SIX DAYS OF DECEPTION

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, June 3, 1967

HOW ISRAEL USED SMOKE, MIRRORS & ILLUSION TO REPEL VASTLY LARGER ATTACKING FORCES.

"He who comes to kill you, rise and kill him first."

                                                      --The Talmud

Donald Trump has recently reminded the world of the outcome of the Six Day War in 1967, when Israelis showed military prowess not seen before or since. 

First, Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran, a provocation of war that Israel missed its chance to respond to.

The Straits of Tiran, site of Israeli naval illusion.

Defence Minister Dayan ...  said that it was too late for a spontaneous military reaction to Egypt's blockade of the Tiran Straits--and still too early to draw any conclusions of the possible outcome of diplomatic action. "The Government – before I became a member of it - embarked on diplomacy: we must give it a chance," Dayan declared. 

    - JERUSALEM POST June 4, 1967

Lending credibility to Dayan's Saturday evening statement, several thousand Israeli soldiers were given week-end leave. By Sunday morning the Israeli and the world press was featuring – alongside Dayan's statement - photographs of the Israeli Army relaxing on the beaches. The Egyptian Army also relaxed - Egyptian generals were prominent on the tennis courts of Cairo Sunday, D-minus-1.

Everyone believed Israel had "missed the boat," that she had been fatally outmaneuvered by President Nasser and had acquiesced in the Tiran Straits blockade and the massing of four Arab armies encircling her perimeter.

By this inspired deception, one that her enemies were flattered to believe, Israel had silently regained the initiative that alone could assure strategic surprise when Israel preempted on 5 June.

At least four ruses were used prior to the fighting to induce the Egyptian forces to deploy in ways desired by the Israelis. First, the minuscule and antiquated Israeli Navy under Commodore Shlomo Erel deceived the Egyptians that major amphibious operations were to be mounted in the Red Sea, thereby drawing off major units of the Egyptian Navy. This was accomplished by the old theatrical and cinematic ruse - familiarized by Carmen and Birth of a Nation - of simulating "a cast of thousands" by running the same small number of "extras" repeatedly before the audience, their true circular route passing out of sight off-stage or behind the camera. In this case the Israelis simulated a major buildup of landing craft in the Gulf of Aqaba by bringing just four such boats overland to Eilat where they were seen to arrive on each of several days. However, these were the same four boats, which under cover of the nights were transported back into the desert ready for their daylight return engagements.

The second ruse was carried out by  the Israeli Army. Brigadier-General Yeshayahu Gavish, Commander of the Southern Front, had the problem of masking from the Egyptians the exact deployment of his mobilized ground forces facing the Sinai. To do this he--like the Egyptians--resorted to conventional measures of field camouflage to dissimulate part of his force. However, Gavish combined this with simulative camouflage. He had some small detachments of his armor circle about behind selected portions of the front, dragging plows to stir up enough dust to simulate large concentrations of tanks where there were none.

The third pre-battle ruse was also an Army ground operation and also was designed to simulate major activity in the southern Sinai. This ruse was carried out by Brigadier-General Ariel Sharon and his division in central Sinai. Sharon's reinforced division deployed (and later attacked) in a two-pronged way, making deceptive use of dummy tanks. In this manner it succeeded in conveying the impression that it intended a southwestward dash through Quntilla to the Gulf of Aqaba and the capture of Sharm el Sheikh. This had been the successful mission of the central Sinai force in the 1956 war, and it was the one that Sharon sought to simulate. In fact, his real mission wasto thrust directly westward to Suez.

The fourth tactical ruse was the Israeli Air Force effort to draw Egyptian fighter aircraft away from their northern bases in the zone of intended combat. This was done by intensive aerial patrolling in the Gulf of Aqaba and Red Sea. This ruse complemented the naval ruse already mentioned by implying the Israeli war plan called for a major aerial strike from the southern flank. To counter this supposed strategy the Egyptians transferred 20 of their first-line Russian fighters to the southern airfield of Hurghada. Consequently they were not only hors de combat during the critical early hours of the air battle on D-day but, when they did predictably arrive, found the northern runways smashed and fell easy prey to the waiting Israeli jets. When the war began when the initial Israeli airstrike was airborne at 0745 hours (0845 Cairo time), Brigadier-General Mordecai Hod's planes gained complete initial tactical surprise by sweeping in "on the deck" under the Egyptian (and Soviet) radar. This technique - contraindicated against an alerted and airborne enemy - enabled the Israelis' aircraft to make a secret approach without using their electronic countermeasures, which would have warned the Egyptians (and Russians and Americans) that an air attack was underway.

