Analysis | Israel at War, Week One: On Heroism, Recovery, and Challenges Ahead
One of Israel's major achievements in the first week of the war was on the diplomatic front – the unequivocal support of the United States and other significant countries
Amir Rapaport
| 14/10/2023
At 6:30 a.m., on Saturday, October 7th, the course of history changed in the Middle East. We are only at the beginning of the new reality. It is still too early to know everything that has happened and the long-term consequences. So let's focus on what we already know and where we are heading in the coming weeks.
The Collapse and the Bravery
"The October 7 war, launched the day of Simhat Torah, began with a military knockout Hamas dealt the IDF. The defense line facing the Gaza Strip collapsed like a house of cards.
This line was based on the activities of the Gaza Division, which – unlike other divisions with permanent forces under their command, is a regional division whose individual units operate on a rotating basis, taking turns assuming responsibility for the front line. It is responsible for the North and South Brigades, which are deployed across the line and its bases.
The sea zone is regularly guarded by Navy patrol boats. This defense line is also backed by both manned and unmanned aircraft, intended to be rapidly deployed on almost immediate notice, along with observation balloons, and sensors – also maritime and underground.
Just before the line is a six-meter-high fence that provides electronic alerts on any breach. On the morning of October 7th, the fence was breached at multiple points simultaneously. Along with it, the entire defense collapsed.
It is now clear that the attack began with a massive barrage of rockets and mortars towards all military installations and communities in the area.
Hamas knew what to expect. Under the barrages, both the IDF forces and civilians in the surrounding communities took shelter. However, it wasn't just regular rocket fire; it also involved barrages towards central Israel, including Tel Aviv.
From here on, everything happened rapidly. The fence was easily breached by the forces that infiltrated at multiple points simultaneously. Dozens of Hamas elite force fighters (Al-Nukhbah) focused on the adjacent military base Re'im. Other bases were also attacked.
The Hamas forces knew the deployment of all the cameras along the border and destroyed most of them by close-range shooting or by launching explosive-carrying drones. The intelligence blackout created when the equipment was disabled, and many of the observers who were supposed to stay behind screens and direct the forces were incapacitated, contributed significantly to the chaos that ensued. At this point, the communities themselves were also attacked simultaneously.
These were the most difficult hours in the history of the nation, no less difficult than the fall of the Bar Lev Line and the capture of the Golan Heights outpost with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago.
At this stage, while IDF forces were busy with survival (with a massive casualty count), many of the 22 settlements considered close to the border (i.e., up to seven kilometers from the border, according to official definition) had already been occupied.
Tales of heroism
We have heard the horror stories of the massacre again and again this week. Yet, we have only been exposed to a fraction of what happened. Just a drop in the sea of blood. We will continue to hear about these horrors for years, alongside countless stories of bravery and heroism, many of which have not yet been revealed.
Here is one example: Staff Sergeant D., a special unit fighter, arrived independently at Kibbutz Beeri. Upon arrival, he saw a burning house, approached it, and rescued an elderly couple trapped inside, while calming them down.
Later on, Staff Sergeant D ran into terrorists, along with his unit and naval forces. During the confrontation, he was hit by three bullets in his legs. Under fire, he applied tourniquets to himself while his team members held his legs. In the heat of battle, his unit commander and other fighters around him were killed, but D continued to fight. Only once the battle was over, he was evacuated to the hospital.
The Broad Scope
Militarily speaking, the Gaza Division effectively collapsed. In the early hours of the attack, the fence around the Gaza Strip was breached both lengthwise and widthwise, also with the use of bulldozers that knocked it down.
The staggering success even surprised Hamas. At this point, there were probably more than 1,000 Hamas operatives inside Israeli territory. Hamas only shared its plan with Islamic Jihad on the last day, which is why the extent of forces involved in the incursion was relatively small.
The news of the fence breach spread quickly on Saturday, leading to hundreds more Gaza residents who 'spontaneously' joined the attacks, kidnappings, and violence in Israel.
In a small number of communities (like Zikim and Mefalsim, for example), the preparedness classes managed to thwart Hamas. In most communities, however, the element of surprise and the scale of the attacking forces overwhelmed even the bravest among the defenders.
