The Israel State Archives has declassified the minutes of a series of military-political consultations which took place in the Prime Minister's office in Tel Aviv during the first four days of the Yom Kippur War, 6–9 October 1973.
The participants in these consultations, which are being published for the first time, were members of the unofficial "war cabinet" formed by the Prime Minister, Golda Meir – Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon, Minister without Portfolio Israel Galili and Meir's senior aides. The IDF Chief of General Staff, David Elazar and other senior officers and ministers were also present at some of the meetings.
The consultations published here deal with decision making during the war and the formation of Israel's political strategy vis à vis the US Administration and the UN. The critical decisions were made in this forum, and some of them were later adopted formally by the government. They show the management of the war by Israel's leaders based on misleading reports from the fronts, the tense atmosphere in the Prime Minister's bureau as a result of the initial military successes of Syria and Egypt, and the successes and failures of the IDF during the following days, in what was seen as a war for the continued existence of Israel.
A small number of sections which could not be declassified have been omitted from the documents.
The documents published here were found during work on a commemorative volume on Golda Meir, currently being prepared by the Israel State Archives.
For links, historical background and summaries of the documents see below:
Yom Kippur War, Saturday, 6 October 1973
Yom Kippur War, Sunday, 7 October 1973
Yom Kippur War, Monday, 8 October 1973
Yom Kippur War, Tuesday, 9 October 1973
To download documents (in Hebrew), see the ISA Hebrew website
See also The October War and U.S. Policy