“Deceit of an Ally” and self-deceit

A book that was, in a way, almost 50 years in the making takes on new meaning after Oct 7^th and demands we re-examine what happened both on Simchat Torah 2023 and Yom Kippur 1973.

Bruce Brill wrote “Deceit of an Ally”. What did this young Jewish serviceman, working in the American National Security Agency (NSA) in 1973, listening in on Arabic and Hebrew radio communications in the Middle East, have in common with Maj. Gen. Eli Zeira who was head of Israeli Military Intelligence at that time? They both shared a moment of extreme pain when they met in July 2017 and discussed the part played by some American intelligence sources in Israel’s lack of preparedness for the Yom Kippur War. Brill emerged from the meeting with Zeira with the realization that it was not that something had gone amiss in the channels of communication but, rather, that Israel had been deliberately tricked into believing that neither Egypt nor Syria actually intended to attack on Oct 6^th.

That was when Brill decided to do the research to substantiate this new understanding. He read books and articles, recently declassified documents, and interviewed relevant individuals, both in the United States and Israel.

Completion of the research and writing of this book provided closure for Brill, in his own words, when he was able to piece together how intelligence sources in what has been referred to as The Jew Room misled Israeli leaders into believing that neither Egypt nor Syria intended to attack. It describes a personal journal from his enlistment and early army days through his work at the NSA, his decades later shock at discovering that Israel was deliberately misled in October 1973, and finding proof of that.

In an interview over Zoom, Brill, who now lives in Israel, said that he hopes that his revelation of the part played by some intelligence officers in hoodwinking Israel provides closure for Israelis as well. (Brill objects to me generalizing by saying the Americans or the United States deceived us but it is tiring to repeatedly refer to “some intelligence officers” so forgive me, please.)

Closure?

Closure by finding out that we were unprepared for the 1973 war because the United States made sure we would be caught unaware?

I must admit that that did not provide any closure for me. It made me angry – angry not at the United States, but at my own leaders. Bygone leaders who agreed to be hoodwinked (because they saw the evidence before their own eyes yet chose to believe the Americans) and today’s leaders who did not learn from that most serious of errors of 1973.

As an American, Brill felt betrayed when he realized that his own country had deceived the Israelis. As an Israeli, he agrees that Israel has to be more confident in its own intelligence – both the military kind and the brain kind. He gave the analogy whereby it is the driver of the car who is responsible for deciding if a junction is clear and safe to cross and not take the word of a passenger that it is safe. In 1973, according to the scenario Brill discloses, the Israelis seem to have relied on American intelligence sources much as a pilot relies on air traffic control.

If that is the reason that we were unprepared, that is.

In fact, Brill says it is understandable that Zeira relied on American assurances that there was no imminent attack despite Israeli intel that said otherwise: Because the sophistication of American intel far surpassed what Israel had at that time, Zeira trusted it more than our own. But he was lied to.

Conspiracy?

Yet, in the same book, Brill mentions military attaché in Washington Joe Alon, who was assassinated in front of his home on 1 July 1973. One theory is that he was assassinated by a Palestinian in retaliation for his part in hunting down the Munich terrorists who murdered Israeli Olympic team members. He may have been killed by a Palestinian, but that could have been a cover for a more sinister reason:  Alon may have known something he was not supposed to know. The most commonly believed explanation is that he knew about a secret Kissinger Plan by which Egypt and Israel agreed that Egypt would attack Israel to regain its honour after the 1967 humiliation and the USA would come in to stop the war before it could get too bad, then sit Egypt and Israel down for negotiations, thus securing America’s stature as an international peacemaker in the so-called most-intractable-conflict-in-the-world (and clipping the USSR’s growing influence in the Middle East) .

If that is true, then relying on American promises of saving us before it got too bad was a tragic miscalculation for both Egypt and Israel who suffered unbearable losses. But it would explain why Israel believed American assurances that she could ignore her own clear intel indicating the Egyptian and Syrian intentions to attack, justifying the troop movements by saying that they were merely conducting training exercises.

This sounds remarkably like the excuse given for ignoring the very credible concerns expressed for over a year, up to and including the morning of Oct 7^th, by General (Reserves) Itzhak Brik, by the 8200 signal intel unit, and by the surveillance unit at the border fence.  In the same way, on-the-ground warnings were issued in 1973 by Captain Moti Ashkenazi and others, as described in Brill’s book – and summarily dismissed with the warning not to persist at threat of disciplinary action.