Some of the terrorists landed in the heart of the communities using paragliders, flying over the fence and circumventing the preparedness classes.
We now know that most of the kidnapped Israelis filmed taken to Gaza on motorcycles and tractors in broad daylight, fell into the hands of people who were not supposed to be part of the raid. It appears that around 30 out of the approximately 100 known captives fell into the hands of the Islamic Jihad. Nevertheless, the majority of the captives are held by Hamas.
At the height of the chaos on Saturday, it was not clear for some time within the security establishment whether Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld, the former commander of the Shaldag elite unit, was among the captives. A few days later, the IDF circulated a photo of Rosenfeld in a commanders' meeting to dispel the rumors.
Reestablishing control
After hours of battle on that terrible morning, a deathly silence fell over the command of the IDF Gaza Division.
The war room made it, but the rest of the field turned into a killing field. The extent of the tragedy was evident from the horrifying incident that emerged from the initial investigations, regarding a father who called his daughter serving on the base.
The daughter did not answer the call. Neither did any of her commanders or friends on the base. In his despair, he reached the base in an unconventional way. The camp had already been cleared of Hamas and was quiet. Deathly quiet, literally. The father saw the bodies of soldiers lying before him, one of which was his daughter's. He put his dead daughter in his car and drove her to Tel Hashomer Hospital. There was no chance of saving her.
Earlier. around 8 a.m., those who arrived on the scene and quickly divided responsibility for the combat were the commander of IDF Paratrooper’s 98th Division, Brigadier General Dan Goldfus, and the commander of the 99th Division, Brigadier General Barak Hiram. These are two of the elite IDF units, designated for rapid intervention.
Goldfus described how he entered the captured kibbutz and began to lead the fight, despite being shot himself. He gathered commanders and soldiers who had arrived at the scene from various locations.
The bravery in all the communities was overwhelming, from the soldiers to the commanders, most of whom were on the front lines, in accordance with the IDF ethos. Many of the commanders were injured. The commander of the Nahal Brigade, Colonel Jonathan Steinberg, was killed in battle.
That day of battle will never be forgotten. Only the navy succeeded in effectively curbing the terrorists. Along the collapsed border, helicopters fired at terrorists who could be identified. In the background, more and more forces entered directly into the conflict zone and joined the fight. Every minute was crucial to save some of the residents begging for their lives, while the slaughter was at its peak.
All the while, rockets from Gaza continued barraging the entire country, and face-to-face battles took place also in the towns Sderot and Ofakim, the latter located no less than 25 kilometers from the border.
Hostages
In broad terms, Israel has only two units that specialize in hostage negotiation and rescue in enemy territory - the IDF Border Guards' YAMAM and the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal). Both units suffered severe losses. In one of the incidents of abducting locals, they didn't even attempt to extract them.
A Shin Bet fighter on the scene acted on his own. He identified a terrorist who was holding an elderly local resident hostage while pointing a gun at his head. The Shin Bet operative began talking to the terrorist in Arabic to distract him and, in the midst of the conversation, suddenly shot and killed him. The stunned kibbutznik was removed from the clutches of the dead terrorist and saved.
In Ofakim, a SWAT team operated to rescue the Edri couple, an elderly husband and wife taken hostage in their home. During the fighting, it became known that the son of a senior SWAT officer fell in battle in one of the communities near the Gaza Strip.
In the meantime, more and more forces were pouring in. The IDF established an 'Iron Wall,' a kind of imaginary fire line, which resealed the Gaza Strip using helicopters and tank fire. For two days after that, the fighting continued with Hamas forces until the area was cleared.
The Intelligence failure
Now it now known that when the attack broke out on the morning of the Simhat Torah holiday, the head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman), Major General Aharon Haliva, was on vacation in Eilat. There isn’t a more explicit sign to indicate that there was no clear intelligence warning. And if there was, it was not taken seriously or considered a real threat.
The intelligence issue will still be thoroughly investigated and discussed extensively after the war. In the meantime, it's important to distinguish between tactical intelligence failure and strategic intelligence failure, even though we "achieved" both.
Tactically, the IDF and Shin Bet missed all the preparations made for the operation over the course of years, especially in the weeks, days, and hours leading up to it. It's hard to believe, but some aspects of the intelligence failure preceding the Yom Kippur War in 1973 repeated themselves in 2023.
