tive of surprise. Although Israeli intelligence services had gathered substantial infor-
mation about Arab military capabilities and intentions, and Jordan’s King Hussein had
secretly warned the Israelis, the Israeli government believed—until a few hours before
the attack—that the Arabs would not be foolish enough to risk another defeat.
The main thrust of the attack came from Egypt, which sent approximately 90,000
troops across the Suez Canal, driving Israeli forces from their supposedly unbreachable
defensive positions on the eastern shore of the waterway. Rather than continuing deep
into the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula, however, the Egyptians focused on consolidating
their hold on the area adjacent to the canal; eventually they controlled a strip nearly
ten miles wide. In contrast to events in the June 1967 War, Israel was unable to quickly
establish air superiority because the Soviet Union had provided Egypt with an exten-
sive defensive system of antiaircraft artillery and missiles.
With matters stalled on the Egyptian front, Israel quickly shifted its attention to its
northeastern front, where the Syrian military was attempting to drive Israeli forces from
the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau that Israel had captured from Syria in 1967. Syr-
ian ground forces at first achieved rapid success by pushing the Israelis from their east-
ern positions on the Golan. A massive Israeli counterattack stopped the Syrian advance
on October 9 and appeared, for a time, to threaten Damascus, the Syrian capital.
Responding to an appeal from Assad to launch an offensive to ease the pressure on
Syrian troops, Sadat on October 14 sent Egyptian forces against Israeli positions in the
Sinai Peninsula. The Egyptian attack proved to be the biggest mistake of the war. In a
huge battle involving nearly 2,000 tanks, the well-coordinated Israeli forces easily pre-
vailed, forcing many of the Egyptian troops to flee. Late the next day, October 15, an
Israeli commando force led by Gen. Ariel Sharon pierced Egyptian defenses at the Suez
Canal and eventually crossed over to the western side. The Israelis then moved a larger
force onto the west bank and on October 19 began a drive to the south in hopes of
trapping the entire Egyptian Third Army, composed of about 20,000 troops.
A cease-fire vote by the UN Security Council in Resolution 338 took effect on
October 22, but fighting continued for three more days, as Israel attempted to consol-
idate its positions, and Egypt used artillery fire in hopes of breaking the Israeli grip
on both sides of the canal. In addition to demanding a cease-fire, Resolution 338 reit-
erated the land-for-peace formula of Resolution 242, adopted in 1967, and called for
negotiations “between the parties concerned under appropriate auspices aimed at estab-
lishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East.” The “appropriate auspices” langu-
age was intended to open the door to negotiations brokered by the superpowers, pos-
sibly as a substitute for the United Nations.
The war ended with Israel in control of even more Arab territory than at the begin-
ning; indeed, Israeli forces came within twenty miles of Damascus and sixty miles of
Cairo. Even so, most independent assessments, at the time and in later years, described
the October 1973 war as much closer to a draw than an outright Israeli victory: Israel
was caught off guard and failed to establish clear air superiority. Moreover, the Egyp-
tian and Syrian armies achieved important gains in the early stages of the fighting,
thus raising doubts about Israel’s self-proclaimed invincibility against its Arab foes.
The results of the war also can be judged by the political infighting afterward in
Israel: Elections the following December produced gains by rightist parties and led to
the collapse of the government of Prime Minister Golda Meir, who was succeeded by
former army chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin. An independent investigation faulted the
ARABS AND ISRAELIS 113