Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation

by Yossi Klein Halevi

  Every afternoon there was an enormous traffic jam on the Tel Aviv highway heading south. Scud attacks usually happened at night, and Tel Aviv residents were abandoning the city.

  Many of the Achmons’ neighbors fled. Arik and Yehudit stayed. After each missile attack, Arik went to the scene to survey the devastation—partly out of curisiosity, partly out of instinct.

  Some Tel Aviv residents temporarily relocated to settlements in the West Bank and even Gaza. The territories were the safest place in the land: clearly Saddam wasn’t going to risk killing Palestinians. The Yesha Council instructed settlements to turn schools into shelters for the Tel Aviv “refugees.” Yisrael Harel noted a certain grim satisfaction among his neighbors: after three years of intifada, Tel Aviv was seeking refuge in Ofra.

  THE GULF WAR ended on February 28, 1991, six weeks after it began. Believing Jews noted portentously that that date coincided with Purim, the holiday of Jewish triumph over attempted annihilation. Dozens had been wounded, hundreds treated for trauma. But while thirty-nine Scuds had been fired, mostly at population centers, only one Israeli was killed by a missile. Even secular Israelis spoke of divine protection for Israel.

  As the Scuds fell, planes filled with Soviet immigrants were landing at Ben-Gurion Airport. The Iron Curtain had parted and hundreds of thousands were coming home. For nearly three decades Jews around the world had campaigned to “let my people go.” In the 1970s, the Iron Curtain had partly opened, only to be shut again with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the crisis in Soviet-American relations. But now, with the unraveling of the Soviet Union, that final miracle of a terrible and awesome century, the Jews were free to leave.

  Israel was facing chaos. The housing shortage was acute. Tent camps were rising in public parks, and there was talk of opening army barracks for temporary shelter. Israel inherited the elite of a failed superpower, but the economy wasn’t absorbing the gift. Classical violinists and cellists filled the streets, playing for coins. Scientists and engineers worked as night watchmen.

  Even as straightforward a matter as processing immigrant belongings was overwelming the system. Port warehouses were crowded with crates marked with Cyrillic letters and filled with heavy dark furniture, samovars, pianos (every Russian family seemed to have one). Astonishingly, immigrants had no way of retrieving their crates, which officials had neglected to number or catalog. Outraged immigrants were reporting back to family and friends in Russia that Israel was dysfunctional, that perhaps it was better to wait or even reconsider emigrating altogether.

  Arik was hired by the Jewish Agency, the quasi-governmental organization charged with bringing immigrants to Israel, to advise it on how to streamline the process. Arik was appalled to discover that there was no contact among the half-dozen government ministries involved in processing immigrants. The agency in charge of bringing in immigrants by plane had no relationship with the agency bringing in their crates by ship. No one was dealing with customs.

  Arik formed a team that created an interagency computer link, and a one-stop clearing center where the immigrants met representatives from all the relevant ministries. The system began to work. For immigrants it meant the ability to quickly identify and reclaim their crates. For Arik, it was another victory in his war for a rational Israel.

  “ISRAEL IS WAITING FOR RABIN”

  THE COLLAPSE OF the Soviet Union was one of the great blessings in Israel’s history. The entire former Soviet bloc, whose countries had severed relations with Israel under Kremlin pressure, reopened embassies in Tel Aviv. So did many African countries that had cut relations with Israel under pressure of the Arab oil boycott two decades earlier. China and India established diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. The UN formally repealed its “Zionism-racism” resolution, passed in 1975 as a Soviet initiative and the most bitter symbol for Israelis of the renewed pariah status of the Jews. The Zionist goal, so long deferred, of restoring the Jewish people to the international community seemed finally vindicated.

  Yet a solution to the Palestinian problem seemed more remote than ever. During the Gulf War many Palestinians had stood on their rooftops cheering as Scuds fell on Tel Aviv, alienating even Israeli leftists. The intifada of mass riots gave way to an intifada of stabbing sprees. A Gazan ran through the streets of Jaffa with a sword, attacking passersby; he was wrestled to the ground by an Arab Israeli garage worker named Abd al-Karim Abd al-Ghani, who was stabbed to death. Another Palestinian stabbed a fifteen-year-old Jewish girl named Helena Rapp so many times that her heart was exposed. An Israeli reservist named Amnon Pomerantz made a wrong turn into a Gaza refugee camp; his car was surrounded and he was burned alive.

