Document created: 10 October 2003
Air University Review, July-August 1974

The October War
A Political-Military Assessment

Captain Bard E. O'Neill

In 1972 President Anwar as-Sadat of Egypt, frustrated by the failure of Arab diplomatic efforts to dislodge the Israelis from areas occupied in the 1967 war, told his people that a “battle of destiny” would have to be waged against Israel. Although the Arabs greeted Sadat’s words with general approval, within a year their enthusiasm had begun to dissipate. Reacting to the lack of follow-up action, they began not only to question Sadat’s credibility but to ridicule him. By the beginning of 1974 all this had changed, and today Sadat is viewed as a hero in the Arab world. In fact, in the eyes of some Arabs he has surpassed the late Gamal Abdel Nasser in prestige. The reason for this dramatic change was, of course, the war of October 1973.

It is the purpose of this article to examine the war briefly in terms of its political-psychological background, the objectives of both sides, the results, and the chances for peace.

The Political-Psychological Background

To understand this October War, one has to go back to the summer of 1967 when the Arabs, surveying the political and military wreckage wrought by the Six-Day War, found their armies broken and defeated and over one million brethren in the Sinai, Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Golan Heights under Israeli occupation. Besides the territorial and population losses, the Arabs had suffered a profound psychological setback in that they felt they had been humiliated and dishonored.

Thus, when the Arab rulers, kings and presidents, met at the summit in Khartoum in the late summer of 1967, they made it clear that nothing less than the return of all the occupied areas would be satisfactory. Moreover, they agreed that there would be no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no settlement with Israel.¹ From that time onward Arab leaders scrupulously adhered to the pursuit of their goal, with Presidents Nasser and then Sadat stating time and again that “not one inch” of Arab land could remain in Israeli hands, a position that not even the most flexible of Israeli plans could accommodate.

In Israel, meanwhile, the issue of the occupied areas generated substantial political controversy between 1967 and 1973. On the political right, the Gahal Party and the Greater Israel Movement argued that the occupied areas should be retained, not only because they enhanced security but also because they were part of the biblical land of Israel. The right-wing view, however, lacked widespread support and thus had little impact on official policy.² Far more important, as far as government policy was concerned, were the plans put forth by Moshe Dayan, Pinhas Sapir, and Yigal Allon.

Dayan favored the economic integration of a large part of the West Bank, the Arab half of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron with Israel, while Sapir proposed returning most of the West Bank to Jordan so as to free Israel from the burden of ruling a large Arab population. One of Sapir’s fears was that an eventual incorporation of the West Bank would pose a demographic threat to the Jews, given the Arabs’ higher birth rate. In time, he argued, an Arab majority would emerge, which would threaten Israel’s survival.³

Even though it was never given official approval by the government, it was the Allon plan that seemed to enjoy the most support. Allon’s scheme represented an attempt to reconcile the demographic dilemma with Israel’s perceived security needs. The security issue was, as might have been expected, a dominant consideration in policy-making. Israeli military leaders were quick to point out that Israel’s security situation had been vastly improved as a result of the war. Before the outbreak of hostilities, Israel had seen Egypt mobilize its army in the Sinai and close the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping; large portions of Israel were vulnerable to Jordanian artillery attacks from the West Bank; and settlements were shelled by Syria from the Golan Heights. After the conflict, all major population centers and ninety percent of Israel’s farms were out of artillery range, the new borders were shorter and more defensible, and Israel had acquired defense in depth.⁴

In light of the favorable strategic changes, Israeli political leaders made it clear that return to the status quo antebellum would not be acceptable. As Foreign Minister Abba Eban put it:

Never shall Syrian guns terrorize our villages in Upper Galilee and the Jordan Valley, never shall Egyptian forces a few miles away from our major cities stick their finger into our very throat, never shall hostile armies press against us in a narrow coastal strip.⁵

Since Israel’s top political leaders were in agreement that security imperatives would rule out the return of all the occupied areas, the issue then shifted to the question of which regions were expendable.

