Revisiting the Yom Kippur War

Kumaraswamy, RR. (ed.). Revisiting the Yom Kippur War. London: Frank Cass, 2000. 249 pp.

During the years 2000-2001, the Middle East is once again hovering just short of war. Thus, a good study of past Arab-Israeli conflicts is both timely and insightful. This collection of essays, edited by P. R. Kumaraswamy, includes diplomatic, military and political perspectives of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The authors include academics, military analysts and former diplomats, and as such offer a wide variety of perspectives. I am impressed with the candor of many of the essays in this book. As it happens, this volume would be useful reading for officials in the current Israeli government as well as the general Israeli public.

Israel felt mighty triumphant after the 1967 Six Day War and was perhaps startled and disappointed that the Arab states did not make serious peace overtures in the years that followed. After 1967, Israel possessed an empire, albeit a small one. What the Israelis overlooked was how the 1967 war injured Arab pride. It is safe to say the 1973 Arab offensives were in part designed to redress that fact. Israel allowed herself to become arrogant and to acquire a sense of omnipotence. Throughout military history, these attributes are frequently the seeds of disaster. One essay compared the Israeli lack of preparedness to the United States at Pearl Harbor, which is very apt. In both instances, the Israelis in 1973 and the Americans in 1941 did not believe they could be attacked successfully at their strongest point. Thus, the Bar-Lev line and battleship row proved about as much a shield as the much maligned Maginot Line.

This book is welcome because it dissects a crucial turning point in Middle East history with keen analysis and the perspective of how it all could have happened. While the political realities in many Arab countries might preclude a similar volume, they would prove just as helpful to the Arab nations in terms of understanding how and why the Middle East conflict never seems to go away or approach solution.

I hope a similar anthology could be compiled on Israeli-Arab relations. Questions that require close attention from both sides would include why the two sides can never reach a permanent settlement and acceptance of each other. Sometimes, two groups intensely hostile to each other might not be able to come up with a legitimate reason why they detest the other side so much. But we must remember the Hatfields and McCoys did not shoot at each other forever and France and Germany, bitter enemies for centuries, came together as friends under De Gaulle and Adenauer.

Many people around the world are pessimistic regarding the Middle East's future. Books such as this one demonstrate there are thoughtful people on the ground there who are willing to look beyond the rhetoric and emotions and attempt to understand exactly what happened in the recent past.

James Biedzynski Middlesex County College

Copyright Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Spring 2003
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