Israel's Next War

by Martin Archer

  The howling crowd instantly surged around the truck on both sides and came through the gate towards us. They didn’t get far—I opened fire and a split second later so did the Marines. There was about thirty seconds or so of fairly sustained firing as we cut our would-be attackers down as fast as they came past the truck.

  The noise of our firing was earsplitting and so were the screams and shouts as the bodies of dead and wounded Egyptians continued to pile up on either side of the wrecked truck. Despite the shooting, the huge crowd kept pushing those in front forward. In no time there were so many bodies clogging the area between the truck and the tall concrete gate posts they literally blocked off the entrance once again.

  Almost immediately the survivors in the front part of the crowd behind the truck began trying to turn back. But they couldn’t go back since the people in the noisy and jam packed crowd behind them were still surging forward—and pushing more and more of the crowd up on to the growing pile of dead and wounded people jammed around the truck.

  Then it got worse, much worse. People in the crowd begin throwing bottles of gasoline with lit wicks into the embassy and particularly at the front gate. Within seconds the truck and the dead and screaming people stacked around the truck and pushed up against it were in flames and so were the people in the front ranks of the jam-packed mob. In less than a minute the embassy grounds were filled with oily black smoke. It smelled like burning rubber and human flesh on a battlefield.

  My God! They’re killing their own people

  I grabbed the Marine PFC nearest to me and shouted in his ear “Go around to the back and take out anyone trying to climb over the embassy wall.” He nodded his understanding and ran. Then I grabbed another Marine who was just standing there gaping at the horrific scene with his mouth open and pushed him after the fast thinking PFC.

  A few seconds later, right after I sent the two Marines around to the back, a man’s head and shoulders appeared above the embassy wall to my right. I waited and watched while people on the other side of the wall pushed him up until he carefully straddled it. Then he began slowly and carefully swinging his leg over the top of the wall to jump down. He was moving slowly and carefully because the top of the wall has a couple of strands of razor wire running along it and glass shards sticking up from the broken bottles embedded in it.

  Whoever was on the wall should have moved faster because I deliberately shot him in the crotch with a quick double tap as soon as he started to swing his leg over the wall in order to jump down. The punch of the shots knocked him backwards off the wall and out of sight as he fell back on the people on the other side who had been pushing him up.

  Well that ought to encourage the others to stay away; it sure as hell would discourage me.

  Then I ran up to the top of the steps leading up to the embassy door to get a better view of what the mob of demonstrators was doing behind the pile of burning bodies and the truck.

  Yes! I can see the sea of people in the open square beyond the dead and burning Egyptians around the truck and immediately behind it—the crowd has finally gotten the message; they’re beginning to recoil and run away. Thank God.

  About that time the embassy door opened behind me and a brave and well-meaning man I’d never seen before ran out with a little hand held fire extinguisher. He got about ten or fifteen steps out the door before he stopped and put it down on the ground and just stared at the mass of burning people jammed around the truck. Many of them were still moving and screaming. Then he started to sob and throw up.

  There may be burned and wounded survivors out beyond the truck but there are none at the gate or on the embassy grounds we can help. The smell was absolutely appalling.

  I don’t know who the well-meaning rescuer is but he’s obviously a brave and decent man; I hope I have a chance to meet him.

  I pulled a fresh clip out of my pocket with my left hand as I gave an appreciative nod and a strong thumbs up to the Marine gunny and his men with my right. They looked shaken but resolute and we all began reloading as the wind changed and even more of the foul black smoke drifted towards us. It was my last clip. I don’t even remember loading the others I’d stuffed into my pockets. God that smell is terrible.

  The Gunnery Sergeant nodded and moved quickly when I pointed to him and signaled with my hand for him to head around his side of the embassy building and check out the back. Then I zipped around to the back on my side. The two Marines I’d sent there earlier were there along with a couple of other Marines. They instinctively came to attention and saluted as the gunny and I trotted up to them from opposite directions. There was a dead Egyptian next to the back wall. A coat was thrown across the wire and glass on top of the wall above him. That coat may have saved his balls and gotten him over the wall but it sure didn’t save his ass.

  “Gunny, you and your Marines did real good and it won’t be forgotten,” I told them. “The mob was totally out of control. If you and your men hadn’t fought them off they probably would have burned the place down and killed our women and civilians.” The Marines look worried. They need to know they did the right thing.

  “Okay,” I exclaimed after taking a deep breath. “You all did the right thing. Now it’s time to get ready in case they have another go at us. Gunny, please send one of your NCOs and a couple of men to check inside the embassy for casualties and get an ammunition count. Some of the embassy civilian staff have weapons. Take the ammunition from those who didn’t fire if it fits any of your weapons and redistribute it among your men. And give your Marines a ’well done’ from me and the President.”

  Ambassador Tolson and the three military attachés, and a couple of men and a woman I didn’t recognize, obviously embassy staffers, were standing on the embassy steps outside the front door staring in dismay and horror at the still-burning truck and the smoldering pile of bodies at the entrance. Welcome to the real world.

