350. 1973: The Yom Kippur War & The First Oil Crisis (Part 5)

15:10William:Hi there, Alistair Campbell here from The Rest Is Politics, and I'm here to tell you about a really important interview that's out now on our podcast channel, The Rest is Politics Leading. This week, I spoke to one of the defining political figures of our time, President Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine. It is a fascinating interview, reflects on his upbringing, reflects on his political rise, reflects on how he stayed in Kiev during Russia's invasion, redefining leadership in wartime. And he warns us very much against anyone, not least Donald Trump, falling for Vladimir Putin's lies, ones that ceasefires may serve as a strategic pause rather than a sign of genuine peace.

15:49William:He offers a very blunt assessment of Putin, looks at his enemy's strengths, strategy, and crucially, his weaknesses in a war he is convinced Russia cannot win. And he doesn't hold back on the international response, at times, particularly from the US. If you'd like to hear more, and I hope you do, search The Rest is Politics Leading wherever you get your podcasts. And now, back to your show.

16:16Anita:Welcome back. This must have been like a catastrophic, unimaginable bolt from the blue.

16:24William:It really was. And just as the Egyptians were gobsmacked by the Israeli preemptive strike in 1967, which wipes out all their aircraft, so the Israelis now have it's their turn to feel both terrified and amazed as they hear this crossing has been made, that this brilliant military operation has taken place, that all these bridges are in place and the tanks have crossed. And it isn't just in the north, because at exactly the moment that the mortars open fire at the Suez Canal, the Syrians have gone into action to attack the Golan Heights.

16:59Anita:When you say it's coordinated, you're saying Egypt and Syria knew exactly minute by minute what was going to happen. This is all pre-agreed. Is that what you're saying?

17:06William:Yes, those of you who have not heard our bonus with Avi Slime, we should say that the great revelation he has is that King Hussein had given dropped heavy hints.

17:18Anita:To Golda Meir.

17:19William:That Egypt and Syria were up to something and that Israel should be on guard. But she went off to a conference the next day and somehow nothing happened. And this was, I think, just four days before the assault. So nothing happens because it's the day before the big holiday.

17:33Anita:Also because, you know, they've gone through the six day war, really. You know, they know what it is. They're not bothered. You know, what's the worst they can do? And then suddenly you've got this pincer movement. What is the Israeli response to that?

17:45William:So the initial Egyptian assault is a complete success. They move right into Sinai, they down the aircraft that are meant to be attacking them, and it's, you know, 100 % success. The Syrian assault onto the Golan Heights, the Golan Heights being this mountainous eminence, which was grabbed by Israel in 1967, and now the Syrians are trying to get back, They have to attack uphill, and it's much more hard work. It's not just crossing over a bridge into a desert. It is a massive tank assault uphill at the Golan Heights. And the Israelis are completely outnumbered. There is only 177 Israeli tanks in place that morning, as 1 ,400 Syrian tanks come at them.

18:34William:It's a ratio of eight to one. But the geography is on Israel's side. and there is an extraordinary resistance by the tank regiments at the Golan Heights. And Israel loses more than 150 tanks on the Golan Heights in the first two days alone, but it does not lose the heights. Much of the heights remain in Israeli hands.

18:56Anita:I'm really intrigued though, but what people like Moshe Dayan, who we've spoken about before, he of the iconic eyepatch, the defence minister, a hero of 1967, a man who was held up as, look, we can withstand a six-day war and be victorious. He gets in touch with Golda Meir. She was the Iron Lady of Israel, one of its founding leaders. Born in Kiev in 1898, grew up in a family of poverty and persecution, the pogroms of the Russian Empire. She migrated then to Wisconsin, joined the Labour Zionist Party in the United States. And soon after marrying her husband when she was just 19, they moved back to mandate Palestine in 1921.

19:39Anita:And straight away, she's involved in politics. She's very active in trade unions, in the Jewish agency, becoming one of the signatories of Israel's Declaration of Independence in 1948. And then she rises to the position of foreign minister from 1956 to 1966. And it's after the death of Prime Minister Levi Eshko in 1969, where you have a short period where you've got Yigar Alon, famously of the Alon Plan, who served as interim Prime Minister. There's a snap election. And then in March 1969, the Labour Party invites Golda Meyer out of retirement, because bear in mind, she's 70 now, to run as Prime Minister.