Hamas accustomed the IDF to frequent training sessions that simulated an incursion into Israeli territory, numbing its alertness. Furthermore, over the past year, Hamas centered its acts of terror in the West Bank and prompted the IDF to understand that it desired calm in Gaza.
The Intelligence Directorate and the Shin Bet had known of Hamas's plans to breach into Israeli territory in multiple locations and seize settlements in parallel since 2013. The original plan of Hamas was to carry out this attack through tunnels, which were destroyed after Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
It is astounding to know that the security establishment was certain that Hamas continued to train for the occupation of Israeli communities. However, the line of reasoning (“conception”) was that the organization preferred to maintain calm – and anyway, the underground barrier was built against tunnels with a significant investment of billions. The IDF relied on this barrier. It did not assess that the border would be so easily breached from above, using paragliders and bulldozers.
The failure in the strategic handling of Hamas is a joint responsibility of the security establishment and the political leadership, which maintained Hamas as a counterbalance to the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria as an unofficial strategy.
There were differences in approach within the security establishment itself, particularly between the Shin Bet and the Intelligence Directorate, regarding the need to destroy Hamas's military capabilities. The Shin Bet advocated for a more aggressive stance, while the IDF prioritized the northern front and the IDF's home front command over Gaza in the event of a widespread multi-front conflict
This week, reports have already begun to surface regarding the intelligence warnings that were or were not present before the war. Regarding those, it can be estimated that even if the Egyptians did indeed transmit a general warning that Hamas was planning "something big," and even if the IDF saw "suspicious signs" in the hours leading up to the attack – the “conception” prevailed.
Even in the darkest scenarios, no one in the security establishment could have conceived actions such as decapitating infants. This would have been beyond the bounds of human imagination.
The Big picture and decisive moves
The current war in Gaza is indeed part of a much broader, complex historical development with many global implications. This includes Russia's war with Ukraine.
President Joe Biden's reference this week to the transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia is part of the broader context of regional and global geopolitics. Iran, which supports groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, is seen as a significant player in the 2023 "Axis of Evil, “while Israel is aligned with the United States, Western European countries, and moderate Sunni states in the Persian Gulf.
In Lebanon, even without Hassan Nasrallah crossing the threshold to another widescale front for the time being, the significant tensions and the very possibility of a new front have been forcing the IDF to mobilize substantial forces to this area. This is also true for Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), of course.
Within the Green Line, especially in the mixed Jewish-Arab cities, there was almost complete calm until Friday. Israel has a paramount interest in maintaining this calm, which is why senior figures in one of the security agencies were furious when they heard that the Minister of National Security "instructed the police to prepare for events similar to 'Guardian of the Walls 2,' which he anticipates will occur."
It seemed to them as if Ben Gvir was trying to forcefully ignite the situation. Whether they are correct or not, in any case, he has once again demonstrated that, even in the most critical security week since the Yom Kippur War, the upper limit of his professional capabilities is, at most, in matters of weapon approvals.
Ben Gvir’s exclusion from the Cabinet and the addition of the former Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, will strengthen the political leadership at this critical juncture.
Sharon and not Gorodish
The first week has ended. We are deep into a war like no other we've known. 360,000 reservists have already been called up. In the sandy hills around Tze’elim Camp in the Negev, the recruits' tents stretch for kilometers. This metal carpet will remain there until the end of the battles. This won’t be anytime soon.
One of Israel's most significant achievements in the first week of the war was on the diplomatic front - the unequivocal support of the United States and other important countries standing by our side. It was also about clear recognition in many places around the world that from now on, "Hamas is a terrorist organization.
The significance of this response goes far beyond Israel merely explaining its stance. Israel's response to the atrocity allowed it to launch an almost unrestricted blockade on Gaza and engage in artillery fire towards targets. A ground operation leading to the destruction of Hamas is considered inevitable.
Someone said to the Southern Command's head, Major General Yaron Finkelman, that he would emerge from this war “as either Gorodish or as Arik (Ariel) Sharon.” Finkelman would not want to be remembered as a symbol of failure like Gorodish, who ended his life in exile in Africa following the failures of the Yom Kippur War. Everyone would prefer that he be a symbol of heroism – Arik.
