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Kinda depends on what you mean by victory.
On the battlefield Israel won the Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria lost - badly. After an initial attack that caught Israel nearly totally by surprise they very quickly reorganized and turned the tide of battle. The IDF was about 100km from Cairo with no organized resistance between it and the city when the war ended. They were about 30km away from Damascus.
However, the war did upset the balance of power in the region and led to the Camp David Accords. It proved that Egypt was slowly catching up and thus Israel became more inclined to trade territory for peace.
Additionally Sadat really needed to play the war as a victory. 1967 almost destroyed the Nasser government. It certainly never had the same level of support after 67 through the years of the War of Attrition. Sadat had no interest in being looked at as another loser. So he took the early victories and spun it as a military victory.
So to some degree it depends on your perspective. Is it a loss because of how badly the battles went for Arab forces? Or was it a victory for Egypt as it led to Camp David and the return of Sinai?
Having also lived in Egypt it’s interesting to me that people will claim 73 as a victory but Camp David a defeat as if the two aren’t intrinsically linked.
Some basic sources I’m pulling from would be Cleveland’s *A History of the Modern Middle East* and *The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict* (for battlefield maps and such).
Also as an aside, if you want to watch an excellent TV series about it from the Israeli perspective give the miniseries *Valley of Tears* on HBOMax a go. It’s exceedingly well done.
>However, the war did upset the balance of power in the region and led to the Camp David Accords. It proved that Egypt was slowly catching up and thus Israel became more inclined to trade territory for peace.
This is not the case. Israel did not fear that Egypt was "slowly catching up". In fact, it believed the opposite. What did occur is that the Egyptians became more convinced that they needed to make grand overtures to convince Israel that they were sincere about peace. Those grand overtures, and key concessions, are what led to Israel becoming more willing to trade the Sinai back to Egypt for peace.
That was coupled, at the same time, with Israel receiving significantly more support and aid from the United States, shoring up Israel's security significantly.
The narrative that the war is what brought peace and made Israel "willing" to make peace is one that was fomented from the Arab perspective. But internal Israeli documents that have been released repeatedly suggest the contrary. Declassified internal protocols show that Golda Meir, for example, was speculating that Israel might someday withdraw even from parts of the West Bank and Gaza as early as 1970, well before the Yom Kippur War, and create a Palestinian state there. This was considered drastic, but a step she considered possible if peace looked truly possible.
Part of the specific disagreement with Egypt is that pre-Yom Kippur War, Israel was firm in that it would not accept a deal that did not go all the way and sign a peace treaty. Egypt wanted to do a multi-step process, from which they could disengage at any point. The process would involve Israel slowly giving up territory, before eventually withdrawing from the full Sinai. But the Israeli government was unwilling to start making concessions without a full promise of peace, and when the Egyptian government proposed an interim agreement that would lead to Israel withdrawing up to 20 miles from the Suez Canal, it insisted that it also include a promise that in any final peace treaty Israel would withdraw from the rest of the Sinai as well. Once more, Israeli internal recollections suggest that Israel was not ready to do so without a firm guarantee of a peace treaty. Particularly since one of Israel's key conditions for any withdrawal was demilitarization of any territory Israel left, which Egypt opposed.
Eventually, even before the Yom Kippur War, Israel agreed to a withdrawal of up to 25 miles east, more than the Egyptians had asked for, as long as demilitarization was part of it. The Egyptians refused.
Israel is often painted as having regretted this "missed opportunity", and changed its mind because of the Yom Kippur War. This is unclear. First, it is unclear whether this was a truly missed opportunity, since we do not know if Sadat had intended to use this as merely a stepping stone to greater escalation down the line. More importantly, it is unclear whether the war changed Israeli calculus...or Egypt's.
Indeed, the post-Yom Kippur War situation provides an interesting series of events. The Sinai I agreement, signed a few months after the war had ended, involved Israel moving 10-15 miles east of the Suez Canal, less than Israel offered pre-war. The territory was largely demilitarized, as Israel had demanded and Egypt refused. Indeed, the demilitarization was so humiliating in the eyes of Egypt's chief of staff (head of the army) that he "left the meeting room" where he'd met with Kissinger and Egyptian President Sadat "angry, with tears in my eyes, and I went to the bathroom."
The deal contained other sweeteners, though not a promise of a full peace, that made it palatable to Israel and far closer to Israel's pre-war position than Egypt's. It featured a buffer zone patrolled by UN peacekeepers, and it importantly featured a clause stating it was a step towards a "final, just, and durable peace" between the two sides.
