The Eve of Destruction
The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
On October 6, 1973—Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar—the Arab world launched a bold and ingeniously conceived surprise attack against Israel. After three days of intense, bloody combat, an unprepared Israel was fighting for survival, while the Arabs, with massive forces closing in on the Jewish heartland, were poised to redeem the honor lost in three previous wars.
Based on declassified Israeli government documents and revealing interviews with soldiers, generals, and intelligence operatives on both sides of the conflict, The Eve of Destruction weaves a suspenseful, eye-opening story of war, politics, and deception. It also tells the moving human tale of the men and women who fought to maintain love and honor as their lives and destinies were swept up in the Yom Kippur War.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like Blum's The Brigade, this work is more reportage than history. While Blum takes advantage of both newly available Israeli documents and a growing number of memoirs from both sides, the core of this book, and its heart, is the more than 200 interviews he has done with participants, Arab and Israeli. He begins with a familiar question: how did Israel come to be not only caught by surprise, but so unprepared that after the first days of fighting many leaders believed the survival of the state was at risk? Part of his answer is a top-level spy, code-named "the In-Law" an Egyptian at the highest levels of government who for four years before the Yom Kippur War had provided Israel with a steady flow of valuable information. That data in turn convinced Israel's military and political establishment that war was impossible unless the Arab states were a unified coalition possessing missiles and long-range bombers. Meanwhile, another man, Egyptian chief-of-staff Saad el Shazly developed his own concept of a limited war in which Egypt would seize positions; Israel would then have to counteract, with Egypt then bleeding its enemy dry. Blum describes Shazly making his vision a reality against the opposition of virtually everyone else in Egypt. He describes the Israeli leadership that allowed the In-Law who, of course, was a double-agent to string them along, telling them what they wanted or needed to believe, until the last hours before the shooting started. Blum's approach seems an oversimplification, however. Kenneth Pollack's The Arabs at War (2002) demonstrates that Egypt's military reform was an institutional process and not a one-man show. The story of "the In-Law," until or unless Israeli intelligence records are produced, is perhaps best understood as the kind of explanation societies develop to explain complex catastrophes by reference to a single event.
Customer Reviews
Pride
In reading this volume, I remember that I was a young nurse in 1973 in the USA when I heard about the Yom Kippur War. Israel has always been my love, as the psalmist sang a few thousand years ago, " If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my jaws if I do not place Jerusalem above all my joys!"
What really happened in the world of Jews and Arabs is the moral quagmire of pride. The pride that one's own nation/people are more important than the common interest of all people. We are all human beings FIRST. Why is this forgotten so often? All this emphasis on the proliferation of more sophisticated weaponry--people need to put that effort into peace and watching out for the other person so all of us can enjoy the "fruits of the earth" and happiness regardless of background or culture.
Reading this book made me very sad that so many people were murdered on both sides for no reason and in such awful ways.
Note that I don't mention race because I don't believe in the concept, except the general term, human race. What is described as racial differences is only a matter of ENVIRONMENT and nothing else! For instance, a person with white skin came from the northern regions of the earth where the sun's rays aren't so intense. The body needs vitamin D which is formed in the layers of the skin under the influence of the sun. Therefore, white skin allows more sun to form Vitamin D. Dark skinned people came from areas of the earth where the sun is very intense, so the sun's rays must be blocked to an extent and melanin does this. I could point out reasons for other physical differences, but I prefer to have the reader research them.
Nevertheless, the most important idea is this: "Live and let live." Let's help one another rather than hurt one another. We are all human beings together, equally.