Brill does not write about Kissinger, but if discounting intel prior to Hamas’s Simchat Torah attack is so similar to what happened on Yom Kippur 1973, does that suggest that there may have been a plan for Oct 7^th similar to the supposed 1973 Kissinger Plan? I cannot fathom Israel being a party to a Kissinger-type plan for Oct 7^th; it is too evil to contemplate, but I reserve judgement regarding the Yom Kippur War.

In his book in Hebrew (translated by Brill and soon to be available in English), author Doron Hakimi presents an amazing story of international intrigue bridging continents and multiple layers of national and international interests that makes it feel either true or the work of a brilliant imaginative mind. I still find it hard to accept that Golda and Dayan would agree to sacrifice a few hundred Israeli soldiers so that Egypt and Syria could restore their honour and be willing to sit down and negotiate peace. Dayan, perhaps, but Golda?

What I find easier to believe, however, is the even more sinister theory based on recently declassified materials. In their 2019 article, published in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Ron, Gilat, and Sheldon describe the subterfuge committed by Kissinger when he lied to both the Israelis and the Egyptians. He prevented the Israelis from conducting a preemptive strike by telling them that the Egyptians were ready for a peace conference based on lines he convinced Golda to accept and then he did not share this with Egypt. Instead, even though Sadat had indicated he was ready for peace (while also preparing for war at the same time), he gave Egypt the “green light” to attack.

Kissinger’s motive? For one, if he were to successfully oversee a peace deal between Egypt and Israel, something he believed both were prepared for, the credit would have gone to then Secretary of State, William Rogers, and Kissinger would not have been successful in manipulating himself into that most cherished position.

Somehow it is hard to believe that Sadat would have considered making peace with Israel without having regained Egypt’s honour lost in 1967. He would likely have feared assassination. And, in fact, he was assassinated in 1981 after having signed a peace accord with Israel even after the Yom Kippur War.

Confirmation of this theory awaits re-examination of the documents by other scholars.

Unfortunately, Hakimi’s well-developed thesis has not even a single reference to a source or sources and no reference to documentary evidence. Journalists protecting their sources still find a way to let readers know that the source is legitimate and has valid inside knowledge without revealing their identities. Hakimi did not even try to do that. Perhaps historians will find documentation to support his ideas if they look for them.

Kissinger – 1973, Biden – Oct 7^th?

It seems that few doubt that Kissinger manipulated Israel and prevented her from acting upon her own intel that showed that war was a certainty. Brill’s book is important because it provides insider first-person proof that the Americans knew for a fact that Egypt and Syria were going to attack and when — in a way that meeting records, written messages, and more recently, emails, cannot.

Was there also American duplicity somehow involved in Israel’s dismissal of the intel provided by her own soldiers leading up to Oct 7^th 50 years later?

In 1973, the USA was in a turmoil over Watergate and the consequences of their involvement in Vietnam. This likely played some part in motivating Kissinger’s machinations between Egypt and Israel that ultimately preceded peace between these two nations. This year is an election year in the United States. Is that reason enough for Biden to have somehow been behind the Hamas attack, hoping that this war would also precede a peace deal, this time the much-coveted peace between the Palestinians and Israel (coveted by everyone except the Palestinians and Israel, that is)?

The motives behind those who convinced and will try to convince Israel to ignore her own intel are only important if knowing them provides a means of devising strategies to circumvent outside interference.

As we saw on Oct 7^th, it is imperative that high-ranking Israeli officers and government leaders trust those who are their eyes and ears on the ground. Our leaders must believe what they report and not what allies tell us. After all, each ally has its own interests and concerns and our needs may conflict with their own. We know that friends can stab each other in the back. And the consequences for Israel, as we saw in the Yom Kippur War and this year on Simchat Torah, are tragic beyond our worst nightmare.

Given that Israel had not learned the lessons of 1973, lessons that could have prevented Oct 7^th, both wars need to be revisited by scholars and policymakers. Brill’s well-documented book should be part of that.

BUT. . .

Without Oct 7^th, Israel would not have had the national and international legitimacy for clearing out the hornets’ nest she herself nourished for years, occasionally “mowing the grass,” thinking that a well-fed Hamas would grow fat and lazy and give up its dream of wiping Israel off the map. THIS lesson was too costly and too painful for there ever to be an excuse for forgetting it.

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To purchase the book, click on the Image:

Brill describes his personal voyage from enlisted man to working in the US National Security Agency (NSA) and his experience of discovering that knowledge of the impending Egyptian and Syrian attacks on Israel were not provided to the Israelis. You get an insider view of what it was like working in the NSA.