20:23Anita:So so far, only female prime minister. Anyway, so that's who we're talking about. What do we know about their response to this and the conversations that they're having? I mean, there must have been frantic phone calls going on here.

20:34William:So again, it's Avi Shlaim who's found the smoking gun, and he has evidence in the iron wall that nuclear options are discussed because Israel has the bomb at this point. They think they're going to lose Jerusalem. Some of the tanks are heading down towards the Lake Tiberias, and this could be the end. Israel is saved by the fact that the 7th Armour Brigade, led by somebody called Colonel Avigdor Kahalani, he holds his position in the northern Golan, in what will be known as the Valley of Tiers. And he fights for four days, almost without sleep or resupply, drawing on incredible reserves of strength to destroy literally hundreds of Soviet battle tanks coming down from the Syrian side of the border in one of the most remarkable feats.

21:21William:And this basically saves Israel. Because again, if the Syrians had broken through over the Golan and completely destroyed the Israeli positions, it would have been game over. And this allows time for the United States to step in and re-supply.

21:34Anita:So the United States, yes, our involvement in this is interesting because, you know, seeing this unimpeded attack from two different sides, the US decides to airlift an entire new tank regiment into Israel, so resupplies the army. This is, remember, the Nixon administration. And they are in a difficult position because they want to make inroads into the Arab world.

21:56William:Arab oil is already important at this point.

21:58Anita:Does that sound familiar to anybody?

22:00William:So they do not want to fall out with Arab oil, and yet -

22:02Anita:And yet they can't let Israel go because Israel is an absolute ally, a predictable ally. in this region.

22:09William:And there's also, I think, the sense that the Syrians and the Egyptians are Russian-supplied.

22:15Anita:Not without merit, because remember, both of these places have been thick with Soviets in very high positions. You know, Sadat will eventually take a broom and clean them out of Egypt. But, you know, they're right. There are Soviets in departments of labour, armaments, working at every single level. And by the way, Soviets who are working with utter disdain for the Egyptians they're working with.

22:39William:Which Sadat picks up and resents. Yeah.

22:41Anita:And he hates it. It's humiliating to have these Russian speakers who are treating the people of their own country like second class citizens. So just in this equation, what they're seeing is, OK, the Arabs have got Soviet weapons, so we'll give the Israelis American weapons. And, you know, there's an emergency request to restore the depleted arsenal from Israel. And President Nixon approves legislation on October the 18th for a$2.2 billion arms package for the Jewish state.

23:14William:And just put this in context, if you remember back to our 1967 Six Day War episode, the main arms supplier for the Israelis at that point had been not America, but the French. The aircraft were mirages. Datsur was the main aircraft supplier. This is the point at which the US for the first time puts everything behind Israel. It's no surprise today because we're used to Israel getting massive arm infusions from America. It's been happening over the last two years with Gaza, week after week. But this is something new in 1973. Not completely new because there are American weapons already, but the scale of the American package.

23:58William:Well, 2.2 billion.

23:59Anita:I mean, there's never been anything like that.

24:01William:I mean, that's a crazy one.

24:03Anita:Willie, I mean, it's where America most visibly enters the fray. It's also a time when Ariel Sharon enters the fray as a truly dominant figure. Can you talk us through, first of all, who is he?

24:15William:So we've met him once before on Empire during the Suez episodes with Alex von Tulsum. And anyone that hasn't heard those. Alex is fantastic. Go back and listen to those. Sharon made his name doing operations over enemy lines. He'd go into Jordan and in response to Fedayeen attacks over the border. One way, he would go and destroy Arab villages. And he was very ruthless. He was renowned from the beginning as being someone that would just take out civilians without any compunction. By 1973, he is a veteran. He's 55 years old. And he's beginning to be a bit heavier than he was as this young commando who made his name attacking into Gaza and attacking into Jordan in the 60s and 50s.