One of Israel's major achievements in the first week of the war was on the diplomatic front – the unequivocal support of the United States and other significant countries
At 6:30 a.m., on Saturday, October 7th, the course of history changed in the Middle East. We are only at the beginning of the new reality. It is still too early to know everything that has happened and the long-term consequences. So let's focus on what we already know and where we are heading in the coming weeks.
The Collapse and the Bravery
"The October 7 war, launched the day of Simhat Torah, began with a military knockout Hamas dealt the IDF. The defense line facing the Gaza Strip collapsed like a house of cards.
This line was based on the activities of the Gaza Division, which – unlike other divisions with permanent forces under their command, is a regional division whose individual units operate on a rotating basis, taking turns assuming responsibility for the front line. It is responsible for the North and South Brigades, which are deployed across the line and its bases.
The sea zone is regularly guarded by Navy patrol boats. This defense line is also backed by both manned and unmanned aircraft, intended to be rapidly deployed on almost immediate notice, along with observation balloons, and sensors – also maritime and underground.
Just before the line is a six-meter-high fence that provides electronic alerts on any breach. On the morning of October 7th, the fence was breached at multiple points simultaneously. Along with it, the entire defense collapsed.
It is now clear that the attack began with a massive barrage of rockets and mortars towards all military installations and communities in the area.
Hamas knew what to expect. Under the barrages, both the IDF forces and civilians in the surrounding communities took shelter. However, it wasn't just regular rocket fire; it also involved barrages towards central Israel, including Tel Aviv.
From here on, everything happened rapidly. The fence was easily breached by the forces that infiltrated at multiple points simultaneously. Dozens of Hamas elite force fighters (Al-Nukhbah) focused on the adjacent military base Re'im. Other bases were also attacked.
The Hamas forces knew the deployment of all the cameras along the border and destroyed most of them by close-range shooting or by launching explosive-carrying drones. The intelligence blackout created when the equipment was disabled, and many of the observers who were supposed to stay behind screens and direct the forces were incapacitated, contributed significantly to the chaos that ensued. At this point, the communities themselves were also attacked simultaneously.
These were the most difficult hours in the history of the nation, no less difficult than the fall of the Bar Lev Line and the capture of the Golan Heights outpost with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago.
At this stage, while IDF forces were busy with survival (with a massive casualty count), many of the 22 settlements considered close to the border (i.e., up to seven kilometers from the border, according to official definition) had already been occupied.
Tales of heroism
We have heard the horror stories of the massacre again and again this week. Yet, we have only been exposed to a fraction of what happened. Just a drop in the sea of blood. We will continue to hear about these horrors for years, alongside countless stories of bravery and heroism, many of which have not yet been revealed.
Here is one example: Staff Sergeant D., a special unit fighter, arrived independently at Kibbutz Beeri. Upon arrival, he saw a burning house, approached it, and rescued an elderly couple trapped inside, while calming them down.
Later on, Staff Sergeant D ran into terrorists, along with his unit and naval forces. During the confrontation, he was hit by three bullets in his legs. Under fire, he applied tourniquets to himself while his team members held his legs. In the heat of battle, his unit commander and other fighters around him were killed, but D continued to fight. Only once the battle was over, he was evacuated to the hospital.
The Broad Scope
Militarily speaking, the Gaza Division effectively collapsed. In the early hours of the attack, the fence around the Gaza Strip was breached both lengthwise and widthwise, also with the use of bulldozers that knocked it down.
The staggering success even surprised Hamas. At this point, there were probably more than 1,000 Hamas operatives inside Israeli territory. Hamas only shared its plan with Islamic Jihad on the last day, which is why the extent of forces involved in the incursion was relatively small.
The news of the fence breach spread quickly on Saturday, leading to hundreds more Gaza residents who 'spontaneously' joined the attacks, kidnappings, and violence in Israel.
In a small number of communities (like Zikim and Mefalsim, for example), the preparedness classes managed to thwart Hamas. In most communities, however, the element of surprise and the scale of the attacking forces overwhelmed even the bravest among the defenders.
Some of the terrorists landed in the heart of the communities using paragliders, flying over the fence and circumventing the preparedness classes.
