Dan Snow's History Hit - The Arab- Israeli War: Yom Kippur War 1973

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Also known as the October War and the Ramadan War, this conflict was initiated by Egypt and Syria on October 6, 1973, as a surprise attack on Israel during the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur and the Muslim month of Ramadan. It was motivated by a desire among Arab states to regain territory taken by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967, particularly the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. The initial stages of the war caught Israel off guard, but they were able to regroup and mount a strong defence. The war ended with a ceasefire brokered by the United States and the Soviet Union. Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and in exchange Egypt recognised Israel as a legitimate state - the first Arab country to do so.It had a profound impact on the region and the seismic waves were felt across the world. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, it's been described as a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union with Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries imposing an embargo against the United States in retaliation for the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military. This became a key contributor to the energy crisis of 1973, felt particularly in Britain.Commentators have made comparisons between the surprise attack by Hamas on the 7th of October 2023, with that first surprise attack made by the Arabic coalition in the Yom Kippur War. Today, Dan is joined by Dr Alexander Burns- Assistant Professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, a Historian of the eighteenth-century Atlantic World, American Continental Army, and Military Europe to look at those comparisons and run through a play-by-play of the 1973 conflict and its impact on the region and global order. Produced by Dan Snow, Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal PatmoreDiscover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. There was almost complete surprise. At 2pm on the 6th of October 1973, a massive Egyptian barrage opened up on a few hundred stunned Israeli troops manning their defensive positions along the border, along the Suez Canal. In the skies above, Egyptian strike aircraft smashed Israeli airfields, radar installations and artillery pieces. In less than an hour, specially trained

assault troops were paddling small boats furiously across the canal, many clutching newly delivered Soviet-provided man-portable anti-tank weapons. Assault engineers brought specialist equipment forward to blast holes in the massive sand ramparts the Israelis had erected to stop tanks pushing into the Sinai Desert beyond. At exactly the same time, Israel's northeast frontier erupted as Syrian guns fired an hour-long barrage and Syrian planes launched coordinated strikes. After that whirlwind of fire, Syrian tanks roared forwards. They pushed towards the Israeli positions on the high ground known as the Golan Heights, accompanied by bridge layers and mine-clearing vehicles. The Israelis had received warnings of the attack. They'd even

mobilised some troops that morning, but the overall picture was one of stunned surprise. It was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. You'll have probably heard elsewhere the parallels between this Yom Kippur assault in 1973 and the recent surprise attack by Hamas on southern Israel during a religious festival. Hamas attacked exactly 50 years and one day after the 1973 assault. It's such a striking parallel I thought on this podcast we'd talk about the Yom Kippur War. It was a war that would see Israel eventually crush its enemies, but not before the superpowers, the Soviet Union and the USA had been brought to the brink of war. It was one of the most dangerous

moments of the Cold War. It also saw Arab nations support the war effort by announcing an oil embargo which led to an energy shock, the recession in the US and the three-day week in Britain. Israel won the war but in the years after it gave up territory to Egypt in return for recognition and lasting peace. The Israelis were chastened by the success of those initial Egyptian attacks, and we'll be hearing about them in this pod. The outcome of the war continues to shape the politics and the geography of the region to this day. I made a program about the war 20 years ago. As you'll hear, I had a fallout with the Egyptian government about the portrayal of the war in that program. But I'm a little rusty, so here to help me tell the story

of the very brilliant Dr Alexander Burns, Assistant Professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He's a historian of the 18th century Atlantic world. He talks about the American Continental Army and the travails of the British who tried to make war in the American backcountry with varying degrees of success through the second half of the 18th century.

He's also got a passion, though, for studying the Yom Kippur War and I'm very grateful to him at joining me. This is the story of the massive surprise attack that shook Israel and brought the world to the brink of global war. Enjoy. T-minus 10. Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till Enjoy. Alex, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's my pleasure to be here. I guess the thing that we should talk about with Yom Kippur first is why the Israelis were tactically surprised, why they were strategically surprised by this attack on two fronts. What was the key assumption the Israelis had before the war which allowed them to think there would be no Arab assault in 1973 or not for the foreseeable future?