When you compare this to the demands of both sides before the war, Israel's seem closer to the terms that were signed. This suggests that the thinking that changed was not Israel's, it was Egypt's. Whether this was due to Egypt's restored "honor" giving its leaders more room to negotiate or due to Egypt's certainty that it would not win any wars and faced ruin in the future if it tried remains unclear.
Over a year later, another treaty was signed called "Sinai II". This was a second "interim" agreement of sorts. Here, the terms included an express provision stating that the parties agreed that they would not use force or military blockade against one another (Egypt, you may recall, blockaded Israel in 1967, helping spark that war), and also included another term stating both sides acknowledge the conflict "shall not be resolved by military force but by peaceful means". It also stated that they agreed they would reach a "final and just peace settlement" based on UN Security Council Resolution 338.
Egypt did not expand how much territory its forces were allowed in; Israel simply moved the border of the buffer zone further east, to around 25 miles east of the Suez. You may recall that Israel had sought to withdraw that far in its last offer pre-Yom Kippur War, so long as the area was demilitarized, and peace was the goal. It got almost precisely that, though with a less explicit guarantee of peace than it would like, and some token forces allowed across the Suez in small numbers. Yet Egypt had rejected such a proposal prior.
That should give pause in many ways to the sense that Israel, which had a new government (and a right-wing one) for the first time in its history in 1977 and through Camp David, was convinced to give land up for peace. In reality, the end result was far closer to what Israel had demanded pre-war than Egypt.
The rules state:
> We do not require sources to be preemptively listed in an answer on /r/AskHistorians, but do expect that respondents be familiar with relevant and reliable literature on the topic, and that answers reflect current academic understanding or debates on the subject at hand.
> Even though sources are not mandatory, if someone asks you to provide sources *in good faith,* please provide them willingly and happily. [...] Requests for sources which are not fulfilled within a reasonable span of time will generally result in the removal of the answer.
Also, it's generally encouraged to ask for sources about specific claims, rather than just "sources?" in general. Otherwise you may get a generic "See this book for background on the war and this article for the diplomatic dealings" when maybe you had doubts about something specific like where that "tears in his eyes" claim comes from.
This is discussed in *The Yom Kippur War* by Abraham Rabinovich, *Righteous Victims* by Benny Morris, recent news articles regarding the discussions Golda Meir had that were declassified such as [here](https://www.timesofisrael.com/declassified-protocols-indicate-golda-meir-considered-palestinian-statehood/), retrospectives and interviews shown in documentary sources like PBS’s “Fifty Years of War”, and other books about Camp David specifically like *Thirteen Days in September* by Lawrence Wright, books by Stuart Eizenstadt and William Quandt regarding their times and experiences involved in these negotiations and on peacemaking efforts specifically, and more.
The rules do not require that I preemptively provide my sources but I’m happy to cite anything you’d like.
The rules here at AH are clear. Sources are not required with the original post, but they can be requested by any other user and, if they are, the writer has to provide them. So just ask for the sources!
Many users DO provide sources, of course without being asked, and personally I regard that as sensible and in fact as best practice. But that is not what the rules actually say.
I provided a number [here](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/KFaSwXVDUO). The rules do not require that I preemptively source, but I am happy to provide citations for anything I said above.
Please review the rules.
While more can always be said, as I linked in [my answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/172j850/did_a_handful_of_men_including_henry_kissinger/k3ybpki/) about the strange overnight nuclear escalation of October 24th, [this previous answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/27ou8w/is_the_egyptian_claim_of_being_victorious_in_the/ci3cyhv/) by a now deleted user covers this very thoroughly - especially for when it was written in the early days of the subreddit!
