Exodus - Leon Uris [315]
From then on it was a rout. The army of Israel lashed out after the fleeing Egyptians. They bypassed the Gaza area and crossed into the Sinai itself.
The Lord has mingled a spirit of perverseness in the midst of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit. Neither shall there be for Egypt any work which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do. In that day shall the Egyptians be like unto women; and they shall tremble and fear because of the shaking of the Hand of the Lord of Hosts, which he shaketh over them.
The words of Isaiah had come true!
At the Suez Canal, the British became alarmed at the Egyptian debacle and the possibility of Israeli penetration near the canal. They demanded that the Jews stop or face the British Army. In warning, the British sent Spitfire fighters into the sky to gun the Israelis. It seemed only fitting somehow that the last shots of the War of Liberation were against the British. The Israeli Air Force brought down six British fighter planes. Then Israel yielded to international pressure by letting the Egyptians escape. The shattered Egyptian Army regrouped and with fantastic audacity marched into Cairo and staged a “victory parade.”
The War of Liberation became history!
For months there had been truce talk. For centuries there would be arguments over how it all happened. Experts were confounded and realists were confused.
The Arab people of Palestine had long ago accepted the return of the Jews and were prepared to live in peace and benefit from the progress which had been brought after a thousand sterile years. These people simply did not want to fight and never had. They were betrayed by leaders who were first to run in the time of danger. Their courage was mob frenzy. They were confused by catch phrases they did not understand, much less believe in. They were victimized by racist polemics and filled with a fear of a militant “Zionism” that never existed. Arab leaders exploited their ignorance for their own willful purposes.
Some of the Arabs and their armies fought with valor. Most of them did not. They had been promised easy victories, loot, and rape. They had bolstered each other with a false illusion of Arab unity. Obviously, the “cause” was not so great it was worth bleeding for.
There never was a question of the Jews’ willingness to die for Israel. In the end they stood alone and with blood and guts won for themselves what had legally been given them by the conscience of the world.
And so—the Star of David, down for two thousand years, shone from Elath to Metulla, never to be lowered again.
The aftermath of the War of Liberation involved one of the most widely discussed and thorniest dilemmas of the century—the Arab refugee problem. More than a half million Palestine Arabs had fled from their homes to neighboring Arab states. All discussions of the disposition of these people became bogged down in furious arguments, accusations, confusion, nationalism, and incrimination. The issue became so involved and mired that it turned into a political time bomb.
Barak Ben Canaan was called upon once more to serve his country. The government of Israel asked him to make a complete study of this apparently insolvable situation. He made a painstaking investigation and his findings filled several hundred pages. In a short summary, Barak shed light on what appeared to be a hopelessly confused problem.
SUMMARY OF THE ARAB REFUGEE SITUATION
The most publicized afterevent of the War of Liberation has been the Palestine Arab refugee problem. It has become the most potent political weapon in the Arab arsenal.
The Arabs have gone to great lengths to describe the plight of