25:01William:He's broad-shouldered, heavy, and he's been fighting Arabs and sometimes his own military superiors for his entire adult life.

25:08Anita:They sort of find him what? Insubordinate? You know, they'll issue orders and he'll go off and do what he wants. Is that why he has a problem with top brass?

25:14William:But he wins battles and he is greatly loved by his men and he is the kind of superstar of the Israeli special forces. And he's renowned for his reprisal operations that even senior Israeli figures regard as disproportionate. So he's already fought in 48, 56, Suez, 67. He's brilliant, fearless, insubordinate, utterly ruthless. And the Israeli military establishment both kind of loves and fears him in equal measures. But he is the hero of the hour, because having now stopped the Syrian advance over the Golan Heights, it's time for the counterattack against the Egyptians into Sinai. It is Sharon who, on October the 14th, realizes that the Egyptians have made a mistake.

26:03William:October the 14th, Sadat, under pressure to relieve the battered Syrians, who are now the focus of Israeli defense operations, orders his armoured divisions to advance out beyond their bridgehead into the open Sinai. And this means that they have to move beyond this famous SAM missile umbrella.

26:24Anita:The surface-to-air missiles. I keep reminding people because you boys love your acronyms.

26:28William:I grew up with SAM missiles.

26:30Anita:Anyway, in the open desert, the Egyptian tanks, which are,

26:35William:in their great numbers, have crossed over but have not advanced very far. They now advance.

26:41Anita:Well, they're sort of open completely in an open desert. The Sinai is just an open desert.

26:46William:It is. I mean, in a sense, it's good tank territory. For most of it, it's fairly flat. There are mountains, but you can drive around them. But they are open to Israeli air attack. And on a single afternoon, on October the 14th, the Egyptians lose, we don't know the exact numbers, but between 150 and 250 tanks are destroyed by the Israeli Air Force. It's the largest tank battle since Kursk in 1943. You have to go right back to the Second World War to find something like this. And this is Sharon's moment. He is commanding the 143rd Reserve Armoured Division, and he finds a gap between the Egyptian 2nd and 3rd Armies near the Great Bitter Lake.

27:29William:And he wants to cross the canal into Egypt itself. The idea is that if you can cut through, you can isolate the Egyptians in the Sinai, cut them off. And this plan, it is audacious to the point of recklessness. He reaches the crossing point. The Israeli forces have to fight through a place called Chinese Farm, which is a kind of Japanese-built agricultural station in the Sinai, held by Egyptian commandos. And the battle for the Chinese Farm is one of the bloodiest of the entire war. The Israeli paratroopers fight through the night in narrow irrigation channels, close quarters combats, and the casualties are terrible.

28:06William:But there is a breakthrough. In the early hours of October the 16th, Israeli forces are now west of the Suez Canal, behind the entire Egyptian army.

28:18Anita:So, I mean, what it does mean is that Chiron's men are able to cross into Egypt, west of the Suez, behind the Egyptian army. The bridgehead expands. Forces are able to drive north towards Ismailia, heading towards Suez. I mean, always the hot point of every conflict in this region. And they cut the supply lines of the Egyptian third army. I mean, that's devastating. You're in a desert.

28:41William:You need your supplies.

28:44Anita:You don't have a supply line. You die. There is literally nothing to be found.

28:47William:And they've advanced by October the 22nd to within 100 kilometers of Cairo. So this is an extraordinary military achievement by the Israeli tag regiments. Extraordinary.

28:56Anita:Israel has turned what seemed like a near catastrophe into something that certainly looks like a military victory.

29:03William:So this is where, in a sense, Sadat's genius is located, because he has realised, and his aim is not complete victory. He never thought that he could invade Israel, destroy the state of Israel. That was never part of the plan.

29:18Anita:This is the shaking the cage thing you were talking about, which is notice us, take us seriously.

29:22William:Take us seriously. That's what you're saying? That's exactly what I'm saying.

29:25Anita:Okay.

29:25William:And what it does is it opens him up to be in negotiations now. It makes the Soviets take them seriously. It makes the Americans take them seriously.

