Ah child. You speak as if the future was clear from the past’s point of view. But I understand your frustration. “Who is the wise person? The one who foresees the consequences.”
Were we foolish? Was I? Don’t forget- I had Moshe as defence secretary. I trusted him. We all trusted him. Do you remember his words that May?
He spoke of the ‘crowning era of the Return to Zion’. He had reason to feel so proud. We had not just won the Six Day War, we had brought peace the likes we had never thought would happen in the six years since.
There was a cease-fire on the Suez; terrorist groups were falling into infighting and were weakened. The Egyptians has expelled 14,000 Soviet ‘advisors’ in uniform. We felt confident. Events had brought us security.
But we were not blind or ignorant. I listened to our intelligence experts and to our generals. And we were working under the edicts of ‘Ha’kontzeptia’- the ‘concept’. It was the golden rule for our security: We knew that until
But that didn’t mean we didn’t keep a wary eye? I remember sitting down with Zamir on April 18th saying that an attack was imminent and Iraqi and Libyan jets were now in Sadat’s arsenal.
Eli Zeira, the head of military intelligence, dismissed the idea. Barking away in his abrupt Sargent-major tone of his. And Dado, General Elazar, Army Chief of Staff, disagreed with Zeira’s assessment but he was blunt and confident also.
“If War happens, let it happen,” he said but he wasn’t being flippant. The way he saw it, we should ignore Zeria’s more cautious ‘wait and see’ idea and mobilise the reserve forces. Moshe agreed with Dado.
We called it Condition Blue-White. We called up tens of thousands of reservists. No warning. It was May 7th if I remember. We sent troops and equipment to the front lines in the Sinai and the Golan. We responded.
Know what it cost us? No, don’t look like that. We were a small nation. 40% of our entire nations budget went on defending ourselves. Blue-White cost us an additional $35 million that wasn’t being spent on schools or hospitals or infrastructure. We kept it going for three whole months. Twelve weeks!
Do you have any idea how angry some of those families were? Three months of high alert and nothing. Husbands and sons away and nothing.
So we stepped down. Sent the reservists home. Returned to the numbers on the borders we had seen before Blue-Green. Were we complacent? No. But we couldn’t be expected to be jumping at shadows though could we?
The intelligence we had that an attack was due in May was good; trusted; Zamir was a sensible and sober judge, but it had come to nothing. We had Knesset elections due on October 28th. What was I going to do? Be the woman who kept us on alert because she was chasing a rumour?
So we ended blue-white and returned to watching.
And then came September 13th. The air battle over Israel. It was suppose to be a flyby. Like we had done before. Two jets sweep Syrian airspace and return. Only that night the Syrians decided to object. And the result? We lost one but we down 12 Syrian jets. 12 to 1. We knew it would be humiliating to Assad.
We had a cabinet meeting just three days later. We all agreed, Syria WOULD respond but we didn’t know how. Moshe Dayan said he thought they would begin shelling the Golan at the very least; Dado said they wouldn’t. They knew what how we would respond if they shelled the kibbutzim; they would probably just try and shoot down one of our jets he said. Everyone had an opinion. Voices were raised.
It was Eli Zeira who told us the next day that Syria were responding by building defensive positions in case we attacked them! And Egypt was placing its Air Force on alert again because they feared we were going to attack.
He was the head of military intelligence. Of course I trusted him. We all did. We were NOT going to attack so all was fine. Let our neighbours worry a little. We were secure. But we were not complacent.
Yes some were alarmed that the Syrians could potentially sweep the Golan, Moshe amidst them, but Dado felt this was us being paranoid. And he had been right to dismiss Moshe’s fears a few days earlier. I trusted him. And not because he was attractive (although I admit, I liked that about him). He was calm, he understood that we were a nation not just an army. Had I not agreed to Blue-White on his recommendation?
Oh and now you will say ‘what about your meeting with the King of Jordan on September 25th? Arranged in great secrecy, just outside of Tel Aviv? ‘
Yes it happened. He requested it. He came without prompting. He knew we would tape everything he didn’t care. Understand- we were still at war. It had never ended. And here he was sat across from me. I didn’t exactly smile. I watched. I listened.
He tried to get a rise out of me. Spoke for an hour, rambling away. Swore he was loyal to the idea of Arab unity. But he was here in Israel is secret. I knew he was giving us some ‘treasure’ as Zamir would say.
And he told me, yes, Syria and Egypt were planning to attack and working together. How do you think I felt? Everything I had been told was wrong. The ‘crowning era’ was an illusion. The belief we were still within the Concept was false. I did the only thing I could do. I rang Moshe.
It was the edge of Rosh Hashanah. There was a three day holiday. But we got everyone together. Moshe wanted to go north and hold a press conference amidst the settlers, Dado and Zeira however felt the warning was over valued. Dado even talked Moshe down a little.
They told me the King of Jordan was inflating the risk.
I listened to these men, I trusted them. It was not foolish. Had we not won the Six Day War because of them? They said not to worry; yes I worried still but worried less.
You ask why I didn’t respond to the intelligence that began to emerge that the Arabs were going to attack? What intelligence? I had the chief of staff and the head of army intelligence telling me everything was fine. I listened to them.
As events began to pick up speed even with preparations starting in the Sinai, I trusted them. They assured me it was nothing. I remember saying; “There is something”.
Yes I knew it deep down something was wrong but it was just an intuition, and it had no shape. In the end I was sat in the room full of these men when the sirens began. And the war started.
Afterwards, Zamir worried that we had been played. That Sadat fed Mossad false intelligence. That Blue-White has been the result of a deliberate policy of misinformation to make us blind to the truth. Perhaps it had been. Perhaps we had been played all along. I know the Agranat Commission cleared me but still...
I worried about it. Not a day went by that I didn’t second guess. I wrote once, ‘It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them”. We paid for it.
But I never ignored a single thing. I did my duty to Israel and her people.