Canter Bridge

The Israeli swagger that became a regional pose following the military victories of 1948 and 1967 quickly became a limp following near defeat at the hands of Egypt and Syria in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Howard Bloom’s appropriately-titled chronicle of that October surprise reads like a novel, complete with an amorous young couple whose honeymoon was rudely interrupted by the outbreak of hostilities and a mysterious double agent called ‘the In-Law’. Yet the events he describes were all too real.

Though Blum is able to distill the self-denying heroism of Egyptian and Israeli soldiers into page-turning narrative, he reserves harsh invective for the Israeli military and political leadership whose success 17 years earlier blinded them to the realities of Egyptian and Syrian military rehabilitation on two of their nation’s borders.

Had it not been for Egyptian over-reaching-a breathtaking victory of hubris over battlefield facts-the Jewish ‘Third Temple’ experiment might well have gone down in flames. The close call stunned Israel and contributed to the volatile mix of military strength and a persistent sense of insecurity that has characterized the state ever since.

Blum is especially compelling when he describes the internecine battles within Egypt’s ruling caste and the impossible survival of the Israeli line in the Golan during the hellish tank battles that should have put Syrian tanks in Tel Aviv rather than left them in smoking ruins just miles from Damascus. In its desperation, Israel nearly went nuclear, a scenario almost too dire for contemplation.

Blum’s reporting is heavily dependent on personal interviews with those for whom a now settled fact was a minute-by-minute struggle for survival.