[lbo-talk] "A most preventable war" by Uri Bar Yosef

[bryan]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/483037.html
A most preventable war 	
By Uri Bar-Yosef

Thirty-one years after the Yom Kippur War, it would be wise to clearly 
state what most Israelis refuse to understand and try to forget: It was 
a war that could have been prevented.
In February 1973, eight months before the war broke out, Anwar Sadat 
sent a proposal with American secretary of state Henry Kissinger for a 
comprehensive settlement with Israel. Minister Yisrael Galili, in a 
secret debate held on April 18, 1973, responded: "The point of departure 
begins with the fact that the Egyptians are ready for peace and for 
diplomatic relations and international guarantees and so on - all on the 
condition that we completely withdraw to the previous border. We can 
avoid all this trouble [the impending war] if we are willing to enter 
into a serious discussion on the basis of returning to the previous border."

These words of Galili, one of the most predatory hawks of that period, 
fell on deaf ears. Although Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan knew that he was 
right, they preferred war to negotiations that would return Israel to 
its 1967 borders. We all paid the price.

A few years later, and after we learned the lesson of refusal to enter 
into negotiations that involved difficult concessions in the most 
painful way possible, we gave up the Sinai peninsula, lock, stock and 
oil barrel, exactly as Sadat had demanded before the war. In return we 
received more or less what we could have gotten before that terrible war.

It is worth remembering that today, when clear voices are once again 
being heard from Damascus regarding Syrian willingness for peace in 
exchange for a return of the Golan to Syrian hands. The deafening 
silence in the corridors of Israeli power are very reminiscent of the 
blind eye Golda Meir and some of our finest leaders turned to Sadat's 
peace offers.

Even the logic is the same logic: Just like the Egyptians, who in 1973 
were weak and lacked a military option, the Syrians today are very weak 
and have no real ability to harm Israel. But as we know well, until we 
are hurt very painfully, we are unwilling to give in. That is why at 
this stage, when there is no real Syrian threat on the horizon, there is 
no point in talking about leaving the Golan Heights, certainly not the 
Golan wineries that produce such fine fines, just as in the spring of 
1973 there was no point in talking about abandoning Sharm al-Sheikh and 
its lovely landscapes.

Because history never repeats itself precisely, there are still a number 
of differences between the folly and arrogance of 1973 and those of 
today. First, unlike the assessment that prevailed 31 years ago, which 
viewed the deployment of IDF forces east of the El-Arish-Ras Muhammad 
line as a security necessity, today the chief of staff takes the view 
that the army can defend the State of Israel without a presence on the 
Golan Heights. In other words, the security argument, which was so 
central in 1973 to the refusal to return to the 1967 borders, no longer 
exists.

Secondly, in 1973 the Egyptians and Syrians exploited a failure of 
Israeli deterrence, which they could not have imagined even in their 
rosiest dreams, in order to teach us about the price of war. Today, on 
the other hand, we can provide a pretty good assessment of what price a 
new war with Syria - a war that the Hezbollah would participate in - 
might exact even without a surprise attack. That is because the 
principal threat to Israel lies in the hundreds of Syrian Scud missile, 
many of which are armed with chemical warheads. A barrage of dozens of 
such missiles on Israel's population centers could dwarf all our 
traumatic memories of 1973.

Third, today we know that peace is possible. The peace with Egypt has so 
far stood all the different tests. Cairo has been careful, even at the 
most difficult and tense times, not to harm the peace with Israel, which 
holds an important strategic place in Egypt's security doctrine. There 
is no reason to assume that the Syrians, who have already proved their 
rationality and their ability to commit to signed agreements, will 
behave otherwise.

Karl Marx said that history repeats itself, first as a tragedy and then 
as farce. Philosopher George Santayana took this idea further and said 
that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We 
are now reliving the tragic history of 1973 because we have not been 
wise enough to learn its lessons. However, if it does repeat itself, a 
farce is the one thing that it will not be.



Dr. Bar-Yosef is a lecturer in the Department of International Relations 
at Haifa University.