Even though it was the longest war in Israel's history (lasting some 1,000 days) and despite the many casualties (about 1,000), and despite the fact that is was conducted on three different fronts, it seems that the War of Attrition has been dropped from the collective consciousness of Israeli society, certainly in comparison to other wars.
Only a few commemorative sites to the fallen in the War of Attrition have been erected. Only in 2003, more than three decades after it started, was a decision taken to award those who fought in it citations. Research into the war and cultural portrayals are still few, although interest in it has recently been revived.
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All this is even more astonishing given the war's unique aspects. For example, it was the first time that Israel dug long defense trenches whose purpose was not to secure a victory, but rather to prevent the enemy from gaining ground.
After the 1967 Six-Day War, Egypt wanted to restore the honor it lost in its thumping defeat and oust Israel from the territories that had been captured. Egypt began carrying out actions that were designed to force the superpowers – the US and the Soviet Union – to intervene and pressure Israel to reach a peace agreement with Egypt.
To that end, Egypt began putting direct military pressure on Israel and indirect pressure on the US through attacks launched against IDF forces in Sinai.
The name "War of Attrition" was taken from a speech by then-leader of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser on the day of the revolution in Egypt (July 23, 1969). He declared: "We are ready for a long-term battle of attrition against the enemy." But apart from the military tactics of repeated attacks, the war sought to exhaust civilian society. The Egyptians hoped to create a crack in Israeli public morale, which Egypt believed was unprepared to accept casualties.
The Egyptian assessment of Israel's sensitivity to losses wasn't baseless: "Nothing is worse [for Israel] than a war of attrition in which 300 Egyptians and four Jews are killed every day," then-head of the IDF Operations Directorate Maj. Gen. David Elazar said. But Israeli society proved stalwart as long as the war lasted.
The Israeli Air Force's bombings deep behind Egyptian lines, which began at the end of July 1969, took out military targets that were close to civilian population centers with the goal of securing a psychological advantage. This brought Israel to the brink of victory, but that was prevented when the Soviets stepped in and helped Egypt in January 1970.
So why hasn't this war been given the place it deserves in our national memory? Apparently, because in operational terms, it included no dramatic events. The euphoria that followed the Six-Day War was still at its peak, the number of casualties in the incidents were "acceptable," and Israel's existence was not in peril.
While the Suez front shook from artillery fire, the discotheques in Tel Aviv and Haifa shook from the loudspeakers, as playwright Hanoch Levin described in "The Queen of the Bathtub" and Shlomo Artzi portrayed in his song "July-August Heat."
But there is not enough appreciation for Israel's strategic achievements in the War of Attrition: it is usually seen as a failure because it did not end with any major operative victory. That view is mistaken.
Israel prevented the Egyptians from turning the regional conflict between the two countries into a conflict between the two superpowers, and in doing so thwarted the plan to force Israel into a treaty under pressure from those superpowers. In that sense, Israel racked up a significant military and diplomatic victory.
These achievements are attributable to the country's military and political leadership, but also to the Israeli homefront, which would go on to prove itself staunch in later wars, as well.
So we must not turn the War of Attrition into a "gray" period in Israel's strategic history.
Apart from the fact that its fallen soldiers deserve to be honored as part of the country's history, we can compare the tactics and achievements of the war to how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is being handled. In this conflict, the main battle is for endurance; the enemy deploys "actions" that test the tolerance of the military and the homefront; and like the War of Attrition, aims to create international pressure on Israel.
