350 • 18 WAR AND THE QUEST FOR PEACEDuring the first week of fighting, the Israelis concentrated their forces in
the north, fearing a revolt if Syrian forces broke through into mainly Arab
areas, such as Galilee or the occupied West Bank, for Israel's Arab policies
had not created conditions that would foster loyalty to the Jewish state.
They soon drove the Syrians back beyond the 1967 armistice line. Israeli
units reached a town halfway between Kunaitra (the Golan's main city)
and Damascus. Then they stopped, partly to avert any Soviet intervention
or a massive onslaught by Jordan or Iraq, but also because Israel's main
thrust had shifted to the Egyptian front. After crossing the canal, Egypt's
armies took up positions about 6 miles (10 km) deep into Sinai, but IDF
intelligence found a weak spot between those two armies. In the second
week, amid tank battles as large as those in World War II, the Israelis
pierced that middle zone, reached the canal, and crossed it. Egyptian fire
and bombardment killed most of Israel's advance units, but some man¬
aged to build a land bridge that enabled other troops to reach the west side
of the canal. Egypt played down the crossing, but as the IDF headed for
Suez, Sadat began to worry.
Arms Supplies and the Oil Embargo
One major factor in turning the tide was the US resupply of arms to Israel.
Washington had put off sending ammunition and spare parts in the first
week of the war, fearing it might alienate the Arabs or hoping to make Is¬
rael more accommodating. Then, under intense pressure from the pro-
Israel lobby, it started a massive airlift. How could the Arabs discourage this
resupply? The weapon that they had long held back, an embargo on the sale
of oil to the US, now beckoned. Indeed, Arab oil-exporting countries had
stopped sales to the West in the June 1967 war, but that embargo had fiz¬
zled after a few weeks. The difference was that back then oil had glutted the
world market, whereas even before October 1973 most industrialized
countries feared shortages. Egypt had long urged the Persian Gulf states to
deny oil to the US as a means of making Israel give up the occupied territo¬
ries. An al-Ahram editorial argued that American students, if forced to at¬
tend classes in unheated lecture rooms, would demonstrate for Israeli
withdrawals as they had demanded a US troop pullout from Indochina.
The day after the US started flying arms to Israel, the Arab oil-producing
states, meeting in Kuwait, announced that they would reduce their produc¬
tion by 5 percent that month and that these cutbacks would continue until
Israel had withdrawn from all the occupied territories and had recognized
the national rights of the Palestinians. Some OPEC members suddenly