The Haj - Leon Uris [164]
As you may suspect, we are not always totally free to act independently, so we must be patient.
Patience eventually will prevail. However, unspoken words and unwritten understandings can be as strong as a meaningless armistice paper. Such understandings could ensure us a long period of peace and growth.
I therefore implore you to complete your conquest of the Gaza Strip to eliminate a mutual enemy and think in terms of granting us future control. It would ensure my annexation of the West Bank and both of us the greatest chance for coexistence.
Give the Gaza Strip to the devil! But for God’s sake, do not let the Egyptians have it.
With greatest sincerity and admiration,
I remain,
Abdullah
Gideon climbed aboard the waiting Piper Cub at the small, jerry-built airstrip near the Monastery of the Cross in West Jerusalem.
‘Tel Aviv?’ the pilot asked.
‘No. Forward command post on the Southern Front.’
‘Where the hell is it?’
Gideon played with the map for several moments, then circled an unmarked grid in the Sinai a few miles from El Arish. ‘There’s a strip down there somewhere. Do you have a frequency?’
‘Yes, but the transmitter is pretty weak.’
‘Well, we’ll give them a call and get the exact location when we get close enough.’
The plane circled three times to gain altitude out of Jerusalem and flew down the corridor with its plunging ravines: on either side. As flat land showed below, they turned left toward the Negev. The first inklings of a sandstorm began to bounce the little craft around. Gideon, the boldest of men on a horse, turned white-knuckled. The pilot laughed. He had parachuted many rounds of ammunition and food to isolated kibbutzim in far worse weather. ‘Hang onto your seat, Gideon. We’re going to have a ride.’
The end of the war was bringing to a head a longstanding philosophical split between Ben-Gurion and his generals. Although B.G. was a turn-of-the-century pioneer of Palestine’s swamplands and the leader of its great political struggles, some of what he was had been carried out from the ghettos of Poland.
Ben-Gurion had a natural Jewish distrust of the military, for it had always spelled repression. On the one side, he did not totally trust Jewish fighting capability. On the other hand, he feared a large Jewish military establishment. The new lads of the Palmach, the Haganah, and now the Israel Defense Forces represented a generation gap.
Many in the new military felt that the Old Man had reached his apex when he proclaimed Israel’s Declaration of Independence. He had alienated himself early on with the Young Turks of the Palmach and Haganah by putting more credence in political settlement than in arms. He clung to an ancient theory that no small country should go to war without the backing of a major power. Since this was not possible, he opted to work things out politically. He was usually at loggerheads with his officers, who wanted larger battle formations and more money for arms. The warriors had concluded that the new state would have to have a tough Jewish army to secure its boundaries.
The rift was personified by Yigal Allon, who had been declared the greatest Jewish general since Joshua and Joab in the Bible. Like Gideon Asch, Allon had been born in the Galilee, was an early kibbutznik, and as a young Palmach officer was dearly loved by his men. Allon had it all. He was the combination of mediator, planner, tough commander, educator, and, most of all, a completely honest and dedicated person. Like other leaders of the IDF, he knew his men better than most generals in most armies—anywhere. He had become the first commander of the Palmach, the first commander of division-sized formations, a father and builder of the new Army. He was only thirty years of age, but it was universally felt he was