The similarities were startling and most definitely not fortuitous.
Israel was once more taken by surprise simply 50 years and a moment after being completely taken off guard by an organized military assault by its relatives, Egypt and Syria.
Hamas militants launched hundreds of rockets full into southern Israel earlier on October 7, 2023, as they invaded the nation on land, at sea, and in the air. Thousands of Israelis were killed, victims were taken, and war was declared within hours. Thousands of Palestinians have already died in Gaza as a result of ferocious Jewish retaliation, and many more may undoubtedly perish by the end of this conflict.
Because it is a battle. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the nation is at battle, just as it was 50 years ago, after the Hamas problems started and the death toll in Israel increased.
And that is not the conclusion of the similarities.
Shock attacks on Israeli holy days set off both wars. Yom Kippur, a Jewish satisfaction time, fell on that year in 1973. Jews celebrate reading the Torah on Simchat Torah this day.
The heavily populated Gaza Strip that borders Israel is under the command of the Palestinian militant party Hamas, which appears to be trying to convey the exact message that Egypt and Syria did in October 1973: Israelis cannot be kept safe by Israel’s military might.
The 1973 conflict turned out to be a pivotal year for both the Israeli-Arab conflict and Israeli politics. Does this conflict remain the same?
Both days, I was caught flat-footed.
The abrupt start of the war has undoubtedly shocked Israelis once more, just as it did fifty years ago. Similar to the conflict in 1973, this one is currently being portrayed as a massive knowledge failure.
Although Israeli military intelligence had forewarned the authorities that Israel’s adversaries thought the nation was defenseless, Hamas did not anticipate an attack from the intelligence creation.
Instead, according to the knowledge analysis, Hamas preferred to rule the Gaza Strip and didn’t want to go to war with Israel, at least not right away.
It was assumed that Hamas may be discouraged from launching significant attacks against Israel out of concern that Israel’s possible significant retaliation would further devastate Gaza. The next significant square of fighting in May 2021 left the area with 2 million Palestinian residents, many of whom were living in poverty.
Alternatively, many analysts and the intelligence community thought that Hamas preferred to export Palestinian violence to the Israeli-occupied West Bank in order to destroy the Palestinian Authority, which was already frail and unhappy and was headed by his political rival.
Just as it was before the start of the 1973 conflict, their brains analysis has proven to be wildly inaccurate. Israel’s defense might did not deter its enemies back next, as it does today.
Israeli knowledge failed to recognize their opponent’s arrangements both in 1973 and now, in addition to misjudging the eagerness of opponents to go to battle.
This time, given Israel’s substantial and superior intelligence gathering capabilities, that failure is even more obvious. This attack must have been meticulously planned by Hamas for several weeks, right in front of Israel.
Israel’s intelligence loss since the 1973 conflict is unquestionably worse than this.
But it’s also a military loss in addition to an intelligence one. Since the majority of the IDF models were stationed in the West Bank, it is obvious that the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, were unprepared for an invasion of this magnitude.
True, the IDF’s top brass had repeatedly warned Netanyahu Netanyahu that the storm of Israelireservists refusing to serve as a protest against the attempted judicial reform of the government had hampered the military readiness of that organization.
However, the IDF was certain that its defense walls would stop Hamas extremists from entering Israel, as they had done in a raid in May 2021, mainly the pricey hi-tech barrier that had been constructed around the Gaza Strip.
However, the Gaza challenge did not deter Hamas insurgents, just as the so-called Bar-Lev defensive line along the Suez Canal failed to prevent Egyptian troops from crossing the river in 1973. It was merely bulldozed through and circumvented.
The sport of blame starts.
After this warfare, there will undoubtedly be the same responsible activity as there was following the 1973 conflict. The Agranat Commission, which published a critical review and pointed the finger of blame squarely in the direction of Israel’s army and intelligence organisation, will likely be established, as was the case following the 1973 battle.
However, the majority of the blame for this battle does not belong to Israel’s military and intelligence formation. It is Israel’s political organisation, particularly Netanyahu, who has presided over the nation since 2009, with the exception of a one-year period between 2021 and 2022.
In addition to an intelligence loss, the 1973 battle was also the result of a political failure. In actuality, Israel’s political leadership— especially prime minister Golda Meir and her defense minister Moshe Dayan — was primarily to blame because they had rejected diplomatic offers from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the years leading up to the war. Even at the cost of harmony with Egypt, the Israeli government was adamant about keeping some of the Sinai coast, which Israel had taken during the 1967 war.
Similar to this, Netanyahu has disregarded current Egyptian attempts to mediate a long-term ceasefire between Israel, Hamas, and the militant organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Additionally, Israel’s existing far-right government would rather keep the West Bank under occupation than try to reach an agreement with the Palestinians.
A potential barrier to a conventional invasion of the West Bank has also been removed by the Netanyahu administration’s widely unpopular attempt to curtail the authority and independence of Israel ‘ Supreme Court. The home unrest and severe divisions that the proposed administrative overhaul has sparked in Israel are almost certainly a factor in Hamas’ decision to launch his current assault.
In general, it is evident from the most recent attack that Netanyahu’s attempt to incorporate and hinder Hamas has failed miserably. It has been disastrous for Israelis, particularly those who live in the country’s north, and even worse for Arab citizens living in Gaza.
Hamas has not been brought to its knees by maintaining a 16-year siege of Gaza, which has successfully imprisoned its 2 million residents and damaged its economy.
Instead, the repression-based power Hamas has had over Gaza has only gotten tighter. This disappointment has cost innocent residents on both sides of the border dearly.
Following the 1973 conflict, Meir was forced to resign, and a few years later, Menachem Begin’s right-wing Likud Party defeated the ruling Labor Party in the 1977 public election. The Labour Party had been in power since the country was founded in 1948 under different guises.
This marked a turning point in Israeli local politics, which was largely caused by the government’s decline in trust in the then-dominant Labor Party following the 1973 war.
Does the past be repeated this time? Did the long-standing dominance of Netanyahu and Likud in Israeli politics finally come to an end with this battle? Due to the numerous corruption scandals that surround Netanyahu, his efforts to weaken the judiciary’s authority, and the right-leaning stagger that his ruling coalition represents, the majority of Israelis have now turned against him.
This destructive surprise attack unquestionably refutes any claim made by Netanyahu that he is Israel’s” Mr Security ,” so more Israelis may then do so.
It is already obvious that this new war’s start will be long remembered by Israelis with great grief and anger, just like the 1973 battle also is, regardless of how it turns out and its political implications in Israel.
In fact, it will likely cause Israelis yet more trauma than that battle did because, unlike the surprise attack in 1973, which was primarily carried out by military personnel, this time it is Israeli civilians who have been taken prisoner and killed on Israeli soil. Therefore, this conflict differs from the one in 1973 in this important way.
Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Israel Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, Dov Waxman
Under a Creative Commons license, this essay has been republished from The Conversation. Read the article in its entirety.