Exodus - Leon Uris [160]
The settlers worked out from the stockades slowly, opening up their land a bit at a time. They erected permanent buildings and slowly expanded into full-fledged villages. If the settlement was a kibbutz the first building would be the children’s house. It was always built in the inner line of defense so that it would be the last building that could be reached by attackers.
Avidan said that the “tower and stockade” farms were a fulfillment of the Biblical story of the rebuilding of Jerusalem with one hand on the spear and one hand on the trowel. The prophet Nehemiah had said ... “half my servants wrought in the work and the other half held the spears.” And so it was that they worked their land and built their homes with a rifleman behind every plow and every carpenter.
The Arabs became so bold that even the British could not go on ignoring the terror. Haj Amin and Kawukji had made them all look like jackasses. At last they plunged into action and broke up the Higher Arab Committee and issued a warrant for the arrest of Haj Amin. The Mufti fled ahead of British police into the Mosque of Omar, the holiest Moslem shrine in Palestine.
The British balked and dared not enter the mosque for fear of inciting a “holy” uprising on the part of the entire Moslem world. After a week of hiding out, Haj Amin, dressed as a woman, fled and escaped to Jaffa, where a boat carried him to Lebanon.
Everyone breathed a great sigh of relief as the Mufti of Jerusalem left Palestine—especially the Arab community. The riots and attacks abated and the British again renewed their commissions of inquiry and investigations.
The Arabs boycotted the British inquiries except to send a few of their most fanatical members in to read prepared speeches. Although Haj Amin had left the scene, the El Husseinis were still on hand. At the commissions of inquiry the Arabs made more and more outrageous claims against the Jews, who paid eighty-five per cent of all the taxes despite the fact that the Yishuv was smaller than the Arab community.
And so, after another survey of the situation, the British took a new tack and recommended that Palestine be divided into two separate states. The Arabs were to get the lion’s share and the Jews a strip of land from Tel Aviv to Haifa and those parts of the Galilee they had reclaimed.
The Yishuv Central, the world Zionists, and the Jews in Palestine were tired of the continued bloodshed, the growing Arab fanaticism, and the ever more apparent British betrayal. Once the mandate for the Jewish homeland had included both sides of the Jordan River—now the British were offering but an iota. Yet, despite everything, the Jews decided to accept the proposal.
The British pointed out to the Arabs that it would be wise to accept, because the area allotted to the Jews couldn’t hold many more immigrants. But the Arabs wanted nothing more or less than that every Jew be thrown into the sea. Haj Amin el Husseini was the treasure of Islam and the martyred victim of British and Zionist injustice. From Beirut he renewed the rebellion.
Taggart, who had built the British system of forts, erected an electrified barbed-wire wall along the Lebanese border to stop the Mufti’s thugs and arms runners. At intervals he constructed more blockhouse forts to interlace with the wall.
One of the forts on the Taggart wall was erected above Abu Yesha and Yad El at the site believed to be the burial ground of Queen Esther. It became known as Fort Esther.
The Taggart wall slowed the Arab infiltration but could not stop it.
The Haganah, which had contained itself so long, became very restless and the Yishuv began to wonder when the Yishuv Central would let the Haganah fight. Under this growing pressure, Ben Gurion finally agreed to listen to a plan advanced by Avidan. In turn the Zion Settlement Society purchased a piece of land on the northern extremity of the Galilee, right on the Lebanese