We now know that most of the kidnapped Israelis filmed taken to Gaza on motorcycles and tractors in broad daylight, fell into the hands of people who were not supposed to be part of the raid. It appears that around 30 out of the approximately 100 known captives fell into the hands of the Islamic Jihad. Nevertheless, the majority of the captives are held by Hamas.
At the height of the chaos on Saturday, it was not clear for some time within the security establishment whether Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld, the former commander of the Shaldag elite unit, was among the captives. A few days later, the IDF circulated a photo of Rosenfeld in a commanders' meeting to dispel the rumors.
Reestablishing control
After hours of battle on that terrible morning, a deathly silence fell over the command of the IDF Gaza Division.
The war room made it, but the rest of the field turned into a killing field. The extent of the tragedy was evident from the horrifying incident that emerged from the initial investigations, regarding a father who called his daughter serving on the base.
The daughter did not answer the call. Neither did any of her commanders or friends on the base. In his despair, he reached the base in an unconventional way. The camp had already been cleared of Hamas and was quiet. Deathly quiet, literally. The father saw the bodies of soldiers lying before him, one of which was his daughter's. He put his dead daughter in his car and drove her to Tel Hashomer Hospital. There was no chance of saving her.
Earlier. around 8 a.m., those who arrived on the scene and quickly divided responsibility for the combat were the commander of IDF Paratrooper’s 98th Division, Brigadier General Dan Goldfus, and the commander of the 99th Division, Brigadier General Barak Hiram. These are two of the elite IDF units, designated for rapid intervention.
Goldfus described how he entered the captured kibbutz and began to lead the fight, despite being shot himself. He gathered commanders and soldiers who had arrived at the scene from various locations.
The bravery in all the communities was overwhelming, from the soldiers to the commanders, most of whom were on the front lines, in accordance with the IDF ethos. Many of the commanders were injured. The commander of the Nahal Brigade, Colonel Jonathan Steinberg, was killed in battle.
That day of battle will never be forgotten. Only the navy succeeded in effectively curbing the terrorists. Along the collapsed border, helicopters fired at terrorists who could be identified. In the background, more and more forces entered directly into the conflict zone and joined the fight. Every minute was crucial to save some of the residents begging for their lives, while the slaughter was at its peak.
All the while, rockets from Gaza continued barraging the entire country, and face-to-face battles took place also in the towns Sderot and Ofakim, the latter located no less than 25 kilometers from the border.
Hostages
In broad terms, Israel has only two units that specialize in hostage negotiation and rescue in enemy territory - the IDF Border Guards' YAMAM and the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal). Both units suffered severe losses. In one of the incidents of abducting locals, they didn't even attempt to extract them.
A Shin Bet fighter on the scene acted on his own. He identified a terrorist who was holding an elderly local resident hostage while pointing a gun at his head. The Shin Bet operative began talking to the terrorist in Arabic to distract him and, in the midst of the conversation, suddenly shot and killed him. The stunned kibbutznik was removed from the clutches of the dead terrorist and saved.
In Ofakim, a SWAT team operated to rescue the Edri couple, an elderly husband and wife taken hostage in their home. During the fighting, it became known that the son of a senior SWAT officer fell in battle in one of the communities near the Gaza Strip.
In the meantime, more and more forces were pouring in. The IDF established an 'Iron Wall,' a kind of imaginary fire line, which resealed the Gaza Strip using helicopters and tank fire. For two days after that, the fighting continued with Hamas forces until the area was cleared.
The Intelligence failure
Now it now known that when the attack broke out on the morning of the Simhat Torah holiday, the head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman), Major General Aharon Haliva, was on vacation in Eilat. There isn’t a more explicit sign to indicate that there was no clear intelligence warning. And if there was, it was not taken seriously or considered a real threat.
The intelligence issue will still be thoroughly investigated and discussed extensively after the war. In the meantime, it's important to distinguish between tactical intelligence failure and strategic intelligence failure, even though we "achieved" both.
Tactically, the IDF and Shin Bet missed all the preparations made for the operation over the course of years, especially in the weeks, days, and hours leading up to it. It's hard to believe, but some aspects of the intelligence failure preceding the Yom Kippur War in 1973 repeated themselves in 2023.