Absolutely. So this is one of the classic questions. It's one of the huge debates about this war. The Israeli state, obviously going back to 1948, 1956, and then finally in 1967 in the Six-Day War, had a great deal of success tactically against its Arab opponents. And so going through these victories, the Israelis developed what we might think of as a sense of superiority or even overconfidence or maybe even invulnerability. And so after the war in 1967, they developed kind of two ideas about their own weaponry. One, that their tanks would never be seriously challenged by Arab tanks, Syrian, Egyptian tanks. And two, that their air force would be able to operate with impunity, usually knocking out the enemy air force on the ground in the opening moments or hours of a war, and then be able to support Israeli tanks in combat air support or ground support missions. And so all of these assumptions about the war assumed that Israel would always have advanced warning, that they would never be surprised. And in order to achieve this, Israel spent a significant amount of money and developed both human and technological

resources to give it advance warning of this, some sort of renewed conflict with the Arab states. And so as a result of human assets, like Ashraf Marwan, who is an Egyptian agent developed by Mossad, as a result of listening devices that Israeli special forces had planted in Egypt. The Israeli state under Prime Minister Golda Meir believed that they would always have perhaps 48 hours or more advanced warning if a conflict was going to break out. When this, in 1973, when this turns out not to be the case, all of these dominoes, if you will, all of these assumptions that are rest upon this central assumption that Israel will have advanced warning begin to collapse. And let's switch it around and look from the

Arab point of view, the Syrians in the north, the Egyptians in the south. It was against all orthodoxy that these armies could go back into action against Israelis without their air forces having recovered and achieving a parity, be able to contest the airspace with Israel. So what was their hack for that? How did they possibly think they could fight, take on the Israelis without a rebuilt fleet of fighter bombers? Absolutely. And this even feeds into what the Israelis were thinking, right? This is Amman or Israeli military intelligence, what they call the concept. So after 1967, the Israelis believe that Syria under Hafez al-Assad and Egypt under Anwar al-Sadat will never attack unless they have essentially long range missiles,

which they can strike Israel, and also fighter bombers with which they can attack the Israeli Air Force and gain parity with the Israeli Air Force on the air and maybe even destroy it on the ground. And in order to sidestep these requirements, both President Assad in Syria, but especially President Sadat in Egypt, they get different equipment from the Soviets, relatively sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, very sophisticated for the time anti-tank missiles. And these two systems allow especially the Egyptians to gain a tactical, a local tactical superiority, which prevents all of these really assumptions from coming true. That their air force will not be able to strike the Egyptian air force on the ground because one, they won't have surprise. And two, the surface to air missiles will prevent the Israeli jets from engaging Egyptian targets on the ground. Second, the Israeli philosophy that sometimes in English rendered the totality of the tank,

that essentially the Egyptian forces, the Syrian forces will flee in the face of an Israeli armor charge. These types of armor charges are halted in the opening hours of the Yom Kippur War, particularly on the Sinai, when 91 Israeli tanks immediately launch a counteroffensive as the Egyptians are crossing the Suez Canal. Here, the Sager anti-tank missiles that the Egyptian forces are using, and also RPGs that the Egyptian infantry are carrying with them, allow the Egyptian infantry divisions that really spearhead this crossing to halt the Israeli tanks before they can crossing the canal and then forcing the Israelis to come and attack him. And in the opening week or so of the war, this plan works quite well. And Israeli military superiority, the tactical superiority that they've come to rely on,

their jets, their tanks, are overturned by these Soviet weapons that the Egyptians are using. Yes, Alex, let's get into the attack, because it is one of the great surprise attacks, and in its early stages, very successful attacks, probably of 20th century warfare. As you mentioned, the Egyptians, the Syrians, they build this kind of counterintuitive strategy. So they've got weapons that can be wielded by infantrymen that can negate the Israeli advanced tanks. They can deny the airspace above the battlefield to the Israelis with these extraordinary surface to air missiles. And what do they do? They've also got to cross the canal, the Suez Canal, right? That's no easy feat. Let's deal

