The Haj - Leon Uris [100]
‘Are you saying that the British will stand by idly if Kaukji engages in a massacre?’
‘Well, we come down to personal evaluations,’ Gideon answered. ‘My own opinion is that they will not lift a finger. Kaukji is going to be permitted to operate openly. The British might do this and that to play out their game of being evenhanded, but there’s no truth to it. Even if Kaukji is unsuccessful in taking a settlement, he is going to do tremendous damage to us on the roads.’
Once again the fallibility of Plan D came under attack. Why give Kaukji such tempting targets as small isolated kibbutzim? It was high-risk business.
‘Declaration of the state is high-risk business,’ Ben-Gurion retorted. ‘War is high-risk business. Only by making the Arabs pay for every inch can we blunt their ardor.’
It was obvious that the Old Man was not going to back down. A final assessment was made by the chief of intelligence. Supplies for the Arabs was a simple matter, for they had the entire Arab world as a hinterland and could simply move arms over the border. If the Saudis opened their purse strings, the parade of Arab arms would be endless. On the other hand, the Yishuv had to bring in every bullet from over the sea. This, along with Arab population advantages, painted a bleak picture for the Jews. It all depended on just how much stamina the Arab armies had.
For the most part, they were far from being modern armies, but they did have tanks, long-range guns, motorized units, combat aircraft, and, in fact, everything the Jews did not have.
The force the Haganah feared most was Abdullah’s Arab Legion of ten thousand trained professionals including the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force, with modern weaponry under the command of a skilled cadre of British officers.
Plan D was argued far into the night. Ben-Gurion prevailed. His only concession was that in such places as the Etzion Bloc, the women and children would be removed. It was past two in the morning when the plan was adopted. This left one major question to be discussed. What of the Arab civilian population? What of their continued flight out of the country?
On this issue everyone deferred to the Old Man. He was the spiritual father of this unborn nation. His philosophy would set its tone and its standards.
‘The Arabs have begged for this war,’ Ben-Gurion said. ‘But we have too many other priorities to engage in endless quarrels with them. We must win the war and come out of it with a viable state. There are so many things a Jewish state must accomplish, for we and our moral standards must be the light of mankind.
‘Yet we are the worst kind of fools if we think we can carry out our schemes of grandeur in the midst of hostile neighbors. We must have peace and we must live with the Arabs if our state is to flourish as something more than a fortress.
‘Never,’ he said, smashing the table with his fist, ‘will we adopt any policy to drive the Arabs from Palestine. In those places that spell strategic life and death for us, such as Ramle-Lydda, as Latrun, as West Jerusalem, we will fight them with everything we have. If the Arabs choose to run, I will not beg them to stay. If they leave Palestine, I will not beg them to return. But under no circumstances will we force out a single Arab who wants to remain. Defeat will go down hard for the Arabs. I pray they will consider their own brothers and sisters who fled from Palestine in the same manner that we care for our brothers and sisters. I pray the Arabs will give them a chance at a decent life. But when a man leaves his home during a war which he started, he cannot expect us to be responsible for his future.
‘It is late and we are tired, comrades. One final policy. We must always keep the door open to negotiation and peace. Someday an Arab leader will