O Jerusalem!

by Larry Collins

  CHAPTER 29:

  THE LAST SUPPER

  The material in this chapter is based almost exclusively on interviews with the individuals named therein whose experiences on the eve of Britain's departure from Palestine are recounted.

  CHAPTER 30:

  THE FIFTH DAY OF IYAR

  The description of the first day's fighting in Jerusalem and the Haganah's capture of Bevingrad is based on interviews with, on the Jewish side, Arieyeh Schurr, Yitzhak Levi, Avram Uzieli, Mordechai Faitelson, Shmuel Matot, Netanel Lorch and Murray Hellner; on the Arab side, with Bajhat Abou Gharbieh, Father Ibrahim Ayad, Mounir Abou Fadel, Anwar Khatib, Nassib Boulos, Raji Sayhoun and Emile Ghory. Eric Downton of the Daily Telegraph provided the story of the gallows tree.

  The description of the proclamation of the Jewish state is based on interviews with David Ben-Gurion and Mordechai Avida, who broadcast it for Kol Israel, contemporary newspaper accounts, notably Haaretz, and Ben-Gurion's diary entry for the day. Avraham Orenstein, Chaim (Vivian) Herzog, Avraham Banai and Jacob Ben-Ur were interviewed for the passage relating to the reaction to the proclamation.

  The account of the Arab Legion's last formation and King Abdullah's address is based on interviews with John Glubb, Abdullah Tell, Desmond Goldie and Hugh Blackenden.

  Sir Alan Cunningham's departure from Jerusalem was reconstructed during an interview with the last High Commissioner.

  CHAPTER 31:

  "THESE SHALL STAND."

  The quotes and declarations issued by the Arab radio at the beginning of the 1948 war are on file in the archives of the BBC. Azzam Pasha's declaration was made in an interview with the BBC May 15. The scene on the Semiramis roof was witnessed by Captains Michael Naylor Leyland and Derek Cooper of the Life Guards. Mohammed Rafat furnished the account of the departure of the Sixth Battalion; Captain Mahmoud Rousan, that of the passage of the Arab Legion's advance party into Palestine.

  Clark Clifford and Eliahu Elath contributed the account of U. S. recognition of the new state. The description of David Ben-Gurion's receiving the news, his speech and his tour of the bombed areas comes from an interview with Mr. Ben-Gurion and his diary entry for the day. The passage on Latrun is based on interviews with Yigal Yadin, Yitzhak Rabin, John Glubb, Haroun Ben-Jazzi and Fawzi el Kaujki as well as the official study of the battle by the Israeli Defense Force's Historical Section.

  The extent of Jewish looting of the captured Arab areas in Jerusalem and the apparent unwillingness or inability of the city's leadership to stop it was the subject of much criticism in 1948. The incidents described here are based on the accounts of eyewitnesses. Jon Kimche, a distinguished Zionist author, called the looting a "shame." The United States consul general, in a dispatch to the State Department May 18, noted: "Looting in the captured Arab areas has now been so widespread and has been regarded with such indifference by the authorities that it is difficult not to think that it is being officially tolerated."

  Joseph Linton, Chaim Weizmann's secretary, described his champagne toast to Israel's first President.

  CHAPTER 32:

  "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MONTH OF THE YEAR"

  The quotes from the news bulletin of Aladin Namari were taken from a copy of his original bulletins, a set of which was furnished the authors. The quotes on the following page are from Ben-Gurion's diary. Mohammed Rafat furnished the description of his first action. The account of the flight of the Soeurs Réparatrices is based on the detailed entries made at the time in the convent's diary, which were made available to the authors.

  All cables cited in the passage on the Old City are contained in the Shaltiel archives. In addition, interview material from Mordechai Pincus, Moshe Russnak and Father Ibrahim Ayad was included in the passage.

  An outline of the plan for the Jaffa Gate attack is contained in David Shaltiel's archives. It was severely criticized at the time by the Palmach's Yitzhak Rabin, Uzi Narciss and Yosef Tabenkin as being unrealistic. Sometime later, defending his plan before a board of fellow officers compiling a history of the war, Shaltiel said he rejected the Palmach's alternative plan because "I had an almost common border with the Old City which I didn't have near the Rockefeller Museum [where the Palmach proposed to attack]. I saw my first and primary target saving the Jews of the Old City . . . I didn't think the Jewish Quarter would hold out. I expected the appearance of a Legion force from the east in a matter of hours."

  CHAPTER 33:

  "GO SAVE JERUSALEM."

  The account of the interventions of Jerusalem's Arab leaders in Amman, the King's predawn visit to his Prime Minister's home and his subsequent decision to order Abdullah Tell to the city is contained in the memoirs of Hazza el Majali, then his private secretary, published in Amman in May 1960 in Arabic. Abdullah Tell, in an interview, contributed his version of the day's events. Copies of the King's cables were published in Glubb's book A Soldier with the Arabs. He himself expanded on his efforts to resist sending the Legion into Jerusalem in interviews at his home in England.

