Myths
and Facts - Yom Kippur War of 1973
MYTH
“Israel was responsible for the 1973 war.”
FACT
On October 6, 1973 — Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar
— Egypt and Syria opened a coordinated surprise attack against Israel.
The equivalent of the total forces of NATO in Europe were mobilized on
Israel's borders.1 On the Golan Heights, approximately 180 Israeli tanks
faced an onslaught of 1,400 Syrian tanks. Along the Suez Canal, fewer
than 500 Israeli defenders were attacked by 80,000 Egyptians.
Thrown onto the defensive during the first two days of fighting, Israel
mobilized its reserves and eventually repulsed the invaders and carried
the war deep into Syria and Egypt. The Arab states were swiftly
resupplied by sea and air from the Soviet Union, which rejected U.S.
efforts to work toward an immediate ceasefire. As a result, the United
States belatedly began its own airlift to Israel. Two weeks later, Egypt
was saved from a disastrous defeat by the UN Security Council, which had
failed to act while the tide was in the Arabs' favor.
The Soviet Union showed no interest in initiating peacemaking efforts
while it looked like the Arabs might win. The same was true for UN
Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.
On October 22, the Security Council adopted Resolution 338 calling for
"all parties to the present fighting to cease all firing and terminate
all military activity immediately." The vote came on the day that
Israeli forces cut off and isolated the Egyptian Third Army and were in
a position to destroy it.2
Despite the Israel Defense Forces' ultimate success on the battlefield,
the war was considered a diplomatic and military failure. A total of
2,688 Israeli soldiers were killed.
MYTH
“Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had agreed to U.S. peace proposals and
did not seek war.”
FACT
In 1971, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat raised the possibility of
signing an agreement with Israel, provided that all the occupied
territories were returned by the Israelis. No progress toward peace was
made, however, so, the following year, Sadat said war was inevitable and
he was prepared to sacrifice one million soldiers in the showdown with
Israel.3 His threat did not materialize that year.
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.
Simultaneously, the Egyptian leader carried on a diplomatic offensive
among European and African states to win support for his cause. He
appealed to the Soviets to bring pressure on the United States and to
provide Egypt with more offensive weapons to cross the Suez Canal. The
Soviet Union was more interested in maintaining the appearance of
détente with the United States than in confrontation in the Middle East;
therefore, it rejected Sadat's demands. Sadat's response was to abruptly
expel approximately 20,000 Soviet advisers from Egypt.
In an April 1973 interview, Sadat again warned he would renew the war
with Israel.4 But it was the same threat he had made in 1971 and 1972,
and most observers remained skeptical.
The United States agreed with Israel's view that Egypt should engage in
direct negotiations. The U.S.-sponsored truce was three years old and
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had opened a new dialogue for peace
at the UN. Almost everyone was confident the prospect of a new war was
remote.
Sadat reacted acidly to Kissinger's initiative:
The United States is still under Zionist pressure. The glasses the
United States is wearing on its eyes are entirely Zionist glasses,
completely blind to everything except what Israel wants. We do not
accept this.5
MYTH
“Egypt and Syria were the only Arab states involved in the 1973 war.”
FACT
At least nine Arab states, including four non-Middle Eastern nations,
actively aided the Egyptian-Syrian war effort.
A few months before the Yom Kippur War, Iraq transferred a squadron of
Hunter jets to Egypt. During the war, an Iraqi division of some 18,000
men and several hundred tanks was deployed in the central Golan and
participated in the October 16 attack against Israeli positions.6 Iraqi
MiGs began operating over the Golan Heights as early as October 8, the
third day of the war.
Besides serving as financial underwriters, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
committed men to battle. A Saudi brigade of approximately 3,000 troops
was dispatched to Syria, where it participated in fighting along the
approaches to Damascus. Also, violating Paris's ban on the transfer of
French-made weapons, Libya sent Mirage fighters to Egypt (from
1971-1973, Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi gave Cairo more than $1
billion in aid to rearm Egypt and to pay the Soviets for weapons
delivered).7
“All countries should wage war against the Zionists, who are there to
destroy all human organizations and to destroy civilization and the work
which good people are trying to do.”
— King Faisal of Saudi Arabia,
Beirut Daily Star, (November 17, 1972).
Other North African countries responded to Arab and Soviet calls to aid
the frontline states. Algeria sent three aircraft squadrons of fighters
and bombers, an armored brigade and 150 tanks. Approximately 1,000-2,000
Tunisian soldiers were positioned in the Nile Delta. The Sudan stationed
3,500 troops in southern Egypt, and Morocco sent three brigades to the
front lines, including 2,500 men to Syria.
