MIDDLE EAST: The War of the Day of Judgment

• Share

On the sands of the Sinai Peninsula and the craggy hills of the Golan Heights, the smoldering carcasses of planes and tanks mingled with the rusting wreckage left over from the Six-Day War of 1967. Blackened bodies of slain troops littered the terrain. From Damascus to Cairo and over the neighboring countries of Lebanon and Jordan, dogfights swirled high in the sky, antiaircraft shells and missiles exploded and wreck age fell. On the ground, armies of Arabs and Israelis last week maneuvered and fought each other with an intensity never before witnessed in the seemingly endless conflict in the Middle East.

In Tel Aviv, his olive-drab shirt sleeves rolled up in Israeli military fashion and his demeanor stern, Lieut. General David Elazar took time out from battle decisions and battlefront inspections to assess the war ravaging the Middle East. Israel's stocky, graying Chief of Staff spoke tersely and to the point. When a newsman asked whether he would agree that the Middle East's fourth conflict in 25 years of Arab-Israeli hostility should be called "the Yom Kippur war," Elazar proposed an alternative. It would be better called "the war of the Day of Judgment."

Elazar was speaking early on in a battle raging over Israel's annexed frontiers, and as he spoke it seemed—from the Israeli side, at least—that yet one more judgment was about to be rendered on the Arabs. From military spokesmen in Tel Aviv came assurances that Israeli troops rolling into battle were being deployed for little more than a mopping-up operation, and for several days world opinion was badly misled. The Suez war of 1956 took only 100 hours. The 1967 war lasted a mere six days. The speed and style of the Israelis—and the ineptness of the Arabs—had accustomed the world to swift battles in the Middle East, if not to peaceful solutions. Another, perhaps even swifter battle seemed reasonable this time. It was not to be.

At the end of six days of fierce fighting, neither side was ready to lay down its arms. The Arabs were battling as hard as the Israelis. The first war, beginning in 1947, continued for 14 months before the state of Israel emerged from the rubble. This one was highly unlikely to last that long, but it already was raging at a bloodier rate.

The fighting started on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the most solemn moment in the Jewish religious year, and it continued beyond Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles, when Jews traditionally celebrate Moses' passage through the Sinai desert 3,300 years ago.

In an address to the Israeli nation, Premier Golda Meir showed none of the customary joy that accompanies the Sukkoth festival. "The main thing," she said somberly, "is to conclude the war and conclude it with our victory." General Aharon Yariv, the Six-Day War's intelligence chief, who had been called back to active duty, declared: "It is not going to be a short war. The people of Israel can expect no early and elegant victories. We will have to do a lot of fighting." Or, as Major General Shmuel Gonen, commander of the southern front, said more succinctly: "This is no express war."