Leon Uris (30 page)

Stung by the defeat and aware of the necessity of a fast win, Kaukji and his officers opted for what they felt to be the softest target in the Galilee. He moved up into the Golan Heights under the cover of Syria, then came down where the Yarmuk River connected to the Jordan below the Sea of Galilee. Fifty miles south of his initial target, they reached the outer fields of Tirat Tsvi, the ‘Castle of the Rabbi Tsvi.’ The kibbutz was totally isolated on a dead-end road. Its members were Orthodox Jews who numbered but a hundred and sixty men and women of fighting capability. Aside from their rifles, the kibbutz had a single two-inch mortar. Reinforcements were not likely and the kibbutz could be easily ambushed.

Kaukji pitched his command tent on a hillside above the kibbutz and, as he examined it through field glasses, he bemoaned the fact that he had not picked it as his first target. It was a delicious pomegranate, ready for the plucking.

Once again eagerness overcame the Arab Irregulars. Under pressure to avenge his first embarrassment, Kaukji massed his thousand troops to come at the kibbutz in a frontal assault of three waves.

The defense of all the kibbutzim was on a general plan. The settlements were circular in shape, with the children’s nursery and school in the middle, along with the shelters. Beyond the outer buildings ran a line of trenches and barbed wire. This was much like the covered wagons of the American prairies which closed in a circle against Indian attack. The fields of Tirat Tsvi and most of the other kibbutzim were ceded to the enemy because there weren’t enough people to defend these outer perimeters.

A couple of prudent officers argued with Kaukji that they should send out patrols to probe and to generally soften up the kibbutz with mortars and artillery, then advance beneath a covering curtain of machine gun fire. If they were pinned down, reinforcements could then go into flanking movements. It sounded too complex and slow. The generalissimo was frothing for a victory.

At dawn his Irregulars were summoned to charge with bugle calls and bloodcurdling battle cries. They stormed over open, newly plowed fields. Within moments, any semblance of an organized attack disappeared. Officers, trying to control the movement of their men, ranted at them to no avail. Then the sky opened up, sending down a torrent. The field turned into a quagmire.

The Orthodox Jews of Tirat Tsvi remained extraordinarily disciplined and held their fire. What managed to reach their perimeter was a rain-soaked, muddy mob. The Arabs were cut down coldly as they hit the barbed wire. The second wave was dispirited and the third wave quit before it was halfway across the battleground.

From his hillside command post, Kaukji looked on in horror. He and his officers tried to rally their forces for a new assault but it was puny. The men had had enough.

Kaukji moved his troops into Palestine to the all-Arab city of Nablus, which had been the site of ancient Shechem of biblical distinction. The British in the area closed their eyes to the presence of the Irregulars.

COMMUNIQUÉ #14, ARAB ARMY OF LIBERATION, JANUARY 25, 1948

Praise Allah, the compassionate, the merciful. As its final training exercise under combat conditions, small units practiced in the area of Tirat Tsvi Kibbutz. It was necessary to engage in these war games to familiarize our troops with their weapons and our tactics. The exercise was an unparalleled success. We toyed around with the kibbutz for several hours, probing and using various maneuvers which we will employ in future combat. I declare the Arab Army of Liberation now ready to crush many Jewish settlements. Victory over the Zionist dogs is at hand.

F. Kaukji, Field Marshal,

Arab Army of Liberation

Just about the same time, Abdul Kadar Heusseini’s Army of the Jihad went into its initial action. The target was a surprise to no one. The Etzion Bloc lay in all-Arab territory in the jagged hills and valleys of Judea, halfway between Bethlehem and Hebron.

Abdul Kadar did not attack but held back and pumped fire into the settlements. His aim was siege: to starve them and force them out of ammunition. This could be accomplished because of a British promise of nonintervention and because the mountain road to the Bloc was easily ambushed.

The Palmach, already stretched to breaking, managed to spare three dozen men, who worked their way into the Bloc under cover of darkness. With their arrival, Jewish resistance stiffened. As the siege continued, supplies ran perilously low. It became incumbent upon the command in Jerusalem to either give up the Bloc or try to get a convoy of supplies through to them.