  A series of cables sent by Jerusalem Haganah headquarters to Tel Aviv, copies of which are in the Shaltiel archives, provide a graphic account of the progress and ultimate failure of the Jaffa Gate attack. A Palmach version of the attack, written by Uzi Narciss, is contained in the Palmach history Sefer ha-Palmach. Among those interviewed in preparing this account of the assault were, on the Jewish side, Netanel Lorch, Bobby Reisman, Aryeh Fishman, Ephraim Levi, Yitzhak Levi, Uzi Narciss, Eliyahu Sela, Uri Ben-Ari, David Elazar, Yosef Nevo, Avraham Bar-Yefet, Yigal Arnon and David Amiran; on the Arab side, Nimra Tannous, Abou Eid, Anwar Nusseibi, Mounir Abou Fadel, Peter Saleh, Kamal Irekat, Nadi Dai'es, Hafez Barakat, Daoud Husseini and Daoud Alami.

  CHAPTER 34:

  "A LAMENT FOR A GENERATION"

  Interviews with Abdullah Tell and Mahmoud Moussa, coupled with Tell's memoirs, provided material for the account of the Legion's entry into Jerusalem. Major Bob Slade, who described the Arab Legion assembly at Ramallah, still possesses Brigadier Lash's handwritten order for his movement to Jerusalem. The meeting between Glubb and Kirkbride was described by the two men in separate interviews.

  The account of the Palmach's breach of Zion Gate is based on interviews with, on the Jewish side, Yosef Atiyeh, Mordechai Gazit, Avraham Bar-Yefet, Benny Marshak, Eliyahu Sela, Shmuel Bazak, David Elazar, Mordechai Pincus and Moshe Russnak; on the Arab side, with Nawaf Jaber el Hamoud, Mahmoud Moussa and Abdul Karim Mussalam.

  For the details on the history of the Trappist Monastery of Latrun and the monks' life in 1948, we are indebted to R. P. Marcel Destailleur, abbot of Latrun, for access to the monastery's enormously detailed 1948 diary.

  CHAPTER 35:

  "YOSEF HAS SAVED JERUSALEM!"

  The account of the fighting near the Mandelbaum house is based almost entirely on interviews with those who participated in it. From the Haganah they include Yosef Nevo, Mishka Rabinovitch, Jacob and Sarah Ben-Ur, Carmi Charny, Bobby Reisman, Kalman Rosenblatt, Yitzhak Levi and Reuven Tamir. From the Arab Legion they include Majors Bob Slade and John Buchanan, Lieutenant Zaal Errhavel, Lieutenant Abdul Razzak Sherif and Sergeant Eit Matar.

  CHAPTER 36:

  "TAKE LATRUN."

  A carefully kept protocol of each of the almost daily meetings of Dov Joseph's Jerusalem Commission is on file in the Israel Prime Minister's Archives in Jerusalem. They are the source of Joseph's quotes on page 456 and numerous specific details such as the price of black-market water and the daily calorie ration on page 457.

  The account of the Haganah's and the Legion's joint efforts to rescue the three armored cars is based on interviews with Yosef Nevo, Jacob and Sarah Ben-Ur, Mishka Rabinovitch and Lieutenant Zaal Errhavel.

  The description of the Žatec air base and the flight of the Israeli Air Force's first Messerschmitt is based on interviews with Ehud Avriel, Mordechai Hod and Ezer Weizmann. The background to the struggle for Notre-Dame includes interviews with John Glubb and Netanel Lorch, and material from the archives of
the hospice, the diary of Dr. René Bauer and that of the Soeurs Réparatrices. The account of the meeting between Yigal Yadin and David Ben-Gurion is based on Mr. Ben-Gurion's diary and interviews with the two men.

  CHAPTER 37:

  TICKET TO A PROMISED LAND

  For the preliminaries on the battle of Latrun, see the notes for the following chapter. The account of the fighting for Notre-Dame de France was assembled from interviews with participants in the engagement: for the Haganah, Zelman Mart, Netanel Lorch and Mishka Rabinovitch; for the Arab Legion, Fendi Omeish, Zaal Errhavel, Eit Matar, Fawzi el Kutub and Sir John Glubb.

