by Hesh Kestin
[5] Meanwhile, newly re-mechanized infantry is tasked to find the point where the pipeline bringing water from the north has been truncated and reconnect it. The effort fails until Persian-speaking interrogators identify an Iranian officer who knows the spot, and by two the next morning water begins to flow in Tel Aviv—brown at first, heavy with rust flushed from the unused pipes. By first light it is clear. To the people of Tel Aviv, no event of the past twenty-four hours is more significant. So many people bathe between 6 and 8 a.m. that in much of the city there is only a trickle. No one cares.
[6] Liberate six POW camps, four in the Negev, one close to Jericho, and one just outside of Netanya at Beit Lid, where a prison meant to hold twenty-two hundred convicted Palestinian terrorists now holds over thirty thousand Israeli prisoners of war. And zero Palestinians. These were summarily executed by the Jordanian muhabarrat. Indeed, as they move forward, Israeli intelligence officers are surprised to see no guerilla resistance from either Hamas or Hezbollah; only later does it become clear both Palestinian groups were early on massacred by their Muslim brethren in order to stifle any Palestinian claim to conquered Israel.
Conditions in the POW camps are horrific. Mass starvation, little to no drinking water, and lack of latrines have brought about an epidemic of typhus and amoebic dysentery. With no medical facilities on hand, and no medicines available to members of the IDF medical corps who fell into captivity, some 70,000 of the 380,000 Israeli prisoners have perished, the death rate multiplying up to and even past the hour of liberation. Because Arab prison camp commanders provided no facilities for burial, not so much as a shovel, bodies are found simply stacked up in corners of the camps to deteriorate in the sun. The stench is so bad the first tankists to arrive are forced to re-don their gas masks. Immediately, water taps in the Arab guard barracks around the camp are opened for the POWs—it is clear there is no shortage of water, merely a shortage of interest in keeping the Israeli prisoners alive. Those guards who have not fled face gruesome deaths as the skeletons in their charge take revenge.
It is a mark of how closely the camps resemble those of an earlier attempt to solve the Jewish problem that senior officers arriving on the scene turn their backs on the dismemberment of the guards. At one camp in the Negev, guards are executed next to the single tap available to the prisoners before liberation—the tap had been set up merely to drip water, so that the POWs were compelled to queue up for hours to receive the equivalent of a teaspoon each before returning to the rear of the long lines for their next taste. From captured documents, it is learned that reducing the flow to a trickle was meant to keep the death rate at manageable levels—were all the POWs to die at once, the mess might be visible from orbiting Western satellites.
[7] After fulfilling their primary missions, two hundred tanks, among them Cobi’s, are detached from the main force to make straight for Jerusalem. Here there is resistance from Jordan’s disciplined Arab Legionnaires, some under British officers. But blessed with intimate knowledge of the capital, the Jewish tankists carve Jerusalem into segments, liberating one neighborhood after another. By day’s end most of the Legionnaires surrender, the remainder fleeing east across the nearly dry Jordan.
The Old City is left for last. It proves no challenge. Not only have its defenders melted away, but the entire population of the Muslim Quarter has decamped as well. The ancient Jewish, Christian, and Armenian Quarters are of course empty, their houses having been reserved for later use by Jordanian government officials. Like the rest of Jerusalem, the Old City is empty.
Within its walls, six major churches are found destroyed, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, along with a dozen monasteries and nunneries. Most synagogues have been used as toilets. The single exception to the destruction of non-Muslim holy sites are Russian Orthodox churches, a concession to Moscow for providing intelligence and logistical support, to say nothing of its role in the Security Council, where it vetoed even minimal efforts to succor the population of Tel Aviv and provide food and water to Israeli prisoners of war.
The Western Wall of the Second Temple, Judaism’s most holy site, is found to be demolished. Its massive rectangular stones, one measuring forty-one by eleven by eleven feet, are strewn like children’s blocks about the plaza where Jews of all persuasions, from ultra-Orthodox to Reform, prayed since the Old City’s liberation from Jordanian rule in the Six Day War of 1967.
