By Qadri Hafny | Al Arabiya Institute for Studies
Wednesday, 9 October 2013
The Israelis felt defeated by the Egyptian victory of Oct. 6, 1973. It wasn’t just a defeat in battle but defeat in the face of the biggest threat to its existence in its 25 years of being. During that time, Israel feared for the fate of its people and its own existence as a state.
This Israeli assessment of the repercussions of the war was published a few months after the end of the October war, but it is worth revisiting the Israeli stance after the cooling down period; things have become clearer and more realistic.
In fact the famous social psychologist Richard Lazarus addressed the international association of psychologists at its yearly convention in Tel Aviv in 1975, speaking about the psychology of stressful situations and the way to face them, with particular emphasis on the situation Israel was in.
As a middle-aged American Jew, Lazarus expressed his support of Israel but noted that the Israelis were living in a continuous state of trauma, expecting to be killed or lose their loved ones in war or terror attacks anytime and feeling lonely in a world that hated them. This dislike of Israel increased after the October war, when the western countries supported the oil producing Arabs and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was well received at the U.N. while Israel was asked to leave UNESCO as a direct result of the growing role of third world countries.
He enumerated the changes that occurred to the Israeli assessments, especially since this war was against the Israeli perception of Arabs, who united and fought bravely and surprised the Israeli intelligence community.
Lazarus quoted one of the Israeli newspapers’ headlines one year after the October war as saying: “something was broken at the Yum Kippur war last year. The state was saved but our faith is lost, our confidence is broken and our hearts are torn as we almost lost a full generation.”
He said that this was the first war that didn’t strengthen Israel as it was a psychological disaster in so much that it destroyed the legend of the invincible army. The biggest danger, he said, was replacing this idea by the fear of being under threat at all times.
Lazarus concluded by advising the new generation to connect with their ancestors and benefit from the experience of the diaspora, when Jews felt neglected and unable to rely on anyone but themselves.
He called for an informed assessment of the situation and for preparing Israel for a long conflict with the Arabs. He called for Israel to deal with the fact as an ongoing threat. It seems that he succeeded in nurturing Israeli aggression and their Zionist tendancies as well.
A different view
During that same period, Victor Sanouh, an American Jewish psychologist, with clear Zionist and anti-Arabs views, published a study about “the psychological effects of Yom Kippur war” in a specialized journal.
Sanouh said that 5 to 10% of Israelis were traumatized after the October war, which is a high percentage compared to minimal numbers in previous wars. He noted that this might be the result of the surprise war launched by the Arabs during the holiest of the Jewish holidays.
Sanouh noted that after the war, Israeli society witnessed a new trend of recoursing to the services of psychic intermediates to connect with lost or killed soldiers. This trend even reached the cultivated youth, he said.
That was the overall Israeli reaction to the October war. They all agreed that it was a defeat although they disagree over the reason, the consequences and the ways of facing it.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/per...y-of-the-October-war-in-Egypt-and-Israel.html