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I think you should reconsider

I think you should reconsider your last comment, that the Arabs were fighting to recapture lost lands was completely ahistorical. Any student of Israeli-Arab history can see that the Arabs ventured to war in 1973 for two reasons: to erase the stigma of defeat after the 1967 war and to recapture the Sinia and the Golan. I think you should look again at the entire conduct of Syrian and Egyptian military and foreign policy leading up to the war. In fact, they differed immensely. Syria believed Nasser, that what had been taken by force could only be taken back by force. Egypt hoped instead to shock the Israelis into accepting his overtures for negotiations over the Sinai. These divergence of war aims led to the Arabs' ultimate defeat, as the Egyptians carried out only limited attacks into the Sinai after their initial crossing of the Suez and Israel could fight the Arabs piecemail. At the end of the war, Israel had Egypt by the throat, but not Syria. Syria, in fact, made life very uncomfortable for the salient of Israeli forces had pushed into their front. But the war, as you mentioned, woke the Israelis up. After '67 they thought of themselves as a mini-superpower. But the war, far from shocking the Israelis to the negotiating table, alarmed them. They knew they could no longer let the Syrians and Egyptians wage a war against them on two fronts. This led Kissinger to include as a foreign policy objective the intention to drive a wedge between the two countries, for Arab indpendence and Arab unity, especially after Nasser turned apparent defeat in '56 into victory, was anathema to the IDF.

Dear Editor or Manar: If you disagree with my comment, please email me. I'll be glad to discuss this with you. If you issue a response, also email me please.

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