The Yom Kippur War: The US perspective

While not a war that the US actively participated in with ground troops, the Yom Kippur War of 1973 in Israel, also known as the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, still stood as an overwhelmingly important war in American history due to its effects not only on our foreign policy, but on our home front as well.

The Yom Kippur War was one fought by Israel against an alliance of Arab States, chiefly Egypt and Syria, who sought to take back the land they had lost in the Six-Day War of 1967, which included most importantly the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. The reason behind the name of the war came from the timing of the first surprise attack by the Arab coalition, which came on the holiest day of the Jewish Calendar – Yom Kippur.

Caught by surprise, the Israeli government was slow to respond at first and suffered major losses. However, the United States, seeing the Israeli casualties and the increased Soviet support for the Arab nations, stepped in, supplying enough military equipment to allow the Israeli army to take the offensive and drive back its enemies until, almost a month later, the US was able to secure a UN-ordered ceasefire, precluding any sort of Soviet intervention, which could have escalated to a nuclear war.

Egyptian President Anwar Sandat(left), US President Jimmy Carter(middle), and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin(right), after the signature of the Camp David Accords as an official peace treaty

With a stalemate being secured, the United States became increasingly active in the peace-making process, with then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger traveling to the Middle East to become an active participant. In this, the United States even served as a mediator between the governments of Israel and Egypt, with the final negotiations taking place at Camp David with Carter and both the president of Egypt and the Prime Minister of Israel present, and both US-Israel and US-Egyptian relationships strengthened.

However, the war caused the United States to have to rethink its Middle East policy, especially after OPEC, or the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, instituted an oil embargo on the United States which greatly exacerbated its economic problems at the time and strained its relationship with the countries there. By supporting Israel so blatantly, the United States alienated and incurred punishments from those Arab nations refusing to recognize the Jewish State, and thus, the US involvement in the war played a large part in determining the future for the role of the US in the Middle East.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/u-s-state-department-summary-of-the-yom-kippur-war
http://www.history.com/topics/yom-kippur-war
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/navy/pmi/1973.pdf
http://www.szyk.com/pics/iLrg-hs-autograph-camp-david-accords-signed.jpg