  By the time the gunny and I came back from checking the rear wall the mob was gone from the big plaza beyond the gate. It was mostly empty except for a number of bodies, quite a few wounded and trampled Egyptians, and a growing number of civilians running around in the plaza trying to help them. About two dozen embassy staffers, both men and women, were in the lobby staring and talking to each other. Some of the women were crying and pointing and hugging each other.

  The terrible Egyptian casualties and how close they came to being killed or hurt by the mob was just starting to sink in.

  “That was close,” I said to the ambassador and attachés as the gunny and I walked up. “Another minute later and we’d all be dead or hostages. The Marines saved us.”

  Then we all quietly and cautiously walked together towards the billowing black smoke at embassy gate and the still-burning bodies stacked up around the disabled truck. We could hear shouts and sirens in the distance.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Our brigade began moving through the hills towards Jordan even before the sun came up. In the early morning darkness before we started both my battalion commander and my company commander stopped for a visit to explain where the brigade is headed and why.

  According to the two officers, Sami Alon and Benny Sharret, our Fourteenth Brigade, along with another brigade from the Sinai, the 211th Armor, is going into Jordan. We are moving across the border because three reinforced divisions of the Islamic Army, two Iranian and one Iraqi supported by a large number of Shiite militia, are reported to have crossed the border between Syria and Jordan last night and are moving rapidly through Jordan towards Israel.

  No Syrians? That’s strange. I’m going to get on the company net and ask the captain about it. And why aren’t we heading for the Golan where the fighting is supposedly so fierce?

  “Fourteen Bravo one. Fourteen Bravo Four. Benny, Dov here. Can you tell us anything about when we might run into Syrians?”

  “I haven’t got a clue, Dov. Maybe they’re all up on the Golan. The latest news on Army Radio says there is really heavy fighting going on up the
re.” Well hell, we already knew that.

  Now, a couple of hours later, two side by side lines of our Fourteenth Reserve Brigade’s tank carriers and their precious cargos of tanks and tracked vehicles are stretched as far back down the road as I can see. And I can see quite a ways as I peer out from where I’m standing in the turret of my modified American-made M-60 battle tank.

  Some of the brigade’s other crews are out of their tanks and APCs and sitting out in the open. They’re sunning themselves and enjoying the ride along the winding road that runs down to the Jordan River. They’re doing so despite the dusty morning heat and the engine fumes our tanks and vehicles are throwing out.

  Not my guys. The three of them, all reservists like me except Shaul the driver and our full time mechanic, are riding inside our tank. They’re inside even though everyone except Shaul has nothing to do at the moment except ride along. I’m the only one not inside—I’m standing in the turret because it’s Israeli doctrine for tank commanders to always stand in the turret, even during combat, so we can see what’s happening around us.

  My guys are all inside even though they’d certainly be a lot cooler if I would let them ride outside. But there wasn’t been a word of protest about staying inside despite the heat, just nods of agreement when I explained my decision.

  “You’d be too exposed. An enemy plane or enemy fire could hit us despite the friendly air cover that is supposedly overhead. It’s better to be safe and uncomfortable behind three inches of steel than out in the open and taking a chance on ending up dead.” Like I’ll be if we get hit.

  ******

  Serving in the Israeli cabinet has exhausted me. We’ve been meeting almost constantly for two days with most of the cabinet, including me, sleeping on cots in our offices in order to be instantly available. The colonel briefing us at the moment is cold and precise. His message is clear—the war is not going well. The Islamic Army has taken the Golan Heights and in several locations has pushed beyond the Heights and into Israel. Our casualties are serious. They’ve already exceeded the twelve thousand killed and wounded we took in ’73 and the end is nowhere in sight. Our losses of planes and helicopters are also high, unexpectedly high.

  According to the colonel, our most worrisome problem at the moment is the rapid gains the armored columns of the Islamic Army are making in Lebanon and Jordan.

  “If they aren’t stopped they will flank us on both sides; and if they aren’t defeated and thrown out of Lebanon and Jordan we will have new and much more dangerous neighbors on our borders after we win. Accordingly, it is the planning staff’s recommendation for three armored brigades to be sent into Jordan and two infantry brigades into Lebanon to confront the Islamic columns. The five brigades are already moving according to Plan Blue Seven but they can be halted before they cross the Jordanian and Lebanese borders if the government does not want the plan implemented.”

  We quickly and unanimously approved Blue Seven. What else could we do after such a presentation? What followed next was an argument which would have torn the government apart and resulted in a new election if we were not at war. Chaim Naumenko, the minister whose new party claims to represent the new immigrants from Eastern Europe, was particularly pugnacious.

  “Shouldn’t we be using our nuclear capacity to take out Iran and Iraq once and for all? And what are we going to do after we win, with or without going nuclear? Shouldn’t we be planning to set up a demilitarized zone on the land held by the Syrians and Lebanese all along our borders?

  “Damn it, Chaim. How do you think the Americans will react if we use our nukes to take out Tehran?”

  The immigration minister’s response to the question was a not so thinly veiled insult directed at the Prime Minister who had spent most of his life shuffling back and forth between the government and the academic world both in Israel and the United States.