The convoy was formed. As soon as it left Jerusalem, it was in ‘Apache’ territory, with every house in every village a potential gun post and every turn in the tortuous mountain terrain a potential ambush point. The convoy reached the Bloc, but was trapped on its return trip. All forty men and their armor-plated trucks were destroyed.

Abdul Kadar then probed the perimeters of the Bloc and came to the realization that any final attack would have to end in a bayonet-tipped, hand-to-hand fight. With his own men growing bored and wary, he withdrew.

Both Abdul Kadar and Kaukji had failed in their initial thrusts. But the Jews were taking casualties, losses they could not sustain with their meager reserves. In Jerusalem it had become the day of the bomber. British soldier-deserters, thinly disguised as Arabs, assisted in a number of terrible bombings. One car bomb destroyed the Jewish Agency Headquarters, while another bomb got the Palestine
Post
. A third bomb was planted in the heart of the Jewish business district and went off without warning in a crowded midday explosion, taking an awful toll of civilians.

Retaliations by the Irgun and the Haganah destroyed Arab headquarters in both Jaffa and Jerusalem.

It was a time of the boom, the bouncing earth, shattering glass and flying debris, of screams and blood and sirens. Of people being dismembered and packed into bags.

When the British withdrew from their Tegart fort in the Arab city of Nazareth, Kaukji moved in and claimed it as his headquarters. The town was largely populated by Christian Arabs who had decided not to get involved in the fighting on either side. Unable to recruit or get cooperation, he turned his men loose on a spree of looting and intimidation. Many of Nazareth’s churches were broken into and sacred relics were carted off. The Christian Arabs taunted him to return to battle and get out of their city.

Across the border, Kaukji had serious problems as well. His original backers, consisting of financiers, Arab organizations, and governments, were losing their enthusiasm.

As he became frantic for a victory, he knew it would have to be a major one. This time he selected an objective of vital strategic value to silence his critics. Kibbutz Mishmar haEmek, ‘Guard Post of the Valley,’ dominated the Haifa-Jerusalem highway. Its capture could effectively cut the Yishuv in half.

The kibbutz was manned by a small Haganah unit and, in addition to its rifles, owned a single light machine gun and a single mortar.

Kaukji moved cautiously onto the high ground around Mishmar haEmek with two battalions of troops numbering around twelve hundred men. This time he introduced a new dimension, a dozen field guns. They pounded away and, although their gunners were not accurate, the kibbutz was taking heavy damage and the shell fire was demoralizing. He sent out infantry probes in cautious, disciplined squads. The kibbutz pushed each patrol back. Kaukji then ringed the place and threw hundreds of rounds of artillery into it throughout the night.

By the following morning, the British were compelled to act. They arrived at the kibbutz under a flag of truce and offered to evacuate the wounded, women, and children and negotiate a surrender. The children were taken out, but all the adults remained.

During a second night of barrage, a battalion of the Haganah, which had been training in the area, slipped into the kibbutz. This was followed by the First Palmach Battalion, which had force-marched all night and arrived just before daybreak.

The artillery became quiet with daylight, but the Arabs moved in stealthily from several directions. As they reached the perimeters and regrouped for an assault, they themselves were assaulted.

For the first time, Jews in battalion strength were loaded and ready. They poured out of the kibbutz and stormed at an enemy who was taken by complete surprise. The Arab Army of Liberation plunged into headlong retreat with the Haganah and the Palmach on their heels, not permitting them to break off the action. Kaukji desperately attempted a truce, but there was none to be had. The Irregulars were in full flight. The Jews did not stop chasing them until they reached Megiddo, five miles away. There the Haganah and the Palmach regrouped quickly at the archaeological tel that was the mythical site of the New Testament Armageddon. Beyond Megiddo was a defile called the Wadi Ara, a passageway for invading armies from time immemorial. As the Jews pressed the attack again, Kaukji’s Battalions of the Yarmuk vanished.

