Drive Around the Block

Abstract

Spring, 1974, The Pewter Pot, a coffee house near Coolidge Corner in Brookline, Massachusetts. I am drinking coffee with Joske Agassi, my friend and mentor. I bring up the subject of the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the Egyptian attack across the Suez Canal. I report what I have read in the London Times about the attack:

The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) had a plan to thwart an Egyptian crossing, a system that would flood the waters of the canal with a flammable fluid, like gasoline, ignite it and turn the Canal into a flaming moat. But when the Egyptians began their incursion, the Israeli defense malfunctioned and the crossing succeeded. Official Egyptian press reports said that Egyptian commandos had sabotaged the fluid delivery system the night before the attack.