The Yom Kippur War is the greatest victory in all of Israel’s wars. The few against the many, beyond comprehension. You have to know the numbers:
On the Egyptian front:
The Egyptians fielded against us 100,000 soldiers in the Second and Third Armies, 1,200 tanks and 2,000 artillery barrels.
Against them we had 450 soldiers, 290 tanks and 40 gun barrels.
On the Syrian front:
The Syrians fielded against us three divisions with tens of thousands of soldiers, 700 tanks and about 1,000 artillery barrels.
Against them we had 600 infantry fighters, 177 tanks and 44 artillery barrels.
Our air force was not sufficiently prepared for the Arab armies’ advanced anti-aircraft missiles.
You do not need to be a great general to understand that in such a situation, a single day would be enough to grind the Israeli defending force to dust, and from there to charge into the heart of the country with nothing to stop that enormous force.
In practice, the Egyptians failed to advance more than a few kilometers into Sinai, and the Syrians never reached the edge of the Golan Heights.
Despite the enormous failures on the eve of the war, within two and a half weeks Israel achieved a tremendous reversal and control of new territory deep inside Egypt and Syria. The price was heavy. The victory was beyond comprehension.
A story that repeats itself again and again and again is almost mystical. Lone tanks of ours standing against hundreds of enemy tanks and simply managing to stop them. One against a hundred. So it was with Force Zvika in the southern Golan — a single tank that seemed to the Syrians like an entire brigade — and with Avigdor Kahalani and Yos Eldar in the northern Golan, their few tanks charging into the Valley of Tears and stopping a Syrian tank brigade.
The biblical blessing was fulfilled in us: “And I will send the hornet before you.” An inexplicable fear that blinded our enemies’ eyes from seeing reality as it truly was.
We learned a great many lessons from the war. The central one I take is the power of the ordinary soldier. They decided battles. In an interview with an Israeli soldier after the battle of the Valley of Tears, the soot-covered soldier is searching desperately for a tank to take him back into the fight. The interviewer asks whether he has no fear of going back. The soldier does not understand the question and answers with an embarrassed face: “What do you mean — they’re waiting for us, they need us. I know what it feels like to stand alone.”
No pathos. Simply because I am needed. Because my friend is waiting for me.
It was not the tanks that won the war, but people who feel they belong here: to their friends, to the people, to this land.
The most important key to victory: to feel that we belong, with all our heart.
That is our mission.
