October 1973 War

The October War of 1973 (also known as the 'Yom Kippur War') was a watershed mo- ment in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the modern Middle East more broadly. It marked the beginning of a US-led peace process between Israel and her Arab neighbours; it introduced oil diplomacy as a new means of leverage in international politics; and it affected irreversibly the development of the European Community and the Palestinian struggle for independence. Moreover, the regional order which emerged at the end of the war remained largely unchallenged for nearly four decades, until the recent wave of democratic revolutions in the Arab world. The fortieth anniversary of the October War provides a timely opportunity to reassess the major themes that emerged during the war and in its aftermath, and the contributors to this book provide the first comprehensive ac- count of the domestic and international factors which informed the policies of Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan, as well as external actors before, during and after the war. In addition to chapters on the superpowers, the EU and the Palestinians, the book also deals with the strategic themes of intelligence and political of the war on Israeli and Arab societies.

'An important and authoritative reconstruction by one of the most talented stables of historians and experts ever assembled. "The Yom Kippur War" is highly relevant today, as the world faces a new era of upheaval with the potential for war in the Middle East. This comprehensive volume will help a new generation of readers - scholarly and otherwise - puzzle through the lessons learned from the region's most violent clash between Arabs and Israelis.', 'Finally, forty years after the October 1973 War, a comprehensive, 360-degree analysis of a seminal moment in the long-running dispute between Israel and her Arab neighbours. By looking at the war from every perspective, not only from Tel Aviv, Cairo, Damascus and Amman, but from Washington, Moscow, and Europe, the whole picture comes into focus. In the process, it shows those of us who covered the war, how little we knew and understood at the time.'

Asaf Siniver is Senior Lecturer in International Security in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham. His research interests include conflict resolution, international mediation and the Arab-Israeli conflict, and his work has appeared in various academic journals. He is the author of Nixon, Kissinger and US Foreign Policy: The Machinery of Crisis and the editor of International Terrorism post- 9/11: Comparative Dynamics and Responses. He is a Leverhulme Research Fellow (2011-13) and Associate Editor of the journal Civil Wars.