In these first 170  minutes some 300 Egyptian aircraft were destroyed on the ground - 90 per cent of their first-line combat planes. Only 8 Egyptian fighters got airborne during that decisive battle for aerial supremacy.

  

Military Intelligence also planned and carried out Operation FOG  OF BATTLE. In an unprecedented leak of a contemporary deception operation, Mr.  Leo Heiman asserts that this operation misled top enemy commanders, drew them into traps, diverted their forces in the wrong directions, spread confusion and chaos within upper level headquarters, and speeded up the process of demoralization and disintegration of the channels of command.

If this assertion can be sustained, Israeli Military Intelligence can claim to have introduced an entirely new dimension to deception-- a virtual fusion of strategy, stratagem, tactics, and psychological warfare that I have discussed in the main text under the heading "total stratagem." Heiman, unfortunately, mentions only one key part of this program, namely the manipulation of claims of captured terrain. This was done by careful orchestration of both public announcements (via communiques and press conferences) and military radio deception.

The deceptive use of tactical radio was, in fact, quite general.... It was known that the Egyptians - even their Air Force - had made little progress since 1956  toward improving their very insecure tactical communications. This, despite their Russian technical assistance and advisers. Israeli Military Intelligence knew all the Egyptian radio channels, procedures, and ... tactical codes. This painstakingly acquired knowledge now formed the basis for a comprehensive  program of radio "games."

1) The Israelis delayed announcing their early capture of  El Arish, the main Egyptian air base in the Sinai Peninsula. Moreover, its Israeli captors briefly pretended that  El Arish was still in Egyptian hands. They did this  by a combination of the simple ruse of leaving the  UAR flag flying and the sophisticated one of maintaining the routine control tower radio chatter. Thus Egyptian pilots - seeing their flag and receiving landing instructions in Egyptian-accented Arabic - continued to land for several hours after its capture. The Egyptians had received no warnings that El Arish was even threatened, much less that it had fallen.

2) Israeli military communiques gave the Egyptian staff the initial impression that their forces were advancing toward Tel Aviv while the Israeli Army was immobilized in the desperate defense of the settlements and villages in the Negev Desert and along the Gaza Strip. In fact, the Israeli columns had already carried their war of maneuver deep in the Sinai well behind major Egyptian units.

3) In Jordan, the garrison and citizens of Nablus welcomed the

Israeli armored column that came from the east, having momentarily mistaken them for the expected advance column of the Iraqi Expeditionary Army.

El Arish was captured  by D-day evening, presumably in time for

the scheduled  9 p.m. press briefing. However, the announcement of its capture was not made until 0130 the next morning when the deferred briefing was finally held. 

Brig.-Gen. Tal's efforts to lure Egyptian ground forces in the Gaza Strip failed  as the Egyptians merely kept to the defensive. In fact, the Israelis had already intercepted and defeated that force, but had made no mention of their presence east of Nablus. Thus Nablus fell without battle, and the Jordanian forces entrenched west of the town were readily surprised from the rear and easily defeated.

4) Also in Jordan, the Israelis delayed for 48 hours announcing their capture of Jericho despite its great propaganda value as an historical, religious, and emotional trophy, spiced by  the news value that the name of the officer who led the seizure was Joshua.

However, Jericho was also the main strategic juncture of all roads

crossing the Jordan River to Amman. Thus the Israelis were able to

set roadblock ambushes to capture the Jordanian units retreating to

Amman via Jericho. Only after that did the Israeli citizens (and

the Arab commanders) learn that Jericho had been taken, when Kol Israel broadcast the general announcement that a military government had been formed to police the occupied portions of Jordan, including the Jericho district.

Info all extracted from:

by the co-author and prime mover of The Man Who was Erdnase, the late Dr. Barton Whaley, advisor on deception to the US Director of National Intelligence.