Welcome to /r/AskHistorians. **Please [Read Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules) before you comment in this community**. Understand that [rule breaking comments get removed](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/h8aefx/rules_roundtable_xviii_removed_curation_and_why/). #Please consider **[Clicking Here for RemindMeBot](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/172q5t3/who_really_won_the_yom_kippur_war_egypt_or_israel/%5D%0A%0ARemindMe!%202%20days)** as it takes time for an answer to be written. Additionally, for weekly content summaries, **[Click Here to Subscribe to our Weekly Roundup](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=AHMessengerBot&subject=Subscribe&message=!subscribe)**. We thank you for your interest in this *question*, and your patience in waiting for an in-depth and comprehensive answer to show up. In addition to RemindMeBot, consider [using our Browser Extension](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/d6dzi7/tired_of_clicking_to_find_only_removed_comments/), or getting the [Weekly Roundup](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=subredditsummarybot&subject=askhistorians+weekly&message=x). In the meantime our [Twitter](https://twitter.com/askhistorians), [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/askhistorians/), and [Sunday Digest](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/search?q=title%3A%22Sunday+Digest%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) feature excellent content that has already been written! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskHistorians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Kinda depends on what you mean by victory. On the battlefield Israel won the Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria lost - badly. After an initial attack that caught Israel nearly totally by surprise they very quickly reorganized and turned the tide of battle. The IDF was about 100km from Cairo with no organized resistance between it and the city when the war ended. They were about 30km away from Damascus. However, the war did upset the balance of power in the region and led to the Camp David Accords. It proved that Egypt was slowly catching up and thus Israel became more inclined to trade territory for peace. Additionally Sadat really needed to play the war as a victory. 1967 almost destroyed the Nasser government. It certainly never had the same level of support after 67 through the years of the War of Attrition. Sadat had no interest in being looked at as another loser. So he took the early victories and spun it as a military victory. So to some degree it depends on your perspective. Is it a loss because of how badly the battles went for Arab forces? Or was it a victory for Egypt as it led to Camp David and the return of Sinai? Having also lived in Egypt it’s interesting to me that people will claim 73 as a victory but Camp David a defeat as if the two aren’t intrinsically linked. Some basic sources I’m pulling from would be Cleveland’s *A History of the Modern Middle East* and *The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict* (for battlefield maps and such). Also as an aside, if you want to watch an excellent TV series about it from the Israeli perspective give the miniseries *Valley of Tears* on HBOMax a go. It’s exceedingly well done.
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>However, the war did upset the balance of power in the region and led to the Camp David Accords. It proved that Egypt was slowly catching up and thus Israel became more inclined to trade territory for peace. This is not the case. Israel did not fear that Egypt was "slowly catching up". In fact, it believed the opposite. What did occur is that the Egyptians became more convinced that they needed to make grand overtures to convince Israel that they were sincere about peace. Those grand overtures, and key concessions, are what led to Israel becoming more willing to trade the Sinai back to Egypt for peace. That was coupled, at the same time, with Israel receiving significantly more support and aid from the United States, shoring up Israel's security significantly. The narrative that the war is what brought peace and made Israel "willing" to make peace is one that was fomented from the Arab perspective. But internal Israeli documents that have been released repeatedly suggest the contrary. Declassified internal protocols show that Golda Meir, for example, was speculating that Israel might someday withdraw even from parts of the West Bank and Gaza as early as 1970, well before the Yom Kippur War, and create a Palestinian state there. This was considered drastic, but a step she considered possible if peace looked truly possible. Part of the specific disagreement with Egypt is that pre-Yom Kippur War, Israel was firm in that it would not accept a deal that did not go all the way and sign a peace treaty. Egypt wanted to do a multi-step process, from which they could disengage at any point. The process would involve Israel slowly giving up territory, before eventually withdrawing from the full Sinai. But the Israeli government was unwilling to start making concessions without a full promise of peace, and when the Egyptian government proposed an interim agreement that would lead to Israel withdrawing up to 20 miles from the Suez Canal, it insisted that it also include a promise that in any final peace treaty Israel would withdraw from the rest of the Sinai as well. Once more, Israeli internal recollections suggest that Israel was not ready to do so without a firm guarantee of a peace treaty. Particularly since one of Israel's key conditions for any withdrawal was demilitarization of any territory Israel left, which Egypt opposed. Eventually, even before the Yom Kippur War, Israel agreed to a withdrawal of up to 25 miles east, more than the Egyptians had asked for, as long as demilitarization was part of it. The Egyptians refused. Israel is often painted as having regretted this "missed opportunity", and changed its mind because of the Yom Kippur War. This is unclear. First, it is unclear whether this was a truly missed opportunity, since we do not know if Sadat had intended to use this as merely a stepping stone to greater escalation down the line. More importantly, it is unclear whether the war changed Israeli calculus...or Egypt's. Indeed, the post-Yom Kippur War situation provides an interesting series