  CHAPTER 38:

  "EXECUTE YOUR TASK AT ALL COSTS."

  and

  CHAPTER 39:

  THE WHEATFIELDS OF LATRUN

  The three battles of Latrun, the first of which is described in these two chapters, constituted perhaps the most important and certainly the most controversial series of engagements of the first Arab-Israeli war. As a result, a great deal of literature is available to the researcher interested in the subject. The most important probably is a lengthy study of the battles compiled on the basis of interviews with Israel's senior commanders conducted by the Historical Section of the Israel Defense Forces. After the capture of the Latrun salient in the Six-Day War a series of studies on the 1948 Latrun struggle appeared in the Israeli press. The most important of them were: "Attack at all Costs," by Haim Laskov, Haaretz, April 30, 1968; "What Happened at Latrun?," by Uri Oren, Ma'ariv, June 7, 1968; "Thundering Silence," by the same author, in Yediot Achronot, June 14, 1968; and "Latrun: The History of a Battle," a seven-part series that ran in Ma'arachot in 1968. In addition there is available for Latrun an excellent and detailed account of the battles seen from the Arabic side based on the diary written at the time by Mahmoud Rousan, the adjutant of the Sixth Regiment. Called Harbe Bab el Wad (The Battles of Latrun), it was published in Amman in 1959.

  Since most of the men the authors interviewed to compile this account of the fighting at Latrun participated in more than one of the battles, we are, to avoid repetition, listing them all here. They were, for the Haganah, Yaacov Freed, Matti Megid, Benny Marshak, Moshe Klein, Pnina Schneman, Haim Laskov, Shlomo Shamir, Zvi Hurewitz, Chaim (Vivian) Herzog, Zvi German, David Ben-Gurion, Yigal Yadin, Shimon Avidan, Iska Shadmi, Moshe Kellman, Carmi Charny, Uri Zantbank, Hadassah Sussman and David Levinson; for the Arab Legion, Captain Mahmoud Rousan, Colonel Habes Majali, Lieutenant Mahmoud May'tah, Lieutenant Qassem Ayad, Captain Abdullah Salem, Captain Izzat Hassan, Dr. Yacoub Abu Gosh, Lieutenant Abdullah Shwei'ir, Lieutenant Mohammed Na'em, Sergeant Youssef Jeries, Lieutenant Nasr Ahmed and Lieutenant Nigel Brommage.

  CHAPTER 40:

  ". . . . REMEMBER ME ONLY IN HAPPINESS."

  Two important accounts of the Jewish Quarter's struggle and fall have been published in Israel and constitute basic reference works on the subject: Megillat Heir Haatika (Notes on the Scroll of the Old City) by Adina Maarechot, and Yerushalayim Haatika Bematzor Be-Bakron (Old Jerusalem in Siege and Battle) by Aharon Liron. All cables between the New and Old Cities quoted here were located in David Shaltiel's archives. We are indebted to Mrs. Moshe Cailingold for the text of her daughter's last letter. Among interviews used in preparing this account of the Jewish Quarter's fall were, on the Jewish side, Mordechai Pincus, Yehuda Choresh, Avraham Orenstein, Rivka and Masha Weingarten, Uri Ben-Ari, Moshe Russnak, Rabbi Shar Yeshuv Cohen, Chaim Haller, Yosef Atiyeh, and Yechiel and Leah Vultz; and, on the Arab side, Nadi Dai'es, Abdullah Tell, Samir Souki, Nassib Boulos, Mahmoud Moussa, Fawzi el Kutub and Antoine Albina.

  CHAPTER 41:

  "GOOD NIGHT AND GOODBYE FROM JERUSALEM."

  The cable exchanges between Dov Joseph and David Ben-Gurion quoted in this chapter and in chapters 43 and 44 are on file in the Israel Prime Minister's Archives, Military Governor File No. 42. Shaltiel's message to his troops on the food situation is contained in an order of the day for June 2, 1948. The passage on the Arab shelling of the city is based on interviews with Abdullah Tell and Emile Jumean and the daily summaries of shelling by the enemy in Shaltiel's archives. Material for the description of Jerusalem life under siege was taken from interviews with Dov Joseph, Dr. Edward Joseph, Eliyahu Sochaczever, Mr. and Mrs. David Erlik, Mrs. Joseph Rivlin, Aaron Elner, Eliyahu Carmel and Amos Elon. Interviews with Sir John Glubb, Hugh Blackenden, Sir Alec Kirkbride and Sir Harold Beeley contributed to the description of Britain's change of policy.

  CHAPTER 42:

  "WE'LL OPEN A NEW ROAD."

  For the second battle of Latrun, see the notes to chapters 38 and 39. The discovery of what was to become known as the Burma Road was described to the authors by the two survivors of the trio who made it, Amos Chorev and Chaim (Vivian) Herzog. Chorev kindly agreed to retrace with us his footsteps over the road twenty years after its discovery. Interviews with Yitzhak Levi and David Ben-Gurion were used in the closing passages of the chapter.

  CHAPTER 43:

  "THE ARAB PEOPLE WILL NEVER FORGIVE US."

