Israeli Culture on the Road to the Yom Kippur War

Book excerpt: The surprise of the Yom Kippur War (1973) rivals that of the other two major strategic surprises in the twentieth century—Operation Barbarossa, the German surprise attack on the Soviet Union and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The major difference between these events is that Israeli intelligence had a lot more and better quality information leading up to the attack than did the Soviet Union or the United States prior to those attacks. Why, then, was the beginning of the Yom Kippur War such a surprise? While many scholars have tried to explain why Israel was caught unawares despite its sophisticated military intelligence services, Dalia Gavriely-Nuri looks beyond the military, intelligence, and political explanations to a cultural explanation. Israeli Culture on the Road to the Yom Kippur War reveals that the culture that evolved in Israel between the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War played a large role in the surprise. Gavriely-Nuri’s analysis provides new and innovative insights into the relationship between culture and socio-political phenomena and security.