Recounting a bloody and pivotal Mideast war

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THE YOM KIPPUR WAR: THE EPIC ENCOUNTER THAT TRANSFORMED THE MIDDLE EAST

By Abraham Rabinovich

Schocken Books, $27.50, 544 pages, illus.

REVIEWED BY SOL SCHINDLER

Abraham Rabinovich, a widely published author who lives in Israel and writes in English, has now completed what must be called the definitive history of a much analyzed and written-about conflict, in a book aptly titled "The Yom Kippur War."

The story is well known. On the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, Oct. 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria simultaneously invaded Israel. The disparity in forces was enormous: five reinforced Egyptian divisions arrayed against 450 Israeli soldiers. In the north the Syrians held an eight-to-one advantage in tanks and an even greater edge in men and artillery.

The Israeli government believed that the mobilization of reservists could bring the situation into greater balance and depended on its air force, which virtually owned the air, to counter any attacking force. Despite warnings from army scouts, secret agents, and even King Hussein of Jordan, the chief intelligence officer, Gen. Eli Zeira, was wed to the belief that Egypt would not attack.

Only when the wives and children of Soviet advisors were air-lifted out of harm's way did reality take hold, and the mobilization process start, just hours before actual fighting began.