A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Monday, October 7, 2013

Nuclear Weapons and 1973: Avner Cohen Releases the Longer Version of Azaryahu Interview

Last week I published links to and a three-minute video clip of an interview Avner Cohen released the contents of an interview he had with Arnan Azaryahu about Moshe Dayan's suggestion of using nuclear weapons during the 1973 war. Azaryahu reported that Golda Meir refused the suggestion outright. The Dayan suggestion was made on October 7, 1973, the second day of the war and exactly 40 years ago today.

I briefly had a clip of the full 12 minute interview up, but Avner informed me that it had been posted to YouTube inadvertently, and that only the three minute version was for public release, so that is all that appears now in last week's post.

Fortunately, since the longer version contains more anecdotal context, he has now decided to release the longer account (part of a much longer interview on Azaryahu's career). Also I did not previously link to Avner's detailed notes and analysis of the interview, which I really should have done, and which you may read here. "Sini" is Azaryahu's nickname. Again, the leadership meeting under discussion took place 40 years ago today. (Hebrew but English subtitles.)

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