The Sword And The Olive by van Creveld Martin

Author:van Creveld, Martin [Martin, van Creveld,]
Language: zho
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786725465
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2008-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

OCTOBER EARTHQUAKE

THE WAR OF ATTRITION over, from 1970 to 1973 the borders with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria were relatively quiet. The number killed and wounded—always a sensitive issue in Israel where manpower is scarce and the sense of “one big family”1 strong—fell very sharply. To be sure, Palestinian terrorism was beginning to raise its head. From 1968 on there had been sporadic clashes along the northern border; later, having been ejected from Jordan, the PLO moved to Lebanon, where it set up a quasi-independent enclave on the slopes of Mount Chermon known as Fatachland. From there, supported by Syria, they often rocketed, shelled, and sent raiding parties across the border.

Also, these were the years when the air lanes to and from Israel were coming under attack. One El Al airliner was hijacked to Algiers and set free only after Israel surrendered some of its Palestinian prisoners. There was an attack on an El Al plane at Zurich’s Kloten Airport, and on several occasions in various countries passengers waiting to board or deplane were attacked with guns or hand grenades. In 1972 a hijacked Sabena airliner landed at Lyddia Airport and had to be stormed by a commando party led by Maj. Ehud Barak. Later that year a couple of Japanese terrorists arrived at the same airport, opened their luggage, took out submachine guns, and killed dozens before one was killed and the other captured.2

In spite of these and other attacks—including that against the Israeli team at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich—on the whole these were years of heady optimism fueled by strong demographic growth. A quartermillion new immigrants arrived from Russia, helping stimulate the economy and causing new neighborhoods to grow out of thin air. Even as the country received increasing foreign aid, during the two years after 1971 the fraction of GNP devoted to defense declined significantly, from 24.1 to 16.3 percent.3 By 1973, Israel, along with much of the Western world, was experiencing an economic boom that in turn led to some social tensions as heretofore underprivileged groups demanded their shares. There were also clear signs of overheating as inflation, which throughout the sixties had been modest, reached 13 percent.

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