Eshkol’s purpose was to tell the country that the government, though ready to repel Arab aggression, was working with the United States to resolve the crisis peaceably. He was desperately short on sleep, had a nagging chest cold and an artificial lens in one eye—the result of recent cataract surgery—that kept shifting. Compounding his physical state was the condition of the script that he received only upon entering the studio, finding it crisscrossed with corrections and last-minute additions, which he now had to deliver live. The outcome was a stuttering, rambling, barely intelligible reading that listeners interpreted as a sign of exhaustion and panic. It was not only Eshkol’s delivery that confounded Israelis, but also the news that Israel had placed its fate in the hands of another country rather than rely on its own resources. “It’s amazing how a people who suffered a Holocaust is willing to believe and endanger itself once again,” wrote Ze’ev Schiff, columnist for the daily Ha’aretz. Soldiers huddled around transistors in the Negev were said to have burst into tears.11
For Eshkol, though, the evening’s disasters were hardly concluded. Awaiting him in the Pit were generals waiting to hear the results of the Cabinet’s deliberations. Ever since the closure of the Straits, IDF intelligence had been predicting a surprise Egyptian attack on Dimona and Israeli airfields, an onslaught of missiles, poison gas, and even primitive radioactive devices. Syria was certain to join in the assault, and probably Jordan. The Americans would not intervene, the IDF believed, nor were they serious about Regatta. Consequently, the army revived and adapted a number of contingency plans to eliminate the Egyptian army and to seize the initiative on other fronts as well. Only needed was the government’s go-ahead, but instead Israeli forces were placed on indefinite hold. In the Negev, a chaos ensued mirroring that in Sinai. “Units…were moving here and there crossing each other’s paths and taking up positions, only to move back from them a day later and take up different ones,” recalled Gen. Ariel “Arik” Sharon, the former paratroop officer who was now a divisional commander in the south. “The army did not look as if it knew what it was doing.”
Relief from that confusion was expected to come with Eban’s return to Israel and the government’s decision to act. Now, unable to bring himself to tell the generals that this was not the case, Rabin asked Eshkol to do it.
Escorted by Allon, Eshkol entered the Pit and, without an introduction, addressed his senior officers. He reviewed the events of the past few days—the letters from Johnson and Kosygin, the plan for a maritime convoy. “It is not politically, diplomatically and perhaps even morally logical to start a war,” he said. “We now have to restrain ourselves and to maintain our forces for a week or two or even longer.” He expressed confidence in Washington’s commitment to reopen the Straits, urged the generals to think in terms of the loss of equipment, of foreign aid, and of human lives that Israel would suffer in war. “I understand you commanders are disappointed, but maturity mandates that we stand up to this test.” Even if the Egyptian army were totally destroyed, he ended, it would only arise anew. “In fifteen years perhaps another generation of Arabs will come and kiss us, but not now.”
The commanders listened, and then they lunged. “In two weeks the Straits will still be closed and we will be in a worse situation,” began Yeshayahu “Shaike” Gavish, chief of the Southern Command. “More of our men will die.” His counterpart on the Central Front, Uzi Narkiss, concurred. “The problem lies not with us but with the younger generation that will never understand why the IDF didn’t attack.” The threat of Russian intervention was a bluff, he said, and as for the Arab forces, “They’re soap bubbles—one pin will burst them.” Divisional commander Avraham Yoffe weighed in with “Egypt with the help of the USSR, has created an army whose single purpose is the destruction of Israel. The IDF was created to defend the state, but the government is not letting the army carry out its mission—a mission that the people want.”
The fusillade continued. Deputy Operations Chief Rehavam Ze’evi (dark and skinny, popularly known as “Ghandi”), later in life to become a leader of Israel’s extreme right, and Quartermaster Gen. Mattityahu Peled, later head of the far left, agreed that the Egyptian threat had to be eliminated at once if Israel were to survive. “Israel cannot expect anybody else to do its dirty work,” declared Gen. Yariv, “We, alone, can break the stranglehold tightening around us.” But the most compelling remarks were delivered by Sharon:
Today we have removed with our own hand our most powerful weapon—the enemy’s fear of us. We have the power to destroy the Egyptian army, but if we give in on the free passage issue, we have opened the door to Israel’s destruction. We will have to pay a far higher price in the future for something that we in any case had to do now…The people of Israel are ready to wage a just war, to fight, and to pay the price. The question isn’t free passage but the existence of the people of Israel.
