This is the third and final chapter in a three-part series on King Hassan II’s views on Israel. To read the first chapter, click here. To read the second chapter, click here.

1973: The victory that opened the door to negotiation

If 1967 was the war the Arabs lost before it began, 1973 was the war they won – and still lost. King Hassan II’s reflections on the October War reveal one of the most nuanced, unsentimental, and strategically mature readings ever offered by an Arab statesman. He recognized the symbolic triumph, the restored pride, the Egyptian breakthrough across the Suez Canal — but he also understood, long before anyone admitted it, that the war rested on illusions as dangerous as those that preceded 1967.

The king admired Anwar al-Sadat profoundly. He considered him one of the few Arab leaders capable of breaking with slogans and pursuing a genuine strategy: “Sadat was my interlocutor since 1955. When he spoke, silence fell. Even if one did not always understand him, he acted with intelligence and dignity.”

He recalls how Sadat could recover from errors instantly – even in moments of public tension. In the 1969 Islamic Conference, after clashing with the Shah of Iran, Sadat realized he had gone too far and immediately transformed his speech, praising Iran and quoting two verses “in Persian.” The Shah later admitted to Hassan II with amused disbelief: “Either I am Persian and did not recognize my own language, or that was not Persian at all.”

But this ability to adapt, improvise, and restore equilibrium prepared Sadat for 1973. Hassan II saw the October War not merely as a military act, but as a psychological and diplomatic maneuver designed to break the deadlock created by 1967.

And yet, despite the courage and sophistication of the campaign, Hassan II never succumbed to mythology. His realism remained intact. He believed the war succeeded precisely because it avoided the rhetorical madness of earlier decades. There were no threats of “throwing the Jews into the sea,” no apocalyptic speeches, no intoxicating promises of total destruction. As he put it elsewhere: “The Palestinian issue already existed, but it was, let us say, both cacophonous and mercenary. The language of its leaders was not a responsible language. It had far more to do with commerce than with negotiation.”

Sadat broke with that tradition. He knew Egypt could not destroy Israel, and he did not pretend otherwise. For Hassan II, this honesty made 1973 what one might call a “war of honor” – a war fought to restore dignity, not to chase fantasies. The king’s reading of events was analytical, not emotional:........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)