`:JohnZ: The post war protests in Israel that you refer to were not a product of the results on the battlefield. They were a product of an Israeli constituency that demands perfection from its leaders. Israelis were more than satisfied by the achievements of their army. They were angry over their government’s failure to read the writings on the wall. But this had nothing whatsoever to do with the favorable results achieved by the IDF on the battlefield. And to be sure, there was also fallout in Egypt where Shazli was dismissed from the army and later placed under house arrest. The commanders of the 2nd and 3rd armies were also dismissed from the army. In Syria, a general was executed even before the war ended. Just imagine however, if Syria and Egypt were open democracies where freedom of expression was permitted. Could you imagine protests in Syria over how its soldiers were defeated despite the element of surprise and numerically superior forces? Can you imagine Egyptian protests over how the Second and Third armies failed to recognize the gap between their forces? Or why they didn’t recognize the Israeli incursion for what it was? Or why Sadat didn’t heed Shazli’s request to pull forces back to the west bank to meet the Israeli encirclement action? Or how on October 14, Ismail allowed his tank forces to emerge from the SAM umbrella only to be massacred? or why the Egyptian and Syrian airforces performed so miserably against the IAF in air-to-air combat? I can go on and on. My point is that discourse, protests and demonstrations in these dictatorships would be met with an iron fist, arrest, killings, torture etc... Does Hama come to mind? The only line fed to these people was government propaganda which the people of Egypt and Syria swallowed if they knew it was good for them. Egypt claimed victory in 1956 as well. Does that make it so? Egyptian propagandists were claiming that they were well on their way to Tel-Aviv in the Six Day War. Does that make it so? Claims of Arab ``victory`` have become threadbare, even in the Arab world. Incidentally, I have yet to see one commission of inquiry formed by any arab government to investigate a government shortcoming.     `