In a country beset by national traumas, there is one trauma that looms over them all: the Yom Kippur War.
For Israelis above a certain age, the memory of those weeks in the fall of 1973 in which Israel appeared to be on the brink of extinction is still very much alive. The wail of air raid sirens, the worshipers streaming out of synagogues and rushing to join their units at the height of Yom Kippur, the dire reports from the front, the mass graves dug in city parks, the perception of chaos and confusion among Israel’s military and government leadership, and the palpable fear of imminent destruction left an indelible impression on the consciousness of the nation.
While historians differ on the extent of the actual surprise and who bore primary responsibility for Israel’s failure to prepare for it, there is near-unanimity on the notion that the war shattered the image of Israel – shared by both Israelis and observers around the world – as an invincible miracle child that was able to handily and repeatedly fend off attacks by its bumbling neighbors and expand its own borders in the process.
Although Israel ultimately managed to turn the war around and secure a military victory, it did so at tremendous cost. Some 2,656 soldiers lost their lives during the war and 7,251 were wounded. Untold numbers of Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, suffered permanent mental and emotional trauma as a result of the war and many carry those psychological scars to this day. Particularly hard-hit were Holocaust survivors, who saw the specter of destruction again looming above them; some survivors who were the sole remnants of annihilated families lost their only children in the war, extinguishing the flickering flames of continuity.
As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War this weekend, it is worth asking whether it could ever happen again.
Could Israel again experience concurrent failures of military readiness, intelligence, and government leadership so profound that they render the country unable to respond effectively to a massive, coordinated assault that puts its very existence in jeopardy?
Israel’s military posture is totally different today than it was back then. America’s supply of state-of-the-art military equipment to Israel – which began in earnest with Operation Nickel Grass, the unprecedented effort to provide Israel with more than 55,000 tons of materiel, including aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces, and ammunition, by both air and sea in the midst of the war – coupled with Israel’s development of its own robust defense industry and homegrown capabilities, has transformed the Jewish state into one of the world’s leading military powers.
Earlier this year, US News & World Report ranked Israel’s military as the fourth most powerful in the world, behind only the United States, Russia, and China. Israel’s intelligence capabilities are among the most extensive and advanced in the world, and the country’s allies rely on it for information on developments deep within faraway countries. The Jewish state’s alleged possession of strategic weapons gives it a deterrent capability unmatched in the region.
As then-US secretary of state and former four-star general Alexander Haig said less than a decade after the war, “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.”
But it wasn’t the state of its firepower or the bravery of its soldiers that nearly lost Israel the war. It was an abject lack of readiness, an inability to correctly read intelligence information, a hesitant and risk-averse leadership, and a fateful sense of hubris and indomitability that produced the circumstances that enabled the neighboring armies to strike Israel such a devastating blow.
In that light, the current moment in Israel’s national life should give us all pause.
This summer, as the protests surrounding the government’s judicial reform raged across the country, thousands of IDF reservists declared that they would refuse to volunteer for reserve duty in an unprecedented act of protest against what they perceive as the erosion of Israeli democracy.
As the phenomenon grew, with service members from different branches of the military publishing letters and signing petitions announcing their refusal to serve, senior defense leaders started voicing increasing concern about its impact on the army’s ability to carry out its most basic mission of protecting Israel.
“If, until a few weeks ago, IDF officials brushed off the worst-case scenarios as a bluff, that changed this past week when they said that a significant number of IDF reservists were actually quitting,” Post defense correspondent Yonah Jeremy Bob wrote in late July. “And these numbers were staggering: Over 10,000 total, including around 1,200 from the air force and 1,200 from IDF intelligence, not to mention IDF medical personnel, special forces units, and others.”
Several days later, on July 31, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that while the IDF was still war-ready, the continued expansion of the trend of refusal could erode the military’s readiness as soon as the fall.
“The IDF is ready to accomplish its missions… The harm to readiness, so far, is defined [as somewhat contained], but there is a possibility that readiness will be harmed over the long term,” Gallant reportedly said in the closed-door session.
“Many components of the country’s resilience are trending negatively, and the harm to national resilience could result in harm to national security,” he added.
Two weeks later, military officials briefed the committee on the state of the IDF’s readiness in light of the wave of refusal. While that session, too, was held behind closed doors, the officials reportedly cautioned the legislators about the potentially harmful impact of the national debate on the military.
“Senior IDF officers have made it clear that they were deeply worried that war preparedness would plunge precipitously if the dispute over the judicial overhaul continues,” the Post’s Bob reported at the time.
Some analysts and political figures have attempted to address concerns about the army’s readiness by noting that it takes more than a few months for a phenomenon like refusal to spread throughout the military and cause major damage and that many of the reservists who have joined the protest have stated that if Israel were under real threat they would come to its defense.
But that response ignores two important points.
The first is that many of the functions performed by the reservists in question – particularly in the air force, which has been one of the branches hardest hit by refusal – require intensive, ongoing training to ensure that they remain combat-ready; missing even a few weeks could significantly impair their ability to do what is expected of them in wartime.
The second is the impact that the reservists’ refusal to serve, and of the deep divisions in Israeli society due to the debates of recent months, has on our enemies’ perception of our readiness for war – and on their willingness to test it.
Iran and its terrorist proxies have reportedly been monitoring events in Israel closely.
“There was a time when it was believed that Israel could not be defeated, and that its army was invincible,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the day the Knesset passed the law severely curtailing the Supreme Court’s ability to apply the reasonableness standard to government decisions – the first legislative piece of the judicial reform – amid furious protests across the country.
“Today, in particular, is the worst day in the history of the Zionist entity, as some of its people say,” Nasrallah crowed. “This is what puts it on the path of collapse, fragmentation, and disappearance, God willing.”
In a pre-Yom Kippur missive to IDF personnel, released to the public today, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi reflected on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war.
“The failure of warning on the eve of the war is the worst failure in the history of the State of Israel,” Halevi wrote. “Its roots are in arrogance, lack of understanding of the abundant intelligence information, and disregard for the enemy.”
Turning to Israel’s foes, he added: “Our enemies should know that the spirit of the IDF soldiers and the unity of its ranks do not fall short of those of the soldiers who fought in the Yom Kippur War, and that the IDF is as ready as ever for a multi-arena military conflict if it is required.”
Reassuring as his words were no doubt intended to be, that Halevi felt compelled to address the spirit and unity of the IDF and its readiness for war in a public letter marking the anniversary of the most devastating war in Israel’s history should be cause for concern, and it should drive us to reflect on the impact of the impassioned national discourse on the very body charged with our nation’s defense.
Fifty years after the Yom Kippur War, we are older, wiser, more battle-scarred, and better established as a nation than we were then. We are a technological superpower and an economic success story and our military has few peers anywhere in the world.
But as we reflect on the deep trauma of those fateful weeks half a century ago, we would do well to keep our hubris at bay. We are only as strong from without as we are from within, and we rely on our leaders to do what they must to ensure our continued ability to confront any threat.
Our enemies know those basic truths. Let us hope our leaders do, as well.
G’mar hatima tova.
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