Eshkol did his best to deflect these barbs. The IDF was not established to conduct wars of choice, he asserted, and its ability to make war could not be justification for waging one. The mere presence of the Egyptian army in Sinai was not grounds for launching a preemptive attack. “Deterrence means having patience,” he said, “endurance.” These arguments had no impact on the generals, though, whose contumely might have continued if not for Allon, who finally stepped in and ended the discussion. Neither he nor Rabin had defended their prime minister. Hurt and enfeebled, Eshkol fled the Pit.
“It was a real putsch,” recalled Miriam Eshkol. “Everyone was worried and nobody cared about democratic processes.” The split in the Israeli self-image between invincibility and weakness had come to the fore, bitterly dividing Israel’s leadership. Rafael Eitan, a commander in the paratroopers, explained that “the honor of the army of Israel had been sullied and trampled, and the generals who led that army, who had made it their life’s work, could no longer contain their wrath.” Yet, however angry, those generals made no serious attempt to oust Eshkol, never threatened the rule of law. Rather, after the prime minister exited, they remained in the Pit discussing ways to lift the soldiers’ morale, including the release of 30,000 reservists.12
The public, however, was not so forgiving. The papers the next day were brimming with reports of Eshkol’s fumbled speech and its rueful impact. Ha’aretz claimed that “the government in its present composition cannot lead the nation in its time of danger,” and called on Eshkol to step down in favor of Ben-Gurion and Dayan, and to focus exclusively on “civilian matters.” A paid advertisement from the Citizens for Eshkol, formed during the 1965 elections, advocated the creation of a national unity government composed of all the mainstream parties. “It seemed to us that Eshkol’s hesitation about attacking derived from weakness, not wisdom,” Teddy Kollek, the mayor of West Jerusalem, wrote, dismissing as “nonsense” the notion of an international convoy. “Even after the American or British ships would have gone through, the Straits could have been closed again.”13
The activity behind the scenes was no less feverish. “As long as Eshkol’s in office we will plummet into the abyss,” Ben-Gurion inscribed in his diary. And yet Menachem Begin, his old political rival, had persuaded him to return as head of a special War Cabinet with Eshkol as his deputy. Eshkol rejected the idea, quipping, “These two horses cannot be hitched to the same wagon.” Whereupon Golda Meir met with Begin and the Rafi party’s Shimon Peres and proposed that Dayan take on the newly created post of deputy prime minister for defense matters. Dayan refused to even consider the offer, however, and insisted on receiving the defense portfolio. Once he had it, he added, he would not merely sit in his office but would personally direct the war.
Without lobbying, cleverly letting other politicians argue his case, Dayan had surpassed Yigal Allon as the preferred candidate for defense minister. The former chief of staff, always a hero in the public’s eye, popular particularly among Israeli women, was cheered wherever he went. The timely publication of his Diary of the Sinai Campaign, extolling his achievement of “freedom
of shipping…in the Gulf of Aqaba; the end to the Fedayeen, and a neutralization of…the joint Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian military command,” further enhanced his prestige. To neutralize Dayan, Eshkol began floating the notion of enlisting him into active service. Rabin was willing to offer him the chief of staff position, but Dayan declined. He wanted only one post: head of the Southern Command.14
As public and political turmoil mounted, upheaval struck the army as well. Hoping to relieve some of the burdens from his shoulders, Rabin recruited Gen. Haim Bar-Lev as his deputy. Sarajevo-born, Columbia-educated, Bar-Lev had risen from the ranks to command infantry and armored units in 1948 and 1956, and was studying tactics in France when the call from Rabin arrived. The appointment, a popular one in the general staff, infuriated Weizman who saw himself, and not Bar-Lev, as Rabin’s successor. “My status was undermined,” his memoirs relate. “To them [Rabin, Eshkol] I was a wild man…who claimed that we have the right to Hebron and Nablus and all of Jerusalem, and that we must implement that right by force of arms…a ‘national desperado.’”
Now, in the throes of national trauma, Weizman threatened to resign. He stomped into the prime minister’s office, interrupted a lunch with Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir, and bellowed, “The State is being destroyed, Eshkol. Why waste your time with Moshe Dayan? Who needs Yigal Allon? Give the order and we will win…and you’ll be the prime minister of victory!” He then tore the insignia off his epaulette, purportedly cast it on Eshkol’s desk, and stormed out again.
