Abstract
When the fourth Arab-Israeli passage of arms was launched with air attacks at 14.00 hours on Saturday 6 October 1973 — a blitzkrieg planned and initiated this time by the Arabs — both sides were celebrating religious feasts. The Arabs were in Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, while the Israelis were observing Yom Kippur. The Arabs therefore refer to this passage of arms as the harb Ramadan, the Ramadan War, which also forms the title of a comprehensive account of the war in Arabic written by three Egyptian generals.5 The Israelis describe the same war as the Yom Kippur War, after the name of their feast. The less value-laden term ‘October War’ has been chosen for use in this book to indicate the non-partisan scholarly position taken.
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Notes and References
Peter Pawelka, Herrschaft und Entwicklung im Nahen Osten: Ägypten, Heidelberg, 1985, p. 268. See my review in International Journal of Middle East StudiesllJMES, vol. 22, no. 3 (1990) pp. 346–50.
John Bulloch, The Making of a War: The Middle East from 1967 to 1973, London, 1974, p. 170.
Hassan Badri, Taha Majdub and Dia’uddin Zandi, Harb Ramadan. Al-Jawla al-’arabiyya al-Israeliyya al-rab’ia (The Ramadan War. The Fourth Arab—Israeli Battle), Cairo, 1974.
See Dan Diner, Israel in Palästina. Ober Tausch und Gewalt im Vorderen Orient, Königstein, Ts., 1980, pp. 246ff. See also the excellent article by Diner in volume 21 of the book series Friedensanalysen:Kriegsursachen Frankfurt am Main, 1987, pp. 308–33.
Galia Golan, Yom Kippur and After: The Soviet Union and the Middle East Crisis, Cambridge, London, 1977, pp. 74ff. See also the most recent book by Golan, Soviet Policies in the Middle East Cambridge 1990.
Jon D. Glassman, Arms for the Arabs: The Soviet Union and War in the Middle East, 2nd edn, Baltimore, London, 1977, pp. 65ff.
Nikolaos van Dam, ‘Minorities and Political Elites in Iraq and Syria’, in T. Asad and R. Owen (eds), The Middle East ,London, 1983, pp. 127ff., on this p. 136f.
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© 1998 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Tibi, B. (1998). The Yom Kippur, Ramadan or October War? Historical Continuity from the Six Day War to the Nineteen Day War. In: Conflict and War in the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371576_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371576_6
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