Warriors Against Israel

By Donald Neff, Amana Press, 1988. 371 pp. List: $19.95; AET: $14.95 for one, $19.95 for two.

Reviewed by R. Annick Avera

On Oct. 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria shocked Israel and the world by successfully invading Israeli-occupied territory. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had threatened for more than two years to resort to war to recover Egyptian Sinai, seized by Israel in 1967. Nevertheless, Israel was totally unprepared when the attack finally came. In both the Sinai and the Golan Heights, Israeli outposts were overrun by determined and well equipped soldiers whom, in the first days of the war, advanced nearly unchecked.

In his book about this event, veteran author and correspondent Donald Neff traces the life of Anwar Sadat from his rise to power after the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1969 to his role in the October War of 1973. The author obviously admires Sadat, who emerges as the leading figure in Warriors Against Israel. Neff portrays the evolution of Sadat from a seemingly ineffectual leader into an internationally acclaimed statesman.

Warriors Against Israel is the final book in Neff s trilogy on the Arab-Israeli conflict. (The other titles are. Warriors for Jerusalem, covering the 1967 war, and Warriors at Suez, covering the 1956 war.) For this in depth study of the October War, and the events which made it inevitable, Neff draws on the memoirs of Sadat, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and others who played leading roles.

In Israel, Golda Meir had become the prime minister in February of 1969, just seven months before Muammar Qadhafi led a successful coup to seize power in Libya. In November of 1970, former Air Force Commander Hafez al-Assad became the leader of Syria through a bloodless coup.

The rise of new leaders in Egypt, Syria and Libya called for more sensitive US policies in the area. Instead, when President Richard Nixon's first secretary of state, William Rogers, offered a plan to carry out UN Security Council Resolution 242's land-for-peace formula, he was thwarted by then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger.

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, was building its influence in the Middle East by offering Egypt, Syria and formerly pro-Western Libya arms and technical assistance.

After delineating the general political atmosphere in the Middle East, Neff returns to Egypt and the problems facing Anwar Sadat. Domestic unrest and the constant threat of being overthrown by his political enemies gave Sadat little room for diplomatic maneuvering. He repeatedly indicated to the US that he was prepared, even anxious, to negotiate with Israel. His overtures were ignored or ridiculed by the ubiquitous Kissinger, who replaced Rogers as Secretary of State in Nixon's second term.

Sadat was in a diplomatic bind. Egyptian confidence was crumbling as Israel continued its occupation of Sinai, pumping oil from Egyptian-owned wells and allowing Jewish "settlers" establish towns on Egyptian lands. Yet Egypt was not strong enough to fight, and Sadat's calls for negotiations were ignored by both Israel and the US.

Frustrated, Sadat declared 1971 the "year of decision." The people of Egypt began psychologically preparing for war, but the Soviet Union delayed promised arms shipments. As 1971 passed with no move from Egypt, Sadat began to lose credibility both at home and internationally.

Neff briefly departs from the Sadat story to describe the emergence of Black September and other radical Palestinian terrorist groups. The murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics alienated world sympathy from the Arab cause, and escalated the covert and bloody war between Israel and the Palestinians.

Humiliated by his powerlessness, and frustrated by Soviet unwillingness to supply him weapons, Sadat shocked the Kremlin and the international community in July 1972 by ousting the 15,000 Soviet military advisers in Egypt. This should have caused both the SovietUnion and the US to take him moreseriously, but the US was preoccupied by elections. Even after his re-election, Nixon was distracted by the unfolding Watergate scandal and Kissinger's decisions were skewed by his persistent bias toward Israel. As a result, the US did nothing to prevent the coming war, while the Soviets finally began supplying the weapons Egypt and Syria needed to wage war to recover the lands they lost to Israel in 1967. In a secret meeting, Sadat and Assad chose October 1973 for a joint attack on Israel.

Neff goes on to relate the tactical details of the war, illustrating the advances of Egypt and Syria and the successful counterattacks by Israel after it was resupplied with US weapons. He also describes the political maneuvering during the war, culminating in the embargo against the US and Europe by the Arab oil producers of the Middle East. Neff concludes with an outline of Kissinger's dubious "shuttle diplomacy," and glowing praise of Sadat as a statesman of vision.

Neff's smooth writing makes Warriors Against Israel read more like a novel than a history. Oddly, while he illuminates for the reader the perceptions and motivations of Sadat, Nixon administration personalities and Israeli leaders, never does Neff provide an intimate glimpse of Assad and his advisers, perhaps because of a lack of sources in secretive Syria.

Warriors Against Israel is an excellent choice for anyone wishing to develop a better understanding of the events that led to the 1973 War, and its lingering influence on the current status of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

R. Annick Avera is an international studies/economics major at the American University in Washington, DC.

Warriors Against Israel is available from the AET Book Club.