Amir Oren
The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, Dec. 2022
“The sins of the Agranat Commission became gradually evident as its bias and secrets were exposed and declassified.”
As Israel heads into the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, one issue from that momentous war is still debated in Israel. Who was to blame for Israel’s failure to anticipate the Egyptian and Syrian surprise attack: the military intelligence officials (and by extension the organization and mentality of the intelligence establishment) or the politicians who made the decisions? Published memoirs and declassified documents offer a revisionist view of the intelligence failure of 1973 and subsequent reforms of the Israeli intelligence apparatus.
The prevailing views of the intelligence failure in 1973 were first created by the Agranat Commission of Inquiry, formed by Prime Minister Golda Meir’s government several weeks after the war ended (at least with Egypt, since Syria kept shooting for weeks after a ceasefire was agreed, in a stationary campaign of attrition.) Shimon Agranat, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, chaired the commission, which included another judge, the state comptroller, and two retired lieutenant generals—the highest rank in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Years later, memoirs, interviews, and declassified documents revealed that the Agranat Commission was strongly biased in favour of Prime Minister Meir, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, and their cabinet and against the military professionals who implemented their policy. The Commission decided that the nation had suffered enough and should not have to undergo another upheaval, having held a general election while waiting for their verdict. Several generals were sacrificed to placate public opinion. Ten days after the Agranat Commission presented its interim report—scalping the generals and sparing their political masters—Meir resigned, ending her career. Dayan’s career remained frozen for three years until Menachem Begin became prime minister and needed a world-renowned figure for foreign minister and peacemaker with Egypt.
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