  As in the previous chapters, cables between Dov Joseph and David Ben-Gurion quoted herein are on file in the Israel Prime Minister's Archives, Military Governor File No. 42. Statistics on food supplies remaining in the city or on its rations are contained either in the same file or in the files kept at the time by Arieh Belkind, one of Dov Joseph's food aides. In addition, in the passages in this chapter describing Jerusalem's desperate situation, material was used from interviews with Dov Joseph, Avraham Picker, Arieh Belkind, Reuven Tamir, Leon Angel, Netanel Lorch and Shalom Dror. The odyssey of Brother Francois Haas and his pigs is recounted in the diary of Notre-Dame de France.

  The account of the Arab League's debates in Amman is based on interviews with Azzam Pasha and his secretary Wahid el Dali and the minutes of the meeting itself.

  The description of the decision to send men on foot across the hills to Jerusalem and the struggle of the Tel Aviv porters to get food to the city is based on interviews with Bronislav Bar-Shemer, Joseph Avidar, David Ben-Gurion, Pinhas Bracker, Chaim (Vivian) Herzog and Amos Chorev. The account of the Arab Legion's reaction to the Jews' road building comes from Mahmoud Rousan's diary and Abdullah Tell's unpublished memoirs as well as from interviews with Rousan, Tell, Habes Majali and Ali Abou Nuwar.

  CHAPTER 44:

  A TOAST TO THE LIVING

  For the third battle of Latrun, see the notes to chapters 38 and 39. The description of Jewish Jerusalem's plight on the eve of the cease-fire is based on Arieh Belkind's and Dov Joseph's files. The statistics on the amount of flour left in the city were taken from Belkind's copy of the chart listing the food reserves. In addition, material from interviews with Joseph, Belkind, Alexander Singer, Avraham Picker, Dan Ben-Dor and Zvi Leibowitz was used. According to the records of Joseph's committee, 2,000 Jewish Jerusalemites—two percent of the city's Jewish population—were killed or wounded by shellfire during the siege.

  The story of the Arab Legion's shell on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was furnished the authors by the man who fired it, Emile Jumean.

  The account of Marcus' death comes from the inquiry into its causes conducted by the Haganah. There was a suspicion at the time, rejected by the inquiry, that he might have been killed deliberately by the Palmach, which resented his and Ben-Gurion's efforts to bring its forces under tighter discipline and convert the Haganah into a regular army. The account of King Abdullah's visit to Jerusalem and the cease-fire seen from the Arab side was prepared on the basis of interviews with Abou Said Abou Reech, Emile Ghory and Abdullah Tell. David Ben-Gurion's appraisal of the Arabs' acceptance of the cease-fire as a "mistake" appeared in an interview with Uri Oren in Yediot Achronot June 24, 1948.

  CHAPTER 45:

  THE THIRTY-DAY PAUSE

  The statistics on the quantity of arms and ammunition which reached Jerusalem via the Burma Road during the thirty-day cease-fire were taken from the Shaltiel archives. The quantities and nature of the foodstuffs sent to the city were taken from Dav
id Ben-Gurion's diaries, where the Israeli Prime Minister recorded them meticulously each day. The statistics on the amount of arms reaching Israel during the cease-fire and the purchases made in Czechoslovakia were taken from Mr. Ben-Gurion's diaries and from the files of Ehud Avriel. The quotes attributed to Mr. Ben-Gurion in his meetings with the Haganah's commanders and his Cabinet were taken from parts of his speeches as entered in his diary at the time. His mixed emotions at accepting Bernadotte's plea for a prolongation of the cease-fire were described to the authors in an interview.

  The accounts of the Arab League's rejection of the cease-fire were taken from the minutes of the League's meetings. The description of the Arabs' difficulties in replenishing their arms stores and of Britain's position includes materials from interviews with Sir John Glubb, Sir Harold Beeley and Desmond Young.

  CHAPTER 46:

  THE FLAWED TRUMPET

  The bombing of Cairo is recounted in detail in Strictly Illegal, by Munya Mardor. Yehuda Brieger, a crew member of the B-17, was interviewed by the authors. The description of the Arab League's Aley meetings is based on the minutes of the meeting and interviews with Azzam Pasha and Wahid el Dali.

  The account of the final assault on the Old City walls by the Haganah is based on interviews with Zvi Sinai, David Amiran, Yeshurun Schiff, Mishka Rabinovitch, Avram Uzieli, Menachem Adler, Avram Zorea, Shmuel Matot, Abdullah Tell and Mahmoud Moussa. Copies of the proclamation of martial law, Shaltiel's speech to announce the Old City's capture and other documents prepared for its occupation are contained in the Jerusalem commander's files.

  * Twenty years later, after the Six-Day War, ruling a territory three times the size of that allocated her in the partition plan, the state of Israel would actually have frontiers half as long as those accorded her in 1947.