According to the Allon formulation most of the occupied areas and Arab population would revert to Arab control, thus freeing Israel from the demographic albatross around its neck. At the same time, however, provision was made to retain a number of security gains. Specifically, the Allon plan called for a 10- to 15-mile-wide security belt along the sparsely populated edge of the Jordan River, which would be considered Israel’s new military border. Protected by a string of paramilitary settlements, on what would be considered Israeli territory, the strip would contain fewer than 20,000 Arabs. New towns were to be built to overlook the cities of Jericho and Hebron, and a 4.3-mile-wide corridor linking Jordan with the West Bank was envisaged. With the exception of Jerusalem and areas near Latrun and Hebron, the rest of the area outside the paramilitary strip, containing most of the Arab population, would be given an autonomous status or be linked with Jordan, depending on negotiations with the latter. Finally, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan would be asked to accept 200,000 refugees from Gaza.

Outside the West Bank, Allon’s scheme called for a demilitarized Sinai and a new Israeli town near Sharm al-Sheikh, which would guard a north-south line to Al-’Arish representing the Israeli withdrawal area. Besides providing defense against conventional attacks—the Jordan River is a natural tank ditch—the Allon plan, with its paramilitary settlements, was also directed at the problem of guerrilla infiltration.⁶

The influence of the Allon plan was clearly evident in the Israeli settlement pattern between 1969 and 1973. By the end of January 1971 the building of gas stations, hotels, and tourist facilities at Sharm al-Sheikh seemed to suggest that the Israelis intended to retain that key strategic point. In the Golan Heights, meanwhile, 9 of the 11 settlements that had been constructed were civilian, a development which also implied a permanent presence.⁷

The settlement pattern along the West Bank likewise reflected Tel Aviv’s strategic outlook. In this case, however, there were five paramilitary settlements and but two civilian settlements. Both the location of the paramilitary settlements along the Jordan River and the fact that civilian settlements (with the notable exception of two fledgling Jewish communities near Hebron) were not encouraged seemed compatible with the idea of returning most of the West Bank area and population to Arab control.

In Gaza, which the Israelis had pledged not to return to Egypt, a new Israeli civilian settlement a few miles from the Strip was thought by some to be the beginning of a defensive chain of settlements around Gaza. The implication was that when Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt it would probably ask for some marginal frontier changes in the north.⁸ In sum, it seemed that Israel was committed to return most of the occupied areas, with the exception of points along the Jordan River, Sharm al-Sheikh, Golan, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

The official position of the Israeli leadership, reinforced by the unofficial implementation of the Allon plan, was incapable of being reconciled with the Arab demand that all the occupied areas be returned. This basic contradiction was the rock upon which several diplomatic efforts between 1967 and 1973 foundered.

In the spring of 1973 Sadat’s frustration with the immobilism in the diplomatic arena appeared to deepen. In April he warned:

Everyone has fallen asleep over the Mideast crisis. . . . The time has come for a shock. Diplomacy will continue before, during and after the battle. The Arabs will never be defeated. . . . They are occupying territory in three Arab countries. Let’s see if they can stay like this. I say they can’t. And you will soon see who is right.⁹

Arab skepticism about the ability or will of the United States and the Soviet Union to change the situation was reinforced several weeks later when President Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev met at the summit and endorsed détente between the superpowers. As a result of that event, Arab politicians, strategists, and writers began an extensive analysis of Egyptian-Soviet relations and produced a spate of documents and official assessments focusing on the impact that improved Soviet-American relations would have on the Arab quest to get back the occupied areas.

On July 23 Sadat delivered a major address to a combined session of the Central Committee of the Arab Socialist Union and the People’s Assembly, during which he summarized the Egyptian view of the state of Soviet-Egyptian relations. He acknowledged that, while the Soviet Union was an indispensable ally of the Arabs, its global role would preclude its decisively supporting them in their attempt to reacquire the occupied areas. To compensate, he stressed the need to build Egypt’s “intrinsic strength” to mobilize Arab resources.¹⁰ Accordingly, in the next several weeks Sadat undertook an effort to broaden his support in the Arab world by strengthening relations with Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan. At the same time he tried to avoid a complete break with Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi, who not only was vehemently opposed to Kings Hussein and Faisal (of Jordan and Saudi Arabia respectively) but was stung by Egypt’s standoff attitude toward his desire to merge with Egypt. One of the objectives of the intensified Egyptian diplomatic effort within the Arab world was to bring the “oil weapon” into the battle with Israel, an undertaking that proved eminently successful.

