The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East

The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East
by Abraham Rabinovich

The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East
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Book Summary Information

Author: Abraham Rabinovich
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-10-04
ISBN: 0805211241
Number of pages: 592
Publisher: Schocken

Book Reviews of The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East

Book Review: As close to combat as you can get, but too tedious
Summary: 3 Stars

On a par with Michael B. Oren's 'Six Day War' as to detailed accounts of the minute by minute war in question. Almost 600 pages that sound repetitive over and over again. The difference with Mr. Oren's book is that this one doesn't deal so much with diplomacy and behind-the-battleground scenes. It's down to the level of tank and soldier; you're right there on the sand dunes with the men doing the fighting, the wounded and the killed, the officers and the rank and file. This is good; this is fine, to a point... because scenes like these happen all through the book, so much that one doesn't know where it is this time, who're we (the Jews) fighting (is it the irakis, the syrians, the egyptians...). It's just overwhelming with names, actions, decision-making.

I wish there was some analysis, some pause in all the action to see things from a more detached and calm point of view, to find our bearings. But I'm in page 400 and I haven't seen any. I'm sure the book is fabulous, if you only can get focused all the time without losing the thread.

I just wonder (after reading Oren's book and this one) what's the motivation for writing to us, readers, books with so much detail -unrefutable data-. Is it it's imperative need to seem impartial, objective? Vanity of vanities. Israel is such a black-or-white hot topic that no account, no matter how full of proof it is, is going to convince the public. And those who are for Israel (not blindly, on the contrary: because we've seen proof enough) are going to be pretty much agravated by the style used in the telling.

Yes, it's seen from the Israeli side. Could you imagine any impartial reporting from the ranks of the Arabs? I recommend to read this book, in spite of the negative comments I made, because it's a heck of a lot of info. Funny how the Arabs were expecting to meet ape-looking Jews, and how candidly surprised they were to see they were normal. Anecdotes like these are practically the only comment you'll find, and which I am missing so much; because little things tell a lot.

Summary of The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East

In this galvanizing account of the most dramatic of the Arab-Israeli hostilities, Abraham Rabinovich, who reported the conflict for the Jerusalem Post, transports us into the midst of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Rabinovich's masterly narrative begins as Israel convinces itself there will be no war, while Egypt and Syria plot the two-front conflict. Then, on Yom Kippur, Saturday, October 6, 1973, we see Arab armies pouring across the shattered Bar-Lev Line in the Sinai and through the Golan defenses. Even the famed Israeli air force could not stop them. On the Golan alone, Syria sent 1,460 tanks against Israel's 177, and 115 artillery batteries against Israel's 11. And for the first time, footsoldiers wielding anti-tank weapons were able to stop tank charges, while surface-to-air missiles protected those troops from air attack

Rabinovich takes us into this inferno and into the inner sanctums of military and political decision making. He allows us to witness the dramatic turnaround that had the Syrians on the run by the following Wednesday and the great counterattack across the Suez Canal that, once begun, took international intervention to halt.

Using extensive interviews with both participants and observers, and with access to recently declassified materials, Rabinovich shows that the drama of the war lay not only in the battles but also in the apocalyptic visions it triggered in Israel, the hopes and fears it inspired in the Arab world, the heated conflicts on both sides about the conduct of the war, and the concurrent American face-off with the Soviets in Washington, D.C., Moscow, and the Mediterranean. A comprehensive account of one of the pivotal conflicts of the twentieth century.


From the Hardcover edition.

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