on this day the Head of IDF Southern Command General Shmuel Gonen stepped into the office of the Defence Minister to carry out his threat to shoot Moyshe Dayan just hours after Prime Minister Gold Meir's helicopter crashed in the Sinai en route to Israeli-occupied Ismailia to personally order General Sharon to halt the advance on Cairo.

The high command had infuriated the military leadership by reneging on a first strike pledge which had brought Israel to the brink of defeat in the first forty-eight hours of the war. And although Israel had avoided the Please click the icon to follow us on Facebook.stigmatization of aggression, the support of the United States had been much less decisive than expected, because a tremendous feat of arms had reversed the Arab advance. This perception ignored the disguised truth that Israel had consumed military hardware at a much faster rate than she could sustain unless guarantees of immediate replenishment had already been obtained.

Local military commanders sensed that the Israeli-American agenda was a quasi-victory that would enable both sides to withdraw with honour. Refusing to be denied the glory that their troops had earned, commanders ignored the ceasefire and encircled the Egyptian Third Army. Troops shouted "Arik1, Arik, King of Israel!" as they crossed the Suez Canal and drove into Africa.

Throughout the three weeks of the conflict, Sharon had persistently ignored orders from the High Command and had been at the point of dismissal on numerous occassions. Only the personal intervention from Golda Meir would stop him from striking Cairo. Upon receiving the unexpected news that Golda Meir had died en route, he seized the handset of a military radio and repeated a famous statement made by Winston Churchill in response to the attack on Pearl Harbour: "What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible that they do not realise that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget".

In Washington, President Nixon was on the verge of a nervous breakdown over the Watergate Crisis. The de facto head of state Henry Kissinger studied the words of Sharon, and his blood froze.