The Haj - Leon Uris [162]
Even though in two more attempts the Jews could not capture Latrun, they had built a bypass road into Jerusalem and saved their part of the city.
With disaster imminent for the Arabs, the hour for tribal vengeance arrived.
Clovis Bakshir, the mayor of Nablus, was assassinated at his desk by a Mufti gunman for his support of Abdullah.
Abdullah retaliated by having the Legion’s Special Squads eliminate a half-dozen pro-Mufti muktars and by rounding up dozens of sympathizers throughout the West Bank and jailing them in Amman.
As everyone’s grand scheme to destroy the Jews collapsed, the sordid stories of one secret deal after another began to emerge in the backwash.
The first to come to light had been initiated by the Saudis, who had an enormous common border with Jordan. The Saudi family also had a long-standing blood feud with Abdullah. It had been the Saudis who had ejected Abdullah and his Hashemite family from Arabia. Such a thing would never be forgotten. The Saudis quaked at the thought of Abdullah growing powerful, for soon enough he would harbor thoughts of revenge.
Since it had always been paramount to an Arab victory to suck in Abdullah’s Arab Legion, the Saudis paid off the Egyptians, Iraqis, and Syrians to lure Abdullah into the war. Their plot was to have the Legion grab up the West Bank, then assassinate Abdullah, dissolve his kingdom, and split it up among themselves. Abdullah craftily managed to stay clear of the assassin while his troops secured their West Bank gains.
A second plot was sponsored by the Egyptians, who had seized the Gaza Strip. They brought the Mufti to Gaza, where he and his followers set up an ‘All-Palestine Government.’ In truth, the Egyptians treated the Gaza Strip, not as Palestine, but as administrated military territory.
Now some of Abdullah’s other deals began to emerge. Kaukji, it turned out, had been an agent of Abdullah all the time. Kaukji fingered many of the Mufti’s men with whom he was supposed to be in a joint command. These men met the standard fate. In payment, Kaukji was to be proclaimed the first governor of the West Bank of Palestine and rule it on behalf of Abdullah.
Meanwhile, inside Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, the bloodletting, jailings, and killings between ministers and generals was under way over the loss of the war. Regimes tottered everywhere.
Our worst storm came right after the New Year of 1949. The flash flood was so violent that it leaped out of the wadi beds and found its way into our cave in a dozen places. We had come to within an inch of defeat. Kamal went berserk with fear one night, the pregnant women were a mess, Jamil and Omar got into a fistfight, and even Hagar, the woman of iron, was showing terrible strain.
I returned one day from a trip to Jericho and immediately found my father, who was entrenched, as always, by the machine gun. I saw him now bundled in rags, drenched.
‘Father,’ I cried, ‘it is over. There is another ceasefire, but this time they speak of an armistice.’
Ibrahim turned to me, his face dripping rain so I could not truly determine if there were tears coming from his eyes.
‘Must we go with Abdullah now, Father?’
He laughed ironically, tragically. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘None of them who forced us to leave will face this catastrophe. It will take them fifty years to come to the point. To admit the Jews have won? They cannot come to that point ... never. We cannot wait, Ishmael. Let them hack at each other’s flesh, let them break each other’s bones. They will settle nothing. Curse them for what they have brought on us. We have only one mission. We are going to get back to Tabah. Think only of returning to Tabah. Think only of Tabah. ...’
10
January 1949
GIDEON ASCH RATHER ENJOYED his liaisons with Colonel Farid Zyyad of Jordanian Intelligence. As a product of the British military and a graduate of Sandhurst, Zyyad had chucked a number of the habits that plague meetings between Arab and non-Arab. Zyyad was capable of getting to the point, of not trying to smother