If you want to know how legends are created, there is an example that will show you how an attempt was made to create a legend, and why it failed to be sustained as a viable folktale.
The example came in the form of an article under the
title: “The Yom Kippur War and Ending the Ukraine Crisis,” and the subtitle: “A diplomatic win will come only if Washington takes
advantage of the evolving military stalemate to reach a ceasefire and lay the
foundations for a political agreement,” written by Leon Hadar, and published on
May 17, 2022 in The National Interest.
It has been 49 years since Israel’s mouthpieces in the
English speaking world have been attempting to
create an Israeli legend about the 1973 battle that saw the Egyptian military
cross the Suez Canal and liberate the Sinai that had been under Israeli
occupation for 6 years. And it has been 49 years that Israel’s mouthpieces have
been failing at this task because the lie is too big to be packaged neatly into
a bundle small enough to fit a bumper sticker.
Leon Hadar is supposed to be the great big expert on Mideastern
affairs, who wrote books and articles on the subject, and was acclaimed for his
work. But then, you see him make blunders like he did in his current article, and
you wonder what happened to him. Here is one blunder that casts doubt on either
his knowledge of the subject or his sincerity at telling the truth about the
subject: “Years of diplomatic
negotiations and a two-year war of attrition failed to force Israel out of
Sinai.” That was not a two-year war of attrition, it was a six-year war of attrition,
from 1967 to 1973. Also, being invited to negotiate, Gamal Abdel Nasser had given
the 3 “Nos,” one of them being “no negotiations.” Thus, Leon Hadar mentioning “years
of diplomatic negotiations,” is purely the product of his imaginations.
Furthermore, it happened when at the end of the Israeli
Pearl Harbor style attack on the Egyptian air force, the latter used their navy
and land forces to begin the counter attack against Israel. While working on
rebuilding their air force, the Egyptians sank Israel’s Eilat destroyer in 1967,
and began the land War of Attrition in the Sinai. Six years later, when the
Egyptians crossed the Canal and smashed through Israel’s Bar Lev line,
illusions about Israel being invincible melted like butter under the hot sun of
the Sinai.
In fact, Moshe Dayan who was the Minister of Defense went
berserk, and he too melted like butter in the Sinai. He was taken to hospital
where he remained till he died. Golda Meir — who
was nicknamed pimping madam of Israel for inviting the men of the world to
visit Israel carrying lots of money, to sample the attractive Jewish
prostitutes from Eastern Europe filling Tel Aviv’s streets — took out the cyanide poison and got ready to swallow it
the moment that the Egyptians crossed the border into Israel. But Sadat had
promised the American President Nixon that he will not go into Israel. Look now
what Leon Hadar is saying about this matter:
“Sadat’s goals
were more limited and involved crossing the Suez Canal and forcing Israeli
troops into defending their positions in the Sinai Peninsula, allowing Egypt to
press the international community, including the United States, to return Sinai
to Egypt”.
Yes, Sadat’s goals
were limited, which is what he told President Nixon they were. But he did not
think for a moment that he cannot win the war, even go into Israel and “break” it,
which would have forced him to “own” it, and be responsible for the welfare of
5 million Jews whose activities over the decades had made millions of angry enemies
around the world. And these hordes of enemies were prepared to descend on the
Jews, and show them what payback time looks like.
To keep his word
to Nixon, Sadat halted his advance before getting too close to the border with
Israel. Because the forces of Egypt and Israel were tangled up with each other
by that time, it was decided to have a ceasefire and a talk — not a diplomatic talk but one — between the two militaries, so as to
disentangle the forces, thus prevent the further shedding of blood.
But then, guess
what happened, my friend. Well, what happened with Israel, is what always
happens with Jews. They broke their “solemn word of honor” and asked the Americans
to help them do something they can use in their future propaganda campaigns. The
Americans that had superior surveillance capabilities went along with the
Israelis, and gave them what they wanted. Here is what the Americans had seen:
Over the 6-year period between 1967 and 1973, the city of
Suez that is situated on the West bank of the Canal, well in the range of
Israelis guns, had been evacuated of its civilian population. Egypt’s Third
Army moved in, bringing with it its own guns to respond to Israeli shelling. And
so, the duel with big guns went on throughout the time that the War of
Attrition had lasted.
When the order was given to cross the Canal, the Third
Army was among those that crossed. When this happened, the City of Suez was emptied
of military as well as civilian presence. American surveillance saw an
opportunity here to give to Israel for its future propaganda campaign. It participated
in the war by flying into the zone, war material that a token Israel force
could use to establish a presence in Suez, thus claim that it did what it could
not do during 6 years of war. But instead of just saying that Israel established
a presence on the West bank with a small token force, here is what the Jews are
now saying:
“U.S. military
assistance allowed Israel to eventually halt Egypt’s attack. By the end of
the war, Israel had advanced to positions some 101 kilometers from Egypt’s
capital and occupied 1,600 square kilometers, cutting the Cairo-Suez road and
encircling the bulk of Egypt’s Third Army. Soviet military aid failed to change
the balance of power on the battlefield, and leaders in Moscow threatened to
intervene directly in the war, raising concerns that they would unleash a Third
World War unless the Americans pressed Jerusalem to agree to a ceasefire that
would halt the Israeli advances. That is what the United States did”.
Sadat that had told the Russians to leave Egypt before he
ordered the crossing of the Canal, was beginning to forge a warm relationship
with America’s President Nixon. Having given his word not to crush Israel, he
found himself at odds with his Chief of Staff Saad el-Chazly who initially
wanted to do just that. But if not cross into Israel, he wanted at least to
replicate what the navy had done when it sank the Eilat. In fact, a tanker was
bringing oil to an Israel that was thirsty for the fuel, and Chazly suggested
sinking it, but Sadat refused to greenlight the idea, especially since the ship
was a civilian vessel, and not even under Israeli flag.