When Maj. Gen. Eli Zeira died last month at age 97, it was the passing of the longest-lived and most contentious of the generals who led the Israeli army in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Zeira stubbornly blocked mobilization of the reserves until a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria shattered Israel’s sparsely manned front lines and rocked the country’s sense of security for years to come.

Zeira’s early military career had marked him as a future chief of staff in the eyes of many. An aide-de-camp to defense minister Moshe Dayan, he went on to command a paratroop brigade before being sent to Washington as military attache.

Upon his return in October 1972, a year before the Yom Kippur War, he was appointed head of military intelligence, a significant step up the career ladder. Six months later, his nerves and judgment were tested when reports indicated that Egypt was planning to attack in mid-May in an effort to regain the Sinai Peninsula, lost in the Six Day War. Dayan and IDF chief of staff David Elazar moved to prepare the Israel Defense Forces for war, a redeployment dubbed Blue-White. Zeira, however, demurred. He said the Arabs would not go to war because they knew that they were not ready for it. Shortly afterwards, the Egyptian army stood down.

Zeira was hailed by insiders as the one general who had kept his cool. Neither Dayan nor Elazar would readily challenge his analyses thenceforth. However, some officers had other views.

After his appointment as intelligence chief, Zeira had given a lecture to senior officers from all branches, among them Col. Danny Matt, battle-hardened commander of a paratroop brigade. He detected in Zeira’s talk an overweening self-confidence. Leaving the hall, he said to a general walking alongside him, “I would have preferred an intelligence chief less certain about things.” A widely respected officer who had worked with Zeira long before the war would say in a post to friends: “This man is dangerous. Facts don’t concern him. What arrogance.”

‘I would have preferred an intelligence chief less certain about things’

It would emerge after the war that while Zeira had been right in the Blue-White episode, it was for the wrong reasons. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat had indeed intended to go to war in May, but had bowed to a request for delay from his partner in the planned attack, Syrian president Hafez Assad. The Soviet Union had agreed to provide Assad with advanced weaponry, including anti-aircraft missiles and tanks, and he needed a few months to absorb them into his armed forces.

Towards the end of September, Cairo announced that a military exercise would be held in the Suez Canal zone, from October 1-7 (Yom Kippur fell on October 6). Large convoys began arriving every night behind the sand ramparts shielding the Egyptian rear from direct observation. The noise of tractors and other heavy equipment kept Israeli troops manning the Bar-Lev Line awake much of that and the ensuing nights.

On September 25, a helicopter landed outside a Mossad installation near Tel Aviv. “Your majesty,” said prime minister Golda Meir, as Jordan’s king Hussein descended and offered his hand. In the hope of not being drawn into a war with Israel again, he had come to warn that Egypt and Syria were planning a joint attack. He wanted to make clear that he did not intend to join them. Israel had already received 11 war warnings from foreign intelligence sources in September.

A year before, the IDF had created what it believed was a fail-safe warning system of its own.........

© The Times of Israel