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The Yom Kippur War, also known as the October War and the Ramadan War, broke out on 6 October 1973, when Syria and Egypt staged a surprise attack against Israel on the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Israel was dragged into a war which continued until 24 October, when its military was not in readiness and its people were still glowing from the stunning victory of the June 1967 Six Day War.
By waging a relatively limited war, Egypt and Syria intended to break the political stalemate in the Israeli-Arab conflict and inflict defeat on Israel, while capturing, at a minimum, the Golan Heights as well as part of the Sinai Peninsula. In contrast, Israel's primary objectives included the frustration of Egyptian and Syrian goals, the protection of its territories and the prevention of any military achievement by its rivals. Israel's ensuing goals included the staging of a counter-offensive to repel the Syrian and Egyptian forces from the Golan Heights and from the Sinai, and to terminate the war in a better military and political position than it had when the war started.1
This article will focus on the termination of the Yom Kippur War on the Israeli-Syrian front. The majority of war research emphasizes the personal, political and international causes of war, as well as the process and classification of wars from a tactical and strategic perspective. In contrast, little research has been conducted on war termination. War termination may occur independently and unilaterally in the form of surrender, withdrawal or a unilateral declaration; achieved through co-operation between rivals via a cease-fire, a truce, an armistice, an arrangement or agreement; or enforced by an external factor such as a superpower, a bloc of nations, the international community or the UN.2
The neglect of war termination research is not limited to certain international arenas but is a general neglect. As such, there is limited research on the Arab-Israeli war terminations, including the Yom Kippur War. The Yom Kippur War, like the other Arab-Israeli wars, was extensively expounded on in numerous and diverse studies on surprise attacks, war outbreak, war processes, tactical and strategic perspectives, ramifications on peace process, involvement of the superpowers and the influence of war on Israeli society,...