On May 23, the shoe dropped. Lemmy read in the newspaper about President Nasser’s declaration: The Gulf of Aqaba constitutes Egyptian territorial water. Under no circumstances will we allow the Israeli flag to pass through. His declaration fired up the Arab streets everywhere, and the armies of Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq mobilized to help Egypt, Syria, and Jordan fight Israel. In response, Prime Minister Eshkol sent Eban yet again to Washington to press for an American guarantee of Israel’s security. At the same time, political maneuvering in the Israeli Knesset became intense. Opposition leaders Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres demanded the appointment of Moshe Dayan as defense minister. Eshkol hinted that Dayan was morally unfit for a ministerial position, to which the opposition responded with demands for evidence.
After lunch, as they were doing pushups in the unfurnished living room, Sanani suddenly rolled on his back. “These politicians,” he yelled, his voice echoing in the empty space, “play musical chairs while we’re dying here!”
The word dying hit Lemmy with the image of his mother in a noose. He turned away from his friend to hide his grimacing face.
“Screw this!” Sanani tossed a piece of broken plaster at the wall. “I’m sick of it!”
Lemmy swallowed, pushing away the image. “You’d rather stay in the Negev? Eat sand?”
“I’d rather be fighting in Cairo than beg the Americans to save my ass!”
“I have a feeling,” Lemmy said, dropping for another set of pushups, “that you and I aren’t going to Cairo any time soon.”
“So where are we going?”
“I figure, either Germany or India.”
E lie Weiss parked on Ramban Street and walked the rest of the way to the prime minister’s residence. The street had changed since the staged assassination attempt had failed. The trees had recovered from the winter frost, and the bushes along the sidewalk bloomed with purple flowers as big as fists. A brick wall had been erected around the house.
An aide showed Elie into the kitchen. The prime minister sat alone, his untouched dinner before him, his feet in brown socks, resting on another chair. “Weiss,” he said, “they’re drinking my blood. Dayan. Dayan. Dayan. Why? Because that pirate will pull the trigger! And cause disaster!”
Elie sat down.
“They call me a coward because I’m trying to avoid war. Arik Sharon said I’m disarming our most powerful weapon-the Arabs’ fear of us.” Eshkol sneezed.
“ Gesundheit, but Arik is not alone in worrying about our declining deterrence.”
“Deterrence is when the other side fears your threats.” Eshkol’s voice rose. “But deterrence disappears when you actually attack! What do you think will happen if war breaks out? Blut vet sich giessen vie vasser! ”
Elie imagined blood running like water in the streets of Jerusalem. “Rabin told me that the IDF can win.”
“You believe in miracles?” The prime minister held up a bunch of papers stapled together. “I believe in intelligence, facts, analysis. The Arabs have the best weapons in Moscow’s arsenal-planes, tanks, cannons, short-range rockets, long-range rockets, air-to-air missiles, air-to-land missiles, land-to-land-”
“I get the picture.”
“Nasser has amassed hundreds of thousands of troops in Sinai. King Hussein has turned the West Bank into a launching pad for his armored divisions. And the Syrians engage in daily target practice from the Golan Heights. The Arabs are like a giant shoykhet standing over a skinny lamb!”
Elie thought about his father, back in the shtetl, holding a sharp blade to a lamb’s neck while explaining how the smoothness of a single pass of the perfect blade would cause the animal an instant, painless death.
“Why do they hate us so, Weiss?” The prime minister’s eyes moistened behind his glasses. “Why?”
“Jealousy,” Elie said. “Plain old jealousy.”
“ They are jealous of us?”
“Started with the patriarch Abraham. While he claimed to be on a first-name basis with the mightiest God, all-powerful and invisible, the Goyim had to make do with wooden idols on a shelf.”
“True.”
“Moses parted the sea. King David built an empire. Solomon had a thousand wives. And for centuries the exiled Jews could read and write in many languages while their Christian neighbors couldn’t even sign their own names. Are you surprised they hate us?”
“But the Germans were an advanced nation. Why would they be jealous?”
“Because emancipation opened the shtetl’s gates by giving Jews equality and opportunity. And the Jews became more equal than others. By 1936, every other German doctor or lawyer was a Jew, prestigious university positions and industrial leadership posts-”
“But look at us now!” Eshkol pointed at himself. “We’ve lost six million in the camps, we’re eighty percent new immigrants, a Babel of languages in the tiniest country, with a majority living in poverty, and no allies to stand with us against a unity of Arab nations. What’s to be jealous of now?”
“We have this land.”
“For this tiny patch the Arabs envy us? Our single grain of sand to their vast territories? Our puny Lake Kinneret to their oceans of oil? Our dripping Jordan River to their Nile and Euphrates?”
“They linger in the Stone Age while we’ve arrived at the Nuclear Age. The Dimona reactor is driving them meshuggah. And the Soviets aren’t happy either.”
“You’re right.” Levi Eshkol wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Not only I have a lingering fever, I also exemplify Isaiah’s words: Your destroyers shall come from within. How can I save our people when my own party leadership betrays me?”
Elie placed the Dayan file on the table. “Perhaps this will help.”
“Ah!” Eshkol’s face lit up. “You got the goods on the pirate?”
“As promised.” He pulled photos and notes from the file and commenced his presentation. There was the excavation at Megido, where Dayan had used soldiers, army trucks, and even a helicopter to remove hundreds of archeological objects of unimaginable value. A mosaic floor of an ancient synagogue near Nazareth, which Dayan had lifted-literally-courtesy of the IDF corps of engineers. Statements from officers and civilians attested to General Dayan’s actions, including testimony from a middleman who had delivered Dayan’s antiques to a buyer in Brussels.
When Elie finished, the prime minister clapped his hands. “Weiss, you’re a man of your word!”
“General Dayan is a compulsive risk-taker. I think his courage under fire matches his contempt for the law, especially the law governing archeological findings.”
“This stuff will sink him.” The prime minister blew his nose into a handkerchief. “You know, Abba Eban once told me that Moshe Dayan is the first Jew ever to succeed in violating all Ten Commandments!”
“Funny.” Elie put everything back into the file. He didn’t tell Eshkol about his meeting with Professor Gileadi at the Antique Authority. Let Dayan defend himself.
An assistant walked in and handed Eshkol two pages held with a clip. “Your speech, sir. We’ve made additional changes to clarify some points.”
Elie saw the penciled scribbling between the printed lines and along the margins. He knew Eshkol was due to speak directly to the nation in a live radio broadcast that night. “You should have it retyped. It would be easier to read.”
“Nonsense. If there’s one thing I do well, it’s talking!” Eshkol stood, sliding his feet into his slippers. “Leave the evidence here. I’ll give Dayan a chance to withdraw his candidacy quietly. He’ll take a reserve command in the south, keep himself busy.”
“Of course.” Elie got up, holding the file to his chest. “As soon as you announce my appointment as Mossad chief.”