For the mass of Israelis not involved in these power plays, however, the ordeal was all-consuming. Throughout the country, thousands were hurrying to dig trenches, build shelters, and fill sandbags. In Jerusalem, in particular, schools were refitted as bomb shelters, and air raid drills were practiced daily. Most buses and virtually all taxis were mobilized, and an emergency blood drive launched. An urgent request for surgeons—“in view of the tough conditions they must be physically fit and experienced”—was submitted to the Red Cross, and extra units of plasma ordered from abroad. Special committees were placed in charge of gathering essential foodstuffs, for replacing workers called to the front, and for evacuating children to Europe. Upward of 14,000 hospital beds were readied and antidotes stockpiled for poison gas victims, expected to arrive in waves of 200. Some 10,000 graves were dug.15
The sole bright spot in these otherwise morbid preparations was the unprecedented outpouring of sympathy from around the Jewish world. Volunteers arrived in numbers greater than Israel could absorb—preference was given to young, skilled, Jewish bachelors—and donations exceeded all forecasts. Mass demonstrations were held in New York and London, and emergency fund drives launched globally. “For the first time in history, European Jewry is acting as one for Israel. All moral, political, and economic support is being mobilized,” French Jewish leader Edmund de Rothschild wrote Sapir. From Paris, Israeli ambassador Walter Eytan reported on a “total revolution,” with French Jews willing to give blood, house evacuated children, even sell their artworks to raise money for Israel. Contributions poured in from non-Jews as well. Particularly welcome were some 20,000 American gas masks, supplied, ironically, by Germany.16
Yet these gestures did little to relieve the sense of approaching catastrophe, of the Jews’ abandonment to yet another Holocaust. “What are you waiting for?” Hanna Zemer, deputy editor of the daily Davar, accosted Eskhol. He retorted with a description of Israel’s international isolation, of the massive casualties it would suffer. “Blut vet sich giessen vie vasser,” he concluded in Yiddish: “Blood will run like water.” Rabin wrote later of the mood: “The days dragged on with their burden of nerve-racking meetings and consultations…Time and time again, we assessed the situation, foresaw options, stationed units, formulated plans—while our political leaders remained captive to their illusory hopes that war might be averted.” There was talk of the widespread bombing of Israeli cities, of an entire generation of soldiers being wiped out. A popular joke told of a sign hung at Lod International Airport, exhorting the last person out of the country to kindly turn off the light.17
The apocalypse appeared to have arrived when, for the first time, fire was exchanged on the Sinai border. An Egyptian patrol, entering Israeli territory near Kibbutz Be’eri southeast of Gaza, was ambushed by Israeli paratroopers. Egyptian artillery shells then rained on Be’eri and nearby Nahal Oz, setting crops ablaze. Though the paratroopers were pinned down for hours, Gen. Israel Tal, the local divisional commander, hesitated to send in reinforcements. The slightest escalation, he knew, could set off a war. The incident passed, however, only to be overshadowed by another, as Egyptian MiG’s again penetrated Israeli airspace and reconnoitered IDF positions. The Arabs were getting restless, gaining confidence, military analysts concluded. “Colonel Nasser has created a position in which there is a danger of war,” Eshkol told the Knesset on May 29. “A conflagration is liable to break out.”18
Never had conflagration appeared closer, though, as when Hussein journeyed to Cairo. “All of the Arab armies now surround Israel,” the king declared upon his return, “The UAR, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, and Kuwait…There is no difference between one Arab people and another, no difference between one Arab army and another.” Gen. Khammash had flown to Baghdad to request four Iraqi brigades, plus eighteen fighter aircraft to join Jordan’s twenty-four Hawker Hunters. Together with Jordan’s eleven brigades—56,000 men, 270 modern tanks, Centurions and Pattons—these forces would threaten Israel at its narrowest point, nine miles between the West Bank and the sea. On the Golan Heights, some 50,000 Syrian soldiers with 260 tanks and as many field guns were now in position, and were soon to be reinforced by Iraqi tanks as well. All these armies were now coordinated with Egypt’s 130,000 men, 900 tanks, and 1,100 guns for what Nasser called “the operation that will surprise the world.”19
The signing of the Egyptian-Jordanian treaty all but erased Eshkol’s hope for retaining the Defense Ministry. In a last, desperate effort, he acted on Dayan’s request for the Southern Command. Rabin summoned Gavish to the Pit and there informed him of the decision, offering him the position of deputy commander.
