The Yom Kippur War began with a surprise attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria on October 6, 1973.
THE STORY OF MARWAN
With Israel being taken by surprise on the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War a figure that comes to mind is Ashraf Marwan. He was an Egyptian billionaire, having made his wealth from arms trading, and the son-in-law of Gamal Nasser.
Nasser was the leader of the movement that overthrew Egypt's King Farouk, in 1952. The former monarchy was the Pasha Dynasty, that had been a branch of the Ottoman Empire. This overthrow set the pattern for monarchies to be overthrown by military officers across the Middle East. It would be repeated in Libya, Iraq and, Yemen. Every president of Egypt since Nasser has been a military officer, with the brief exception of Mohamed Morsi.
Nasser was also the driving force behind Pan-Arabism, although Arab unity would not be realized. At one point Egypt and Syria joined to form the United Arab Republic, until Syria felt dominated by larger Egypt and wealthy Syrians felt threatened by Nasser's socialist policies.
Arab unity is hindered by the history of caliphates. The Umayyad Caliphate was based in Damascus. They were supplanted by the Abassids, who built Baghdad as their capital. Then the Fatimids built Cairo as their capital. Pan-Arabism would have to overcome this history of rivalry between the major cities.
Nasser led Egypt during the 1967 Six-Day War with Israel, which resulted in Israel gaining a lot of territory, including the Old City of Jerusalem, the West Bank and, the Golan Heights. When Nasser died in 1970, Anwar Sadat became president and Marwan began working for him.
Marwan was also a secret agent. The question is whether he was a double agent, working for both Egypt and Israel.
Traditional spying has mostly been replaced by hacking. But in the days before the internet I think double agents were more common than is generally realized. Some were motivated to spy on their own people out of ideology, but others were motivated by money. If someone will spy on their own people for money then why shouldn't they also be willing to spy on a foreign country for money?
On October 6, 1973, it was both Ramadan and Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Israel was certainly overconfident after it's quick victory in the Six-Day War of 1967. Few people would be expecting a surprise attack.
Marwan had gained Israel's confidence and then warned it of an attack to come in May of 1973, which never happened. Maybe Marwan's true intentions are shown by the fact that he encouraged the Oil Embargo against the U.S. for supporting Israel after the 1973 war, and his purpose in warning Israel of an imminent attack several months before it actually happened was to give them a false sense of security, and possibly to test how Israel would respond. Since it was impossible to completely hide the preparation for the attack.
Just before the actual attack, on October 6, Marwan gave Israel another warning of an impending attack. This time the warning was accurate. What I think was happening is that, since Marwan's warning in May didn't come to pass, this must be a false warning too and it will give Israel a false sense of security.
After the assassination of Anwar Sadat, at a parade on October 6 of 1981, to commemorate the attack on Israel eight years before, Marwan became a businessman in London. He died in a mysterious fall in 2007 and his widow believed that Israel's Mossad was behind it, although it was never confirmed.
Before Marwan there was another famous names Israeli spy, named Eli Cohen, who had been born in Egypt. He attained a high position in the Syrian Government, until being caught and executed.
There is a story that Eli Cohen visited Syrian gun emplacements in the desert. He had a tree planted at each emplacement to provide shade. But the real reason for planting the trees was so that the Israeli Air Force could see where the gun emplacements were. However I am not completely sure that the story is true.
Egypt named a new city for October 6. Image from Google Earth.
DAVID AND GOLIATH
The following scene is of the Valley of Elah, from Google Street View.
This is where the confrontation between David and Goliath took place. The youthful David brought down the giant Philistine warrior Goliath with a sling, because God was with him. The Valley of Elah just happens to be right around where the current combat is taking place between Israel and Gaza.
What a powerful force history is. The repetition of history is almost like a law of physics. We tend to repeat history, often without realizing it.
Part of Philistine territory was what is now the Gaza Strip and Gaza was the name of one of the Philistines' five cities. Although the Palestinians of today are not related to the Philistines they are actually named for them.