At the sight of this wanton destruction, IDF discipline, which has held through the entire day, breaks down.
The first tank to reach what is left of the wall is commanded by an Orthodox Jew whose family, of Yemenite origin, has lived in Jerusalem since the fifteenth century. The second tank is commanded by the son of a paratrooper who died in the Israeli conquest of the Old City in 1967. No record of any communication exists between the two—at the subsequent court martial, their actions that day are termed “autonomic and unplanned.”
But only seconds after the two tanks arrive at the rubble that was the wall, they climb together to the plateau known to the Muslim world as the Noble Sanctuary, a flat plaza built over the ruins of the Holy Temple itself.
The first tank levels its 1200mm gun at the Dome of the Rock, not truly a mosque in that none worship there, but a shrine, and at point-blank range destroys it. The second tank joins in. In a matter of seconds, what is normally referred to as Islam’s third holiest site is flattened, a cloud of dust rising above what were once walls of brightly colored hand-painted ceramic tile, the blue, green, violet, and yellow of its façade rising with the red and yellow of the interior, all of it tinged with a corona of gold dust from the dome.
As the two tanks swivel toward the second structure of the Noble Sanctuary, the Mosque of Omar, General Ido’s command tank moves up to insert itself between the two Chariots and the mosque.
The words he uses as he opens communications are by now among the war’s most quoted, less a military order than a spiritual aspiration: “Enough! Remember before Whom you stand.”
116
WITH BEN GURION INTERNATIONAL Airport opened again, Connie Blunt is more than aware her unique situation as the only Western television correspondent is about to end. Unfortunately, when she arrives in Israel with El Al 201 her satellite phone is seized, along with the digital footage from the raid on Kuwait.
Even in time of war, IDF military censorship moves quickly, but this is no ordinary war. No one she speaks to can even speculate where her precious footage and satellite phone have been sent. And she has no way to get around. There are military vehicles on the roads, but few are heading to Tel Aviv. In the massive mobilization taking place, no one has time to worry about a blond correspondent complaining that her equipment has been stolen.
By great good fortune, a civilian taxi shows up at the airport—where the driver acquired gasoline is anyone’s guess—and for a small fortune, its driver agrees to provide transportation to Tel Aviv. Connie, Terry Santiago her producer, and her ever-capable cameraman Buddy Walsh pile in.
With a tiny digital video camera he held in reserve, through the taxi window Walsh is able to record the rebirth of an entire city, an entire nation really. To save precious pixels, the record of their journey into Tel Aviv is shot in black and white, and to this day remains the only documentary evidence of the first hours of Israel’s redemption.
At first their driver takes them to IDF headquarters in the Kirya. This is a dead end in every sense of the term: it is leveled.
Then the driver, who has driven foreign press before, thinks to bring them to Sokolov House, home of Israel’s Journalists Association, where before the war editors and reporters from the Hebrew dailies hung out in the small café on the ground floor. Amazingly, Blunt finds the café functioning—after a fashion: there is no whiskey or beer, nor coffee, but with water now available, it is possible to brew tea. The place seems to have regained its attraction for Israel’s fourth estate. With the promise of electricity, Israel’s newspapers are preparing special editions,
and as before, the nation’s reporters gather here to trade rumor, innuendo, fabrication, and the occasional misplaced truth. A woman with a cigarette dangling from her lip—smokes have become available, though at very high prices—directs her upstairs to the office of the IDF spokesman.
To Blunt’s relief the office is functioning. With the Kirya destroyed, the spokesman’s office has returned to the modest chambers it had abandoned several years before. A clerk brings her to the officer in charge, a petite major. The woman speaks South African accented English. Blunt’s equipment is on her desk.
“Thank fucking God,” Blunt says.
“Thank fucking Col. Lior,” the major says. “Military censorship has reviewed the footage you recorded on the plane to Kuwait and the subsequent military engagement.”
“Great!”
