This action followed
several years of steep income declines after the recent failure of negotiations
with the major Western oil companies earlier in the month.
Industrialized economies relied on crude oil, and OPEC was their predominant
supplier. Because of the dramatic inflation experienced during this period, a
popular economic theory has been that these price increases were to blame, as
being suppressive of economic activity. A minority dissenting opinion questions
the causal relationship described by this theory.