Mark Twain declared that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Any student of Israel’s history certainly had that feeling on October 7, when the country was attacked the day after the festival of Sukkot, a significant moment in the Jewish calendar. Historians will undoubtedly spend lots of time and expertise drawing similarities between the surprise attack that marked the start of the Yom Kippur War on October 6, 1973, and the latest murderous incursions launched by Hamas terrorists last month.

Few weeks prior to that “date which will live in infamy” to borrow FDR’s words, author Uri Kaufman released an enthralling book, Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East (St. Martin’s Press). From cover to cover, this book details the very existential nature of this war – or any armed conflict – for Israel’s survival. On several occasions, Israel could have lost, marking the end of the Jewish State.

Israeli intelligence had received information about the looming military campaign launched by Egypt and Syria, and the ensuing unpreparedness – notably due to contempt of the enemy – gave way to one of the most evoked controversies in the history of the country, while giving much food for thought to generations of military leaders and students. In that regard, Uri Kaufman makes a powerful observation when he writes, “a good intelligence agency could measure an enemy’s capabilities; it could never predict its intentions.” It is fair to assume that a similar debate will occur in the aftermath of the current war launched by Hamas.

“War had come with hardly a tank along the canal and barely a plane in the sky”, mentions the author who worked on his book for more than 20 years. Until the United States agreed to conduct an airlift to replenish its ally at the very end of the war – when the die was cast – the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was always burdened with the possibility of running out of weapons and ammunitions. On top of that, Syrians and Egyptians were armed with state-of-the-art military equipment courtesy of their ally in Moscow. While it might be easy to forget considering the close relationship that now exists between the two countries, Uri Kaufman explains that “Israel’s standing in Washington was precarious.” For their part, Israeli soldiers had to fight with aged equipment, including “obsolete World War II-era Sherman tanks.”

The odds, in other words, did not favor the Jewish State.

Why and how did Israel win? Because of its soldiers. In 1975, retired Major-General and former Israeli President Chaim Herzog wrote The War of Atonement about the events of October 1973. In his introduction to the latest edition of his father’s book, current Israeli ambassador in Washington Michael Herzog – who fought during the Yom Kippur War – wrote: “The training and skill of the soldier, his motivation, the quality of the chain of command, initiative, courage and perseverance all underlie the War’s result far more than any weapons. Even in the era of technology, man still stands at the center of the picture.”

Uri Kaufman brilliantly details the role played by the likes of Moshe Dayan, Binyamin “Benny” Peled and David Elazar, the chief of staff of the IDF, who showed inspiring leadership skills and who was reenergized by “copious glasses of Coca-Cola”. The latter’s career was steamrolled by the Agranat Commission that was tasked with conducting an enquiry about IDF’s failings in the period leading up to the war.

But all in all, the most striking figure that comes under the pen of the specialist of the Yom Kippur War is unquestionably Ariel Sharon, who had retired from the army the previous August. Brilliant, unconventional, and fearless, the future Prime Minister of Israel didn’t hesitate to disobey orders. “Everyone hated Sharon”, reveals the author, but the IDF couldn’t do without him, not only because he “inspired an almost mystical confidence in those he commanded” but also because he took risks. Risks that paid off. At a crucial point in the Sinai, “he was the battalion commander who insisted they cross the canal with only half the planned force, promising that his unit would do the work of two.” From cover to cover, the reader understands why and how “the Yom Kippur War made Ariel Sharon”. No other military leader better embodied the can-do and gutsy nature of Israelis.

“It’s hard to be a Jew”, sighed an Israeli soldier who was attended to by a medic on the battlefield. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the numerous wars launched against Israel over the last 75 years and the continuous barbaric threats to its very existence attest to that reality. The Yom Kippur War was a pugilistic representation of the Arab countries’ refusal of Israel’s existence. In that sense, Israel’s victory proved instrumental in ensuring its growing acceptance. Referring to the Abraham Accords signed in 2020 between Israel and several Arab countries, the author concludes that “none of these treaties would have occurred had there not been peace between Egypt and Israel. And that peace treaty [in 1979] would never have occurred if Israel had not won the Yom Kippur War.”

Eighteen Days in October brings the reader along the corridors of the war rooms where fateful decisions were taken and on the battlefield were the fog of war commandeered leadership, adaptation, and sacrifice. I have no information on the subject, but I suspect Uri Kaufman to be a student of the great men and women school of history. His meticulous description of political and military leaders is captivating. All of this makes this book one of the best I have been privileged to read about military history.

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Uri Kaufman, Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2023, 400 pages.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Christina Morden of Raincoast Books for providing me with a copy of that book and for her collaboration with this blog.