with the Egyptians in the south first. And they choose to attack on one of the holiest days of the Israeli, the Jewish calendar. So they plan this part of the operation brilliantly, don't they? How do they get across the canal, break through Israeli defences, and as you say, kind of then try and bite and hold, a bit like a First World War battle, just establish positions on the other side of the canal, and then let the Israelis come at them. What are the ways in which they do that? First of all, yes, it's a surprising war in many ways, because one, obviously, it's occurring on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days in the Israeli religious calendar, the Jewish religious calendar. It's also happening on the 10th day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. And so in one of the odd kind of moments of 20th century military

history, both Muslim and Jewish soldiers are forced to break fasts that are required of them due to religious observance in order to go and engage in this war. And Israeli military intelligence is getting reports, wow, the Syrians, the Egyptians, they're breaking the Ramadan fast, something must be happening. But these reports don't move up the chain of command fast enough. And so at 2pm on October 6, 1973, when the Syrian and Egyptian jets rise into the air and begin to attack ground targets in both the Golan and in the Sinai, Israel is taken, not entirely by surprise, they're anticipating attack at 6 p.m., but the attack comes four hours too early. And as a result, the Israeli defenses are caught off balance. So Egyptian forces, four infantry divisions, essentially get into, I think, approximately 700 rubber boats, and they cross the canal to attack the forts of the Bar Lev line. And it's not a huge Israeli defensive force. There are about 450 infantrymen in these forts,

and they're supported by approximately 100, about 91 tanks. So these Egyptian troops, with the air cover, with artillery support, they cross the canal. They storm up the 20-meter embankment on the Israeli side of the canal. And the Egyptian infantrymen who lead this assault are very proud of their achievements. If you listen to their interviews, folks like Mohammed El-Soul, who's an infantryman in the 19th Infantry Division, who's in one of these rubber boats spearheading the assault, he describes the lightness of the Egyptian troops on their feet as moving like butterflies. And Yossiri Amra, who's an Egyptian commando who's sort of with them in the first wave as well, describes the counterattack by Israeli tanks and Egyptian forces engaging them with anti-tank missiles, with RPGs.

He describes, again, sort of this lightness on the feet, almost like, he says, it's like birds jumping from tree to tree. The Egyptian forces are quick on their feet, engaging the Israeli tanks with missiles, and then moving to a different firing position, engaging another armored vehicle. On the Israeli side, it's a disaster, and a huge number of these tanks are put out of action. In one battalion, only two tanks are left after this offensive is concluded. And the division commander turns to the battalion commander and says, where's the rest of the battalion? He says, this is it. I only have two tanks remaining. And so this is a real surprise on the Egyptian side. The Egyptian forces,

for them, this is the high point of the war. They not only managed to cross the canal, but they survived this initial armored counterattack almost for the first time in the history of the Israeli-Arab conflicts. You have Arab or Egyptian infantry who are not fleeing in the face of an Israeli tank assault, but instead are holding their ground, nimbly engaging these tanks and inflicting significant losses on the Israeli forces. So you have the Egyptians are established on the far side of the Suez Canal. They're back in Sinai. As you point out, they don't attempt to kind of rampage further into Sinai. It's a clever political move. Sadat, I suppose, knows that what he's got to do, he's got to defeat the Israelis, not necessarily conquer the whole Sinai desert back, but he's got to inflict a defeat that will allow him to perhaps get it back at the negotiating table or whatever. Meanwhile, a simultaneous assault going on in the very north of Israel, in the Golan Heights, become the most different landscape you could imagine.

Steep hills and valleys. What's going on up there? So here you have a couple Israeli tank divisions, approximately 188 tanks deployed to support, again, a number of forts on the border between the Golan and Syria. And when the Syrian army attacks on 2 p.m. on October 6th, you have essentially two different halves of the war in the Golan. In the northern half of the Golan, the Syrian advance is blunted as a result of very effective gunnery on the part of Israeli tankers in the northern part of the Golan Heights. But in the southern half of the Golan, south of the town of Orkhanitra, you have a breakthrough. And Syrian tanks, not only do they manage to break through the outposts on the border between the Golan and Syria, but they also manage to drive into the Golan Heights. They're approaching bridges over the Jordan River by the time you get to the evening on October 6ris. This is a real disaster from the Israeli perspective. I

