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Abstract
This article analyzes the quality of the Egyptian and Israeli intelligence advice and decision-making process in the October 1973 War as key factors that determined its course. Following a background to the subject, we focus on the 9–13 October standstill stage, in which Sadat decided, despite his generals’ advice, to renew the Egyptian offensive. Effective Israeli intelligence collection about the coming attack, which was well used by the decision-makers, saved Israel from accepting an undesired ceasefire. The result was the 14 October failed Egyptian offensive that turned the tide of the war and led to Israeli military achievements at the war’s final stage
Notes
1 James A. Robinson and Richard C. Snyder, ‘Decision-Making in International Politics’, in Herbert C. Kelman (ed.), International Behavior: A Social-Psychological Analysis (New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston 1965).
2 Alexander George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1980), 10. For a similar, though somewhat more detailed criteria see: Irving L. Janis and Leon Mann, Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment (New York: Free Press 1977), 11. For the pioneering study regarding the difficulties involved in a decision-making within a group, see: Irving L. Janis, Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (Boston: Houghton & Mifflin 1972).
3 Janis and Mann, Decision Making.
4 Alex Mintz and Karl DeRouen, Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making (Cambridge: CUP 2010), 31–7. For a discussion of the factor of the quality of the decision-making process in comparison with other factors affecting war outcomes, such as material power, weapons technology, military strategy, civil-military relations, and national culture, see: Amr Yossef, ‘The Fallacy of Democratic Victory: Decision-Making and Arab-Israeli Wars, 1967–2006’, PhD dissertation, Univ. of Trento, 2009.
5 Anwar Sadat, ‘Endamazar Nixon Misr’ [When Nixon Visited Egypt], October, 10 July 1977, ˂www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/6944.pdf˃. In the words of Shazly, Ismail Ali and himself ‘were two completely different personalities which cannot come to an agreement’ (Saad Shazly, Ḥarb October [October War] (San Francisco: American Mideast Research 2003, 136).
6 Mohamed Hafez Ismail, AmnMisr al-qawmi fi ‘aṣr al-taḥaddyat [Egypt’s National Security in the Era of Challenges] (Cairo: Al-Ahram Center for Translation and Publication 1987), 183.
7 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 122 and 130.
8 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 126-34; Mohamed Abdel-Ghany El-Gamasy, Mudhakkirat El-Gamasy: Ḥarb October 1973 [El-Gamasy’s Memoirs: October 1973 War] (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization 2012), 235–9.
9 Ashraf Ghorbal, Mudhakkirat Ashraf Ghorbal: su‘oudwa ‘inhyyar ‘ilaqatMisrwa America [Memoirs of Ashraf Ghorbal: The Rise and Fall of Egypt-America Relations] (Cairo: Al-Ahram Center for Translation and Publication 2004), 69–77; Esmat Abdel Majid, Zamn al-Inkisarwa al-Intisar: NisfQarn men al-Tahawlat al-Kubra [The Time of Breakdown and Triumph: Half a Century of Major Turning Points] (Cairo: Dar al-Shorouk & Dar al-Nahar 1999), 122–3. For an American perspective of the diplomatic process before the war see: Craig Daigle. The Limits of Détente: the United States, the Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1969–73 (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 2012). For an Israeli perspective, see Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘A Chance not Taken: Sadat’s Peace Initiative of February 1973 and Its Rejection by Israel’, Journal of Contemporary History 41/3 (July 2006), 545–56.
10 Ismail, Amn Misr al-qawmi, 268.
11 Anwar Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat [In Search of Identity] (Cairo: al-Maktab al-Arabi al-Hadith 1978), 323.
12 Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown 1982), 460.
13 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 100.
14 Ismail, AmnMisr al-qawmi, 268.
15 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 264–5.
16 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 26.
17 D.K. Palit, Return to Sinai: The Arab Offensive, October 1973 (New Delhi: Lancer 2002), 35.
18 Mohamed Heikal, October 73: al-silaḥ wa al-siyasah [October 73: Arms and Politics] (Cairo: Al-Ahram Center for Translation and Publication 1993), 346.
19 Gamal Hammad, Al-ma‘arek al-ḥarbyyaa ‘ala al-jabha al-Misryya: Ḥarb October1973/Al-a‘sher min Ramadan [Military Battles on the Egyptian Front: October1973/Tenth of Ramadan War] (Cairo: Dar El Shorouk 2002), 376.
