I was reminded of this story while watching the Pope’s visit to Syria.
On a visit to the Golan Heights a few years ago, I spent some time in the company of an Israeli (actually I was more interested in the old Crusader castles but hey !). As an old soldier, he was able to relate a lot of information about the Yom Kippur War–or Ramadan War, to the Arabs – of 1973. It was, to quote Lord Wellington at Waterloo, “…a damn close run thing”. However, the war ended with the Israeli’s on the Golan and with the road to Damascus open.
I was curious about the ease with which Israel achieved its success on the Golan given the terrain – surprisingly flat, relatively easy to defend, reasonable amount of natural cover – and asked him about it. The Syrians had been, of course, pretty well routed around the Sea of Galilee but nonetheless, the Golan was well defended with entrenched positions. He told me quite a long story the gist of which is as follows:
At some point not long after the Israeli State came into being, a Jewish ‘sleeper’ joined the Syrian Army and, over the years, rose through the ranks. By the late 60’s this man had risen to a position of authority and respect. One of his roles became to oversee and advise on the defence of the Golan and, on one particular visit, he ordered that all Syrian positions should be camouflaged with a certain type of bush plant. Apparently, the foliage was deciduous and afforded thick cover. Very good idea !
The plant in question was a different shade from everything else that grew naturally on the Heights so that when the Israel Air Force came to pave the way for a ground attack, they had only to engage in a little horticulture spotting in order to hit all the Syrian defensive positions.
Lovely idea (if you’re Israel) but I wondered about the veracity of this story. I believe the ‘sleeper’ did exist (although I know nothing of him nor of why he wasn’t able to forewarn Israel of the impending Ramadan attack) but is the story truthful or …a plant ?
Personally, I’ve only heard bulls**t from the Israelis I’ve knowen about most of their wars, so I wouldn’t put much faith in this story either.
I’ve heard the story though, but always assumed it to be a war myth.
— G. Raven
I also heard about this when touring the Golan. I don’t have time to research this now, but I will try later. I was told that the Israeli spy was caught at some point and executed by the Syrians.
I believe you’re thinking of Eli Cohen.
There was a book written about him (“Our Man In Damascus”) and possibly a movie too.
I haven’t heard that story about the plant.
This truth leads me to doubt the veracity of the story. The Arab’s learned their lesson from the Six Day War. The Israeli’s dominated because they achieved air supremacy very quickly in the Six Day War. In the Yom Kippur War the Syrians had scads of Russian built SAM’s that for awhile gave the Israeli airforce major headaches. As I understand it the Israelis pulled through due to the nothing short of heroically stubborn ground defense of a relatively small portion of the Israeli army. This bought the airforce the several days they needed to take out the Syrian antiair defenses. Once that was done and the Israelis controlled the skies it was all over for the Arab armies.
However, I don’t think there was anything ‘easy’ about the Israelis gaining that kind of air control. If this highly placed mole gave them easy to spot camouflaged that’s all well and nice but the mole should probably have tried harder to not have antiair defenses under that camouflage. In addition the mole should have been able to inform the Israelis of the air defenses but that doesn’t seem to be the case as the Israelis seemed caught off guard by them. Finally, the Israelis didn’t seem prepared for the war as their ground defenses were too thin and only barely held (again mostly through stunning heroism). You’d think a highly placed mole would have given sufficient info to the Israelis so they could prepare a sufficient defense ahead of time.
Israeli intelligence is good, maybe the best in the world, but I’d need more corroboration to buy this particular story.
Thanks for the ‘Eli Cohen’ clue, ** Racer Named Fisk**
On reading this link(from the Jewish Virtual Library – YMMV), it seems the “bush” in question was the eucalyptus tree and that Cohen came to an untimely demise in 1965.
He does seem to have gained an awful lot of credibility (with Syrian leaders) in a very short space of time. One wonders…the line between myth, fact and propaganda can sometimes seem a little blurry.
Wondering why he wasn’t able to get at least a sniff of the forthcoming Ramadan / Yom Kippur attack ?
Because the Syrian government hung him in 1965, and the Yom Kippur war wasn’t until 1973.
Here is another web site to check out:
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Eli_Cohen.html
Must…concentrate…more…
Still wondering how the Syrians didn’t sus a guy called ‘Cohen’ - only joking, really.