William Durupul

The Soviets, who were very enthusiastic backers of Egypt, have now got a bit cold on him.

And they're just not sending the new weapons.

Particularly, they want anti-aircraft missiles, the SAM missile systems.

And they're not getting them.

And they can tell that the Soviets are sort of going a bit cold on them.

So the whole thing is stuck.

And he also has this long-term idea of basically dumping the Soviets and going over to under the American umbrella.

You can see that America is the growing economy of the moment, and he thinks it's a better bet.

So he has to somehow re-engage everybody in the Middle East.

And he has this idea that if he can make at least a decent stab at getting the Sinai back, he can put...

the whole business of occupied territory back on the agenda.

So he comes up with this idea with great patience and precision, and it's a bit of a genius plan.

He first of all mobilizes the Egyptian army in May 1973.

And Israel mobilizes its reserves, thinking that war is coming.

And then he stands them down.

And August, the same thing happens again.

So he sort of trains the Israelis not to take these Egyptian mobilizations seriously.

In other words, he's sort of calling Wolf

And the idea is that he's sort of training them to ignore him.

And Mossad buys this.