A Shocking Déjà Vu
When the Yom Kippur War ended in 1973, future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin demanded to know why Israel had been caught unprepared. Eighteen days of war with Egypt and Syria claimed more than 2,000 Israeli soldiers and shattered confidence in the country’s military.
Half a century later, similar questions haunt Israel after Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 assault that killed over 1,000 people. Once again, Israelis are asking: How did the nation’s vaunted intelligence fail to detect the attack? Why was the border so poorly defended?
While the Yom Kippur War was a conventional conflict between states under the shadow of the Cold War, the sense of humiliation from surprise remains the same. Both then and now, Israel faced devastating blows despite its reputation for military superiority and intelligence dominance.
Overconfidence and Wrong Assumptions
In 1967, Israel’s Six-Day War triumph quadrupled its territory and gave the country unmatched confidence. But that very confidence fostered dangerous assumptions. In 1973, Israel dismissed signs of Egypt’s preparations, believing Cairo lacked the capacity for a successful strike.
Fast forward to today: Israel assumed Hamas would avoid large-scale attacks because of economic incentives, such as work permits and trade access. Yet Hamas, like Egypt decades earlier, relied on deception—conducting frequent drills to disguise real attack preparations.
Intelligence Failures and the “Conceptzia”
During the Yom Kippur War, Israeli intelligence relied heavily on a single high-level informant, Ashraf Marwan, who reinforced the “Conceptzia”: the belief that Egypt would not attack until it acquired advanced Soviet aircraft. This flawed theory blinded Israel to obvious warning signs.
Similarly, Israel’s modern intelligence depended too much on surveillance and signals interception while underestimating Hamas’s ingenuity and secrecy. Just as in 1973, warnings were ignored, and critical clues were reinterpreted as routine.
The Culture of Accountability
After Yom Kippur, Israel launched the Agranat Commission, which concluded intelligence overconfidence and reliance on limited sources caused the disaster. The fallout triggered resignations, including Prime Minister Golda Meir’s.
A post-Hamas war inquiry will likely be even harsher. The same structural issues persist: over-reliance on deterrence, blind faith in assumptions, and failure to grasp enemy motivations.
Israelis captured by Syrian troops during the Yom Kippur War are presented to the press on October 16, 1973.
Toward a New Strategy
Despite devastation, history shows crises can lead to opportunity. After 1973, Israel and Egypt achieved peace through the Camp David Accords. Today, removing Hamas could open the door to a new regional arrangement—perhaps with Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia helping govern Gaza and reviving prospects for a two-state solution.
The lesson from both 1973 and 2023 is clear: intelligence must balance technology with human insight, challenge assumptions, and remain vigilant against deception. Otherwise, history will keep repeating itself—with devastating costs.