A NEW PHASE FROM MARCH ’69?in. UN observers determined that the shots, which initially injured two IDF soldiers,
were unprovoked. Cairo Radio confirmed this by quoting foreign agencies to gloat
that Eg ypt had launched a “war of nerves.”^25 Dayan and other Israeli leaders threat-
ened retaliation, but they had more pressing concerns: Prime Minister Eshkol had
just suffered a heart attack (on 3 February). The Israelis responded only with small-
arms fire.
After Eshkol died from a second attack on 26 February and his country was
plunged into uncertainty over his succession, Eg yptian sniping increased dramatically
along with mining of roads on the Israeli side of the canal by raiding parties. On the
28th alone, over twenty incidents were registered, exchanges of fire went on for over
twelve hours, and the observers had to arrange a truce. Israeli commentators sug-
gested the Eg yptians were attempting to back up Soviet and French pressure on
Nixon to demand an Israeli withdrawal.^26 The bombardment on 8 March came the
day after Golda Meir was confirmed as the candidate for prime minister in order to
avert an open contest between Dayan and Allon. In an interview for the Washington
Post, she deemed that the USSR would never accept, or lead Nasser into, any settle-
ment acceptable to Israel.^27
The Egyptians’ new aggressiveness and initiative could be—and was—attributed
in large part to the advisers’ efforts, though as usual they were less than satisfied. In
January, a meeting of the CPSU members among the advisers at II Army Corps
headquarters (referred to as “the trade union” to sidestep the Eg yptian ban on politi-
cal activity) concluded that “some successes had been scored in combat readiness,
[but] many problems are still unsolved.” Although they had progressed to “command
staff exercises and tactical training in brigades and divisions and live-fire exercises at
company and battalion level, which had not been done before, ... due to late and
inadequate assignment of missions by officers, sessions become lectures rather than
practical training.” In one case, “Arab officers burned plans for two staff exercises that
had taken the advisers two weeks to prepare.” Despite—or because of—these difficul-
ties, the problematic step of attaching advisers directly to Eg yptian battalions and
divizyons was finally made. The first of the new battalion advisers arrived in Serkov’s
sector on 9 March, in the midst of the fray, and “got their baptism of fire.” Their
comrades had to postpone a welcome party due to the “circumstances,” and finally
held it on the 11th, under fire and by kerosene lamplight, as their power line had been
cut after the Israelis began to respond with heavy shelling.^28 The exchanges now con-
tinued daily.
So, was the gradual escalation and then the massive bombardment done at the
Soviets’ bidding, or with their passive knowledge, or against their advice? Bar-Siman-
Tov’s conclusion, a decade later, was “there is nothing to indicate that the Eg yptian
decision to start a new war was agreed upon beforehand with the Soviet leadership,”
but “it is possible that the Soviets knew of Eg ypt’s intentions.”^29 Newer evidence is no
less ambiguous. In the front-line ground units, Serkov sensed a tightening of regime