Exodus - Leon Uris [175]
As soon as Ari saw them coming he realized something had gone wrong. Quickly he dispatched David and Zev back to Palestine to bring help.
The Vichy troops marched blindly into the pass and were pulverized by explosions and crossfire from both sides of the hill. They fell back, reassembled, and sent artillery fire into the pass.
Six unbelievable hours passed before David and Zev came back with a battalion of Free French troops.
All the bridges were intact. There was no break-through. The pass was littered with over four hundred dead Vichyites who had tried to break Ari’s position.
Five men of Ari’s force were alive when help arrived. Ari Ben Canaan himself was at death’s door. His back was filled with shrapnel, two bullets were lodged in his body, and his leg and nose were broken.
The Free French went on to complete the invasion of Syria.
For Ari Ben Canaan the war was over. He was taken back to Palestine for a long slow recovery. The British promoted him to major and he was decorated for his stand at the mountain pass.
Ari had played his role for Allied victory. So had the Yishuv.
Members of the Yishuv were in suicide squads that helped capture Tobruk and Bardia. Later a battalion of Palestinians was at the epic defense of Tobruk.
They fought in Italy and in Greece and in Crete and in the Lowlands. They numbered thousands in the Royal Air Force. They ran the “death” patrol along the Mediterranean coast. The home guard kept the Arabs under control within Palestine. They fought in the desert in the captures of Sidi Barrani, Sollum, and Fort Capuzzo.
Jewish suicide units were picked for their valor in the campaigns in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Three thousand of the Yishuv joined the Free Forces of Czechoslovakia, Holland, France—and even Poland. A suicide force of Jews went out to destroy the oil refinery at Tripoli. Every member perished. Jews were used by the British for special spying missions. German Jews were dressed in German uniforms and worked right in Rommel’s headquarters. Jews guarded the Mosul oil fields against continued Arab attempts to disrupt production.
When the British needed spies in the Balkans they turned to the Jews and trained them as parachutists. They reasoned that any Jew would be protected by the rest of the Jews in the country where he was dropped. Several were parachuted—few returned. One girl, Hanna Senesh, from Joab Yarkoni’s kibbutz was dropped into Hungary and captured. She became a martyr by refusing to her death to break under the cruelest Nazi torture.
The Yishuv covered itself with glory. Just as in World War I the British glorified the Arab revolt—so they tried to hide the efforts of the Yishuv in World War II. No country gave with so much vitality to the war. But the British Government did not want the Jews to use this as a bargaining point for their homeland aspirations later on. Whitehall and Chatham House kept the Yishuv’s war effort one of the best secrets of the war.
Rommel never reached Alexandria—they never broke the defenses of Stalingrad.
As the tide turned in favor of the British the Arabs no longer looked for the Germans to liberate them. Quickly they “declared war” on Germany. The main purpose behind the Arab declarations of War was to gain a vote at the peace conferences and block the Zionists who had no vote but only the blood of their sons to show for their efforts.
Despite the Yishuv’s magnificent record the British did not revoke the White Paper. Despite the Arab treachery and the fact that they did not raise a finger for victory they did not revoke it. Even with the ghastly news of the murder of six million Jews the British would not allow the survivors in.
The Haganah grew restless. Its ranks were filled with experienced soldiers. But it was the Maccabees who called off the truce! A series of terror bombings shook Palestine from end to end and again sent the British into their Taggart forts. The Maccabees, now numbering in the thousands, blew up one British installation after another.
General Haven-Hurst went after the Maccabees. With surprising