Exodus - Leon Uris [298]
The Jews abandoned a lookout post in the tower of an Armenian church inside the Old City, at the request of the monks. The moment the Jews left, the irregulars grabbed the same place and refused to leave. Despite this fact, the Jews felt that the Arabs would not dare to attack the Old City, sacred to three religions, and would follow the example set by the Jews in this holiest ground in the world.
The Haganah then became faced with the final bit of treachery. Glubb Pasha, British commander of the Arab Legion, had given solemn promise that the Legion would be returned to Jordan when the British evacuated. But when the British left Jerusalem, the Arab Legion rushed to that city in open violation of the promise. The Legion attacked and was able to gain back part of what the Haganah had taken earlier. The suburb linking New Jerusalem with Mount Scopus had been given to the Maccabees to defend; they lost it to the Legion, thus isolating the forces on Scopus. Then Glubb ordered the Arab Legion to attack the Old City!
The Jews had no illusions left after their years of dealing with the Arabs, but this attack on the most sacred shrine of mankind was the nadir. There was nothing to stop the Legion but a few thousand ultra-Orthodox Jews who would not raise a finger in their own defense. The Jews rushed as much of the Haganah as they could spare into the Old City, and the Haganah was followed by several hundred angry Maccabee volunteers. Once inside the Old City there was no escape for their forces.
JERUSALEM CORRIDOR
The road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv continued to bear the hardest fighting of the war. The Hillmen of the Palmach had cleared a half dozen heights in the Judean hills. The Kastel was firmly in their hands and they had assaulted and won the Comb, Suba, and enough key places to open the tricky and vulnerable Bab el Wad.
Then the blackest blot on the Jewish record occurred. The Maccabees were given the high Arab village of Neve Sadij to hold. In a strange and inexplicable sequence of events a panic broke out among Maccabee troops and they opened up a wild and unnecessary firing. Once started it could not be stopped. More than two hundred Arab civilians were massacred. With the Neve Sadij massacre the Maccabees, who had proved so valuable, had fixed a stigma on the young nation that it would take decades to erase.
Although the Hillmen Brigade had opened the Bab el Wad, the British made it more convenient for the Arabs to blockade Jerusalem by handing the Legion the Taggart fort of Latrun. Latrun, once a British political prison at one time or another graced by all the leaders of the Yishuv, sat squarely on a junction in the road, blocking the entrance to the Bab el Wad.
Latrun, therefore, became the most important objective of the Israelis. In a desperation plan to capture the fort a special brigade was formed. Most of it consisted of Jewish immigrants freed from Cyprus internment or from the DP camps. The officers were equally unequipped for a major operation. Quickly armed and trained, this brigade was moved into the corridor and a night attack on Latrun was tried. It was ill-planned and badly executed. The disciplined Arab Legion threw it back.
The brigade tried two more attacks on Latrun on succeeding nights with equal lack of success. Then the Palmach Hillmen Brigade, badly overextended by the attempt to cover the long stretch of the Bab el Wad to Jerusalem, nevertheless made an attack on Latrun and almost, but not quite, succeeded in taking the place.
An American army colonel, Mickey Marcus, who used the code name of Stone, had joined the Israeli Army. Now he was sent to the corridor, where his