IMHO, when studying wars (whether this or any other), one should distinguish between ‘public…

Public perception is — or should be — well-known: it was widely published ever since that fateful June 1967.

IMHO, when studying wars (whether this or any other), one should distinguish between ‘public perception’ and ‘military realities’.

Public perception is — or should be — well-known: it was widely published ever since that fateful June 1967.

Military realities — not the least.

Sure, it’s generally accepted (i.e. a part of the public perception) that Israel was in possession of ‘excellent intelligence’ about its enemies. What is usually unknown is how good that intelligence really was. Namely, this was excellent, incredibly precise. So much so, I would say that Israeli military commanders had a better insight into intentions and capabilities of any and all of their neighbours than Arab commanders of militaries in question.

Possession of such excellent intel on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was not limited to Israel. A document released by the DIA in response to my FOIA inquiry has shown that the US Army had at least similar, if not even better intelligence about Arabs (the document in question is detailing the ‘order of battle’ of the Egyptian Army as of early 1967 — and going down to _company_ level, not only the usual battalion/regiment level).

In comparison to this, Arabs actually had no clue about the Israeli military. Indeed, in Egyptian military any studies of the Israeli military were de-facto forbidden (and there were cases where officers were fired alone for discussing performances of aircraft flown by the Israelis).

Why is this important, i.e. what’s my point?

Well, possession of such superior intelligence enabled not only the Israelis, but the USA and Great Britain too, to draw clear conclusions about what would happen should Arabs go to war with Israel. I.e. they were all sure that Arabs would be quickly and easily defeated — just like they eventually were.

Why is that important?

Because this means, that — while these two affairs were superimposed in the public perception — Israeli military commanders were not the least concerned about Nasser’s order for withdrawal of the UN contingent from the Sinai, nor by deployments of Egyptian paratroopers in Sharm el-Sheikh.

They were not the least concerned because they were well-informed about these actions, and aware of the fact that such moves were working into their hands.

_But_, they were — and very much — concerned about Egyptian over-flights of the Dimona complex, because they could not counter these. They lacked means to do so: MIM-23A HAWK SAMs protecting the complex could not reach the high-flying MiG-21s, and Mirages scrambled to intercept failed to do so too.

That’s why, from the standpoint of ‘military realities’, these over-flights were more important than affairs considered important from the standpoint of public perception.