Another is that in Israel’s army decision-making is offered to ranks much lower than in Arab armies. Decisions in the Egyptian army often made at the level of colonel may fall to NCO’s in the IDF. It is one of many ways that Israel is shown to be an open society.

Not that this would change any minds in the ivory towers.

Kenneth Pollack, in “Arab Armies At War 1948-1991” describes a key action showing how Israel won in 1973. The Egyptians had set up a radio intercept company of Hebrew speaking intelligence officers. They monitored the Israel frequencies and listened to what the Israelis were saying to each other, so finding out what the IDF units were doing. Israelis, at least at that time, were notoriously lax about radio discipline and constantly gave useful information in clear.

But this operation did more than just tell the Egyptian high command what the Israelis were up to. It also told them what their own units were up to. It is difficult, sometimes impossible, to get accurate information out of Arab officers about what they are doing. By listening in on the Israelis the Egyptian staff would find out that the reports they got from the umpteenth division, saying that it was attacking the Israelis and had destroyed 100 tanks in two days, were complete fabrications. The umpteenth division was sitting in its foxholes and the officers were partying. So the high command could come down on any Egyptian officers lying to them. Without it the high command could not even tell if the various formations were where they said they were. Sometiems they weren’t.

But Israel caught on to this problem, and sent a commando raid that wiped out or captured the entire intercept company. Then the Egyptian command could not tell what Israel was up to, and worse, could not tell what the Egyptians were up to. This raid helped greatly in fighting the war.

Inadvertently the attack on Yom Kippur was probably helpful in that the streets were clear and the mobilization did not get caught up in the mess that a regular workday would have caused. Reservists were mostly at home and could muster more quickly than otherwise. On the other hand, I do not recall much outrage among the west about the timing of the attack…then again, a few years before no one bothered to note that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong attacked during a holiday truce they had agreed to observe.

And while you hear all about the claim (probably true) that the Egyptian objective wasn’t to destroy Israel outright, the Egyptians would hardly have forsaken a chance to do just that if the IDF had been broken in the Sinai. It wasn’t lack of desire but lack of wherewithal. And in any case, it might be noted that Egypt wasn’t the only belligerent; the Syrians clearly set their sights on the Galilee and beyond, not just recovering the Golan. But this recognition would interfere with the narrative that the Arabs started the war for limited political purposes.

Please, please write a letter to the Times stating what you say here.

Also notable…the Yom Kippur war was during ramadan…hmmmmm…