The Agranat Commission Report and the Making of Israeli Memory of the Yom Kippur War

Abstract

Chaired by Chief Justice Simon Agranat, the Israel State Commission of inquiry that was set up in the wake of the Yom Kippur War focused a great deal of attention on the view that Israeli intelligence failed to produce an accurate picture of Egyptian intentions on the eve of the war. This view came to be known in Israel as ha-konseptziyah (the concept). This word, which became a popular Israeli term, is often taken to be the quintessential explanation for the war. The article grapples with the questions of how the term ‘Concept’ came to be looked upon as the dominant explanation for the Yom Kippur surprise. What enabled the Agranat commission to etch ‘the Concept’ into Israeli historical memory? And what are the main manifestations of this phenomenon in the historiography about the war?

The article suggests that the common Israeli wisdom about the Yom Kippur War focused on ‘the Concept’ was in fact born in the meeting room of the Agranat Commission, and was not coined or employed by Military Intelligence (AMAN) personnel, as the Commission wrongly asserted. Although the Commission did borrow the term ‘Concept’ from the testimony of AMAN Chief General Eli Zeira, Zeira used the term only in passing. The Commission’s effect on Israeli historical discourse is to a great extent an unintentional byproduct of its work, and the way it used Zeira’s term.