The Haganah swept down the slopes of Mount Carmel in a four-pronged attack, each action aimed at an Arab strong point. The Arab troops, consisting of home guards, Syrian, Lebanese, and Iraqi irregulars, mounted a strong defense and were at first able to contain the battle. The British, who still controlled the dock area, called truce after truce to stop the Jewish offenses, and at times took away hard-won vantage points.
The Arabs continued to hold well against the steady Jewish pressure. Then, as the fighting reached a peak, the Arab commander and his entire staff slipped out and quietly fled. Arab resistance became demoralized and collapsed entirely. Again the British called a truce as the Jews swept into the Arab quarters.
At that point a fantastic event took place. The Arabs suddenly announced, to the general astonishment, that the entire population wished to leave. The procedure followed the curious pattern of Safed and many of the villages. It was a strange spectacle to see whole Arab populations stampeding for the Lebanese border, with no one pursuing them.
Acre, an all-Arab city crammed with refugees, fell to the Haganah after a halfhearted and feeble defense that lasted only three days. The infection spread to the Arab city of Jaffa, where the Maccabees held the center of the line and launched an attack which took this oldest port in the world-and the Arabs of Jaffa fled.
In the Jerusalem corridor, Abdul Kadar succeeded in driving the Jews from the vital height of the Kastel, but the Haganah and Palmach came right back and threw the Arabs off in turn. Kadar rallied his people for still another attempt on the Kastel, and in this try he was killed. The loss of their one good commander was a further severe blow to the demoralized Arabs.
May 1948 came into being. The British had only two more weeks left to complete their evacuation and give up the mandate.
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On the borders, the revengeful armies of Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq stood poised to cross and crush the conquering Jews.
The hour of decision-to declare statehood or not to declare statehood-was at hand.
CHAPTER EIGHT: Between November of 1947 and May of 1948, the Yishuv had staged a spectacular show by successfully fighting against overwhelming odds with little more than nothing. During that period of time the Jews had converted the Haganah from an underground defense Unit into the nucleus of a real army. They had trained new troops and staff men and organized tactical schools, operations, supply and transport and the hundreds of other things that marked the conversion from guerrilla fighting to organized warfare.
The first air force of grenade-throwing Piper Cub pilots had grown to include a few Spitfires manned by Jews who had flown with the American, British, and South African air forces. The Navy had begun with the rickety immigration runners and now had a few corvettes and PT boats.
From the beginning the Jews had appreciated the importance of administration, intelligence, and command. Each day they gained in experience and their victories brought confidence. They had shown they could organize and coordinate small-scale efforts: the convoys to Jerusalem, Operation Iron Broom, and other local actions.
They had met the challenge and triumphed. Yet they knew that they had only fought a small war, against an enemy who did not have a tremendous desire to fight. The Arabs had little organization or leadership and no stomach for sustained fighting. The Arab debacle proved that it took more than slogans to give a man the stamina and courage to put his life on the block.
The planeloads of small arms had helped to save the Yishuv. As the hour of decision came near the reality came with it that these arms would have to face regular armies with tanks, artillery, and modern air forces.
Those who believed that the Arab countries were bluffing soon got a rude awakening as the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan wantonly violated every concept of honor. The Legion operated in Palestine as a British police force. This “British police force” began open action against the isolated Etzion Group settlements on the Bethlehem Road.
The four villages in the Etzion group were manned by Orthodox Jews who chose to stay and fight, as did every 516
settlement in the Yishuv. Led by British officers, the Trans-Jordan Arab Legion shelled the four settlements without mercy and completely cut them off from outside help.
Kibbutz Etzion was the first target of the Legion. After blasting the kibbutz apart, the Legion attacked the siege-weary, half-starved settlement. The Orthodox Jews of kibbutz Etzion held fast until their last round of ammunition had been fired and only then did they surrender. Arab villagers who had followed the Legion rushed into the kibbutz and massacred almost all the survivors. The Legion made an attempt to stop the slaughter but when it was over only four Jews had survived.
The Haganah immediately appealed to the International Red Cross to supervise the surrender of the other three Etzion group settlements, which were also close to being out of ammunition. Only this move prevented mass murder there, too.
In the Negev Desert near the Dead Sea, the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan attacked again.
This time they hit a kibbutz that the Jews had built in the lowest and hottest place on the earth. It was called Beth Ha-Arava-the House in the Wilderness. In the summertime it was one hundred and twenty-five degrees in the shade. When the Jews came to this place no living thing had grown in the alkaline soil in all of history. They washed the soil down, acre by acre, to free it of salts, and by this painstaking process and through the creation of spillways, dams, and cisterns to trap the rainfall, they built a modern farm.
With the nearest Jews a hundred miles away and facing unbeatable odds, Beth Ha-Arava surrendered to the Arab Legion, and as the people walked from the House in the Wilderness the Jews set a torch to it and burned their houses and fields which had been built with inhuman toil.
And so, the Arabs had got their victories at last-Beth Ha-Arava-the House in the Wilderness-and the bloodstained conquest of the Etzion group.
On the night of May 13, 1948, the British High Commissioner for Palestine quietly left embattled Jerusalem. The Union Jack, a symbol here of the misuse of power, came down from the staff-forever.
MAY 14,1948
In Tel Aviv the leaders of the Yishuv and the world Zionists met in the house of Meier Dizengoff, the founder and first mayor of the city. Outside the house, Sten-gun-bearing guards kept back anxious crowds.
In Cairo, in New York, in Jerusalem, and in Paris and
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London and Washington they turned their eyes and ears to this house.
“This is Kol Israel-the Voice of Israel,” the announcer said slowly from the radio station. “I have just been handed a document concerning the end of the British mandate which I shall now read to you.” i
“Quiet! Quiet!” Dr. Lieberman said to the crowd of children who had gathered in his cottage. “Quiet!”
“The Land of Israel,” the voice over the radio said, “was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious, and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world.”
Bruce Sutherland and Joab Yarkoni stopped the chess game in Remez’s hotel and, with Remez, listened raptly.
“Exiled from the Land of Israel, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope.for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.”
In Paris, the static on the radio increased and drowned out the voice as Barak Ben Canaan and the Yishuv agents frantically twisted the dials and beat on the receiver.
“Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove throughout the centuries to go back to the land of their fathers and regain their statehood. In recent decades they returned in their masses. They reclaimed the wilderness, revived then-language, built cities and villages, and established an evergrowing community with its own economic and cultural life. They sought peace, yet were prepared to defend themselves. They brought the blessings of progress to all inhabitants …”