“None of it may be released.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“All such footage must be approved by the IDF censor before it may be transmitted abroad. Your material has not been so approved.”
“But it’s great stuff. Your people are heroes.”
“Yes, of course,” the officer said. “That is our job. But IDF regulations forbid the identification of serving personnel engaged in military operations. You are welcome to reclaim your equipment provided you agree to comply with standard procedure for journalists in a warzone—”
“It’s not a warzone—you won!”
“It is a warzone until the chief of staff directs otherwise. As to the existing footage, it shall remain here until such time as you find a way to dis-identify the military personnel involved.”
“Dis-identify?”
“Technology may be employed.”
“What, black out faces? That could take days.”
“Exactly. Meanwhile, I have the pleasure to inform you that so far your crew is the only accredited foreign news organization in liberated Israel.”
“Jesus, we are?”
“Does the word ‘scoop’ mean nothing to you?”
Without so much as another word, Blunt grabs the video camera and satellite phone and is out the door of Sokolov House and into her taxi.
She tells her producer, “I’m not just going to get a Peabody, I’m going to have a Pulitzer.” Then she realizes the gaffe. “You too, Terry. You too.”
117
AT DINNER THAT EVENING in Camp David, the president, Flo Spier, Felix St. George, Admiral Staley, and Marine Commandant Arthur Hefty are among the millions of people around the world, including the personnel at USMA Forward Attack Squadron Wildcat, watching as Connie Blunt does a 3 a.m. stand-up on the tarmac of the military airfield adjacent to Ben Gurion International Airport. For the Marine aviators, as for Americans as a whole, watching Blunt’s footage produces either suppressed tears or tears outright.
At Camp David, it produces reservations.
“As we’ve seen, Damian, Israel is even as I speak rising phoenix-like from the ashes of its own destruction. With electricity and water supply now returned almost to prewar levels, and access to limited supplies of gasoline, the country is back on its feet. The mood here is not so much celebration as relief, and across the board a dedication to getting Israel going again.
“According to military sources, Israel’s situation on the battlefield can best be described as a turnabout win for David over Goliath. However, because I am compelled to follow the guidelines of Israel Defense Forces censorship, I can provide only sketchy details. We do know that Jerusalem has been liberated and that the port of Haifa is expected to be functioning sometime later today, Israel time. I am given to understand that about half the occupying Muslim forces have melted back over Israel’s borders, while as many as three hundred thousand, let me repeat that, three hundred thousand Arab and Iranian troops are bottled up in several so-called pockets, completely surrounded by Israeli forces. What their fate is, no one will say, but according to the IDF spokesman’s office these will be treated as prisoners of war according to the Geneva Convention, with full access by the International Committee of the Red Cross. I spoke earlier this morning with Dr. Heinz Wortzel of that organization, who tells me he expects full cooperation from the IDF.
“To sum up, Damian, nothing better illustrates the situation here in Israel than the scene just behind me, where as you can see bombed-out Arab aircraft have been bulldozed out of the way and Israeli-piloted warplanes carrying the markings of the Kuwaiti Air Force have been taking off and landing for hours. How this strange situation came about is something I expect to reveal exclusively to CNN viewers as soon as technically feasible. However, I can assure you, Damian, the full story is likely to go down in the annals of military history as—”
“Connie, let me jump in here. We’re getting reports from other sources, so far unconfirmed, regarding the Arab invasion’s tragic effect on the Palestinians, with reports of mass executions by the Arab armies and wholesale flight from these persecutions. I know it’s very late for you, Connie, and that you and your crew have been working without sleep in order to bring CNN viewers here at home and around the world this startling exclusive coverage. But is there something you might add concerning what may emerge as a significant political, if not humanitarian, problem as the days wear on?”
