Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Religion, and Government: Books on Israel, Volume IV

9. Israeli Military Leadership During the Yom Kippur War: Reflections on the Art of Reflection

9. Israeli Military Leadership During the Yom Kippur War: Reflections on the Art of Reflection PninaLahav Gen. (res.) Eli Zeira, The October 73 War: Myth Against Reality. (TelAviv : Edanim Publishers, Yediot Aharonot, 1993) (Hebrew). Brig. Gen. (res.) Arie Braun, Moshe Dayan and the Yom Kippur War. (Tel-Aviv: Edanim Publishers, Yediot Aharonot, 1992) (Hebrew). Brig. Gen. (res.) Yoel Ben-Porat, Ne'ila: Locked-on. (Tel-Aviv: Edanim Publishers, Yediot Aharonot, 1991) (Hebrew). (\G!hortly after the Six-Day War, Elie Wiesel interviewed ~ Colonel Mordechai Gur, commander of the paratroopers who liberated the Western Wall in old Jerusalem. The following exchange took place between the Jewish intellectual and the Israeli commander: 1 WIESEL: What did you feel? GUR: I don't think I can put it into words. WIESEL: Try. 171 172 Literature and Culture GUR: No, I don't think people should discuss their feelings. WIESEL: What should people discuss? GUR: Who says you've got TO discuss anything? You don't have to. WIESEL: I beg to differ. It's a duty-and a privilege-to talk ... Gur and his comrades-in-arms were not big talkers, neither in private nor in public. Between 1967 and 1973, little deliberation concerning military policy took place in Lhe upper echelons of the militaJy and security establishment. To these men-victors of the Six-Day War and mostly in their forties-the surprise of the coordinated Egyptian-Syrian attack in 1973 was a shattering trauma. Terrible Israeli losses in the first two weeks of the war destroyed their self-confidence . Growing public accusations and recriminations within the military establishment exacerbated their condition. After the war, public outrage forced the government to appoint a Commission of Inquiry to investigate what came to be called ha-mechdal ("the Mishap"), and the lack of preparedness for the war. The Agranat Commission found Chief of Staff David Elazar (Dado), and his Chief of Intelligence, Eli Zeira, personally responsible for the Army's initial failure to foresee and respond adequately to the mounting military threat. The Commission also found that the Minister of Defense , Moshe Dayan, was nor personally responsible, and it declined to take a stand concerning his political or parliamentaJY responsibility. The Commission also declined to measure the political responsibility of then-Prime Minister Golda Meir. Dado and Zeira handed in their reSignations, and Gur replaced Dado as Chief of Staff. Their lives were never the same again. Disgraced and psychologically wounded, the men directed their rage at the Commission for singling them out as culpable. They felt the Commission not only failed to hold accountable the political leaders, but also unfairly exonerated them. Golda and Dayan also paid a price. Indeed, they won the general elections of December 1973, and stayed in office for a short while, but public pressure compelled both to resign. Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Military Leadership 173 hero of 1967, became Prime Minister. His ascension launched a new era. While Israel talked to its enemies, the disgraced officers took their stories to the publishers. This review discusses three memoirs published in Israel by the military officers who experienced the Yom Kippur War: Arie Braun, who served as Dayan's adjutant; Eli Zeira, who was the IDF's chief of intelligence; and Yoel Ben-Porat, Chief of Intelligence under Zeira's command.2 The books are self-serving accounts of the war's events. Braun rationalizes Dayan's activities prior to and during the war. Zeira tears this version to shreds, insisting that both Dayan and Dado acted irresponsibly before and during the war, and that they were the main culprits. Zeira himself takes no responsibility for the debacle. In Zeira's version of the events, the Intelligence branch met the highest standards of performance, and both it and its chief survive scrutiny. BenPorat , Zeira's subordinate, does not share this rosy vision. His book opens a window onto conflicts inside the Intelligence branch. Ben-Porat claims that some, including Zeira, failed to read the writing on the wall and even misled their superiors. Ben-Porat recalls that he, and others, understood the enormity of the Egyptian-Syrian threat, but were prevented from communicating their views to those in the upper echelons. That the books recount conflicting versions of the same events is an interesting phenomenon in itself. More important , however, is the quality of the discussion and the collective portrait that emerges from between and beneath the lines...