aircraft and suffer one loss. This naturally reinforces the military’s belief
that the Arabs will not attack on account of Israel’s once-again proven air
capability. 25 September: King Hussein meets Prime Minister Meir and
warns her that the Israeli-Arab diplomatic impasse will lead to a war,
which Egypt and Syria are intent on launching. 1 October: Lieutenant
Siman-Tov, a junior intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
Southern Command, contrary to his commanders, strongly maintains that
the huge Egyptian deployments and exercises along the west bank of the
Suez Canal seem to be camouflage for a real canal-crossing assault. His
assessment is categorically rejected. After the Yom Kippur War, the so-
called Siman-Tov procedure is initiated in MI, whereby every Israeli army
officer who holds a different view is allowed to express it freely, even by-
passing his immediate commander and going directly to the director of
Military Intelligence (DMI). Normally, no soldier or officer is allowed to
bypass his immediate commanders. 5 October: The director of the
Mossad, Zvi Zamir, receives a phone call from the Mossad’s case officer
in London, who is in contact with Marwan Ashraf. The latter has given
him the codeword znon, signifying the immediate unleashing of war, but
he insists on providing more details only to the Mossad director in person.
Zamir flies to London for the meeting. 6 October: Zamir calls the DMI,
Eli Zeira, from the Israeli embassy in London on an open phone line due
to the absence of a cipher clerk; no clerks are available because of the Yom
Kippur observances. Zamir conveys Zeira Ashraf’s message that war will
start that day before sunset and that the attack will be by combined Egypt-
ian and Syrian forces simultaneously. At 1:55 P.M., with Israel woefully un-
prepared, the Egyptian/Syrian attack is launched. Amos Levinburg, an in-
telligence officer, is captured in the Hermon outpost by Syrian commandos
at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War. He has a phenomenal memory
and conveys to his captors a vast amount of information about IDF struc-
ture. He is nicknamed “the Jewish book-writing professor” in Syrian com-
munications. When the range of information he has divulged to the enemy
becomes known, there is no alternative to a total overhaul of MI. Levin-
burg returns to Israel, is recognized as an IDF invalid, and is not charged.
12 October: Field intelligence officers pick up on certain changes that oc-
cur on the battlefield during the war. One success is the prediction two
days in advance of the start of the second stage of the Egyptian offensive.
MI forwards this information to the chief of the general staff (CGS), Lieu-
tenant General David Elazar. Intelligence has detected a “seam” between
the Egyptian Second Army, which crossed the Suez Canal near Ismailia,CHRONOLOGY• xxxi06-102 (01) FM.qxd 3/24/06 7:22 AM Page xxxi