While focusing its attention on the Arab world, Cairo did not neglect the opportunity to gain the backing of the nonaligned countries, especially those in Africa. At the Fourth Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Nonaligned Countries in Algiers in September, the Arabs were successful in obtaining a resolution endorsing their goal of reacquiring the occupied areas.¹¹ But the real payoff from Arab diplomacy came during the October War, when almost every state in Black Africa severed relations with Israel and the majority of Third World nations supported the Arab position. When the cutback on Arab oil production led Japan and the European Economic Community (Holland excepted) to endorse the Arab demands, the isolation of Israel was virtually complete (with the notable exception of the United States).

During the period of military, diplomatic, and economic preparation for the conflict with Israel, Egypt had not given up hope that peaceful change could be brought about. Sadat apparently had been persuaded by some of his advisers that the appointment of Henry Kissinger as United States Secretary of State might alter American policy. The reasoning was that, as a Jew, Kissinger could exert pressure on Israel to make concessions without being branded as anti-Semitic. When, from the Arab viewpoint, Kissinger failed to communicate any such intention during his United Nations speech of September 24, the Arabs reached the conclusion that there was little possibility U.S. policy would change and soundly condemned the circles that argued it would.¹²

One reason the Arabs had exhibited such interest in Kissinger’s United Nations speech may have been the hardening of Israel’s position on the occupied areas, which was manifest in the Labor Party’s support of the Gallili Document in early September. After a sharp debate, the Labor Party, which was preparing for the scheduled October elections, had decided to support Dayan’s demands for a town near the Rafah area (to be populated by immigrants), more civilian settlements in the occupied areas, and the right of the Jewish Development Agency to buy Arab land. To the Arabs this was just more evidence that Israel did not intend to return the occupied areas.¹³

Thus, on the eve of the October War Sadat found himself in a situation where peaceful change was perceived as unlikely. But, as pointed out above, the Egyptian president had achieved notable diplomatic success in the Arab world and had, at least for the moment, created a sense of unity among the Arab states. Knowing that such unity would undoubtedly be ephemeral, Sadat may have felt compelled to act before the Arabs reverted to the more normal pattern of bickering among themselves. Finally, it should be noted that both Sadat and President Hafez al-Assad in Syria had to consider their own precarious situations.

Besides being under pressure from domestic “hawks,” the Egyptian president had to face the fact that by not fulfilling his promise to wage the “battle of destiny” against Israel he was seriously eroding his credibility. In Syria, meanwhile, Assad’s position seemed even weaker. As a member of the minority Alawite sect, he was already suspect in the eyes of the Sunni majority, particularly after an aborted attempt by his Baathist government to gain approval for a constitution that did not explicitly acknowledge Islam as the official state religion. To act decisively against Israel was one way of diverting attention from domestic difficulties and establishing at least a modicum of popular support for the regime.

While all these domestic and political factors help explain the outbreak of war on October 6, 1973, the picture would not be complete without mention of the psychological context. Honor and dignity having a special place in the Arab culture, the debacle of 1967 had become a source of deep humiliation and shame that had to be redressed. Hence, on October 6 President Assad echoed the feelings of Arabs everywhere when, in a nationwide broadcast to his Syrian countrymen, he stressed not the battle against Zionism, imperialism, or Jews but the “battle of honor and dignity.”¹⁴

Although their need to redeem their honor was a psychological factor underlying the resort to violence, the Arabs’ long-term goal of regaining the occupied areas was undoubtedly the key motivation. There is little evidence to support the notion that Cairo and Damascus believed they could accomplish this goal immediately or easily. Rather, the strategy appeared to emphasize the intermediate objectives of retaking and holding part of the Sinai and Golan Heights, inflicting heavy human and material losses on Israel, and heightening the concern of the major powers with conditions in the region.¹⁵ All these objectives, if achieved, would, the Arabs reasoned, change the situation dramatically by initiating a diplomatic process that would end with Israeli withdrawal from the occupied areas. A territorial victory, however small, would not only instill confidence in the Arabs but force the Israelis to reconsider the idea that territory would provide security. In conjunction with this, the Arabs believed that by inflicting heavy losses on the Israeli Defense Force and by subjecting the Israeli economy to severe strain they could force Israel to make concessions.¹⁶ Finally, the Arabs hoped that, by raising fears of a superpower confrontation and by withholding oil supplies, they could compel the West, especially the United States, to bring pressure to bear on Tel Aviv to reach a settlement satisfactory to the Arab side.

