War may be launched by the Arabs in six, nine, or twelve months’ time,” warned Israel's Defense Minister, Shimon Peres, just nine months after the end bf the October, 1973, war, and only a few weeks after Syrian and Israeli forces disengaged from the Golan Heights cease-fire lines. A couple of days after Peres's statement, commanderin- chief “Motta” Gur was a little more precise: “The Arabs,” he stated, “may start a war at the end of 1974.”

Jewish tradition holds that ever since the destruction of the Second Temple prophecy has become the province of fools and infants. But after four or five Mideast confrontations in under three decades predictions of war have been too often verified to be lightly shrugged off as either childish or stupid.