under the cover of which he would continue to spy for them. The Is-
raeli press published the story under the headline “The Man in the
Trunk.”LOW PROBABILITY.This was the famous judgment of Military In-
telligence(MI) on the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur Warregarding
the likelihood of war, when the director of MI, Major General
Eliyahu Zeira, was asked by the Israeli government about the likeli-
hood of an Egyptian attack. His “low probability” assessment was
based on the renowned prevailing Conceptholding that Egypt would
not go to war until it had attained the required military capability—
meaning the acquisition of Scud missile strategic weapons and
Sukhoi bombers. He was supported in this assessment by Lieutenant
Colonel Yosef Bendman, head of MI’s Branch 6.
Because the outbreak of war on 6 October came as a strategic sur-
prise, the term “low probability” came to be taken to mean the oppo-
site. Statistically, of course, any event might happen even under a
“low probability” forecast. Yet, pronouncements by the Israeli lead-
ership in the two months before the 2003 Gulf War indicate in a sense
that the impending threat had perhaps been belabored. Public state-
ments began to be heard that an attack with nonconventional
weapons was of “low probability.” The chief of the General Staff of
the Israel Defense Forces went so far as to comment that his sleep
was not disturbed over the Iraqi threat. These speakers seem to have
disregarded the change, since the Yom Kippur War, in the general in-
terpretation of the phrase “low probability.” Its mention in discus-
sions between intelligence professionals, political leaders, and the Is-
raeli public was to denote a substantial possibility that the event
would indeed occur and indicate that appropriate countermeasures
must be taken.LUBRANI, URI.Lubrani’s political career began in the 1960s as ad-
viser on Arab affairs to Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion and
then as head of the private bureau and political adviser to Prime Min-
ister Levi Eshkol. He served as Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia and to
Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi (1968–1973) and as head of the Is-
raeli mission in Tehran (1973–1979). In the latter position, from early
1978 he made written assessments filled with foreboding about the170 • LOW PROBABILITY06-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 170