Weekly Commentary: Did Sadat do Israel favor opting for war rather than
Kissinger plan?

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 4 October 2012

Did Egyptian President Anwar Sadat do Israel a favor when in May 1973 he
rejected an initiative by Henry Kissinger that could have restored Egyptian
sovereignty to all of Sinai and instead opted to launch the bloody Yom
Kippur War that October?

Yitzhak Rabin relates in "The Rabin Memoirs" that early in 1973 Prime
Minister Golda Meir gave Kissinger the green light to discuss his proposal
with the Egyptians. Under the plan, Egyptian sovereignty was to be restored
to all of Sinai in exchange for Egypt agreeing to an Israeli military
presence – possibly disguised as a civilian presence - in certain strategic
positions, such as Sharm el-Sheikh.

On the face of it the very suggestion that the Jewish State was somehow
better off losing thousands of soldiers rather than cutting such a deal
sounds ludicrous.

But one has to consider this in its historical context.

The pre-1973 Israeli defense establishment was even more recklessly sure of
itself than the current Israeli brass that only recently took a temporary
break from pushing for Israel to hand over the Golan Heights to Assad in
exchange for a piece of paper.

How would the Kissinger plan have played out?

Here is a hint:

Less than three years earlier, in August 1970, Egypt violated an American
brokered and guaranteed cease-fire agreement literally the day it went into
effect by moving SAM anti-aircraft batteries up to the Suez Canal. The
U.S. declined to insist on Egyptian compliance and those same SAM's provided
critical cover for the 1973 Egyptian Sinai invasion.

We paid a tremendous price in 1973 to learn the lesson of the dangers of
overconfidence and of underestimating one’s enemies. A lesson only
partially learned at that.

But in the absence of that terrible nightmare, it is certainly conceivable
that we could have entered into an arrangement with Egypt that might have
literally lead to our destruction through a deadly combination of
superficial security arrangements and a cavalier attitude towards Egyptian
compliance.

It certainly is a painful idea. But it's hardly beyond the scope of
possibilities.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il