Chapter 14: The Yom Kippur War
Cabinet meeting: Prelude
"By eight o’clock the meeting began. Dayan and ‘Dado’ differed as to the scale of the call-up. The chief-of-staff recommended the mobilization of the entire air force and four divisions and said that if they were called up at once they could go into action the next day, that is, Sunday. Dayan, on the other hand, was in favour of calling up the air force and only two divisions (one for the north and one for the south), and lie argued that if we had a full mobilization before a single shot was fired, the world would have an excuse for calling us the ‘aggressors’. Besides, he thought that the air force plus two divisions could handle the situation, and if towards evening the situation worsened, we could always call up more within a few hours. ‘That’s my suggestion,’ lie said, ‘but I won’t resign if you decide against me.’ ‘My God,’ I thought, ‘I have to decide which of them is right?’ But what I said was that I had only one criterion: if there really was a war, then we had to be in the very best position possible. The call-up should be as Dado suggested. But, of course, it was the one day of the year that even our legendary ability to mobilize rapidly partly failed us.
‘Dado’ was in favour of a pre-emptive strike since it was clear that war was inevitable in any case. ‘I want you to know,’ he said, ‘that our air force can be ready to strike at noon, but you must give me the green light now. If we can make that first strike, it will be greatly to our advantage.’ But I had already made up my mind. ‘Dado’, I said, ‘I know all the arguments in favour of a pre-emptive strike, but I am against it. We don’t know now, any of us, what the future will hold, but there is always the possibility that we will need help, and if we strike first, we will get nothing from anyone. I would like to say yes because I know what it would mean, but with a heavy heart I am going to say no.’ Then Dayan and ‘Dado’ went to their offices, and I told Simcha Dinitz (now our ambassador to Washington, who happened to be in Israel that week) to fly back to the States immediately and I called in Menachem Begin to tell him what was happening. I also asked for a cabinet meeting for noon and called the then US ambassador Kenneth Keating, and asked him to come and see me. I told him two things: that according to our intelligence, the attacks would start late in the afternoon and that we would not strike first. Maybe something could still be done to avert the war by US intervention with the Russians or maybe even directly with the Syrians and the Egyptians. At all events, we would not make a pre-emptive strike. I wanted him to know that and to relay that information as soon as possible to Washington. Ambassador Keating had been a very good friend to Israel for many years, both in the US Senate and in Israel itself. He was a man I liked and trusted, and on that dreadful morning I was grateful to him for his assistance and understanding.
When the cabinet met at noon, it heard a full description of the situation, including the decision to mobilize the reserves and also my decision regarding a pre-emptive strike. Nobody raised any objections whatsoever."
Dayan
"On the afternoon of 7 October, Dayan returned from one of his tours of the front and asked to see me at once. He told me that in his opinion the situation in the south was so bad that we should pull back substantially and establish a new defensive line. I listened to him in horror. Allon, Galili and my military secretary were in the room. Then I asked ‘Dado’ to come in too. He had another suggestion —that we should go on with the offensive in the south. He asked if he could go to the southern front to supervise things himself and for perrnission to make whatever decisions might have to be made on the spot. Dayan agreed and ‘Dado’ left. That night I called a cabinet meeting and got the ministers’ approval for us to launch a counter-attack against the Egyptians on 8 October. When I was alone in the room, I closed my eyes and sat perfectly still for a minute. I think that if I hadn’t learned, during all those years, how to be strong, I would have gone to pieces then. But I didn’t."
"On Sunday, Dayan came in to my office. He closed the door and stood in front of me. ‘Do you want me to resign?’ he asked ‘I am prepared to do so if you think I should. Unless I have your confidence, I can’t go on.’ I told him —and I have never regretted this —that he had to stay on as minister of defence."
Airlift
"I talked to Dinitz in Washington at all hours of the day and the night. Where was the airlift? Why wasn’t it under way yet? I remember calling him once at 3 a.m., Washington time, and he said, ‘I can’t speak to anyone now, Golda. It’s much too early.’ But I couldn’t listen to reason. I knew that President Nixon had promised to help us, and I knew from my past experience with him that he would not let us down. Let me, at this point, repeat something that I have said often before (usually to the extreme annoyance of many of my American friends). However history judges Richard Nixon —and it is probable that the verdict will be very harsh —it must also be put on the record forever that he did not break a single one of the promises he made to us. So why was there a delay? ‘I don’t care what time it is,’ I raged at Dinitz. ‘Call Kissinger now. In the middle of the night. We need the help today because tomorrow it may be too late.’
The story has already been published of that delay, of the US Defence Department’s initial reluctance to send military supplies to us in US planes and of the problems that arose when we feverishly shopped around for other planes —when all the time huge transports of Soviet aid were being brought by sea and air to Egypt and Syria and we were losing aircraft at a disturbing rate (not in air battles but to the Soviet missiles on both fronts). Each hour of waiting that passed was like a century for me, but there was no alternative other than to hold on tight and hope that the next hour would bring better news. I phoned Dinitz and told him that I was ready to fly to Washington incognito to meet with Nixon if he thought it could be arranged. ‘Find out immediately,’ I said, ‘I want to go as soon as possible.’ But it wasn’t necessary. At last, Nixon himself ordered the giant C-5 Galaxies to be sent, and the first flight arrived on the ninth day of the war, on 14 October. The airlift was invaluable. It not only lifted our spirits, it also served to make the American position clear to the Soviet Union and it undoubtedly served to make our victory possible. When I heard that the planes had touched down in Lydda, I cried for the first time since the war had begun, though not for the last. That was also the day on which we published the first casualty list: 656 Israelis had already died in battle.
