WHAT TRIGGERED KAVKAZ? REFUTING HEIKAL’S VERSIONto counter even Israel’s existing aircraft, never mind the Phantoms that it was about
to acquire. As Kubersky noted, at air defense headquarters
it was now clear to everyone: our [SAM-2] missiles are powerless against low-flying targets.
Against high-flying targets they work all right, but who would be stupid enough to fly
high, where he would be overtaken not only by missiles but even by the antediluvian
85mm AA guns. ... And the Israelis are no fools. They appear instantly and suddenly, at
50–100m altitude—and you are done for.^22The lack of early warning on 17 June also emphasized the shortcomings of both
Eg yptian operators and their Soviet early warning systems: the Eg yptian array had
received some Soviet radar stations, but it still relied on antiquated telephone reports
of visual sightings and on manually updated situation maps at headquarters.^23 The
human lookouts were not phased out, but on Soviet advice they were equipped with
radio communications and posted in a double ring so that IAF intruders would have
to pass over at least two of them; a senior Soviet adviser lists this as an achievement
rather than a problem.^24
C. Israel’s “flying artillery” tilts the balance
Worse was to come before the Eg yptians and Soviets were jolted into more drastic
countermeasures. On 8 July, Eg yptian artillery routinely targeted an Israeli convoy
moving between strongpoints of the Bar-Lev Line and pinned it down for hours. This
time, the ranking officer in the convoy was former IAF Commander Ezer Weizmann,
now the IDF operations chief. Weizmann had long since been pressing to involve the
air force more actively in the worsening duels along the canal. He now prevailed over
the reservations of his successor Hod, as well as the political leadership, who were
apprehensive about the US response: Washington had stipulated that the Skyhawks
should not be used for offensive operations. Planning began to use the IAF’s jets as
“flying artillery” to offset the Eg yptian advantage in guns.
On 20 July 1969, the artillery and tank duel near Suez City reached a peak. That
night, Israeli commandos attacked the Green Island fortress in the Gulf of Suez just
off the city’s waterfront. Eg ypt claimed to have repelled the landing and to have shot
down no fewer than nineteen Israeli planes. It was announced that Nasser was “satis-
fied with the outcome ... and convinced it represented a turning point.” But Israel,
justifying the raid by Eg ypt’s “total disregard” for the ceasefire, denied any aircraft
losses at all.^25 The alarm in Cairo was reflected by other wild claims, such as the gov-
ernment spokesman’s charge that the raid had been timed to coincide with the
Apollo-11 landing on the moon in order to minimize media attention.^26
Foreign studies have suggested that one of the Israelis’ main objectives on Green
Island was to knock out an air defense radar station in order to open a corridor for a
bombing campaign across the canal.^27 Israeli accounts likewise connect the two opera-