Moshe Phillips
Israel National News, Sept. 28, 2023
“Having prevented Israel from striking first, Kissinger then exploited Israel’s suffering in the early days of the war in order to advance his strategy.”
There have been numerous articles, seminars, and lectures in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Yet, somehow, they all managed to miss one of the most crucial aspects of the conflict: how Henry Kissinger prevented Israel from launching a preemptive strike.
On Yom Kippur morning, hours before the 1973 Arab invasion, Prime Minister Golda Meir was informed by her military intelligence officials (and other sources) that Egypt and Syria were massing their troops along Israel’s borders and would attack later that day. The Israelis immediately contacted Kissinger.
Matti Golan, longtime chief diplomatic correspondent for Ha’aretz, described in his book “The Secret Conversations of Henry Kissinger” what happened next: “Till the very outbreak of the fighting, Kissinger remained more concerned with the possibility of an Israeli preemptive strike than an Egyptian-Syrian attack.”
Kissinger instructed the U.S. ambassador in Israel to personally deliver to Mrs. Meir a “presidential entreaty” —that is, a warning, in the name of President Nixon—“not to start a war.” (page 41)
Abba Eban, who was then Israel’s foreign minister, confirmed in his autobiography that Israeli Army Chief of Staff David Elazar proposed a preemptive strike, but Prime Minister Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan rejected it on the grounds that “the United States would regard this as provocative.” (page 509)
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