29:37Anita:Gets him a seat at the table, Williams.

29:39William:Exactly. And so in February 1973, Sadat makes a direct peace proposal. And what we'll hear in the next episode is the whole story of Camp David and this extraordinary voyage of Sadat to Israel. That is going to be our next episode with the wonderful Eugene Rogan.

30:00Anita:It is an amazing story. People in khakis and slacks deciding the face of the world. If you don't want to wait for that episode, why would you? Join our club, EmpirePodGuk.com, EmpirePodGuk.com, and you'll get it straight after you've heard this. Willie, I wanted to ask you a question. So that has won a seat at the table. But at what cost? Can you talk us through numbers? I mean, how many are killed?

30:22William:So 2 ,688 Israeli soldiers die in October 1973 as a direct result of this assault. And the Arab numbers are less clear, much higher, about 8 ,000 Arab dead. Avi Shahin has written wonderfully on this. He makes the point that, you know, had the Israelis not been lured into complacency, all this could be avoided, that there were warnings from King Hussein, there were clear signs that the Egyptians were planning something, and the Israelis didn't take it seriously. Despite a military defeat for Egypt, this succeeds in shaking the cage, getting the Egyptians back on the table, putting the momentum into the search for a Middle Eastern peace.

31:09Anita:Is this a tale of two stories, both sides, Egypt and Israel claiming victory? Is that where we are?

31:16William:And when you go to Egypt today, this is regarded as the great Egyptian victory. It's by the fact that Ariel Sharon surrounded the army and cut them off and all that. It is remembered as a victory, despite the reality of ultimate military defeat. But the peace is much more complicated as Sadat had calculated. And Golda Meir is forced to resign in April 1974. Moshe Dayan's career is over because he hasn't prepared for it. Labour Zionism, the movement that founded Israel, the Labour Party in charge for the whole of the period up to now, never recovers. And the October earthquake, as it's sometimes called, has shattered the political status quo.

31:56Anita:So sort of these founding fathers and mothers, if you like, are sort of, you know, not trusted, because how did you not see this coming? There'll be a commission that looks into the failure of intelligence in the run up to this. And the nation, again, facing what it thinks is an existential threat to state, then turns to Likud, the right-wing conservative party under Menachem Begin, are in power. They're the ones who are trusted and there are consequences. I just want to go back to the question of America's involvement and oil, because 1973 doesn't just transform what Israel thinks of its own security, getting Egypt back in the spotlight, it transforms the global economy too.

32:38Anita:Can you speak a little bit to that?

32:40William:Yeah. So this, again, is something that Sadat had anticipated and planned for. Before all this, at the same sort of time as he is buying in pumps from Germany and planning all this, He pays a visit to King Faisal in Saudi Arabia, and he tells him about his secret war plans. And he sets up the oil weapon. And on October the 16th, 11 days into the war, the Arab oil ministers gather together in Kuwait. There's a new sense of confidence. The leaders of the Arab oil states are also buoyed by the knowledge that the industrial of the world was dependent on them, which previously there'd been much less of a hold on the oil and stream.

33:24William:But by 1973, they have OPEC and they have the ability to use this as a weapon against the West.

33:32Anita:This is the time where the Shah of Iran realises, you know what, you've not been taking me that seriously either. We've got OPEC, I got oil. And there is a lot of muscle flexing that causes absolute panic in the State Department in the United States, particularly when formerly tame powers or tame leaders are suddenly turning around saying, you know what, actually, no, we have our hand on the taps because we got all the oil and we can turn it off.

34:02William:Two things that happen immediately. Four days later, after this meeting in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia declares a total embargo on oil exports to the United States and direct result of this airlift of tags to Israel. And the Netherlands, who at that point is Israel's most vocal European supporter, is also added to the embargo list. And it's the first time in history that oil has been used as a deliberate political weapon against the Western powers. And the effect is immediate.