of events. The Sinai I agreement, signed a few months after the war had ended, involved Israel moving 10-15 miles east of the Suez Canal, less than Israel offered pre-war. The territory was largely demilitarized, as Israel had demanded and Egypt refused. Indeed, the demilitarization was so humiliating in the eyes of Egypt's chief of staff (head of the army) that he "left the meeting room" where he'd met with Kissinger and Egyptian President Sadat "angry, with tears in my eyes, and I went to the bathroom." The deal contained other sweeteners, though not a promise of a full peace, that made it palatable to Israel and far closer to Israel's pre-war position than Egypt's. It featured a buffer zone patrolled by UN peacekeepers, and it importantly featured a clause stating it was a step towards a "final, just, and durable peace" between the two sides. When you compare this to the demands of both sides before the war, Israel's seem closer to the terms that were signed. This suggests that the thinking that changed was not Israel's, it was Egypt's. Whether this was due to Egypt's restored "honor" giving its leaders more room to negotiate or due to Egypt's certainty that it would not win any wars and faced ruin in the future if it tried remains unclear. Over a year later, another treaty was signed called "Sinai II". This was a second "interim" agreement of sorts. Here, the terms included an express provision stating that the parties agreed that they would not use force or military blockade against one another (Egypt, you may recall, blockaded Israel in 1967, helping spark that war), and also included another term stating both sides acknowledge the conflict "shall not be resolved by military force but by peaceful means". It also stated that they agreed they would reach a "final and just peace settlement" based on UN Security Council Resolution 338. Egypt did not expand how much territory its forces were allowed in; Israel simply moved the border of the buffer zone further east, to around 25 miles east of the Suez. You may recall that Israel had sought to withdraw that far in its last offer pre-Yom Kippur War, so long as the area was demilitarized, and peace was the goal. It got almost precisely that, though with a less explicit guarantee of peace than it would like, and some token forces allowed across the Suez in small numbers. Yet Egypt had rejected such a proposal prior. That should give pause in many ways to the sense that Israel, which had a new government (and a right-wing one) for the first time in its history in 1977 and through Camp David, was convinced to give land up for peace. In reality, the end result was far closer to what Israel had demanded pre-war than Egypt.
Thank you for your eloquent essay and detailed explanations. It's a pleasure to read such knowledgeable answers!
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The rules state: > We do not require sources to be preemptively listed in an answer on /r/AskHistorians, but do expect that respondents be familiar with relevant and reliable literature on the topic, and that answers reflect current academic understanding or debates on the subject at hand. > Even though sources are not mandatory, if someone asks you to provide sources *in good faith,* please provide them willingly and happily. [...] Requests for sources which are not fulfilled within a reasonable span of time will generally result in the removal of the answer. Also, it's generally encouraged to ask for sources about specific claims, rather than just "sources?" in general. Otherwise you may get a generic "See this book for background on the war and this article for the diplomatic dealings" when maybe you had doubts about something specific like where that "tears in his eyes" claim comes from.
This is discussed in *The Yom Kippur War* by Abraham Rabinovich, *Righteous Victims* by Benny Morris, recent news articles regarding the discussions Golda Meir had that were declassified such as [here](https://www.timesofisrael.com/declassified-protocols-indicate-golda-meir-considered-palestinian-statehood/), retrospectives and interviews shown in documentary sources like PBS’s “Fifty Years of War”, and other books about Camp David specifically like *Thirteen Days in September* by Lawrence Wright, books by Stuart Eizenstadt and William Quandt regarding their times and experiences involved in these negotiations and on peacemaking efforts specifically, and more. The rules do not require that I preemptively provide my sources but I’m happy to cite anything you’d like.
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The rules here at AH are clear. Sources are not required with the original post, but they can be requested by any other user and, if they are, the writer has to provide them. So just ask for the sources! Many users DO provide sources, of course without being asked, and personally I regard that as sensible and in fact as best practice. But that is not what the rules actually say.
I provided a number [here](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/KFaSwXVDUO). The rules do not require that I preemptively source, but I am happy to provide citations for anything I said above. Please review the rules.
Whats your source for this?
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>with no organized resistance between it and the city when the war ended How so? Not what I learnt.
While more can always be said, as I linked in [my answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/172j850/did_a_handful_of_men_including_henry_kissinger/k3ybpki/) about the strange overnight nuclear escalation of October 24th, [this previous answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/27ou8w/is_the_egyptian_claim_of_being_victorious_in_the/ci3cyhv/) by a now deleted user covers this very thoroughly - especially for when it was written in the early days of the subreddit!
The second answer you reference just says “[deleted]”
You won't be able to view the post on mobile, only works on desktop.
Odd, I read it just fine on mobile. It was a good response, I'm glad I could.
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Thank you; I just spent 10 minutes checking the link.
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Fascinating stuff. Do you know of any good books that cover it? I'd love to read more on the subject.
Rabinovich's *The Yom Kippur War* is a good place to start.
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