Israel on the Brink

By WALTER BOYNE

THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION
The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War
By Howard Blum
352 pages. HarperCollins. $25.95.

The fine hand of an accomplished novelist is easy to detect in The Eve of Destruction, a page-turning nonfiction account of one of the most important—and most overlooked—wars of the latter half of the twentieth century. Called the Yom Kippur War by Israel and the October War by its Arab enemies, this conflict very nearly spelled the end of the Jewish state.

Author Howard Blum introduces an entirely new perspective to the war, describing it in intensely human terms, from the almost unbelievable story of a brave tank-commander and his lover to the bitter political infighting in Tel Aviv and Cairo.  He manages to humanize even the shadowy individual whose double-betrayal went unknown for thirty years.

Blum recounts how Anwar Sadat masterminded a totally new approach to engaging Israel, even as he manipulated Hafez Assad of Syria, other Arab allies, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Sadat, previously underrated both by his countrymen and by his enemies, proved himself to be a wily politician, able strategic planner, and unquestionably the hero of the short war that brought Israel to the eve of its destruction.

Some forty characters march across the pages of the book, ranging from hard fighting Israeli and Arab soldiers to their squabbling general-officers, and including many of the heads of state in the Middle East. Blum is skilled at recreating conversations that bring home the meat of the story, something that he could do only through the meticulous research that took him to the principals, the men and women whose lives were both disrupted and shaped by the Yom Kippur War.

The author writes incisively of both the macro and the micro stories of the war. The latter he does through the incredible love story of Yossi Ben Hanan and Nati Friedman, whose courtship, marriage, and honeymoon all take place in the maelstrom of war. The macro story is told on two levels. The first of these is the awesome and incredibly detailed accounts of the actual desperate fighting in which the Arabs throw themselves upon their confused and ill-prepared enemy. The second is an incredible story of espionage at the highest level, one that resonates today in the United States as a result of the uncertain outcomes of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sadat cleverly contrived to provide his country with the one weapon the Israeli’s could not counter: a genuine surprise attack on two fronts. He did so by manipulating the legendary Israeli intelligence service as well as the unfortunate hubris that possessed all of Israel except for a few key players whose instincts—and warnings—were ignored. The Egyptian President played the Soviet Union and the United States like rival lovers, obtaining unheard of quantities of surface-to-air and antitank missiles from the former, and establishing secret lines of communication with the latter.

As Blum establishes, Sadat achieved almost all his goals within the first few hours of the war, so thoroughly defeating Israeli infantry, armor, and air forces that a veteran warrior, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, concluded that the “Third Temple” was about to fall.

In effect, Sadat moved his armies across the Suez Canal and into the Sinai desert under an umbrella of surface-to-air missiles that rendered the Israeli air force initially impotent. Perhaps more important, his Egyptian infantry, well armed with Sagger anti-tank missiles, had been drilled in Soviet style defensive tactics, and were able to defend against the sharp Israeli counterattacks. In those battles the Arab soldiers won back the honor they had lost in the bitter Six Day War of 1967.

Yet Sadat’s very strategy, which limited the penetration of the Egyptian armies to just a few square kilometers, permitted the Israelis to hold on, and to counter the attack from the north where the overwhelming armored strength of the Syrians threatened to overrun the Golan Heights and drive rapidly into Israel’s heartland.

The author sustains excitement and suspense through every page, in part through his authentic recreation of battle scenes and in part through the truly romantic story of Yossi and Nita’s love affair. The two, honeymooning in Katmandu, return to Israeli in time for Yossi to lead a battle-saving tank charge.

Israel, with population of three million, fields a small professional army that works so closely together that the relations of officers and men are intimate. As a result, the inevitable casualties are extraordinarily depressing, for each one affects an irreplaceable friend. Blum’s writing illuminates this sad saga.

In the style of a mystery novelist, Blum supports the exciting account of the battles with the real engine of the book: the slowly unraveling mystery of the master spy who had managed to deceive Israel with utterly believable false reports.

The Eve of Destruction is invaluable for the lessons it teaches about the uncertainty of modern warfare, and for the understanding it provides about the current sad state of affairs in the Middle East.