Gavish, sinewy and rugged, had recovered from a severe leg wound suffered in 1948 to serve as an operation chief in 1956, and was now, at forty-two, a full general. Indefatigably, over the past two weeks he had labored to prepare his men for what he believed was an inevitable showdown with Egypt. Under Operation Red Tongue (Lashon Aduma), using a few tanks and jeeps and many yards of camouflage netting, Gavish had created a phantom division—the 49th—and positioned it between Kuntilla and al-Qusayma, scene of Israel’s breakthrough in 1956. Fooled by this ruse, Gen. Shazli’s force had been shifted southward from Rafah, and the 4th Division moved to its reserve, further exposing Sinai’s northern defenses to Israeli armor. The reward was now to be Gavish’s removal. Crushed by Eshkol’s decision, disappointed with Rabin for abiding it, Gavish tendered his resignation. “I salute Dayan,” he said, “but I won’t remain another minute.”
Dayan seemed amenable to the appointment: “As a soldier, I’m ready to drive a half-track,” he regaled the press. But political currents converged to drive him elsewhere. The NRP was ready to bolt the government if national unity were not achieved, but Rafi and Gahal refused to join without Dayan. Golda Meir wanted Allon as defense minister—Dayan could replace Eban, Allon suggested—but the motion was rejected by Mapai. And so the machinations continued, while the nation’s patience wore thin. A mass rally demanding a unity government was planned for Saturday, June 3.
“Let me understand,” an exasperated Eshkol asked Haim Moshe Shapira, “you want Dayan and you don’t want war?” But Eshkol knew the answer: The Cabinet had lost faith in his competence as defense minister. That same lack of confidence had led Menachem Begin to support Ben-Gurion, in spite of his opposition to war. There was no longer an alternative to surrender. “Too many ministers, too many members of Knesset, too many generals, and the stree
t, always the street, supported Dayan,” Col. Lior lamented. “From that moment on until the time of his death, he wasn’t the same Levi Eshkol.”20
At 4:30 in the afternoon of June 1, in Tel Aviv, Dayan was finally sworn in. The restrictions on his office were draconian. At Eshkol’s insistence, Dayan agreed not to order any attack without the prime minister’s approval, nor to sanction any operation that strayed from the general war plan. No Arab cities were to be bombed unless Israeli cities were bombed first. As a further check on Dayan’s powers, Eshkol brought in Yigal Yadin, an eminent archeologist and Israel’s second chief of staff, as his special adviser on defense.
Rabin, too, was ambivalent about the appointment. “He wasn’t enthusiastic about it, but he knew how to accept facts,” recalled Rehavam Ze’evi. “He appreciated Dayan’s contribution to the nation’s morale, and realized that it was better to go to war with Dayan, rather than Eshkol, as defense minister. But unable to foresee the results of that war, Rabin also wanted to share some of its onus.” Upon meeting his new superior, a man whose military reputation even exceeded his own, Rabin asked, “Are you ready to submit to my authority in operational matters?” Dayan assured him that he would respect the chief of staff the same as Gen. Maxwell Taylor, commander of American forces in Vietnam, respected the Joint Chiefs of Staff. With this, the new defense minister proceeded immediately to the Pit, there to insult the generals present by brazenly telling them, “Show me your plan—that is if you’ve even got one. I’ve got mine.”21
Later that evening, Aharale Yariv stopped in at the British embassy for a “long late night drink” with the ambassador, Michael Hadow. In his cups, Yariv complained of Eshkol’s inability to make a decision, of his fear of the Russians and culpability for Samu’ (“a terrible blunder”). Eban, he claimed, had disobeyed orders and made the blockade, not Israel’s security, the focus of his talks in Washington. The upshot was that Israel was now saddled with Dayan—“unpleasant and self-centered”—and would have to fight a three-front war in two days, winning it but only with monstrous casualties. Hadow, an expert on Israel and Middle East affairs since the early 1950s, was unruffled. He had been watching the situation in Tiran “like a terrier at a rat hole,” and did not believe that war was inevitable. “It pays for Israel to make our flesh creep a bit from time to time,” he wrote. He assured “little Yariv” that he had nothing to worry about, told him to trust that “the international community would not let Israel fight two hours, never mind 48,” and to trust in the United States.22
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