Results of the War

To nearly everyone’s surprise, the Arabs, during the first several days, achieved notable military success as they took advantage Israel’s lack of preparedness and their own improved military capabilities. In terms of the latter, the numerically superior Arab armies made effective use of their integrated air defense systems (antiaircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles) and antitank missiles. Unfortunately for the Arabs, the time they took to consolidate their bridgeheads on the east bank of the Suez Canal eventually cost them the initiative.¹⁷ After locating a weak point at the juncture of the Second and Third Egyptian Armies, Israeli tank columns, led by Major General Ariel Sharon, surprised the Egyptians by crossing the canal and proceeding to cut off the rear of the Third Corps of the Third Egyptian Army, the southern bridgehead.¹⁸ Had it not been for superpower intervention and the cease-fire of October 23, it is likely that the Israeli penetration force would have cut off the rear of the Second Army as well and thus completed the defeat of the Egyptian forces. (The Syrian forces, after costly and bitter fighting, had already been pushed to a point halfway between the Golan Heights and Damascus.) The possibility of a complete rout of the Egyptian forces was undoubtedly why the Soviets threatened to intervene and why Sadat actively sought a cease-fire resolution at the United Nations.

As things turned out, not only did the Egyptian Army avoid a defeat but the Arabs came to believe that they had won a military victory because they had been able to hold their east bank positions. In fact, when the disengagement agreement was reached in January, the outcome of the conflict was a territorial gain for Egypt. In Syria, on the other hand, the Arabs could hardly claim victory, since Israel had substantially increased its territorial control.

Prospects for Peace

Paradoxically, the fact that the Israelis had been unable to achieve their objective of restoring the status quo antebellum may, over the longer term, work to Israel’s benefit, if it enables the Arabs to make the concessions necessary for a peace settlement. Whereas prior to the war the Arabs eschewed negotiations with Israel because they wished to avoid coming to the conference table as defeated supplicants, after the war they could afford to negotiate with the Israelis (albeit under United Nations auspices, and through the United States government) because they felt they had redeemed their honor. However, whether the Arabs’ perception of having won a victory has created a sense of magnanimity sufficient to enable them to make some territorial concessions is, as of this writing, not clear. One thing certain is that it will take patient and skillful diplomacy to overcome the formidable obstacles remaining in the way of a peace settlement. Unhappily, the Arabs and Israelis remain far apart when it comes to negotiating the status of the Golan Heights and the West Bank of the Jordan River, including Jerusalem. Although Egypt and Israel may be able to reach an agreement on a phased Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai in return for Egypt’s restoration of the canal and its cities along the canal, Cairo is under great pressure in the Arab world not to settle unilaterally with Israel. Rather, Egypt is expected to support the demand that Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights.

In terms of the Golan Heights, Israel remains sensitive to security needs and to the demands of Jewish civilians who have settled there. In fact, on February 8 Premier Golda Meir publicly pledged not to return the Golan to Damascus.¹⁹ As far as the West Bank is concerned, Israel and all the Arab states, including of course Jordan, are divided over and the status of Jerusalem and Israeli demands for military outposts along the Jordan River. Further complicating the West Bank issue is the Arab policy, articulated at the Arab summit in Algiers after the war, that the Palestine Liberation Organization (umbrella structure for most of the various Palestinian guerrilla organizations) is the official representative of the Palestinian people.²⁰ Although the guerrillas have made it clear that they will not accept a return of the West Bank to Jordan, they are divided over the question of whether or not they should accept a Palestinian state made up of the West Bank and/or Gaza. Even if they were in agreement, however, it might be academic, since Israel has said that it will neither negotiate with the guerrillas nor accept a guerrilla state next door. Lastly, as a result of the Israeli elections in December, the Labor Party is under pressure from its previous coalition partner, the National Religious Party, not to return the West Bank because of its religious significance. Unfortunately, the right-wing alignment (Likud) will provide no alternative, since it too wishes to keep the West Bank.