  Elections were held that spring. In the gap between Israel’s growing acceptance around the world and the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, the Labor Party—headed once again by Yitzhak Rabin, to the delight of Yoel Bin-Nun—tried to present voters with a new vision. Let’s take Tel Aviv out of Gaza and Gaza out of Tel Aviv, Rabin demanded. The implicit message was Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and many Israelis were ready to hear it. “Israel Is Waiting for Rabin,” the Labor slogan went, a takeoff on the morale-boosting song from the weeks before the Six-Day War, “Nasser Is Waiting for Rabin.”

  Though the IDF had largely defeated the intifada, in fact the intifada won. Many Israelis now understood that the price of maintaining the whole land of Israel was permanent occupation of a hostile people. Decades of war and terrorism had failed to break Israel; but in face of defiant women and children, Israelis felt helpless.

  On June 23, 1992, the Labor Party returned to power. It was almost exactly twenty-five years since General Rabin had led the IDF in the Six-Day War. And now Rabin had returned as elder statesman to try to extricate the nation from the consequences of that victory. Watching Rabin’s election-night speech on TV—“I will navigate . . . I will determine”—Yoel thought about how the Commander of History was again about to make His presence known in Israel.

  PART FIVE

  END OF THE SIX-DAY WAR

  (1992–2004)

  Chapter 27

  A NEW ISRAEL, AGAIN

  YOEL BIN-NUN IS WAITING FOR RABIN

  July 13, 1992

  The Prime Minister of Israel

  Yitzhak Rabin

  Shlomot, peace upon you!

  All leaders of nations are appointed with God’s will, and especially a leader chosen by the people of Israel in its land. And so [I offer] this blessing: May God give you and your government wisdom and strength and wise counsel, to stand upright and represent the entire people of Israel.

  That said, Yoel Bin-Nun proceeded to berate the newly elected prime minister for violating the very hopes expressed in his blessing. Rabin had deeply disappointed him: instead of forming a national unity government, drawing together the people of Israel, Rabin had created a narrow left-wing coalition, with the added insult of backing from the ultra-Orthodox party Shas. The National Religious Party (NRP), representing religious Zionism, had been willing, Yoel noted, to enter Rabin’s coalition and compromise on settlement building. Knesset member Hanan Porat, too, Yoel added, had been reasonable.

  The religious Zionist community felt its two deepest values, education and settlement—“which are your values too”—under assault by the new government. Rabin had handed the education ministry, long the domain of the NRP, to the antireligious and far left party Meretz. And no less dangerous, he had appointed as deputy education minister a Knesset member from Shas, as if that were a reasonable balance—one ultra against another.

  As for settlements, continued Yoel, one could negotiate political arrangements with our Arab neighbors and still protect the right of Jews to live in the land of Israel. Yet Rabin had declared a partial but far-reaching freeze on settlement building. If settlers felt “pushed into a corner,” they would fight back—“with respect, with observance of the law, but with determination, for our very existence.”

  Hopefully, though, there was still a cha
nce for dialogue, “to explore ways of cooperating to prevent confrontation, despite the deep disagreements between us.”

  Respectful but firm: precisely the tone, Yoel believed, that a straight talker like Rabin would appreciate.

  Yoel wrote his letter in longhand. It was easier for him to concentrate that way. Besides, he reasoned, everything Rabin read was printed; this way would be more memorable.

  Yoel faxed his three-page letter to the prime minister’s office.

  A few weeks later he received by mail a one-line note, in Rabin’s hand: “I am deeply grateful.”

  The brevity was no surprise; the warmth was. Yoel saved the note and took it as encouragement to continue the connection.

