By Tales Pinto
Among the many conflicts between Arabs and Israelis is the Yom Kippur War , which lasted about twenty days in the month of October 1973. The name of this war is related to the Jewish holiday of Day of Atonement – Yom Kippur, in Hebrew. Taking advantage of Jewish celebrations and failures in the Israeli army's intelligence system, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on October 6, 1973.
The main reason for the Yom Kippur War was Israel's annexation of Syrian and Egyptian territories during the Six Day War in July 1967. These territories were the Sinai Peninsula, a part of the Suez Canal, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
The attack took the Israeli military forces by surprise, as they did not believe in an attack by the Arabs, especially after the overwhelming Israeli victory in the Six Day War
strong> . In addition to the arrogance of the Israeli military, there were flaws in the military intelligence system, mainly due to the fact that the main Israeli informant was Ashraf Marwan, son of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, which would have delayed information about the movements of the Syrian and Egyptian troops.Egypt's army even penetrated 15 kilometers of Israeli-controlled territory in the Sinai Peninsula. The Israelis suffered heavy casualties in the clashes that took place along the Suez Canal. However, the Israeli counteroffensive stopped the Egyptians and penetrated Syrian territory, reaching the country's capital, Damascus.
The conflict ended about twenty days after it started, mainly due to the intervention of the United States, the UN and the Soviet Union to achieve a ceasefire. The Soviet Union even threatened to enter the conflict in favor of the Syrian ally. Despite the agreement, Israel did not return the territories it had occupied in 1967.
The Yom Kippur War had important consequences. One of them was the boycott of the Arab oil producing countries and members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC ) to the countries that supported Israel. With the restriction of sales, the prices of a barrel of oil rose rapidly, crashing stock markets and contributing to the development of a crisis in capitalism, which became known as the Oil Crisis .
On the other hand, the war gave international visibility to the Palestinian Question , taking to the world information about the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled from their lands. This situation further strengthened the political role of Yasser Arafat and the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine (OLP).
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