34:31Anita:So all of this, like I said, you know, sort of leading to diplomatic quaking. And where there's a diplomatic quake, you often find Henry Kissinger, because it becomes his sort of duty to do this sort of shuttle diplomacy, flying between Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus, dozens of times, I mean, the air miles on this man during this period, trying to get some kind of disengagement agreement, separating the armies, but also ensuring the taps are turned back on, that this does not impair American reach into oil. The embargo ends in March 1974, but the oil price never goes back. Pre-embargo, the price for a barrel of oil is$3.

35:13Anita:After embargo and after Kissinger's diplomacy, it stays at$12. Correct. It just doesn't never, well, that world of a$3 barrel of oil is gone. That's never going to happen again.

35:25William:In Britain, America, and the Netherlands, there's queues around the blocks. People were trying to get petrol and petrol stations unable to get it. Speed limits are reduced. Sunday driving is banned in several European countries. as the British government introduces a three-day working week to conserve energy. American motorists queue for hours at filling stations. The Western economies, which had grown without a break since the Second World War, go into the deepest recession since the 1930s. And a conflict in the Middle East has made ordinary people in towns like Birmingham and Pittsburgh feel the consequences in their daily lives in the way that nothing in the Middle East had previously done.

36:01William:And this completely, of course, changes the political calculus.

36:04Anita:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But also, do we not then see in this period of time that you get the Gulf super wealthy states? Because they've also realized, hello, hello.

36:17William:We've been undercharging for this.

36:19Anita:We can get more for this. And so you have this ballooning of income for Saudi Arabia, for example, from$4.3 billion in 1973 to$36 billion in just three years in 1976.

36:34William:Extraordinary.

36:35Anita:Abu Dhabi, Qatar, they all go through these transformations, these huge skyscraper edifices that we see. This could only have happened after they realized the value of what they've gotten, that they can charge more. Wealth funds reshape culture and the political landscape, and indeed the mindset, one might say, of the Arab world. You've got this huge money flow that's coming in, but it also coincides, and I need to understand more about why it also coincides with the spread of Wahhabi Islam as well. Because we talked about this before, it's the 1970s, where you see a much more hardline, much more conservative Islam spreading, even as the petrodollars are flooding in.

37:18William:So can you remember, we talked to Kim Gattis about this in her brilliant episodes on the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. And we'll be coming back to Kim actually talking more about this. But she, brought up in Beirut, begins to see the spread of Wahhabi missionaries, these very puritanical, hardline Salafists and Wahhabi preachers. And for example, in Pakistan, you suddenly find a King Faisal mosque, an enormous mosque being built in Islamabad. Mosques, madrasas, Islamic media organizations right across Africa and Asia, spreading this very hardline form of Islam. And this is going to change the entire spirit of the Islamic world into the 80s and the 90s.

38:07Anita:It feels so current, doesn't it?

38:10William:This is obviously why we're doing this series now. Not only do we have the consequences of imperial Israel, if you like. Israel, no longer the frightened newbie in the region surrounded by hostile states, but having moved out beyond Gaza and the West Bank, and as we'll see, moving into Lebanon in the 1980s.

38:32Anita:In 2026, right where we are now, the supply of oil is being used as a military instrument by Iran.

38:41William:And again, you kind of feel that if only this American administration were listening to Empire Pod a bit more closely. Yeah, we should always think that.

38:50Anita:We need to replace that question of how often do you think about the Roman Empire, how often do you think about the Empire podcast? Because if people did a bit more, they might learn a thing or two. Yeah.

39:00William:I don't know whether you've been watching Trump's interviews over the last fortnight, but he's been saying no one could have expected that the oil would have stopped. And that is obviously bollocks. Anyone with any knowledge of the region knows that the oil is the key.

39:13Anita:What an academic turner phrase you have, my friend. I mean, it's almost professorial in your gravitas.

39:19William:I like to keep this gravitas for special moments.

39:23Anita:I hope you're enjoying this series. I hope you're learning something from it. Next week, Abbie Clam is going to be with us for this special bonus episode. And then we've got episode six, Eugene Rogan taking us through Sadat's flight to Jerusalem and 13 extraordinary days at Camp David. So please don't miss it. And thank you very much for listening to us. We have now over 90 million downloads and we don't take any of them for granted. Anyway, until the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnon. And goodbye from me, William Durrumpur.