mean, there are Syrian tank commanders who can look and see the Sea of Galilee, who can see the Israeli town of Tiberias on the far shore of the Sea of Galilee. And they're only 12 miles from some of these bridges across the Jordan that the Israelis have to hold if they're going to mobilize their reserves and bring those reserves up into the Golan Heights in order to sort of stop the Syrian breakthrough. People compared the appalling events of last week in southern Israel with this surprise attack, which took place 50 years and one day previously. The death toll, of course, particularly of Israeli civilians and the barbarism that was perpetrated on them was greater than in the Yom Kippur War, where most of the fighting

took place in Sinai and Golem, which is less densely populated with civilians. But strategically, do you think this opening day or two of the Yom Kippur War represented a greater threat to Israel? Was the state looking at an existential threat at that point? Yeah, so I will say, and here I think it's important to note, I'm guided by writings from authors like Michael Oren, who's one of the leading historians on this conflict and is also kind of focused on what's happening in Israel right now. But he says there are some important parallels, but we shouldn't get carried away with comparing these two conflicts. Essentially, the 1973 war is a war

where if Syrian forces had been more successful, they could have posed an existential threat to the state of Israel. In terms of the surprise that Hamas terrorists achieve on the morning of October 7th, as you say, 50 years in one day after this previous war begins in 73, this is an intelligence failure on the Israeli side that's comparable to the failings of, say, Israeli military intelligence on the eve of the Yom Kippur War. But in terms of the threat that it represents, it's certainly a major threat. And indeed, more Israeli civilians have already been killed in the present war than were lost in the entirety of the Yom Kippur War. And so from the perspective of civilian casualties on the Israeli side, the war that's happening today is more existential. It's already been deadlier than the war in 1973 is the idea that because of the large state armies that are attacking the state of Israel, the Syrian army, the Egyptian army, eventually the Iraqi forces, the Jordanian army will join the war in a limited way. This represents an existential threat to the state of Israel in a way that although obviously there's a huge amount of brutal murder of

civilians in the current war, the Israeli state is unlikely to be completely dismantled as a result of military loss in this conflict. You listen to Dan Snow's history, talk about the Yom Kippur War, all coming up. World War. We're coming up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries.

The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Let's quickly deal with the fighting in the north before we perhaps go into a little bit more detail

about the counterattack in the south, which is one of the most stunning moments of military history in the 20th century. The Israelis reel back, as you've pointed out, they reel back in certain sectors of the Golan Front, but they quite quickly counterattack the Syrians and end up moving into Syria itself and shelling the outskirts of Damascus, don't they? So it's a very dramatic turnaround. After approximately two days of a successful offensive, Syrian forces are halted in the Golan. You have a

Israeli counterattack that then pushes these forces back across the 1967 Purple Line, going back into Syria. And then the Israelis begin their own offensive onto Syrian territory and approach within 30 or 40 miles of the city of Damascus, approximately 35 miles from that Purple line, that ceasefire line. And at this range, long range Israeli artillery can start to hit the outskirts of Damascus. It's at this moment when more Arab states begin to intervene in the conflict on the Syrian side. And you have Iraqi tank divisions crossing the border into Syria, trying to halt the Israeli offensive. You have, in maybe a more measured way or limited way, the Jordanian army joins the war at this stage and begins degrading Israeli forces in Syria. And so for the rest of the conflict in the north, it will sort of stabilize along the front line. This territory in Syria has been seized by Israel, but the Israeli forces are

unable to complete a breakthrough all the way into Damascus as a result of the additional forces that are supplied. I mean, there are Palestinian fighters with the Syrian army. Palestinian commandos are attacking the intelligence outpost on Mount Hermon in the opening hours of war. You have Moroccan soldiers who are there in Syria fighting alongside the Syrian army. So it is very much kind of a pan-Arab force in Syria that's trying to prevent a full Syrian military collapse. It's also worth mentioning that to a large extent, it's President Assad himself, Hafez al-Assad, who is responsible for the very tightly controlled nature of the Syrian military response. He doesn't give Syrian junior commanders a lot of

