Fifty years ago, specifically on Oct. 3, 1973, then Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, David Elazar, met with the editors of Hebrew newspapers and told them: “No war will break out soon... You can sleep peacefully.”
The journalists felt reassured, except for one: The editor-in-chief of the Maariv newspaper, Aryeh Disenchik. His military correspondent, Jacob Ayers, was confident that war was coming. He had a brother serving in the army and was monitoring Egyptian movements on the western end of the Suez Canal. He knew that those were not mere exercises, but preparations for an imminent war.
Disenchik decided to cover the news in a spirit that contradicted the reassurances conveyed by the Chief of Staff.
Ayers prepared a story entitled, “Suspicious Movements of the Egyptian Army,” in which he spoke about build-ups of Egyptian tanks and missile batteries and excessive movement of aircraft in the air, and concluded with a sentence that read: “The Israeli army is alert to these movements and stands in front of them with high preparedness.”
He sent the article to the military censor, who crossed out almost all of the lines except for the last sentence.
Twenty-two years after that incident, in 1995, Ayers served as editor-in-chief of the newspaper. He printed a copy of the paper on which the news was written, along with what had been crossed out by the military censorship, and hung it on the wall behind his office. He wanted to recall his journalistic achievement, which had been suppressed by the censorship, but also insisted, on every occasion, to apologize to the public, because he adhered to the law by submitting the news to censorship.
This incident was one of the forgotten stories in the Israeli political arena, but is making a strong comeback, after researchers Ephraim Lapid (worked as army spokesman from 1984-1989) and Ron Gabayan (served in the army spokesman’s department from 2016-2022) decided to teach it in colleges.
The two researchers prepared a study on the role of the Israeli Army Spokesperson’s Department during that war, within the framework of the official Israeli decision to release a large amount of secret documents about the October War or “Yom Kippur.”
The Israeli government also took a decision three years ago to release most of the documents related to the October War, when it marked its 50th anniversary.
At the beginning of September 2022, the Israeli State Archive published the contents of 1,400 document files, and about 1,000 Photographs, 850 audio recordings and video clips, and more than 250 brief notes.
Israel also revealed the diary of the office of then Prime Minister Golda Meir, which covered the pre and post-war period, until the Separation of Forces Agreement in 1974. The diary revolved around the political and military aspects and international and regional diplomatic communications conducted by the Prime Minister’s office at the time, as documented by Eli Mizrahi, who served as director of the office. The journal contained 3,500 files with hundreds of thousands of pages.
The Israeli Mossad also published a book, for the first time in its history, about the circumstances of the 1973 war, under the title, “Some Day When We’ll Be Allowed to Tell.”
The accounts reflected the contradictory positions expressed by the various bodies that played a role in the October War, regarding what is known in Israel as “the corruption of great negligence.”
Israeli information about the Egyptian and Syrian mobilizations was dealt with “arrogance” in Tel Aviv. The head of military intelligence, Eli Zaira, stated during a consultation session with the Prime Minister - 28 hours before the war - that he had a complete copy of the plan prepared by the Syrian army against Israel, and a summary of the attack plan prepared by the Egyptian army.
According to Israeli documents, Zaira was confident that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and his Syrian counterpart, Hafez al-Assad, did not intend to fight Israel, and that all military movements undertaken by their armies constituted a show-muscle in front of Israel.
The Army Chief of Staff, Elazar, approved this opinion, as did Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Even when the Mossad issued a war warning at six o’clock on Oct. 6, Dayan objected to the mobilization of reserve forces, arguing such matter will spark an uproar against Israel and will greatly cost the economy.
Hours after Zaira downplayed the Egyptian-Syrian movements, the documents reveal that the Israeli political and military leaders were discussing, in another meeting on the morning of Oct. 6, specifically at eight o’clock, that is, six hours before the outbreak of the war, the possibility of launching a proactive strike against Egypt and Syria.
But Prime Minister Meir said: “My heart supports a war like this, but my mind sees it as harm to Israel before the international community.”
She added: “If it turns out that the Egyptians and Syrians do not actually intend to go to war, this will be an adventure by Israel that will lead to deaths and injuries, for nothing.” Defense Minister Moshe Dayan agreed.
Another official account, this time sourced from the book issued by the Mossad, states that Mossad chief Zvi Zamir informed Prime Minister Golda Meir, two years before the war, that is, in the fall of 1971, of Sadat’s intentions to fight Israel, and even told her about basic aspects of the Egyptian president’s strategy.
Zamir relied in his information on “the chief Mossad spy, Ashraf Marwan,” who was known as “The Angel.” The book indicates that Meir was so impressed by the depth of the information that she told him: “One day, when it can be revealed that you conveyed this information to me, you and your team will receive a medal.”
The Mossad book also indicates that Zamir “was able to obtain minutes of Sadat’s meetings with Soviet officials in Moscow in 1971, in which he told them that he was determined to restore all of Sinai, and not just part of it, either through diplomatic negotiations or through war with Israel.”