20 Sadat, Al-baḥth ‘an al-dhaat, 265.
21 A detailed summary of each of the forum’s discussions concerning the war that were taken between 11 April and 27 Oct. 1973 is available in: Shimon Golan, Decision Making of the Israeli High Command in the Yom Kippur War (Hebrew, Tel Aviv: Maarachot 2013). This 1,348 pages volume is based on a study of the IDF History Department. It used all the protocols of the relevant discussions at the levels of the prime minister, defense minister, chief of staff and deputy chief of staff. In addition, the study used all the relevant intelligence and IDF documents, as well as the tape recordings of the discussions at the Chief of Staff’s room in ‘the pit’ since the first hours of the war. Altogether it is the official and the most authoritative history of Israel’s decision-making process between 11 April, when first warnings concerning an Egyptian intention to initiate a war started to arrive, and 27 Oct. 1973, when the cease-fire that ended the war stabilized.
22 In her testimony before the Agranat Commission, the official investigation of the war, Meir defined leaking from sensitive forums as ‘a horrible problem’ and admitted that she ‘was not completely rational about it.’ See: ‘The Testimony of Golda Meir, Prime Minister’, 6 Feb. 1974, Meeting, 80 (morning), Agranat Commission Testimonies, 34, <http://www.archives.mod.gov.il/Pages/Exhibitions/Agranat2/%D7%A2%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA%20%D7%92%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%93%D7%94%E2%80%8F%20%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A8%20-%20%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%A9%20%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%94/mywebalbum/index.html>, 65.
23 For a discussion of this episode including the relevant testimonies, see Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘The ‘Special Means of Collection’: The Missing Link in the Surprise of the Yom Kippur War’, Middle East Journal 67/4 (Autumn 2013), 531–46. For a psychological explanation of Zeira’s behavior, see Uri Bar-Joseph and Arie W. Kruglanski, ‘Intelligence Failure and the Need for Cognitive Closure: On the Psychology of the Yom Kippur Surprise’, Political Psychology 24/1 (March 2003), 75–99.
24 A video testimony of Arnan ‘Sini’ Azaryahu, Galili’s confident, taken by Prof. Avner Cohen in early 2008. Azaryahu waited for Galili outside Meir’s office when the meeting took place and immediately after it ended Galili told him about what happened. For the text of the interview see: <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/117848>.According to personal notes of the former Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. (res.) Hayim Bar-Lev, who was called to Meir’s office immediately after this meeting, ‘The Prime Minister told me [Bar-Lev] that the Defense Minister who visited the fronts informed her that he admits that he was wrong in estimating the IDF and the Arab power, and that the situation was desperate. He thinks that in the Golan Heights the army should withdraw to the last step before the Jordan and hold to the last bullet. In the Canal there is a need to withdraw to the [Gidi and Mitla] Passes and if this won’t help we have to use non-conventional means in the manner of [Samson’s] “Let me die with the Philistines.” … The impression the Prime Minister left me with was that she was less shocked by the situation and more by Dayan’s ups and downs’ (Nehama Duek, ‘The Bar-Lev Diaries’, Yedioth Ahronot, 12 Sept. 2013, p. 2).
25 Hanoch Bartov, Daddo, 48 Years and 20 More Days (Hebrew, Or Yehuda: Dvir 2002), Vol. 2, 425–6. For an analysis of the performance of the five central decision-makers in the war, see: Uri Bar-Joseph and Rose Mcdermott, ‘Personal Functioning under Stress: The Role of Accountability and Social Support in Israeli leaders in the Yom Kippur War’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 52/1 (Feb. 2008), 144–70.
26 Golan, Decision Making of the Israeli High Command, 1269–70.
27 Elchanan Oren, The History of the Yom Kippur War (Hebrew, Tel Aviv: The IDF History Department 2013), 165–6. This book is the IDF official history of the war.
28 Yehuda Vagman, ‘Chaos in Nafakh – An Analysis of the Event’, in Haggai Golan and Shaul Shai (eds), Yom Kippur War Studies (Hebrew, Tel Aviv: Maarachot 2003), 310–52, 312.
29 Hassan Ali, 324–5; Abdel Moneim Wassel, Al-seraa‘ al-‘Arabi al-Israeli: mudhakerat al-fareeq Abdel Moneim Wassel [Arab-Israeli Conflict: Memoires of Lt. Gen. Abdel Moneim Wassel] (Cairo: al-Shorouk International 2002), 227–8.
30 El-Gamasy, Mudhakkirat el-Gamasy, 399.
31 El-Gamasy, Mudhakkirat el-Gamasy, 423.
32 Mohamed Heikal, ‘Interview with General Ahmed Ismail Ali’, Al-Ahram, 18 Nov. 1973.
33 Ibid.
34 Ismail, Amn Misr al-qawmi, 329.
35 Heweidy, Al-foraṣ al-ḍa’e‘a, 423–7.
36 Uri Bar-Joseph, The Angel: Ashraf Marwan, the Mossad, and the Yom Kippur War (Hebrew) (Or Yehuda: Zmora-Bitan 2011), 267–8; Golan, Decision Making of the Israeli High Command, 519–20, 541–8, 581–2.
