New state-backed Egyptian documentary takes critical aim at US 'rescue' airlift to Israel during 1973 war

It was the fall of 1973. Israeli citizens running frantically on the streets of Tel Aviv; Israeli army troops screaming for help; destroyed Israeli tanks appearing one after another in the desert of Sinai, and an Israeli radio broadcaster announcing the beginning of a massive Egyptian offensive against the Israeli army occupying the Sinai Peninsula.

This is how a new locally-made documentary, 35-minutes long film broadcasted by a major production company linked to Egyptian intelligence that chronicles Egypt's liberation of Sinai from Israeli occupation in October 1973 begins.

Peculiarly, the film has a particular focus on how the US scrambled to save Israel from what seemed like major defeat by airlifting tens of thousands of tonnes of military equipment, arms and ammunitions.

Titled, "Operation Nickel Grass," the documentary is named after the same codename the US used for the airlift campaign, which started on October 13, 1973, a mere six days after Egyptian armed forces swarmed past the Suez Canal into Sinai to liberate it from Israeli occupation.

Produced by United Media Services, by far Egypt's largest media production company, and reportedly linked to Egyptian intelligence, the documentary describes how the US flew tens of thousands of tonnes of military equipment, including fighter jets and tanks, to compensate Israel for losses it sustained during the first three days of the October 1973 war.

The film's broadcast on national television coincided with “Sinai Liberation Day”, a national holiday in Egypt that commemorates the return of the southern Sinai town of Taba on 25 April 1982 from Israeli occupation, following laborious international arbitration and diplomatic efforts by the Egyptians.

US commitment to Israel's security 

The Egyptian offensive to liberate of Sinai, described throughout the film, including by then-US president, Richard Nixon, and Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, was "surprising" and devastating to Israel.

These losses were mentioned in detail by then Israeli ambassador to the US, Simcha Dinitz, in a phone conversation with Kissinger on 9 October 1973. They included, he said, 14 American tandem two-seat phantoms, three French Mirages, 500 tanks, among other equipment that constituted almost a third of the total equipment of the Israeli army before the war.

Dinitz's phone conversation with Kissinger followed a message by then-Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, sent to Nixon, where she begged him to "rescue" Israel from collapse.

The film contains testimonies about the war from Israeli army generals, including then-defence minister, Moshe Dayan, who described it as "different" from Israel's previous wars, including the Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel attacked all its neighbours and occupied Sinai and Syria's Golan Heights.

In 1973, Israel needed help, and the US followed suit by airlifting close to 33,000 tonnes of equipment, which included new M-60 tanks and ammunitions, according to Kissinger in the recording of a phone conversation with Dinitz.

The film also shows Nixon describing the airlift to Israel as "much bigger than the Berlin Airlift of 1948", which aimed to counter the Soviet blockade of rail, road and water access to Allied-controlled areas in Berlin.

'Operation Nickel Grass' campaign continued until 14 November 1973, and considerably reversed gains made by the Egyptians during the first six days of that war.

It was a clear political statement by the US that it will intervene to support Israel's survival, a message understood well in Cairo by the late president, Anwar Sadat.

"For the US, Israel is a redline, meaning that Washington will not fall silent while it faces any type of danger," Hazem Khairat, a veteran of Egyptian diplomacy who worked as Egypt's ambassador to Israel between 2015 and 2018, told The New Arab.

"This American policy continues to manifest itself until now, with US support to the current Israeli operation in Gaza being a case in point," he added.

The documentary also displays apparently declassified American and Israeli intelligence documents about the war. In one of these documents, an Israeli official reveals how Israel's shock and defeat during the early days of the 1973 war led Israeli defence minister Dayan to consider launching nuclear weapons on Egypt.

Broadcasted at a time of tension

The October war of 1973 was more than just a war of liberation in Egyptian memory and national discourse. It was a moment which shattered myths about the Israeli army, slightly altered the regional balance of power for decades.

"Operation Nickel Grass" is not the first film to be produced by the state-linked United Media Services. In the past decade, the company produced a series of works that document important political and military events in Egypt's history, in what amounts to what some observers describe as a "writing of history".

Apart from works regarding the October 1973 war, the company produced a TV serial about Egypt's war against a branch of the Islamic State in Sinai, and a film about Egyptian airstrikes in Libya in 2015 in response to the killing of 21 Egyptian Christians by the Islamic State group.

Some of the media productions of the company have come under fire, especially the spending and budget, at an economically difficult time for Egypt.

"These works document important events in the history of our country for Egyptians and Arabs who were born after they happened," Gen. Nasr Salem, a veteran of the 1973 October war, remarked to TNA.

"We need to advance the factual version of these events at a time our enemies propagate false information," he stressed.

Salem also spoke bitterly of how he bore witness to the delivery of US weapons to Israel during the war, some of them transported by US planes into northern Sinai. 

The film's broadcast comes as at a particular time of tension between Egypt and Israel, on the one hand, and Egypt and the US, on the other.

Relations between Cairo and Tel Aviv are strained due to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip and Egypt's fears of the possible forced displacement of the coastal Palestinian enclave's residents into Sinai.

To counter this prospect, Egypt continues to beef up military presence in the north-eastern territory, which enrages Israeli diplomats who warn against potential infringements of the 1979 peace treaty with the Arab country.

Moreover, Egypt and the US are locked in a war of wills, with US President Donald Trump doubling down on his desire to take over Gaza and build it into a "Middle East Riviera".

Egypt vehemently opposes this plan and has rallied Arab and Islamic states behind a counterproposal for the reconstruction of Gaza without displacing its people.