Who is Behind It All?

by Phyllis Chesler

Guess what? Arabs have apparently not surged into Israel Friday as threatened or as called for. Earlier this week, I had reported, on threats by Syrian and Palestinian Arabs to “rush the Israeli borders” after Friday prayers.

If this is true, then it is a repeat of what happened in the years preceding the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Again and again, Egyptian and Syrian troops were massed in preparation for an attack but then recalled. When finally, in October of 1973, they massed for real as an invading army, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was not only given disinformation but a wrongful interpretation of the true state of affairs.

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and General Eli Zeira, director of military intelligence, hid the true facts from Golda, and IDF Chief of Staff David “Dado” Elazar, who had been frantically trying to get her attention, was outnumbered and outvoted by this small elect clique. After the surprise attack began and Arab troops poured into Israel, Elazar turned a potential tragedy into a victory within three weeks. However, Israel suffered thousands of casualties.

Ultimately, Dayan and Zeira blamed their own mistakes and misdeeds on Elazar, who was innocent and a hero. “Dado” resigned his position after he was blamed for the intelligence failure by the Agranat Commission. Less than three years later, he died of a heart attack. It is said that the shame of the wrongful accusation and the villainy of his colleagues had broken his heart.

Elazar’s son Yair ultimately directed a documentary, “Missing Father,” which begins with the filmmaker’s anger at his father for his supposed failure in the lead-up to the Yom Kippur War. By the end of the film, however, his son comes to understand that his father’s service was a gift to Israel, although his father paid a personal price for being able to live in a secure Israeli state.

Back to today.

We have quickly learned that Facebook cannot necessarily create a revolution or an invasion. We have also learned that perhaps cannier heads prevailed and decided not to invade Israel at the very moment that Prime Minister Netanyahu was in Washington, D.C. One wonders whether the so-called “Arab Spring” was truly organized by Facebook or whether organized Islamist forces seized upon the Facebook chatter as a way of launching a reactionary revolution.

Source: http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/1000/who-is-behind-it-all

Phyllis Chesler

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