“Damian, I attempted earlier to reach the office of Yigal Lev, who is identified as Israeli’s acting prime minister, but on this question a spokesman would say only, and I quote—” She reads from a sheet of paper. “—‘The government of Israel remains sympathetic to the deplorable suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of the neighboring Arab regimes, but considers this to be an internal problem of the Arab world.’ As to if and when Israel’s borders will open to Palestinians who fled Arab attacks and may wish to return to their homes, I was told only, and here again I quote, ‘The return of Arab citizens of Israel to their homes in the —’”
“Is he saying, Connie, Palestinians who are not citizens—”
“Damian, if you don’t mind. ‘The return of Arab citizens of Israel to their homes in the State of Israel according to its biblical borders is assured.’ I can’t confirm this, but it does appear Israel intends to formally annex the West Bank and possibly Gaza now that both areas have been nearly completely depopulated of Palestinians by the invading Arab armies. If so, I’m afraid we are looking at another perilous development in the rather unpleasant history of Israel-Arab relations.” She pauses, leaning forward. “I’m sorry, Damian, I didn’t quite get that.”
“Sorry to interrupt, Connie, but we now have news that may make the Middle East situation even more complicated. According to information just received, Ayatollah Nasr Sadiqi, president of Iran and also its leading cleric, has declared a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for Muslims to enact a death sentence on the State of Israel, which he claims has intentionally destroyed the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, said to be Islam’s third most holy site. The fatwa specifically stipulates that all Israelis are to be destroyed, including women and children, and I quote, ‘So that they may not propagate their evil.’ Iranian authorities have now vowed to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. Here’s an excerpt from a news conference in Tehran which ended only moments ago.”
On the screen behind Smith, the bearded mullah’s high-pitched rant opens at full volume and then is reduced so the halting voice of a simultaneous translator may be heard. “The Jewish trickery will be...solved...fixed. And this...invites, will cause a second and final holocaust upon the Hebrew sons of monkeys and dogs, even the infants. Therefore we have commanded...invited the Muslim armies and all Muslim peoples to leave Palestine so that our sacred bombs will fall only upon the Jewish Nazis and their Christian allies. In a matter of hours this sacred soil will be...cleansed...in vengeance, in the vengeance of God, against those beasts who destroyed the sacred holy shrines of Islam.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” the president says, buttering a slice of cornbread. “I thought those Eyeranian assholes don’t have nukes.” He clicks off the televisio
n with a remote emblazoned with the presidential seal. No one else is authorized to use it.
“You will recall, Mr. President,” Felix St. George says, “as early as two years previously I very strongly urged not to accept the word of the mullahs on the nuclear question. It is firmly within Muslim tradition that in dealing with the infidel—”
“Have we got anything from Tel Aviv?”
“We keep calling, but they’re not answering,” Admiral Staley says. “The Israelis are toying with us. They don’t want a ceasefire this time. They’re going for the whole nine yards.”
Flo Spier is all over this. “At least Israel hasn’t gone nuclear, sir. Mr. President, your airlift will go down in history as having averted an atomic war on the part of Israel. This recent development certainly can’t be laid at your feet.”
“Yeah, well, we restrained the Jews all right,” the president says, salting his cornbread, “but we can’t restrain the towelheads. All it takes is one bomb to take out the whole of Israel—what is it, the size of Rhode Island?” He thinks about this. “Or New Jersey, somebody said. I think it’s New Jersey.”
“Mr. President,” General Hefty says. He has barely eaten. “As you yourself noted, we are committed to defend Israel in case of nuclear attack. Ipso facto the US is treaty-bound to hit Iran. Sir, the fuckers are announcing a nuclear attack. There’s six million Israeli civilians packed in there about to be kosher barbecued. Mr. President, we have the means to stop it. Is it a go?”
“Felix, break it to him gentle-like.”
“If you look closely at the treaty, General Hefty, we’re committed to defend Israel in the event of a nuclear attack, not in advance of one.”
General Hefty is about to lose it. “Mr. President, that is the most cynical sentence I have heard in Washington in my lifetime, and this is far from my first rodeo.”
The president considers another slice of cornbread. “Might well be, Arthur. But let me ask you this: What’s one pissant country compared to ensuring that we and our allies do not run out of the lifeblood of democracy and the American way of life?”
