Last update - 00:00 10/10/2006
Yom Kippur War journal shows Dayan mulled abandoning Golan
By Ze'ev Schiff , Haaretz Correspondent
The Yom Kippur War took place 33 years ago, but not a year passes by without the discovery of yet another piquant fact about the military campaign.
This time around, an examination of the war journal of the GOC Northern Command at the time - Major General (res.) Yitzhak Hoffi, whom the Israel Defense Forces has barred from seeing his own journal, using absurd formalistic excuses - reveals that then defense minister Moshe Dayan told Hoffi that he suggested "considering the possibility of abandoning the Golan Heights."
The day on which Dayan made the statement - October 7, a Sunday - was a bad day for him. The day before, Yom Kippur, he was astounded by the surprise attack on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts. Upon visiting both fronts, Dayan suggested a major withdrawal. Although the story about the southern front has been widely reported, Dayan's suggestion that Israel consider abandoning the Golan Heights due to Syrian military pressure was not made known. Later on, when reservists reached the northern front, Dayan recovered and spoke about the Golan Heights in altogether different terms.
Information about Dayan's suggestion cannot be found in the official summation of the war put out by the IDF's History Department. The department had access to the war journal, but apparently ignored many sections of it. Those in charge of the department behaved as though they were running a secret, private archive and continue to act as though their entire job consists of preventing investigators from accessing the records.
In contrast, the IDF's Field Security Department has removed many of the restrictions that had been in place and has a more liberal approach to allowing access than the History Department.
A number of years ago, several officers from the Northern Command met for a detailed analysis of the Yom Kippur War battles in the field. They invited representatives of the History Department to participate, but no one came. Then, four of the officers - senior reservists, among them a historian - asked the department for permission to examine the journal. To their surprise, they were rejected on the claim that they were not official researchers. Only after the head of the Northern Command declared that they were researchers working for the army were they given permission to examine the journal.
According to the journal, meanwhile, Dayan boarded a helicopter to head up north at 4 A.M. on October 7. As he was making his way to the headquarters on Mount Canaan, David Elazar, the chief of staff at the time, ordered increased aerial assistance to troops on the Golan Heights, and made a significant strategic decision to order Division 146 to leave the West Bank and head for the Golan. Elazar's decision came after he spoke to Hoffi, who was worried his troops wouldn't withstand the Syrian assault.
When Dayan reached the headquarters, he spoke to Hoffi, and at 6:35 A.M., he told him that the option of abandoning the Golan should be considered. Hoffi did not argue with the defense minister, expressing neither approval nor opposition. What he did do was order a brigade commander to defend the Jordan bridges with anti-tank missiles while simultaneously preparing to blow up the structures; he also turned toward preparing counterattacks. This appeared to calm down Dayan, since at around 7 A.M., he spoke about the need to prepare for a major battle at the foot of the Golan Heights.
Dayan's conversation with Hoffi is not the only evidence of the difficult position in which Dayan found himself that first day of the war. Later on, Elazar told Hoffi that Dayan was no longer talking about the need to go down to the lowest ground and hold on, down to the last man. Dayan was also recommending attacks on Damascus. Indeed, the next day, the Israel Air Force hit the Syrian General Staff and Syrian Air Force headquarters. The government approved aerial strikes on Damascus air fields and the Aleppo airport, to disrupt Soviet plans. Israeli intelligence had learned that the Syrians did not have surface-to-air missiles and that the Russians were planning to supply Syria with such missiles by air.