  THE ART WORLD REDISCOVERS AVITAL GEVA

  GIDEON OFRAT, PREEMINENT CURATOR and art historian, walked through the plastic flaps of the Ein Shemer greenhouse, certain that Avital Geva would reject his proposal out of hand. It was a Shabbat afternoon in August 1992, and the humidity inside the greenhouse was stifling. Avital, wearing a tank top and shorts, greeted his guest, in round wire glasses and pressed white pants, with a hug. Twenty years earlier Ofrat had championed Avital’s artistic provocations, had considered him one of Israel’s most vital artists. When Avital withdrew to the greenhouse, Ofrat, distraught, had come to see him. You’ve rejected the art world but not art, Ofrat had said to him then. And the greenhouse, he’d insisted, was itself a work of art. Avital laughed: Who cares if it’s art or not?

  Now Avital took Ofrat on a tour of the greenhouse. Barefoot teenagers were tending rows of giant cucumbers laid in plant pots on slanted trays, so that excess water from the pots drained down into pools below, providing nutrients to fish. And plastic tubes fed water from the pools back into the plants. It was, explained Avital, an experiment in conservation: trying to raise fish without changing the water. In a corner was an old bus, transformed into the greenhouse’s computer center. There were sculptures formed from discarded agricultural and industrial materials. A seamless flow, noted Ofrat, of nature-technology-humanity-art.

  Over Turkish coffee, Ofrat explained why he was here. He had just been appointed curator for the Israeli exhibit at the Venice Biennale, the international art event. Each country selected an artist to represent it. And Ofrat wanted Avital and the greenhouse to represent the state of Israel.

  Avital closed his eyes and said nothing. Ofrat waited for the rejection. “Amazing idea,” Avital finally said.

  Then came the conditions. First of all, no artistic representation of the greenhouse, only the greenhouse itself. That meant shipping the whole structure and everything in it, from cucumbers to fish. “We’re not an exhibit,” said Avital.

  “No metaphor,” agreed Ofrat. Art for life, not life for art.

  “And we’ll need a dunam of land. And a team of ten young people to set up the greenhouse and run it.”

  Ofrat nodded. But was any of this feasible? Would the Italians agree to expanding the Israeli pavilion to a dunam? How would Ofrat raise the money—for shipping, for expenses for a whole team?

  “And it’s not about me, Avital Geva. The greenhouse is about group cooperation.”

  Ofrat respected Avital’s emphasis on the collective, the opposite of the Western notion of the lone artist. Still, Ofrat explained, he would need to present an artist to the art world.

  “Give me a week to decide,” Avital said. They compromised on three days.

  “WHAT DO I NEED THIS FOR?” Avital said to his wife, Ada. He had managed to extricate himself from the media exposure, the marketing hype, the egos and the jealousies. Why subject himself to all that again?

  “Do it,” urged Ada. Avital, she argued, was trying to save the spirit of the kibbutz movement; this was a chance to spread his message.

  Ofrat was half hoping that Avital would say no. Who needed his wavering, his demands? Any normal person would have grabbed the opportunity. But Avital was responding as if Ofrat were suggesting a complicated medical procedure.

  “Nu?” asked Ofrat.

  “I need another twenty-four hours,” said Avital. “And another dunam.”

  When Ofrat phoned the next night, Avital said, “I suggest you find someone else. Because the terms are tough.” He proceded to read a list of seven demands—including bringing over not ten but twenty young people. And at the end of the Biennale the entire greenhouse would be shipped back to Israel. “Nothing remains there but the grass.”

  Ofrat calmed himself: There’s still time to find someone else.

  In a fax to the director of the Biennale, Ofrat tried to explain his choice of an artist who no longer saw himself as an artist and an art project that many would no doubt deny was art. Avital, wrote Ofrat, had quit the art world because he saw museums and galleries as “a barrier to achieving a bridge between art values and life values.” The greenhouse, Ofrat argued, would challenge art’s isolation from reality. “We are showing a life-work both realistic and utopian, rather than an aesthetic object.”

  There was no answer. Ofrat flew to Venice. Before meeting the director, he surveyed the grounds of the Biennale. The only possible space to accommodate Avital’s demands was at the fair ground’s very center. Israeli chutzpah: How dare he ask for it?

  “There is no other place,” agreed the director.

