Looking Back, In Anger

Monday-morning quarterbacking about Israel's lack of preparedness for the October war plunged the country into a new political crisis last week. Ironically, the trouble was caused by the Agranat Commission of Inquiry that had been appointed to clear the air and provide an authoritative answer to the question of who was responsible. Instead, the commission's interim report raised more questions than it answered and threatened to engulf Premier Golda Meir's shaky coalition government in yet another struggle for survival only a month after she had successfully patched up differences in her divided Labor Party. Also caught in the uproar was Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who returned from negotiations on the Middle East in Washington to face fresh demands for his resignation--not because he was implicated by the report but because he was exonerated.

The commission laid complete blame for Israel's poor showing in the early days of the war on the military and exonerated Israel's political leadership--namely, Dayan and Mrs. Meir. Its harshest judgments were reserved for Lieut. General David Elazar, Israel's tough, professional Chief of Staff, and his top intelligence officers. It charged Elazar with "failure to make a real effort to reach his own assessment as a commander" and noted that "he even failed to tour the front lines during the tension in the last week before the war." Elazar's worst mistake, it concluded, was his slowness in calling up the reserves despite ample signs that Egypt and Syria were preparing for war.

The report ripped the intelligence system for "outdated preconceptions" that caused it to ignore revealing information supplied by field commanders and others in the days preceding the war. The false preconceptions included the belief that the Egyptians would not go to war unless they were able to knock out a sizable percentage of the Israeli air force. This estimate, said the report, ignored the Egyptians' modern, Soviet-supplied missiles, which substantially neutralized the Israeli air force. Even when the intelligence chiefs belatedly concluded on Oct. 6 that an attack was imminent, they misjudged the time by a fatal four hours.

So far, no one has found any real fault with these findings. But the commission, which concluded that Mrs. Meir had "used her authority properly and wisely," also went on to state that it had seriously weighed the role of Defense Minister Dayan. It noted favorably that Dayan had toured the Golan Heights a week before the war and had called for reinforcements there. The commission concluded that "the Minister was not required to issue orders adding to or different from those proposed to him by the Chief of Staff and Chief of Intelligence.''

To many Israelis, who are well aware of Dayan's intimate involvement with the planning and execution of all military matters before the war, that simply did not wash. Elazar--who promptly tendered his resignation along with Major General Eliahu Zeira, the Chief of Military Intelligence, three of Zeira's top assistants and the chief of the southern regional command--declared that he had not been given "a fair deal." How could the commission blame him for not calling up the reserves and not blame Dayan, who operated on the same information as he? "One can only conclude," Elazar went on, "that the commission did not apply the same yardstick to the two of us."

It was a telling point. There were immediate charges that the report was a whitewash and Elazar was being made a scapegoat. The Tel Aviv daily Yediot Aharonot declared that both Premier Meir and Dayan were "full partners in the blunder," and should resign. The most serious threats came from within the ruling Labor Party. Deputy Premier Yigal Allon, who was upset by the humiliation of his old comrade-in-arms Elazar, told Knesset colleagues that Dayan must go. There were rumors that Allon would back up his demands by threatening to resign himself.

At week's end, Mrs. Meir had not made up her mind what to do about the report, but the matter will more than likely be put to the test when the Knesset meets for a scheduled debate this week. The Premier may try to persuade her party to accept the report as it stands and close ranks in view of the tense military situation on the Syrian border. One way out might be to shift Dayan from Defense to Foreign Minister, a move that would enable him to remain in the government and continue negotiations on Syrian disengagement.

"I Shall Overcome." Meanwhile, there was a groundswell of sympathy for Elazar, who has been something of a war hero ever since he took the Golan Heights in a mere 15 hours in the 1967 war. The Yugoslav-born general, 48, signed off all calls to his home with: "Thanks for calling, I shall overcome." One offer he was reportedly considering was the managing directorship of the Zim Navigation Co., Israel's flag-carrier shipping line.

The latest crisis came at a particularly bad time for Israel's government. Sporadic fighting continued for the fourth week on the Golan Heights, and for the first time since the October War Israeli warplanes opened fire on Syrian troops. In Damascus, Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas said that his country "is now prepared to launch an all-out war against Israel to ensure the liberation of all occupied territories."

Most experts, however, doubted that Syria would attack Israel unless Egypt also resumed hostilities--and judging from a speech President Anwar Sadat made before Egyptian students last week, that seemed unlikely. Nonetheless, as Jews began celebrating the annual Passover festival, which commemorates the flight of the Hebrews from Egypt some 3,000 years ago, Israelis were taking no chances that the Syrians would follow up the Yom Kippur War with a Passover war. Israeli forces were put on high alert. In line with what a military spokesman termed "a no-risk policy," grape juice was substituted for the obligatory Seder wine in front-line areas.

* Which was chaired by Supreme Court Chief Justice Shimon Agranat. Also on the commission were former Chiefs of Staff Yigael Yadin and Haim Laskov, Supreme Court Judge Moshe Landau and State Comptroller Yitzhak Nebenzahl.

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