ABSTRACT
What will prove to be the most important Israeli meeting before the war is taking place this morning. It is a conference of cabinet ministers, with the participation of some generals and intelligence officers, which is now about to give governmental sanction to the intelligence mistake. From the moment the meeting ends, the error will no longer be solely that of the IDF. This is not a formal “cabinet session”. Golda Meir, who has just returned from Europe, convenes the forum known in Israel as “Golda’s kitchen”. The cabinet ministers present are Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan and Yisrael Galili. The officers are Chief of Staff Lt.-General David Elazar, O.C. Air Force Maj.-General Benny Peled and Deputy-Head of Intelligence Branch Brigadier Arye Shalev; Eli Zeira is ill today and cannot attend. Golda also brings her Head of Bureau Mordechai Gazit and her Military Secretary, Brigadier Yisrael Lior. Dayan asks Golda to call the meeting because he wants to report events on the border, and share his anxieties with her. This is the first time that any forum of cabinet ministers has been made party to recent developments on the Egyptian and Syrian frontiers. Dayan leaves Golda to decide which ministers should attend the conference. In the course of the meeting, he emphasizes that the purpose is to deliver a report; he hasn’t summoned ministers to get decisions.
