Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Aryeh Shalev, who served as head of research of IDF Military Intelligence during the Yom Kippur War, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 85. With a military career originating in pre-state Israel, he became head of the IDF Intelligences Research Department in 1967, shortly after the Six Day War. He was considered one of Israels best intelligence officers and served 33 years in the defense of his country. Shalevs path to the top of the defense establishment was interrupted when the Agranat Commission, appointed to investigate the lack of preparedness for the Yom Kippur War, blamed Shalev and his department for failing to accurately predict the joint offensive by Egyptian and Syrian forces. The commission said that Shalev ignored mounting evidence of a planned Egyptian and Syrian offensive, causing Israel to be caught completely by surprise. Following Israel's decisive victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, IDF Military Intelligence had become wedded to the conception that Israel's air superiority would prevent Egypt and Syria from embarking on another war against the Jewish state. However, both Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on October 6, 1973, hoping to catch Israel off guard on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. More than 2,000 Israeli soldiers lost their lives in the war, which lasted about two weeks. Shalevs intelligence failure overshadowed his earlier accomplishments and filled him with regret, which lasted until the end of his life. Public protest in the wake of the traumatic war eventually led to the resignation of Prime Minister Golda Meir and to the rise of Menachem Begin in the watershed election of 1977.
