Ken Stein: Recollections from the October War

Ken Stein
October 9, 2013

Many recollections remain from the Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973. The war set in motion a diplomatic process that eventually culminated in the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty.

Recollections from the war include:

• Israel’s misreading of Arab military intentions;
• Israel not striking pre-emptively;
• Overwhelming numbers of Egyptian soldiers pouring across the Suez Canal;
• Syrian troops coming down the Golan Heights but stopping suddenly when they arrived at the B’not Ya’accov Bridge;
• Moscow and Washington sending military supplies to their allies;
• The Arab oil embargo on western countries;
• European countries refusing(except Portugal) to allow transports carrying military supplies from the United States to Israel to land for refueling;
• Israel’s morale starkly shaken;
• Arab euphoria from early war gains;
• Israel’s counter attacks that blocked the Syrian army on the Golan and injected Israeli forces across the canal;
• Two cease-fire resolutions not observed;
• Washington and Moscow going eye to eye in a threatened military confrontation, and then standing down;
• The war’s end with Egyptian and Israeli generals negotiating the cease-fire’s implementation 101 kilometers from Cairo;
• A December 1973 Geneva Middle East Peace Conference;
• A signing of an Egyptian-Israeli military disengagement agreement less than 100 days after the war started. Six years later, the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty was signed.