Meyer Levin:
The Story of Israel (Putnam, 1966):
p. 221
Again,
Arab leaders began to vie with each other on promising genocide for the Jews of the Holy Land. IT ..
* was to be a war of extermination in which not a man, woman, or child should be spared, announced Ahmed Shukeiri, the bloodthirsty organizer of commando units in the Arab refugee camps. Nasser promised to place Shukeiri's men in the front ranks when he invaded.
Even King Hussein of Jordan, apparently fearing that he would be assassinated as had been his grandfather, Emir Abdullah, for trying to be reasonable on the Palestine question, suddenly found it necessary to fly to Cairo and join forces with Nasser, who had been calling him a jackal. Meanwhile Nasser had taken a fatal step. He had demanded of the Secretary-General of the United Nation, U Thant, that the U. N. peace troops on the border of the Gaza strip and Israel should withdraw.
To the world's astonishment, Secretary-General U Thant agreed without so much as an open debate in the U. N. Virtually overnight the peace-keepers left their posts, while Egyptian troops took over. To the average person this was as though a gunman should walk up to a policeman and say, "Get off the beat, I want to shoot someone," with the officer obligingly walking away. There were explanations, of course ...
By any normal process in international relationships it had to be recognized as such, and many statesmen and political leaders throughout the world minced no words in stating this fact. Egypt had begun the war. But not a shot had been fired, and to some minds war starts only when shooting starts. General de Gaulle , for example, apparently forgetting that Hitler carried out his first aggressions without firing a shot, announced that France would not support the country that first started firing. Since Israel's planes were of French make, this s was a serious threat...
* pp. 230-1
And after Israelis broke through at a number of points, penetrating onto the upper plateau, they found additional heavily armored strongholds, built in depth in the Soviet manner, for miles. Yet by the time of the cease-fire they were on a virtually open road to Damascus.
Here too there was a schoolmate of our daughter's - Gil, who had been continuing his studies in London. At the outbreak of the war he had rushed to the airport, and for over thirty hours he had tried desperately to find a plane to take him to Israel. Finally, hearing of such a flight , he had altered the number on his ticket and got home just in time to rush to his tank unit and take part in the tough Syrian battle.
To the world it seemed as though the Israelis were "seasoned fighters" with much experience under fire. Yet for almost all of these young men who comprised the bulk of the army , this was a baptism of fire.
"At first," said Eli, who fought in Jerusalem, "when we stood in the trenches at Ramat Rahel, it seemed like maneuvers. Only, when real shells began to come in and I saw my friends wounded, I began to get angry . The shelling became very heavy , and we were in trouble. Then we saw some tractors from the kibbutz, ordinary red-painted work tractors, arriving pulling artillery into place. And in half an hour those guns on the other side were silenced."
The next day, running forward on a house attack, stopping only to carry back a fallen friend to a dressing station, and running again to attack the "house with the yellow shutters" that dominated the area before the Jerusalem walls, Eli later said, "I realized I was crying as I ran, crying for my friend."
So, for the third time in twenty years, Israel won a war of survival, this time against forces better equipped, better prepared than ever before. The world was astounded.
But one point everyone had to keep in mind: if Israel lost, it meant complete annihilation for the one existing Jewish nation. If the Arabs lost, it meant only some bruises, a withdrawal into their vast homelands, perhaps to work their many nations up for another attack.
**
