Israel did not ‘almost reach the nuclear brink’

Re: Incalculable Consequences, Erol Araf, Oct. 7. In his column about Washington and Moscow being “on the brink of a nuclear conflict” after the start of the yom Kippur War in 1973, erol Araf wrote that on Oct 8, two days into the fighting, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir “gave the green light to arm 13 Jericho missiles armed with nuclear warheads.”

It is ironic that in The New York Times of Oct. 3, 2013, Avner cohen wrote of the “four-decade-old mythology alleging that Israel almost reached the nuclear brink” by revealing for the first time a Jan. 2008 interview that he conducted with Arnan Azaryahu, a senior aid to an Israeli cabinet minister, who was present at a critical meeting on Oct. 8, 1973. The Times article also in- cludes a three-minute video segment of the interview. In that meeting, according to the eyewitness, Golda Meir told her defence minister, Moshe dayan, to “forget it” when he proposed initiating preparations for a demonstration of Israel’s nuclear weapons capability. The nuclear option was dismissed out of hand.

This is another sobering reminder of how cautious readers must be of accepting as fact, history that is “reconstructed.” In particular, we should at least be wary when we encounter statements like Mr. Araf ’s: “We have enough facts at our disposal to construct a narrative.” While a narrative may be plausible, it is not necessarily accurate.

Eli Honig, Toronto.