initiative or latitude in their orders. He is not afraid to fire commanders who do not perform up to his expectations and even court-martial or imprison Syrian division or brigade commanders who retreat in the face of the Israelis. And so you have a, in this way, because the war is being waged in a dictatorial manner, the Syrian army doesn't perform as well, say, even as the Egyptians do in the Sinai. I know we're not supposed to draw basic lessons from history, Alex, but the old dictator interfering in way, way down the chain of command in decisions made at tactical levels is always a no, is always a no-no. Speaking of which, the Sinai front. Talk me through Israel's extraordinary counter-offensive

and what happens down there near the Suez Canal. So to some extent, the Israelis are greatly helped in the Sinai by the collapse in the north because, again, political leadership, President Sadat wants to try and take pressure off the Syrian front. And so he's sending down orders to his commanders, like General Shazly, who are hesitant to leave the positions, the excellent defensive positions they've taken on the banks of the canal and push further into the Sinai, into the passes, sort of maybe 30 miles in to the Sinai. And as a result of increasing pressure on the Syrians, President Sadat gives orders on the 11th and 12th and 13th of October for Egyptian forces to begin the offensive into the Sinai to attack Israeli positions here. And finally, on the 13th, this

happens. This is a tactical mistake. The Egyptian forces leave the cover of their, almost like the umbrella of their SAM coverage or their surface-to-air missile coverage. And at this point, of their SAM coverage or their surface-to-air missile coverage. And at this point, they're engaged by Israeli tank gunners who are very accurate shots. They can hit targets with great ease out to 2,000, perhaps 3,000 meters. And as a result of this, the Egyptian tank forces start to become attrited, and the Israelis start a counteroffensive of their own. Some of the most famous names in Israeli military history, like Ariel Sharon, are leading this part of the offensive.

There's fighting at Chinese farms, where eventually about 750 Israeli paratroopers are able to break through and on rubber boats of their own, cross to the other side of the canal, create a bridgehead on the other side of the canal. And at this point, after a couple more days of fighting, Israeli tanks begin to be able to cross the canal on sort of barges and bridges of their own. And then they begin almost like an encirclement of the Egyptian forces that are stuck on, from their perspective, the far side of the canal, on the Sinai side of the canal. And so the Egyptian Second Army and Third Army are being issued orders by President Sadat, don't withdraw, don't leave your positions. And there's great disputes between Egyptian

commanders in their military headquarters, General Ismail, General Shasli, whether or not it's right to try and withdraw, whether it's better to sort of stay in their positions. The fear that Sadat has, if a retreat starts, maybe the entire Egyptian morale will collapse and we'll have a, from his perspective, a setback like there was in 1967. But the long and short of it is this leads to a situation where the Egyptian Third Army particularly is basically encircled by Israeli forces that have crossed the canal. And this puts intense pressure on the Egyptian command to seek a political solution to this war, diplomatic solution to this war. As early as the 13th, Sadat had been approached by the ambassador from the United Kingdom

to say, hey, let's try and negotiate a ceasefire. The Israelis are willing to talk. And at that point, he was very confident in his position. Now he's the one desperate for a ceasefire. And it takes, to some degree, American intervention with Henry Kissinger, sort of negotiating between doing shuttle diplomacy, basically, between Cairo, between Tel Aviv, in order to end the actual fighting and put a ceasefire in place. from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit.

Wherever you get your podcasts. And you've mentioned it there, as so often in this part of the world the superpower allies of the various combatants are drawn in and in fact you know kissinger helps to negotiate a ceasefire but not before the u.s military state of readiness in terms of its deployment of nuclear arsenal and stuff its defcon level goes up to i, its highest point of readiness in history to that point. And the Soviets talk about putting their own troops on the ground to support their clients in Syria and Egypt. Things almost escalated significantly, didn't they? Absolutely. So it's important to say, much like Vietnam, this is a war that's happening in the

framework of the Cold War. In this language from Washington and Moscow, you have the American proxies with the Israelis, the American proxies with the Israelis, the Soviet proxies with the Egyptians and the Syrians. And so as a result of this, yeah, the Soviet Union essentially threatens to intervene with, I think, 12,000 Soviet VDV, or like paratroopers basically, to send them to support Damascus, trying to avoid this direct intervention militarily. President Nixon and Henry Kissinger increased the state of readiness to DEFCON 3. VSC is the only, I think the second time up to this point in history that United States forces, atomic forces haven't ever been raised to that