COMMUNIQUÉ #56, ARAB ARMY OF LIBERATION, APRIL 14, 1948

Praise Allah, the compassionate, the merciful. This is a day of infamy. Our forces had reduced Mishmar haEmek to rubble. As we made our final assault, we were to learn of an utmost treachery. During the night, British units in regimental strength slipped into the kibbutz disguised as the Haganah. As we reached their outer defenses, artillery fire from over a hundred cannons hurled thousands of shells into our ranks. Eighty hidden tanks, with their British markings painted over, advanced on us. Our courageous warriors stopped the infidels in their tracks, only to be further assaulted by British fighter aircraft and bombers. Outnumbered and outgunned by vast margins, we had no choice but to make an orderly retreat. It was learned by my intelligence that the Zionists had paid a hundred thousand pounds to the British for their participation. Fear not, my brothers, we shall never forget and we shall have our vengeance. One cannot speak too highly of the bravery and dedication of the soldiers of the Arab Army of Liberation who now rest in safety. We shall return in greater numbers and victory will not be far behind.

F. Kaukji, Field Marshal,

Arab Army of Liberation

From this point on, Kaukji sent back bitter communiqués to the Arab capitals, complaining of the lack of support, complaining of massive desertions as his militia dwindled, complaining about the lack of finances to meet his payroll. He limped into the Bab el Wad, where his remnants hooked up with Abdul Kadar’s Jihad Militia. Here, at last, he hoped to be able to find some success against Jewish convoys to Jerusalem.

As the British withdrew from location after location, one side or the other gobbled up their police forts. The Yishuv received their first load of arms from Czechoslovakia at a secret airstrip in the Negev Desert. The coastal blockade loosened and a Polish ship got through to the Jewish port of Tel Aviv with heavier weapons. These were quickly distributed to reserve units, which had been training with sticks for rifles and rocks substituting for grenades.

With the new weapons, the Haganah was able to move decisively in the cities with mixed populations, witnessing a strange collapse of Arab resolve and a panic devouring the Arab populations.

Haifa:
The major port city of Palestine, Haifa rose from the Mediterranean up Mount Carmel, offering a San Francisco-like vista from the high hills. The Arab town was clustered around the port, with the Jewish town on the upper slopes of Carmel.

Because it was the country’s major supply depot, fighting and road sniping had been going on incessantly among all three sides. The Arabs were well organized and armed. The Jews had a unit of Haganah under the command of Moshe Carmel that came to be known as the Carmeli Brigade.

An Irgun bomb exploded in the Arab Quarter of the city, which led to an Arab riot at the nearby oil refinery in which forty Jews were massacred. The battle lines were drawn as outrage and counter-outrage ensued until any hope for a peaceful solution vanished.

The Arabs packed their section of the city with Irregulars and mercenaries, as well as units of their home militia, giving them a decided numerical superiority.

But the Carmeli Brigade was on the high ground. As the British began their withdrawal, the Haganah struck in Operation Siccors. After an all-night attack on the Arab quarter, the Arabs were split into four parts and the fight was out of them. The British stepped in and arranged a truce.

Carmel met with the Arab mayor and set out his demands. He required the Arabs to lay down their arms and turn over all non-Palestinians and foreign mercenaries. No demand was made for the Arabs to evacuate their civilian population.

Asking for time to consider the terms, the mayor rushed to confer with Kaukji’s top officer in Haifa.

That officer assured the mayor that Kaukji was about to open an offensive from Nablus to Haifa. He urged the mayor and other Arab civic officials to take the Arab population out of the city so they would not be caught’ in the middle of a major confrontation. As soon as the Jews were driven out, the Arabs could return and take over the Jewish part of Haifa as well.

For the most part, the Arabs and Jews of Haifa had gotten along well. There was a great deal of commerce between them and a smattering of neighborly relationships. A delegation of Haifa’s Jewish leaders met with the Arab leadership and tried to persuade them to remain, citing Ben-Gurion’s policy.

The Arabs chose to evacuate. The British continued the truce and in the next five days nearly a hundred thousand Arabs took to the roads and headed for Acre. A few thousand chose to remain and they were left unharmed.

The Arab population of Haifa ran without cause. Fears of annihilation were merely echoes and reflections of their own designs. They and their leaders had promised death to the Jews. The Arabs were consumed with fear that the Jews would do to them what they planned to do to the Jews. Their terror was played upon by their own leaders, who urged them to flee in order to clear the way for their armies. The Haifa exodus was repeated in Safed and Tiberias, where Arab populations bolted after short battles.