17. Penny Pinching Brought Israel to the Brink of Disaster
In 1967’s Six Day War, Israel defeated Egypt and seized the Sinai Peninsula. Thereafter, Egyptians and Israelis glared at each other across the Suez Canal, as years of low-intensity warfare simmered, comprised of artillery exchanges, commando raids, and air attacks. In the meantime, Egypt rebuilt, reorganized, and retrained her military for a rematch that all knew was coming. Years before the attack, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat began running massive military maneuvers near the Suez Canal, in order to accustom the Israelis to large-scale Egyptian troop movements in vicinity of the Sinai. That way, when the time came for the actual attack, the Israelis would be lulled into dismissing its preparations as just another drill.
By mid-1973, however, a highly placed Mossad agent had informed the Israelis of the Egyptian plan of attack. What the Israelis did not know was when the attack would begin. Israel’s small population precluded a large permanent military establishment, so knowing the when was vital. Israel could not afford to mobilize hundreds of thousands of soldiers indefinitely, just to have them ready when the Egyptians finally got around to attacking. Instead, Israel used a small standing military that would get fleshed out in time of war with a rapid mobilization of civilian reservists. However, such mobilizations were highly disruptive and expensive, and the mass of civilians taken from their daily occupations could not be kept in uniform for long.