level. And the previous was the Cuban Missile Crisis. That gives you a sense of how serious President Nixon is viewing this crisis. As a result of the American, essentially, nuclear alert, the Soviets pull back from deploying their own troops onto the ground to fight. And as a result, Kissinger is able to sort of thread the needle and convince the Israeli government, even though they are riding high on success at this point. I mean, they've come back from a very disastrous situation to achieve one of the most spectacular military victories in the 20th century. But he is the one who is, by and large, saying, if you don't negotiate, the United States is going to have to begin to

withdraw its support. So there are almost like levers or pressures that Kissinger is using in order to get the Israelis, even from a position of military strength, to negotiate with both the Syrians and the Egyptians. Now, let's just quickly tie up one or two loose ends. First of all, we should probably mention the oil embargo. You mentioned other Arab forces deploying troops on the ground, but nearly all the Arab oil producing nations refused to sell oil, which drove up the price and created an economic shock in the rest of the world. So again, an example of how this regional war had very real global consequences. So yeah, this is a threat that, I mean, in American minds is ever present in the 1970s. And here, again, even the states that aren't directly militarily involved in the conflict, like Saudi Arabia, are able to intervene to some extent as a result of the threat of an embargo from OPEC. This is very much in Kissinger's mind as he's engaged in this shuttle diplomacy. He very much would like to support Israel militarily and does. There's a huge airlift of American supplies, but even superpowers have constraints on what they're able to do. And this leads to the famous 1973 energy crisis with all sorts of impacts in the UK and elsewhere.

And actually, weirdly, it helps to lead to the massive development of the US oil market and for the US to become self-sufficient in oil. But so huge consequences there. Let's also quickly talk about the President Sadat and Israel make peace after this. So you mentioned Israel's on a high. It has scored an unlikely and stunning victory over the Syrians and Egyptians. And yet something about the scare that Israel got, and this is something I wonder whether in years to come, we may discuss this in relation to this war that we're now in, something about the surprise, the shock that Israel got. They were prepared to swap back, to give up the Sinai Desert in return for normalization

of relations with Egypt. Do you think that's the consequences of that initial Egyptian success on the battlefield? To a large extent, yes. So, I mean, this is one of the most important outcomes of the war is it creates the basis for peace between Egypt and Israel. And historians have different positions and argumentations based on what they believe is going on in President Sadat's mind. But to some extent, this is what he is focused on from the outset. In 1971, two years before the war, he makes this speech where he says, we're willing to recognize the state of Israel. Because up until this point, I mean, Sadat and the other powers, they don't recognize that Israel is a legitimate state. They call it the Zionist entity, right? Up until this point, there's no formal recognition of the fact that Israel exists. And so in 1971, Sadat says, we're willing to have peace, we're willing to normalize

relations, but we want the Sinai back. And he's very rigid in his position. And so some historians have argued basically, well, is this really a negotiation tactic? Is this more of a threat? You know, how serious was he about diplomatic engagement at this point? But here, two years before the war, in 71, he says, look, what we want is Sinai. If you give us the Sinai back, we'll normalize relations. The shock that the war creates, as you've just put it, Dan, the Israelis win this war. This is a militarily one of the great triumphs of the Israeli state in the 20th century. But almost more importantly, many Israelis don't feel that way. They look at the casualty lists. They look at the sense of dread, hearing the sirens on Yom Kippur, the total surprise that the Egyptians and the Syrians are able to achieve. And this causes them to point a lot of hard questions to their government. And you have protesters. And sometimes the comparison that's made is between this protest movement and what's going on in America in

response to the Vietnam War. And I'm not sure if I like that comparison, but what you do have is in the immediate aftermath of the war, veterans, people like Mati Ashkenazi show up in front of government buildings in Tel Aviv with signs saying, we want the government to resign. We want Moshi Dayan, the defense minister, to resign. Dayan, the defense minister, to resign. And this lack of confidence in this government after the war concludes in the Israeli popular memory and understanding of this war undercuts this sense that it was a dramatic military victory. There's a huge commission, the Argonaut Commission, after the war, much like the 9-11 Commission in more recent United States history, where various members of the government are called to account for what