Lebanese radar units were used by Syrian air defense forces. Lebanon
also allowed Palestinian terrorists to shell Israeli civilian
settlements from its territory. Palestinians fought on the Southern
Front with the Egyptians and Kuwaitis.8
The least enthusiastic participant in the October fighting was probably
Jordan's King Hussein, who apparently had been kept uninformed of
Egyptian and Syrian war plans. But Hussein did send two of his best
units — the 40th and 60th Armored Brigades — to Syria. This force took
positions in the southern sector, defending the main Amman-Damascus
route and attacking Israeli positions along the Kuneitra-Sassa road on
October 16. Three Jordanian artillery batteries also participated in the
assault, carried out by nearly 100 tanks.9
Syrian Minister of Defense Mustafa Tlas told the Syrian National
Assembly in December 1973 of the following example of "supreme valor" by
Syrian troops:
“There is the outstanding case of a recruit from Aleppo who murdered 28
Jewish soldiers all by himself, slaughtering them like sheep. All of his
comrades in arms witnessed this. He butchered three of them with an ax
and decapitated them....He struggled face to face with one of them and
throwing down his ax managed to break his neck and devour his flesh in
front of his comrades. This is a special case. Need I single it out to
award him the Medal of the Republic. I will grant this medal to any
soldier who succeeds in killing 28 Jews, and I will cover him with
appreciation and honor his bravery.”10
MYTH
“Israel mistreated Arab soldiers captured during the 1973 war.”
FACT
Numerous observers reported that Israel's treatment of captured Arab
soldiers was above reproach. Hugh Baker, a representative of Amnesty
International, declared: "They are being treated well...and they seem to
be getting the best medical treatment possible."11
Soon after his release, Syrian Col. Atnon El-Kodar complained of
maltreatment by Israeli doctors, charging that they unnecessarily
amputated his leg. An American reporter, Ed deFontaine, who had met
Kodar in an Israeli hospital, felt the colonel must "have had a very
short memory about what was done to save his life....He told me that he
owed his life to [his] doctor."12
By contrast, Israeli soldiers captured by Syrian and Egyptian troops
were mistreated. Upon their surrender, dozens of Israeli POWs were
murdered, others were tortured in violation of the Geneva Prisoner of
War Convention.
According to a report submitted to the International Red Cross by the
Israeli Government on December 8, 1973, Israeli troops discovered bodies
of Israeli soldiers on the Golan Heights whose hands and legs had been
bound and whose eyes had been gouged. They had been executed at close
range.
On the Egyptian front, according to a report submitted to the Red Cross
on December 9, 1973, Israeli soldiers fared no better. Surrendering
soldiers were beaten, subjected to whippings, sexual attacks, burning
and starvation — and many were executed.
After the war, Syria refused for months to provide lists of POWs to
Israel, the Red Cross or U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The London Sunday Times reported that Syrian officers had turned Israeli
prisoners over to Soviet military interrogation teams. "The
interrogators...have employed medical and other techniques to break the
resistance of the Israelis," the Times said.13
MYTH
“Israeli troops deliberately destroyed the town of Kuneitra prior to
their withdrawal from the area in June 1974.”
FACT
Kuneitra, a small town just north of the Israeli-Syrian border, was not
destroyed by Israel after the war. The town was severely damaged in both
the 1967 and 1973 conflicts. In the Yom Kippur War, it was shelled and
captured by Syrian troops, retaken by Israelis, and then defended
against intense Syrian counterattacks. Tanks roamed through the town,
between and through buildings. Kuneitra also suffered damage from 81
days of artillery duels that preceded the disengagement.
Kuneitra's strategic position near the Israeli border proved suitable
for the location of Syrian army facilities, including command and
control centers for the entire front-line area. Syria concentrated at
least half its army in this region, of which Kuneitra was the capital.
Military installations, barracks, support centers, fuel and ammunition
dumps were constructed. As a result, the sources of livelihood of the
inhabitants changed from primitive peasant agriculture to service in the
army.
Long before Israel's alleged destruction of the town, the London Times
reported that Kuneitra, which once "had about 17,000 residents plus a
Syrian army garrison...is in ruins and deserted after seven years of war
and dereliction. It looks like a wild west town struck by an
earthquake....Nearly every building is heavily damaged and scores have
collapsed...."14
Notes
1Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars, (NY: Random House, 1984), p. 230.
2Herzog, p. 280.
3Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our
Time, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 747.
4Newsweek, (April 9, 1973).
5Radio Cairo, (September 28, 1973).
6Trevor Dupuy, Elusive Victory: The Arab-Israeli Wars, 1947-1974, (NY:
Harper & Row, 1978), p. 462.
7Dupuy, p. 376; Herzog, p. 278; Nadav Safran, Israel The Embattled Ally,
(MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 499.
8Herzog, p. 278, 285, 293; Dupuy, 534.
9Herzog, p. 300.
10Official Gazette of Syria, (July 11, 1974).
11Jerusalem Post, (January 4, 1974).
12Group W Radio, (June 11, 1974).
13London Times, (May 19, 1974).
14London Times, (May 5, 1974).
From:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf9.html
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