The Incorrect "Conceptzia" That Almost Destroyed The State of Israel

We are our own worst enemies...

Yes, I admit that I'm not original in saying so. Yom Kippur, 1973, was a very frightening example of that truism. In the Jerusalem Post there was an article by  which lists and explains a number of the potentially fatal mistakes made by Israeli leaders before and during the Yom Kippur War.

What could have been if Israel had prepared differently 43 years ago?

Intelligence What if the Intelligence Corps (AMAN) had behaved intelligently; that is, with an open mind and without fixations? This is the part of Yom Kippur War lore that is probably best known to the public: how AMAN’s chief, Gen. Eli Zeira, and a few of his senior aides, insisted until the last moment that Egypt and Syria would not attack despite warning signs as big as Times Square billboards. They had fixated on information received by the Mossad long before from a highly placed source in Cairo. That source believed Egypt would not go to war before it received advanced aircraft and Scud missiles from the Soviets.
Less well known is the revelation by Mossad chief Zvi Zamir that the same Egyptian source, with whom he met periodically, informed him early in 1973 that president Anwar Sadat had changed his mind. Sadat would not wait for new weapons but go to war with what he had. Zamir maintains in a book that he personally informed AMAN of this far-reaching policy shift.
But AMAN ignored it and continued to issue projections until the last moments based on the outdated “conceptzia” – no new weapons meant a low probability of war...

Click here for the complete article. It is a must read for sure.

And for those who weren't around or aware at the time, Israel's IDF soldiers were caught totally by surprise and observing the 25 hour Yom Kippur fast when the coordinated attacks by Egypt in the south and Syria in the north began.

Britanica.com

Without the help of Gd we never could have survived. This was the first time that Israel trusted and consulted with the United States, which added to our troubles, because Nixon-Kissinger had their own plan for the region. They wanted the war, and I have no doubt that they knew that Israel was about to be attacked, to end in a tie/draw which would give them power over us. Our miraculous and massive victory was not the American plan. Their so-called "aid" had been carefully measured out by their calculations, just enough for Israel to survive but not to thrive.