Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War (Hebrew מלחמת יום הכיפורים Milchemet Jom HaKippurim or מלחמת יום כיפור Milchemet Yom Kippur) was a war fought from 6. to October 25, 1973, waged by Egypt, Syria, and other Arab states against Israel. After the Palestine War (1948/49), the Suez Crisis (1956), and the Six-Day War of 1967, it was the fourth Arab-Israeli war in the Middle East conflict.

On the Arab side, the war is called the Ramadan War or October War (Arabic حرب أكتوبر, DMG Ḥarb Uktūbar or حرب تشرين / Ḥarb Tišrīn) because it took place during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, which fell in October that year. It was also called the October War in the GDR, although the neutral term Fourth Arab-Israeli War was more often used in GDR specialist literature.

Overview

The war began with a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria on October 6, 1973, the highest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, in the Sinai and the Golan Heights, which had been conquered by Israel six years earlier during the Six-Day War. During the first two days, Egyptian and Syrian forces advanced, but after that the tide of the war turned in favor of the Israelis, who had first had to mobilize their troops. After the second week of the war, the Syrians had been completely pushed out of the Golan Heights. Meanwhile, in the Sinai, the Israel Defense Forces had broken through between two Egyptian armies, crossed the Suez Canal (the old cease-fire line), and cut off an entire Egyptian army before the UN cease-fire took effect on October 24, 1973.

The war had far-reaching consequences for many states. In Israel, harsh criticism was levelled at the government for underestimating Egypt and Syria, thus enabling the enemies' initial successes. The Arab world, which had felt deeply humiliated by the complete defeat of the Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian alliance in the Six-Day War, was able to derive psychological benefits from the initial successes of the war; its troops saw their honor at least partially restored. This psychological reassurance set the stage for the peace negotiations that were to follow. It also made economic liberalizations such as Egypt's infitah policy possible. The Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty that followed five and a half years after the war normalized relations between Egypt and Israel - the first time an Arab state recognized Israel.

Background

This war was part of the Middle East conflict which had led to several clashes and wars. During the Six Day War in 1967, the Israelis had conquered the Sinai up to the Suez Canal, which became the armistice line. Israel had also captured about half of the Golan Heights from Syria. In the years following the Six-Day War, Israel built military fortifications in both the Sinai and the Golan Heights: in 1971, Israel spent $500 million on the Suez Canal fortifications - a chain of fortifications with huge earthen ramparts that became known as the Bar-Lev Line (named after Israeli General Chaim Bar-Lev). The overwhelming victory in the Six-Day War and the war of attrition, which was at least not lost, led to an almost limitless confidence in the Israeli government's own capabilities.

Egypt and Syria sought to regain the territories lost in 1967. However, they had already rejected negotiations on this in the same year with the "Three No's of Khartoum". In September 1970 the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser died. He was succeeded by Anwar as-Sadat, who decided to fight Israel to get the territories back. After the failure of the Jarring mission, Sadat hoped that even a minimal defeat of Israel could change the status quo and thus bring about negotiations. Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad, on the other hand, had other motives and was interested solely in the military reclamation of the Golan Heights. Since the Six Day War, Assad had made enormous efforts to make Syria a dominant military power in the Arab world. Assad was convinced that together with Egypt he could defeat the Israeli forces and thus secure the Syrian role in the region. Assuming that the Golan had already been conquered, Assad at best considered negotiating an Israeli abandonment of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Sadat also had important domestic political reasons for going to war. The Egyptian economy was destroyed, but Sadat knew about the immense resistance in parts of Egyptian society to the necessary reforms. After a military victory, he hoped to gain the popularity necessary to implement needed reforms. Numerous Egyptian students were extremely dissatisfied with Sadat's restraint during his first three years in office, and held mass protests demanding that he reclaim the Sinai. The US-American historian Abraham Rabinovich describes the first three years of Sadat's reign in general as marked by a strong demoralization of the Egyptian population. In the depressed economic situation and nationwide hopelessness, war seemed the only way out. In his biography of Sadat, Raphael Israeli writes that Sadat saw the roots of the problem in the great shame of the Six-Day War and believed that before any reform could be carried out, the shame must first be overcome.

The other Arab states showed a more restrained position regarding a renewed war against Israel. Jordan's King Hussein feared another major loss of Jordanian territory, following the loss of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a result of the Six-Day War. Sadat supported the PLO's claim to power over these territories and promised Yasser Arafat control of the West Bank and Gaza. In contrast, Hussein still saw the West Bank as part of Jordan and sought unification with the lost territories into the United Arab Kingdom, which the PLO and most Arab states opposed. However, Yigal Allon supported the proposal and saw it as a solution to the conflict. Moreover, the events of Black September, a near civil war between the PLO and the Jordanian government, had led to a strong rejection by Hussein of the Syrian leadership, which had intervened militarily on the side of the PLO.

Iraq and Syria also had strained relations, but Iraq had pledged its brotherhood in arms to Syria and Egypt in the event of war. Lebanon was not expected to participate in the Arab war effort, as it was not in a position to wage war due to internal instability and a small army.

Before the war, Sadat tried to gain support for the war through diplomatic means. During 1973, Sadat claimed that more than a hundred states supported him. The supporting states included most of the states of the Arab League, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Organization of African Unity.