It is dilemmas such as these that inject a note of pessimism into prognostications about the future. Although one may share the hope that a peace settlement, however convoluted it might be, will emerge, it would come as no surprise if the call to arms were heard again.

United States Air Force Academy

Notes

1. New York Times, September 2, 1967; September 4, 1967 (hereafter cited as NYT).

2. The National Religious Party, a coalition partner of the Labor Party, also adhered to the view that the West Bank ought to be retained because of its religious significance.

3. James Feron, “Yigal Allon Has Supporters, Moshe Dayan Has Disciples,” New York Times Magazine, April 27, 1969, pp. 92-97. In mid-l969 Dayan visited the West Bank and Gaza and told the Arab leaders that, since Israel assumed the situation would last for some time, it was prepared to begin large-scale, long-term planning and improvements in the occupied areas. See NYT, July 29, 1968. About the same time Ma’ariv quoted Dayan as saying that he viewed the area from Jordan to the Mediterranean as the land of Israel and the Jordan River and the mountaintops to the west of the Jordan River as the basis for defending Israeli borders. See Arab Report and Record, no. 12, June 16-30 1968, p. 178 (hereafter cited as ARR).

4. Gil Carl Al Roy, “The Prospects of War in the Middle East,” Commentary vol. 41, March 1969, p. 59; Newsweek, May 13, 1968, p. 44.

5. Abba Eban, address to the World Zionist Congress, Jerusalem, June 1, 1968, as cited in ARR no. 12, June 16-30, 1966, p. 179.

6. On the Allon plan, see Le Monde (Paris), June 11, 1968; NYT, June 18, 1968, and January 24, 1969. One writer argued that the Allon plan represented the most Israel could concede without the Cabinet falling. See E. R. J. Owen, Israel and the Arabs,” World Today, vol. 24, December 1968, p. 41

7. Daily Star (Beirut), January 26, 1971. For a description of the Sharm al-Sheikh area and its significance, see NYT, April 2, 1971. On April 2, 1971, the Israeli Housing Ministry indicated that it would develop Golan in order to increase the population by thirty percent, according to ARR, no. 7, April 1-16, 1971, 206. By mid-1973 there were 47 Israeli settlements: 4 in Gaza, 8 in the Sinai, 19 on the West Bank, and 16 on the Golan Heights.

8. Daily Star (Beirut), January 26, 1971. Although a key Israeli planner, Dr. Elisha Ephrat, confirmed that Israel had a thirty-year development plan for the West Bank, he stressed that it had no political significance. See Daily Star (Beirut), February 13, 1971. In April 1971 a Labor Party convention passed a resolution indicating an intention to keep Sharm al-Sheikh, Golan, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, according to NYT, April 8, 1971, and Daily Star (Beirut), April 8, 1971.

9. Newsweek, April 9, 1973. The Newsweek summary of Sadat’s comments is drawn from his interview with Arnaud de Borchgrave. The full text was reported by Cairo Domestic Service in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter referred to as FBIS), April 4, 1973, pp. G1-G5. On March 26 President Sadat addressed a joint meeting of the Arab Socialist Union (ASU) Central Committee and the People’s Assembly. He repeatedly stressed that the nation had arrived at a “landmark” point in the struggle with Israel that was characterized by “allout confrontation.” To make the world feel the Arab pressure, he called for “an earnest military move, an earnest political move and a move in every direction.” Near the end of his remarks he stated that the responsibilities of the coming stage, the stage of all-out confrontation were: “First, completing the military building so it may complete its task with all strength, with all that we have and with all that we possess; and second, completing the diplomatic move which. . . will not stop before the battle, during the battle and after the battle.” See statement by President Anwar as-Sadat at the March 26 joint meeting of the ASU Central Committee and the People’s Cairo Domestic Service in FBIS, March 27, 1973, pp. G1-G18, especially pp. G8 and G16.

