Bira and Eytan met her for dinner at an outdoor cafe near the beach. He was a dark Israeli with a sunny smile, and seemed unconcerned when the two women lapsed into German, reminiscing how Tanya had taught Bira to ride a bicycle in a Munich park until they both fell into a shallow reflecting pool.
Tanya spent the night in the tiny apartment Bira shared with five other soldiers. They chatted late into the night, and Tanya went to bed content that her daughter had acclimated to life in Israel. Bira had grown up in a succession of European cities, their frequent relocations dictated by Mossad needs. But the disadvantage of a rootless childhood was balanced out by a multilingual fluency that served Bira well in her IDF research duties, while she easily made new friends among her fellow troops.
W ell before sunrise, Tanya walked the short distance to the Kirya, the fenced-off IDF headquarters in the center of Tel Aviv. She passed through several checkpoints, and took a long elevator ride down to the Pit-the underground command center.
The meeting convened in a large room with solid concrete walls and mechanical ventilation. Prime Minster Levi Eshkol sat at one end of a long table, his thick eyeglasses on his forehead, his eyes buried in a document. The IDF chief of staff, General Yitzhak Rabin, sat at the other end, puffing on a cigarette. The rest of the seats around the table were taken by IDF generals and the civilian chiefs of Shin Bet and Mossad, all much younger than Eshkol. Plastic chairs lined the walls, occupied by aides and advisors.
On the opposite side of the room Tanya noticed Elie Weiss, diminutive and brooding. His wool cap covered his ears. He beckoned Tanya to an adjoining seat, but she sat near the door.
General Rabin approached a large wall map, the cigarette dangling from his lips. “ Boker Tov,” he said.
A few voices replied, “Good morning.”
“What morning?” the prime minister asked, looking up from his papers. “It’s still the middle of the night!”
Rabin smiled. At forty-five, he was a handsome man with reddish-brown hair and a healthy tan. “As I see it, our goal is to avoid war. But our duty is to prepare for one.”
Several generals nodded. They seemed accustomed to Rabin’s slow, deliberate manner of speech.
“The tension on the borders,” Rabin continued, “is growing. In the north, Syrian bombardments rain down from the Golan Heights. In the east, PLO terrorists infiltrate from Jordan and kill civilians. In the south, Egypt is building up its forces in Sinai. In the west, terrorists attack us from Gaza. The daily casualties on every front erode our citizens’ morale.”
“It’s a chronic disease,” the prime minister said, “like bronchitis, or cataract.”
Everyone laughed, knowing that he was suffering from both.
“It’s becoming a fatal disease,” Rabin said. “The Arabs smell blood. They’re finally strong enough to overrun Israel.”
“The world won’t allow it,” the prime minister argued. “The UN will confront the Arab leaders. I sent Abba Eban to urge General Bull.”
“Our intelligence reports,” Rabin continued, “indicate that Egypt might block the Straits of Tiran.”
“Impossible!” Prime Minister Eshkol shook a finger at Rabin. “We have guarantees from the Americans. That’s why we agreed to withdraw from Sinai after the ’fifty-six campaign! Egypt will never have the chutzpah!”
“The Soviet Union is arming the Egyptians and Syrians in hopes of creating another Vietnam here. But our eastern border is the longest. To succeed against us, Egypt and Syria need Jordan.” With the point of a long stick, Rabin traced the meandering border down the middle of the Sea of Galilee to the mouth of the Jordan River and inland toward the Mediterranean Sea, where it ran parallel to the coast, creating a narrow strip where Israel was less than ten miles wide. Near the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv, the border veered east to the Judean Mountains. It sliced Jerusalem in half, with the Old City on the Jordanian side and the Jewish neighborhoods in a small peninsula. The border immediately dropped back west, circling the southern bulge of the West Bank, under Jordanian control, then east again to the desert valleys below the Dead Sea. The southern part of Israel, almost two-thirds of its odd-shaped territory, was the Negev Desert. It was dotted with isolated kibbutzim, collective farms that defied the harsh desert with green islands of alfalfa, carrots, and tomatoes.
General Rabin’s pointer returned to the narrow coastal strip north of Tel Aviv. “Here is our soft belly. Unlike the south and the north, where we have a bit of territorial depth to fight, a massive Jordan bombardment of West Jerusalem and the coastal strip will destroy us.”
“They won’t dare!” Prime Minister Eshkol leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “It would be a violation of every UN resolution!”
Drawing long from his cigarette, Rabin took his time. “If diplomacy fails, we’ll have to fend off King Hussein, or war will be lost on the first day.”
“I can’t spare any troops,” said General Dado Elazar, CO northern command. “The Syrians sit in their bunkers on the Golan Heights and shoot down at our kibbutzniks in the valleys. We have casualties every day. How long are we going to tolerate it?”
“My lines are stretched to the max,” said General Gavish, CO Southern Command. “Three hundred kilometers of desert. I have gaps wide enough for an entire Egyptian battalion to march through. We operate a phantom division in the middle section-three old tanks driving back and forth, raising dust to fool the Egyptians about our size. But if they actually attack, we’d better prepare white flags and learn Arabic.”
“Imagine that,” said a voice from the corner, “the Israelites going into Egyptian captivity all over again.”
Tanya had not noticed him before. General Moshe Dayan, veteran IDF chief of staff, wore plain khakis and his black eye patch. He joined his fingers, forming a peak. “We’d better pull out the old blueprints for the pyramids.”
“Happy Passover,” someone said, and the room erupted in laughter.
“War is coming,” Dayan said, suddenly serious. “The IDF must attack first, or we’ll all die.”
“Madness!” Prime Minister Eshkol was red in the face. “We are a tiny country, an island of Yids in an ocean of Goyim! The United Nations guaranteed our sovereignty. It’s General Bull’s responsibility!”
“What’s he going to do?” Dayan smirked. “Order his thousand UN observers to observe more closely?”
“We can’t fight alone.” Eshkol’s voice trembled. “We need America. Or France. Alone, we’ll be squashed!”
A wiry, tall man leaped from his seat and went to the map. “My team has prepared plans for a first strike.” Ezer Weitzman, nephew of Israel’s first president, had until recently commanded the air force. He was now CO operations, second only to Rabin.
Weitzman grabbed the pointer from Rabin. “A first-strike by the Arabs would disable our airfields, blast the Dimona nuclear reactor, and destroy our cities.” The pointer moved rapidly between different spots on the map. “The north and south will be cut off from central command.” He tapped the Golan Heights, the Galilee, and the Negev. “No supply lines. No reinforcements. No spare parts, ammunition, or oil refills. Our tanks and infantry will be disabled and wiped out. End of story.” Weitzman threw the stick on the table, and it slid lengthwise until it stopped, the pointer touching Prime Minister Eshkol’s white shirt. “Authorize a preemptive air strike on them, or prepare for a second Holocaust!”
Having kept the defense portfolio to himself, Eshkol was now stuck with the challenge of reining in the military brass. Tanya saw him scribble something in a little notebook. “Here we are,” he said, “an ancient nation with a great military force. But still, the people of Israel are afraid. We’re like Samson the nebishdicker.”
They laughed, and Tanya understood Eshkol’s clever metaphor of the biblical superhero, Samson the nerd, Israel being simultaneously mighty and meek, ferocious and fearful. In contrast to the Israeli-born sabra generals, who were confident and eager to fight, Eshkol belonged to the older, Diaspora-born politicians, whose worldview had been formed in Eastern Europe, where Jewish men cowered under kitchen tables while the Goyim ransacked their homes and raped their wives and daughters.