Hamas accustomed the IDF to frequent training sessions that simulated an incursion into Israeli territory, numbing its alertness. Furthermore, over the past year, Hamas centered its acts of terror in the West Bank and prompted the IDF to understand that it desired calm in Gaza.
The Intelligence Directorate and the Shin Bet had known of Hamas's plans to breach into Israeli territory in multiple locations and seize settlements in parallel since 2013. The original plan of Hamas was to carry out this attack through tunnels, which were destroyed after Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
It is astounding to know that the security establishment was certain that Hamas continued to train for the occupation of Israeli communities. However, the line of reasoning (“conception”) was that the organization preferred to maintain calm – and anyway, the underground barrier was built against tunnels with a significant investment of billions. The IDF relied on this barrier. It did not assess that the border would be so easily breached from above, using paragliders and bulldozers.
The failure in the strategic handling of Hamas is a joint responsibility of the security establishment and the political leadership, which maintained Hamas as a counterbalance to the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria as an unofficial strategy.
There were differences in approach within the security establishment itself, particularly between the Shin Bet and the Intelligence Directorate, regarding the need to destroy Hamas's military capabilities. The Shin Bet advocated for a more aggressive stance, while the IDF prioritized the northern front and the IDF's home front command over Gaza in the event of a widespread multi-front conflict
This week, reports have already begun to surface regarding the intelligence warnings that were or were not present before the war. Regarding those, it can be estimated that even if the Egyptians did indeed transmit a general warning that Hamas was planning "something big," and even if the IDF saw "suspicious signs" in the hours leading up to the attack – the “conception” prevailed.
Even in the darkest scenarios, no one in the security establishment could have conceived actions such as decapitating infants. This would have been beyond the bounds of human imagination.
The Big picture and decisive moves
The current war in Gaza is indeed part of a much broader, complex historical development with many global implications. This includes Russia's war with Ukraine.
President Joe Biden's reference this week to the transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia is part of the broader context of regional and global geopolitics. Iran, which supports groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, is seen as a significant player in the 2023 "Axis of Evil, “while Israel is aligned with the United States, Western European countries, and moderate Sunni states in the Persian Gulf.
In Lebanon, even without Hassan Nasrallah crossing the threshold to another widescale front for the time being, the significant tensions and the very possibility of a new front have been forcing the IDF to mobilize substantial forces to this area. This is also true for Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), of course.
Within the Green Line, especially in the mixed Jewish-Arab cities, there was almost complete calm until Friday. Israel has a paramount interest in maintaining this calm, which is why senior figures in one of the security agencies were furious when they heard that the Minister of National Security "instructed the police to prepare for events similar to 'Guardian of the Walls 2,' which he anticipates will occur."
It seemed to them as if Ben Gvir was trying to forcefully ignite the situation. Whether they are correct or not, in any case, he has once again demonstrated that, even in the most critical security week since the Yom Kippur War, the upper limit of his professional capabilities is, at most, in matters of weapon approvals.
Ben Gvir’s exclusion from the Cabinet and the addition of the former Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, will strengthen the political leadership at this critical juncture.
Sharon and not Gorodish
The first week has ended. We are deep into a war like no other we've known. 360,000 reservists have already been called up. In the sandy hills around Tze’elim Camp in the Negev, the recruits' tents stretch for kilometers. This metal carpet will remain there until the end of the battles. This won’t be anytime soon.
One of Israel's most significant achievements in the first week of the war was on the diplomatic front - the unequivocal support of the United States and other important countries standing by our side. It was also about clear recognition in many places around the world that from now on, "Hamas is a terrorist organization.
The significance of this response goes far beyond Israel merely explaining its stance. Israel's response to the atrocity allowed it to launch an almost unrestricted blockade on Gaza and engage in artillery fire towards targets. A ground operation leading to the destruction of Hamas is considered inevitable.
Someone said to the Southern Command's head, Major General Yaron Finkelman, that he would emerge from this war “as either Gorodish or as Arik (Ariel) Sharon.” Finkelman would not want to be remembered as a symbol of failure like Gorodish, who ended his life in exile in Africa following the failures of the Yom Kippur War. Everyone would prefer that he be a symbol of heroism – Arik.