This time the Palestinians from Gaza are in the role of David, facing Israel as Goliath. The rockets, often homemade, that are fired at Israel from Gaza represent the sling of David.
WAS WATERGATE A FACTOR IN THE 1973 YOM KIPPUR WAR?
Israel had been brought back into existence in 1948, following the Second World War, after not having been a nation since ancient times. This had brought immediate and continued conflict with surrounding Arab nations. In the 1967 Six-Day War Israel had gained control of a lot of territory, including the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank and Golan Heights. Most important of all was the Old City of Jerusalem. In an effort to keep the peace Israel allowed a Jordanian organization to administer the Temple Mount.
The Temple Mount is what remains of the site of the First and Second Jewish Temples, on Mount Moriah from ancient times. The First Temple was established by King Solomon. It was ultimately destroyed by the Babylonians and the Jews taken into exile. When Babylon was conquered by Persia the Jews were allowed to return and they rebuilt the Temple, this was the Second Temple.
King Herod ultimately dismantled the Second Temple, which had never been as grand as the First Temple, in order to rebuild it on a greater scale. Herod constructed a massive retaining wall around Mount Moriah and filled in the gap. This formed a mount to support Herod's Temple. But not long after it was completed it was looted and destroyed by the Romans because of a Jewish uprising. The wealth that was looted went to build the Colosseum in Rome.
All that remained was the mount surrounded by the retaining wall. This is known today as the Temple Mount. It is sacred to Islam, as well as to Judaism and Christianity, and Moslems later built two mosques on the mount, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa. The Dome of the Rock is believed to be on the exact site of the first two Temples.
As well as destroying the Temple the Romans also forced the Jews into exile, for rebelling against their rule, and the nation of Israel would not exist for nearly two thousand years. It was reestablished in 1948 and, as we might expect, the Arabs that had been living there didn't like it at all, and there has been mostly a state of conflict ever since. The touchiest flashpoint is the Temple Mount.
There were wars on a regular basis, in 1948 and in 1956. In the 1967 War Israel regained the Old City of Jerusalem, as well as much other territory. In 1973 Israel was clearly confident that the surrounding Arabs were not a serious threat. Egypt and Syria, which had been temporarily united the decade before as the United Arab Republic, were planning to take the lost territory back.
With the element of surprise Israel would be attacked on two fronts. Egypt would attack the occupied Sinai Peninsula and Syria would attack the Golan Heights. Israel had used trickery in the 1967 war which wouldn't work this time. Egypt had been disadvantaged in the 1967 war against Israel because it was also involved in the Civil War in Yemen.
Unlike in 1967, Israel had a very close call in 1973. Israel was supported by the U.S. and the Arab nations by the Soviet Union. There was a naval standoff between the two superpowers. The war was followed by Arab nations punishing those who had supported Israel with an oil embargo. I remember going to school in the dark because the clocks had been changed in an effort to save energy.
This embargo is known as the first "oil shock", the consequences of getting dependent on imported oil. The second was the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the third was 9/11.
What I want to add to this 1973 war is the Watergate crisis that was going on in the U.S. at the time. The Yom Kippur War occurred at the very height of this crisis. It was well-known that America was Israel's closest ally and I have long believed that seeing America distracted by Watergate was an important factor in planning this surprise attack. The same applies to the North Vietnamese offensive of 1975. America had withdrawn from the war with a truce and seeing America distracted by Watergate led the Communists to gamble that it wouldn't get re-involved in the war.
Does anyone remember Yasser Arafat International Airport? In the early 1990s it was to be Gaza's airport and a symbol of peace. But it wasn't long before it was closed by combat. In this image from Google Earth the remains of the runway can still be seen but the dark green looks like it is being used for agricultural plots.
THE NEW MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT
The efforts to bring peace to the Middle East were ultimately successful. The first generation of wars against Israel were of nations led by Syria in the north and Egypt in the south. In some of the conflict nations like Jordan and Iraq joined in.
The conflict today is between Iran and it's proxies against Israel. Another phase of the Middle East conflict involved militias, such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State, but that mostly skipped Israel.
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