User:John Z/yk1
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Baruch Kimmerling's new book "Politicide" has a short account in English of this based on the new Dado, quoted below, pp 65-66:
"Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the attack was not a surprise. The Israeli military and other intelligence sources had received precise warnings that had mentioned both the day and the hour. King Hussein himself had informed Golda Meir about the coming attack. The presumption was that if Israel were to let Egypt and Syria know that it was fully informed about the attack plans, the war could be postponed or even prevented.
Israel's failure to prevent the expected war can be explained as the result of an informal meeting in the legendary "Golda's Kitchen," an account of which was recently published by Hanoch Bartov. 14 The meeting, which took place about six months before the start of the war, included Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan and Israel Gallili, a minister without portfolio and Meir's chief adviser and mastermind. Gallili reported at the meeting that if Israel did not respond to what he described as "generous proposals" by Sadat, war was unavoidable. Both Meir and Dayan responded with a "so what?" explaining that an attack would give Israel a chance to destroy the Soviet-equipped army for the second time. Thus, arrogantly, Israel expected a war, but not the one that actually developed. ....
14 It had been common knowledge for a long time that Israel knew about the 1973 war and did nothing to prevent it; however, Bartov, in his new, enlarged edition of David (nicknamed "Dado") Elazar's biography, provided hard documentary evidence. "
politicide p 66 at google books
Israel knew the date and hour shortly before the attack, not 6 months before. (Aharon Bregman's recent book on Israel's Wars should have the details IIRC; I don;t recall precisely how long they knew) They knew 6 months before that an attack was 99.9% certain, and decided to do nothing about it then. The practically complete and foolhardy inaction right before the attack, even when they knew precisely when it was coming was in keeping with this insanely arrogant policy. For this, the Israeli public for once wised up, and threw the rascals out, long before the unequivocal documentary evidence came out that showed Meir, Dayan, etc as complete
[edit] Overall results of the war
Although Israel made gains on the Syrian front at the end of the war, the Egyptian destruction of the "indestructible" Bar-Lev defensive line, the regaining of the Suez Canal, the unprecedentedly heavy Israeli casualties and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from west of Suez Canal without the Egyptians returning to the 5th of October lines as Israel demanded led many Arabs to consider that the war was an overall win.