  “I’m not looking for a teaching job in the States after I get out of government so I don’t give a shit what the Americans think; I’m only interested in protecting Israel. This latest invasion gives us a perfect excuse to destroy our most dangerous enemies once and for all. And to get these political dinosaurs out of office so we can replace them.

  “What kind of buffer zone are you talking about, Chaim?” asked the Defense Minister in an effort to change the subject. He’d been thinking the same thing for years but had kept quiet about it.

  Imposing a significant new buffer zone would be an acceptable compromise between going nuclear and returning to the status quo. We could use the plan I drew up a couple of years ago.

  ****** General Makow

  It’s early in the afternoon on the second day of the war and what’s left of my brigade is no longer being pushed back. Unfortunately we weren’t able to stabilize our lines until after we had given up almost all of the Golan Heights and the Islamists stopped using their attack helicopters and began pushing their militia companies forward instead of their armor.

  I haven’t had time to think much about it, but it’s probably significant the Islamists’ aren’t using helicopters any more. I doubt they have many left—not because my boys shot them down but because their own people did it for us. It seems the Syrian and Iranian infantry were given lots of SAMs but little or no training. So they typically fired their SAMs as soon as they saw a helicopter, any helicopter. They apparently shot down most of their own attack and medical evacuation helicopters by noon of the first day.

  Maybe they are using them elsewhere, but up here it is too dangerous for them to even try to fly helicopters anywhere near the battlefield—our planes are likely to shoot them down before they get here and their own forces or ours will almost certainly shoot them down if they do. They’ve lost a lot of helicopters, that’s for sure. And we’ve lost of a lot of ours too, goddammit. Anyhow we’re not seeing many helicopters any more, only our Medevacs operating from our aid stations and what’s left of our hunter-killer teams working the edges.

  Similarly, after their heavy losses to our armor and artillery during the initial hours of the attack, the Islamic commanders are now keeping what’s left of their armor, mobile SAMs, and artillery far enough back from the forward edge of the battle so our tanks and missiles can’t reach them. That’s why here on the edge of the Golan it is increasingly becoming a war between what’s left of us and the Islamic infantry, mostly militia seeking paradise and finding it, who keep trying to move forward with their handheld anti-tank missiles in the face of our continuous artillery bombardment. And operations with our highly mobile artillery battalions are something in which we truly excel as the Islamist militia are about to find out.

  Our rapidly evolving tactics slowed but did not totally stop the Syrian and Iranian advances on the Golan, but they certainly slowed them to a weak crawl—because crawling is what they have to do to move forward. By noon it was primarily the Iranian infantry, and particularly the Iranian militia, who were trying to advance and dying so their armor and mobile SAMs can somewhat safely follow if they take any ground. The Syrian army infantry aren’t so willing to die. They seem to be digging in instead of trying to advance.

  Things are apparently just the reverse in Jordan, at least that’s the word I’ve been getting from headquarters and listening to on the Sinai Brigade’s net. Over there the Islamists had quite a distance to cover and the Iraqi and Iranian infantry in their pickup trucks were having trouble keeping up. So in Jordan, unlike here on the Golan, it is the Iraqi and Iranian armored columns leading the way—and leaving a trail of burning tanks and vehicles in their wake as a result of our ambushes and air attacks. The Syrian regular army and the various militias don’t seem to be in Jordan at all. They must be concentrating their forces on the Golan and Lebanon.

  Our problem here in front of the Golan is simple. We are killing tremendous numbers of the Islamic Army’s men and armor—but there are a lot of them and they keep coming and coming and we keep suffering more and more casualties. I’ve already lost more than half my tanks and APCs. Th
e reinforcements and additional artillery we’ve been promised better start arriving soon or we’re going to be pushed even further back into Israel.

  ****** General Christopher Roberts

  It is a little after one in the afternoon in Cairo which means I’ve got almost an hour to prepare for this morning’s meeting of the National Security Council in the Situation Room. The flames are out and the crowd is gone but the embassy entrance and the square across the street are still scenes of death and devastation. The trash-filled square itself is eerily silent and virtually empty under the scorching sun now that the bodies of the dead and wounded are gone. Only the dead demonstrators who tried to rush the embassy are still piled up and smoldering next to what’s left of the truck at the embassy gate.

  According to the constant stream of NSA and Defense Department reports I’ve been receiving, the Israeli air force and helicopters are having much more success in Jordan and Lebanon than they are against the Islamic armor and infantry on the Golan. On the other hand, the satellite photos and communications intercepts clearly show large numbers of Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian troops and militia continuing to come over the Jordanian and Lebanese borders in force, just as they are on the Golan. The goal of the Islamic Army is simple and unchanging—pin down the Israeli army on the Golan and move through the lightly defended non-coalition Arab countries on either side of Israel and attack Israel on its vulnerable flanks.

  That seems to be the Coalition’s strategy. According to the intercepts, the Islamic armor and motorized infantry are pouring into Jordan and Lebanon,—but the minimal Israeli plane losses suggest they are doing so with nowhere near the same numbers of hand-held and mobile missile batteries. It may mean the Coalition is relying on its air force to protect its columns in Jordan and Lebanon and has concentrated its SAMs and anti-aircraft artillery on the Golan.