Hamas’s attack on Israel this weekend bore an uncanny resemblance to the 1973 Yom Kippur war, which took place exactly 50 years ago this week. In both cases, careful Arab military preparation was able to catch by complete surprise a complacent Israeli government and military intelligence. Now, like then, a devastating assault was delivered on an unsuspecting morning of a Jewish holiday (Shemini Atzeret, following the festival of Sukkot).
The obvious difference is that the Yom Kippur war was launched by two substantively armed and trained militaries. Egypt and Syria, backed by the Soviet Union, attempted to recapture territories in Sinai and the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967. It was conventional warfare, in which thousands of soldiers died. Hamas, on the other hand, is a guerrilla movement which since 2007 has ruled over Gaza, a strip of land between the Mediterranean sea and Israel where 2 million people live under siege in an “open air prison”. Hamas militants crossed the border and were able to temporarily take over military installations and towns and villages, as the Israeli military appeared helpless.