  Back in Israel, Ofrat excitedly reported to Avital: All your conditions will be met.

  Avital listened grimly. “I need another forty-eight hours before giving you my final okay,” he said.

  “If you withdraw now,” Ofrat replied, “my health will be on your conscience.”

  Avital phoned Ofrat the next night. “I’m in,” he said. “But no media interviews.”

  IN THE ISRAELI ART WORLD, some celebrated Ofrat’s choice as a sign of the establishment’s vitality. “You’ve brought Avital back to us,” a leading curator told Ofrat. Others, though, responded with contempt. One critic compared the greenhouse to a kindergarten. Another insisted that Avital owed the art world an explanation: Why did you leave, and why have you suddenly returned? Retorted Ofrat: Avital owes no explanation to anyone.

  Ofrat brought a potential donor to Ein Shemer. They found Avital in the dining room, serving lunch: it was his turn for kitchen duty. They helped him clear the tables and then went across the dirt road to the greenhouse.

  Ofrat offered his latest thoughts. The greenhouse, he said, was formed of “concentric circles”—the inner circle a space for meeting and conceptualizing, then a circle with computers and worktables, and finally an outer circle of plant and fish cultivation. “A Platonic construct, leading from pure idea to material and nature.”

  “Too grandiose,” dismissed Avital. “I don’t want anything more in Venice than cultivation, maybe a computer.”

  Ofrat was horrified. A shack with cucumbers? The whole point was to elevate the greenhouse from pure nature to culture, the interplay between science and society and art! The Israeli dream, Ofrat was calling it.

  In barely ten months from now, in June 1993, the Biennale was to begin. Would Avital pull out over some unimagined pique, some violation of his ethos that even Ofrat hadn’t anticipated? Maybe I won’t be able to raise the money, Ofrat thought hopefully.

  ARIK ACHMON RETURNS TO THE SKIES

  THE PHONE CALL Arik had been expecting, in one form or another, came a few months after the elections of 1992.

  Arik had volunteered for Rabin’s campaign, organizing a national network of parlor meetings. And now that Labor was finally back in power, he assumed there would be some expression of appreciation. Not that he was looking for a job: he was in increasing demand as a consultant, advising some of Israel’s biggest companies. What he was hoping for was another opportunity to serve, especially now that he was no longer on active reserve duty.

  The phone call was from an official in the transportation ministry. The government was embarking on the largest building project in Israel’s history—a new international airport terminal, with a budget of close to $2 billion. Wou
ld Arik join the board of the Airports Authority? It was a public position, without salary. And it would take up at least one day a week of his time.

  “You are returning me to aviation, my first love,” he said.

  Then, warily, he asked, “Yisrael is okay with this?”

  He meant the new transportation minister, Yisrael Kaisar—former Histadrut labor union leader and Arik’s nemesis from his Arkia days.

  “He wasn’t enthusiastic,” the official acknowledged, “but I’ll get this through.”

  The two old rivals met at a luncheon celebrating the launching of “Ben-Gurion [Airport] 2000.”

  “Here is the kibbutznik who turned into an enemy of organized labor,” Kaisar greeted Arik with a small smile.

  “Yisrael, I’m not certain that that’s what you really think of me,” Arik replied, smiling widely in return. “I remember you as a worthy adversary.”

  “You saved Arkia,” said Kaisar.

  Ben-Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, was the country’s only international airport. Small and overcrowded, it was a holdover from an earlier, improvised Israel. Arriving passengers gathered on the tarmac and were driven by bus to the terminal; those waiting to greet them had to stand outside the building.

  Arik was appointed head of the development committee for the new terminal. The terminal, the committee decided, must have easy access for planes, incorporate the most modern systems, and be more than a big hangar. “It needs to be inspirational,” Arik said. “Not bombastic, but worthy of the state of Israel.”

  Backed by Airports Authority head Motti Debby, Arik and his colleagues resisted government pressure to hire retired air force officers as project managers. But that’s how it’s always done, Arik was told. Not this time, he retorted. This project would be run by professionals. That, after all, was the symbolic message of the new terminal: Israel was joining the globalizing world.