The Haj - Leon Uris [43]
‘I am not for the Germans just because of how they are treating the Jews,’ Haj Ibrahim said, ‘but I am not for the Jews. There are no Arab leaders left in Palestine and I don’t trust the ones over the border.’
‘That covers just about everyone.’
‘Why is it that the only men we follow are the ones who hold a knife to our throats?’ Ibrahim cried suddenly. ‘We learn we must submit. That is what the Koran tells us. Submit! Submit! But the men we submit to never carry out the Prophet’s will, only their own. When you return, what of us, Gideon? We have not really had our war with each other yet. It must happen. You will keep bringing Jews into Palestine and we will protest.’
‘You are very upset!’
‘These things are always in my head! I don’t want the Syrians to come here! I don’t want the Egyptians! I am now being left alone with these thoughts. The Jews are clever. You are sending thousands of your boys into the British Army to be trained as soldiers.’
‘I don’t think they’ll rush us into combat units unless they become desperate.’
‘But you will be prepared when the war comes between us. You have built a government within a government, and us? We will get the blessings of another Grand Mufti or another Kaukji or another king like that degenerate in Egypt. Why does Allah send us these men? I am sorry, Gideon. My thoughts go one way, then the other way. Whatever ... whatever, I don’t want anything to happen to you.’
Gideon slapped the arms of the oversized chair, then pulled himself out. ‘Someone asked me once, do you have friends among the Arabs. I told them that I didn’t really know. I believe I have a friend. It’s a start, isn’t it? You’ve trusted me, haven’t you?’
‘You are the only one I trust from either your people or mine.’
‘Perhaps if we Jews weren’t overburdened all our lives with the fear of perishing ... It dominates us! Always afraid of perishing. I’m fifty-three, Ibrahim. I’ve carried a gun since I was fourteen. Is it fair to know every minute of your life that forces out there want you dead and won’t end it until you’re dead ... and no one hears your cry. ... So I go to war because the Germans want us dead even more than you do.’
‘Come,’ Haj Ibrahim said. ‘We’ll walk down to the highway.’
14
1940
THE FOCAL POINT OF village social life for the men was the radio in Tabah’s café. With the world marching steadily and inevitably toward a second global conflagration, the radio took on an even greater imperative.
For Arabs these days it was pleasurable to enjoy a measure of vengeance. The governments of France and Britain, their arrogant overlords, had been struck politically timid and fearful. An emboldened Hitler seized Austria and then turned democratic Spain into a testing ground for his new arsenal of frightening weaponry while the democracies turned blind eyes and deaf ears.
In a conference at Munich the Arabs saw a pair of quivering and morally bankrupt democracies hand over the life of yet another free nation, Czechoslovakia. A few months after the sellout in Munich, Germany sealed her intentions by forming an alliance with Fascist Italy and together they poised to devour Western civilization. All of it brought joy after joy to Tabah.
‘Have you heard, Haj Ibrahim! It is war!’
Haj Ibrahim could detect the first shifts of attitude among his people, who were awed as the German panzers mangled Poland in a matter of a few weeks.
It was Haj Ibrahim’s position to give wise counsel and remain steady and not get caught up in the volatility of the villagers. He was the sure hand in a line of sure-handed men who had controlled the destinies of their village. Conquerors came and went and one got along with them. It was the endless struggle against nature that was more important, for that always remained.
Yet even Haj Ibrahim could not help but be sucked into the fever as Germany rolled up one incredible victory after another in the first half of 1940. A euphoria swept over Arab Palestine. Haj Ibrahim sent his brother, Farouk, all the way to Jerusalem to purchase maps of Europe and the Middle East and the