37 Golan, Decision Making of the Israeli High Command, 599.
38 Amiram Ezov, Crossing (Hebrew, Or Yehuda: Zmora-Bitan 2011), 17–18; Golan, Decision Making of the Israeli High Command, 748.
39 Golan, Decision Making of the Israeli High Command 685, 717, 719, 721–2, 743, 744–8, 755, 757–8, 762, 765–2, 773–4.
40 This section is based on Amr Yossef, ‘Sadat as Supreme Commander,’ Journal of Strategic Studies 37/4 (Aug. 2014), <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2013.845556>.
41 Ismail, Amn Misr al-qawmi, 326.
42 Heikal, October 73, 805.
43 Patrick Seale, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley, Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press 1988), 208.
44 Howeidy, Al-foraṣ al-ḍa’e‘a, 399–400.
45 El-Gamasy, Mudhakkirat el-Gamasy, 400.
46 ‘Ḥadeeth al-ra’yees al-Sadat’ [Interview of President Sadat], Al-Hilal, 30 Sept. 1976, ˂www.anwarsadat.org/project_img/pdf/8997.pdf˃.
47 Ismail, AmnMisr al-qawmi, 325.
48 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 18.
49 Ibid., 265; Hammad, Al-ma’arek al- ḥarbyyaa, 232-3.
50 Heikal, October 73, 356.
51 Joan H. Jonston and James E. Briskell, ‘Vigilant and Hypervigilant Decision Making’, Journal of Applied Psychology 92/4 (1997), 614–22.
52 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 260–1.
53 Ibid., 139.
54 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 260. The decision authority of Ismail Ali derived from his ‘two-hats’ position as Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief. According to Shazly, the decision-making dominance of the Commander-in-Chief dates back to the days of Field Marshal Abdel-Hakim Amer, but was legalized under General Fawzi in Jan. 1968 in Law No. 4 of 1968 ‘Defense of the State and Armed Forces Command and Control Act’, that sanctioned the substantial powers of the Commander-in-Chief at the expense of the Chief-of-Staff (Shazly, Ḥarb October, 111).
55 Hammad, Al-ma’arek al- ḥarbyyaa, 748; Sawsan Abu Hussein, Sa’d ad-Din ash-Shazly: QisatiMa‘a as-Sadat [Saad ad-Din al-Shazly:My Story with Sadat] (Cairo: Madbouli al-Saqheer Publications 1993), 46–7.
56 Wassel, Al-seraa‘ al-‘Arabi al-Israeli, 219.
57 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 260.
58 Golan, Decision Making of the Israeli High Command, 785–91.
59 Zamir and Mass, With Open Eyes, 158–60; Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘The Intelligence Community during the Yom Kippur War (1973)’, in Amos Gilboa and Ephraim Lapid (eds), Israel’s Silent Defender: An Inside Look at Sixty Years of Israeli Intelligence (Jerusalem: Gefen 2011), 76–87.
60 Golan, Decision Making of the Israeli High Command 792–3.
61 El-Gamasy, Mudhakkirat El-Gamasy, 2767.
62 Kamal Hasan Ali, Mashaweer al-umr: asrarwakhafaya 70 ‘aman men umrMisr fi al-harbwaalmukhabarakwa al-syasa [Routes of Life: Secrets of 70 Years of Egypt’s Life in War, Intelligence, and Politics] (Cairo: Dar al-Shorouk 1994), 326. See also Howeidy, Al-foraṣ al-ḍa’e‘a, 443.
63 Wassel, Al-seraa‘ al-‘Arabi al-Israeli, 219.
64 Hammad, Al-ma’arek al- ḥarbyyaa, 254 and 268.
65 Hasan Ali, Mashaweer al-umr, 327.
66 Shazly, Ḥarb October, 266–79.
67 Bartov, Daddo, 48 Years and 20 More Days, 584.
68 Golan, Decision Making of the Israeli High Command, 874.
69 Ibid., 900.
70 George W. Gawrych, ‘The Egyptian High Command in the 1973 War’, Armed Forces and Society 13/4 (Summer 1987), 535–9, 552.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Uri Bar-Joseph
Uri Bar-Joseph is a Professor in the International Relations Division at the University of Haifa. He is the author of The Watchman Fell Asleep: The Surprise of Yom Kippur and Its Sources (Hebrew, revised edition, 2013) and The Angel: Ashraf Marwan, the Mossad, and the War of Yom Kippur (Hebrew, 2011).
Amr Yossef
Amr Yossef is an Independent Scholar. He is the author of ‘Sadat as Supreme Commander’, Journal of Strategic Studies 37/4 (Aug. 2014).