they were doing. How was this intelligence failure possible is essentially the central question of this commission. And so this shock, the losses that Israel endured in this war, I mean, there are approximately 2,600 Israelis killed in this war, which is, for the standards of the conflict up until this point, a very large number of Israeli military members are killed. to engage with Sadat. Not in the exact terms that he wanted in 1971. He too has to be willing to negotiate a little bit more in good faith. But the conditions of the end of this war set the stage for a future peace, a peace that to some extent President Carter helps facilitate in the 1978 Camp David Accords that lead to the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. And these two states normalize relations. And so as a result, this is a watershed in Middle Eastern history. Israel will fight a number of other wars in the course of the 20th and 21st centuries against Arab powers, against terrorist organizations. But there will never be another war where state militaries,

large armies with tanks, threaten to destroy Israel. And so this peace between the Egyptians and the Israelis, perhaps it would be too much to say that it brings peace to the Middle East or this part of the Middle East, but it does change the nature of conflict. And the Arab world views this as a huge betrayal. Hafez al-Assad, the president of Syria, severs diplomatic connections with Egypt in the aftermath of this peace agreement. President Sadat, who signed this peace accord, is assassinated in 1981 on the anniversary of the war, on October 6th, as a result of being willing to engage seriously with the Israelis in this way. So it's a war that has incredible consequences, not just in terms of the military fallout on the ground, but the diplomatic repercussions and how the different populations in these states view this war. Alex, just so interesting as you're saying that, there was a commission, there was an attempt to learn lessons in Israel.

there was an attempt to learn lessons in Israel. It's so fascinating in Syria and Egypt, that process didn't take place. And it just, as you're talking, it reminds me of how the advantage that democracies, places with the rule of law, places with a tradition of parliamentary oversight of the executive, for example, the advantages they have. We were thrown out of Egypt for, I was there making a BBC documentary because they found out we didn't just want to talk about the initial crossing of the canal. We want to talk about the aftermath, you know, the disastrous end of the war for the Egyptians. And they were not prepared to have us in the country talking about that. And as I understand, it's not talked about in their staff college. Young officers do not study that phase of the war. And it just reminds me, as you're saying, how honesty, introspection, and transparency

are vital to war making or indeed any other aspect of state activity. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if you go to the military museum focused on this war in Cairo, this is a potential advantage of a more free, open society, a society that's built on the classical liberal mold, freedom of discussion. of discussion. It's not a sure thing though, always, right? If we look at the intelligence failing directly before this conflict that broke out just nine days ago, you have a situation where much like has happened to the United States in 2001, there was a lot of noise going on. Something might be going wrong. Something might be happening. Intelligence services are picking up chatter, but there's not a readiness to immediately engage. And so much like Golda Meir's government was wary as a result of perhaps genuine intelligence mistakes, but also political concerns. How can you mobilize on Yom Kippur? It's the holiest day. You're going

to disrupt all of Israeli life. These types of concerns, I think, have a long legacy, and that legacy perhaps connects with what has happened. Maybe this failure, I mean, will we see another Argonaut Commission, another 9-11 style commission after this war concludes and to investigate what went wrong? I think it's a definite possibility. Well, it would be a sign of strength, not weakness if it does happen. And Alex, it's interesting you brought it back so professionally to where we began, which is the assumptions. Despite all the intelligence being gathered, the noise, the chatter,

it is the assumptions held by those in power that can negate all of those other signals because you assume that whatever you're hearing, such an event is an absolute impossibility. And every state has certainly been guilty of that at one time or another. Thank you, Alexander. You have been an absolute star. Tell everyone how they can engage with your content because

it's some of the best stuff online. Where can people find you and engage with you? Thanks. That's very kind, Dan. I mean, so I'm on Twitter and you can find my book, which honors the career of a really great 18th century military historian named Christopher Duffy. It's called The Changing Face of Old Regime Warfare. And it looks at Duffy who taught at Sandhurst for many years and his contributions to military history. Your 18th century threads, just, I can't get enough of them. So for everyone out there, and that's lots of people who just love detailed descriptions of musket volleys and their effectiveness at various ranges, you got to go and follow Dr. Alexander Burns. So thank you very much for coming on the podcast. It's my pleasure. Thanks so much, Dan. you