Weekly Commentary: The Yom Kippur War Lesson
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 7 October 2010

This week the protocols of some government meetings that took place
immediately before and during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 was released to the
public.

Frankly speaking, there weren't many surprises.

Yet the reports did serve as an important reminder of just how dangerous
"best case assumption" analysis can be.
There's another important lesson from the Yom Kippur War that,
unfortunately, rarely is mentioned.

And that's what facilitated the Egyptian attack in Israel in the first
place: Israel's acceptance of Egypt's gross violation of the cease fire that
ended the War of Attrition when it moved
SAM anti-aircraft missiles close to the Suez Canal just as the cease fire
went into effect.

The US had a spy plane that flew over the area that first day and
photographed the violations. They were aware that first day that the
Egyptians had violated the agreement. Yet despite this the US asked Israel
to provide evidence and for several days said it was waiting for evidence of
the violation.

Before the agreement was signed, the US promised Israel that if the
Egyptians moved up their missiles that America would press the Egyptians to
pull them back. But when they finally had to face up to the violation, the
US explained that they could not pressure Egypt.

The US ultimately compensated Israel with "black boxes" for Israeli aircraft
that were meant to offset the damage to Israel's security caused by the
Egyptian violation.

But the "black boxes" proved insufficient.

Those same anti-aircraft missiles ultimately provided invading Egyptian
forces protection from the Israeli Air Force at the opening of the Yom
Kippur War in 1973.

Have we learned the lesson?

Many tens of thousands of missiles now face us from Lebanon under the blind
eyes of UNIFIL.

Our enemies in the Gaza Strip continually improve the range, accuracy and
payloads of the rockets that threaten our cities.

Have we learned the lesson?

Or will we have to learn, yet again, in a painfully hard way that we simply
cannot afford to ignore such developments.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719 Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http:www.imra.org.il