But even the Galaxies that brought us tanks, ammunition, clothing, medical supplies and air-to-air rockets couldn’t bring all that was required. What about the planes? The Phantoms and Skyhawks had to be refuelled en route, so they were refuelled in the air. But they came —and so did the Galaxies that landed in Lydda, sometimes at the rate of one every fifteen minutes."
Embargo
"The next day I addressed the Knesset. I was very tired but I spoke for forty minutes because I had a lot to say, though most of it didn’t make pleasant hearing. But at least I could tell the Knesset that, as I was speaking a task force was already operating on the west bank of the Canal. I wanted also to make public our gratitude to the president and the people of America, and, equally clear, our rage at those governments, notably the French and British, that had chosen to impose an embargo on the shipment of arms to us when we were fighting for our very lives. And most of all, I wanted the world to know what would have happened to us had we withdrawn before the war to the pre Six Day War lines of 1967 —the very same lines, incidentally, that had not prevented the Six Day War itself from breaking out, though no one seems to remember that."
POWs
"I had been through this torment with the parents of boys taken prisoner in the War of Attrition, and there were days in the winter of 1973 when I could hardly bring myself to face yet another group of parents, knowing that I had nothing to tell them and that the Egyptians and Syrians had not only refused to give the Red Cross lists of captured Israelis months after the ceasefire, but even to let our army chaplains search the battlefields for our dead."
"I spent dozens of hours with those poor parents. though all that I could tell them in the beginning was that we were doing whatever we could to find their boys and that we would not agree to any arrangement that did not include the return of prisoners. But how many prisoners were there? I don’t think I ever wanted anything as desperately as I wanted those POW lists that were dangled in front of us so long and so cruelly. There is much for which I personally shall never forgive the Egyptians or the Syrians, but above all I shall never forgive them for withholding that information for so many days, out of sheer malice, and for trying to use the anguish of Israeli parents as a political trump card against us.
After the ceasefire and after the months of negotiations that led at last to the disengagement of troops on both fronts, when our prisoners finally returned from Syria and Egypt, the world at last learned for itself what we had already known for years: that amenities such as the Geneva Convention go by the board when Jews fall into the hands of Arabs —particularly into the hands of the Syrians —and perhaps our anxiety about our POWs was better understood."
Ceasefire proposal
"But it brought about an escalation of the crisis, and someone had to pay to bring about a relaxation of tension. The price demanded, needless to say from Israel, included our agreeing to permit supplies to reach the encircled Egyptian Third Army and to accept a second ceasefire that was to go into effect under the supervision of a UN force. The demand that we feed the Third Army, give it water and generally help its 20,000 soldiers to recover from their defeat was not, in any way, a matter of humanitarianism. We would gladly have given them all this had the Egyptians been willing to lay down their arms and go home. But this was exactly what President Sadat wanted to avoid. He was desperately anxious not to make public within Egypt the fact that Israel had prevailed in yet another attack upon her —the more so since for a few days in October the Egyptians were intoxicated by their apparent victory over us. So once again there was the standard concern for the tender feelings of the Arab aggressor, rather than for those of the victims of Arab aggression, and we were urged to compromise in the name of ‘world peace’.
‘At least,’ I told the cabinet that week, ‘let’s call things by their right name. Black is black and white is white. There is only one country to which we can turn and sometimes we have to give in to it —even when we know we shouldn’t. But it is the only real friend we have, and a very powerful one. We don’t have to say yes to everything, but let’s call things by their proper name. There is nothing to be ashamed of when a small country like Israel, in this situation, has to give in sometimes to the United States. And when we do say yes, let’s, for God’s sake, not pretend that it is otherwise and that black is white.’"
Lack of help from Europe
"I also had questions that weren’t answered to my satisfaction. I was still enraged over the refusal of my socialist comrades in Europe to let the Phantoms and Skyhawks land for refuelling as part of the airlift operation. One day, weeks after the war, I phoned Willy Brandt, who is much respected in the Socialist International, and said: ‘I have no demands to make of anyone, but I want to talk to my friends. For my own good, I need to know what possible meaning socialism can have when not a single socialist country in all of Europe was prepared to come to the aid of the only democratic nation in the Middle East. Is it possible that democracy and fraternity do not apply in our case? Anyhow, I want to hear for myself with my own ears, what it was that kept the heads of these socialist governments from helping us.’
The leadership meeting of the Socialist International was called in London and everyone came. Such meetings consist of the heads of socialist parties, those in government and those that are in parliamentary opposition. On that occasion, since I had asked that the meeting be called, I opened it. I told my fellow-socialists exactly what the situation had been, how we were taken by surprise, fooled by our own wishful thinking into believing the interpretation we were given of our intelligence reports, and how we had won the war. But it had been touch and go for days. Then I said: ‘I just want to understand, in the light of this, what socialism is really about today. Here you are, all of you. Not one inch of your territory was put at our disposal for refuelling the planes that saved us from destruction. Now, suppose Richard Nixon had said: ‘I am sorry but since we have nowhere to refuel in Europe, we just can’t do anything for you, after all.’ What would all of you have done then? You know us and who we are. We are all old comrades, long-standing friends. What did you think? On what grounds did you make your decisions not to let those planes refuel? Believe me, I am the last person to belittle the fact that we are only one tiny Jewish state and that there are over twenty Arab states with vast territories, endless oil and billions of dollars. But what I want to know from you today is whether these things are decisive factors in socialist thinking too?’
When I got through, the chairman asked if anybody wanted to speak. But nobody did. Then someone behind me —I didn’t want to turn my head and look at him because I didn’t want to embarrass him —said, very clearly: ‘Of course they can’t talk. Their throats are choked with oil.’ And although there was a discussion, there wasn’t really any more to say. It had all been said by that man whose face I never saw."