10. Speech by President Anwar as-Sadat before the joint meeting of the ASU Central Committee and the People’s Assembly, Cairo, July 23, 1973, FBIS, G1-G24. See, in particular, pp. G19-G24.

11. See Final Declaration of the Fourth Conference of the Heads of State Government of the Nonaligned Countries, Tanjung (Belgrade), September 1973, in FBIS, September 11, 1973, p. AA18.

12. For the Arab reaction to Kissinger’s U.N. speech, see, for example, Cairo Voice of the Arabs, September 25, 1973, in FBIS, September 26, 1973, p. A1; Press Review on Kissinger U.N. speech, Cairo Domestic Service, in FBIS, September 26, 1973, pp. G2-G3: Cairo Voice of the Arabs (Abd al-Fattah Commentary), September 26, 1973, in FBIS, September 27, 1973, pp. A3-A6.

13. On the Gallili Document see items from Ha’arez, August 30, 1973, Jerusalem Domestic Service, September 3, 1973, and Jerusalem International Service, in FBIS, September 5, 1973, pp. H1-H2,

14. Speech of President Hafez al-Assad over Damascus radio and television, Damascus Domestic Service, October 6, 1973, in FBIS, October 9, 1973, pp. F2-F4.

15. That the Egyptian and Syrian goals were limited is suggested by the surprise shown over the early successes. The Egyptian press referred to the breaching of the Bar Lev line (“the wall of fear”) as a miracle. See Muhammad Heisanan Heykal, “Frankly Speaking,” Al-Ahram (Cairo), October 26, 1973, as reported in FBIS, October 26, 1973, p. 14. Moreover, the chagrin of Libya’s Qaddafi with the limited aims of the Egyptian war plan also suggested that Cairo and Damascus expected no dramatic breakthroughs. See speech delivered by Libyan Revolutionary Command Council Chairman Muammar al-Qaddafi, Tripoli, October 7, 1973, Tripoli Domestic Service, in FBIS, October 9, 1973, pp. T2-T9, especially pp. T3-T4.

16. On October 13 the military editor of Al-Ahram said that advancing and gaining territory were not the primary tasks. The, goal, he suggested, was to inflict heavy losses on the Israeli Defense Force. This echoed the comments of Heykal in Al-Ahram, October 13, 1973, to the effect that the destruction of the Israeli military and the creation of social and economic strain in Israel were the goals. He argued that the Israelis would be shaken because of their concern for lives. For an Egyptian account of the preparations for war, see Heykal’s interview of War Minister and Commander in Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces, General Ahmad Isma‘il Cairo MENA, in FBIS, November 20, 1973, pp. G6-G15; also see the interview of Egyptian Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Sa’id ad-Din ash-Shadhili, by the editor of Al-Akbar (Cairo), MENA, in FBIS, November 23, pp. G1-G6.

17. One reason, among others, the Egyptian Army delayed was probably the influence of Russian military doctrine, which stresses consolidation of mass formations, supported by air defense and artillery, moving forward to secure objectives, consolidating again, then moving forward, and so on.

18. Heykal referred to the Israeli use of tanks as “guerrilla warfare with tanks” and discussed the failure of command and control at the juncture of the Second and Third Egyptian Armies. He also argued that the United States was partially responsible because SR-71 overflights had, he believed, located the weak link. See Muhammad Heisanan Heykal, “Frankly, a Second Question—the Story of Infiltration, the Gap,” Cairo MENA, in FBIS, October 29, 1973, pp. G13-G19.

19. NYT, February 12, 1974; Denver Post, February 18, 1974.

20. Cairo Voice of the Arabs, November 28, 1973, in FBIS, November 29, 1973, p. A2.

Contributor

Captain Bard E. O’Neill (Ph.D., Graduate School of International Studies, Denver University) is Associate Professor of Political Science at the United States Air Force Academy, where he specializes in Africa and the Middle East, insurgency, and American foreign policy. Previously he served as an intelligence officer in both SAC and Vietnam. He has also been a consultant to the Directorate of Doctrine, Concepts and Objectives, Hq USAF.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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