“Frankly,” I said, “I was disappointed.”
“Disappointed!”
“You’re a Journalist, Melanie. You should know that there’s no story in what he gave me.”
“No story!” She was amazed.
“Melanie, forget your own interest in the man and your sympathy with the cause. Look at it professionally. Ghaled moved out of the mainstream of the Palestinian movement when he formed the PAF and denounced the PLO and Al Fatah. The Popular Front people have brushed him off. He’s little more than a gangster now and he has sense enough left to realize it. So he’s trying to talk his way back in with this crackpot stuff about destroying Israel single-handedly.”
“That is not what he said.” She was indignant now. “He said ‘defeat’, not ‘destroy’, and he did not say ‘single-handed’. You are seriously underestimating him.”
I shook my head. “A punchy has-been still kidding himself that he’s in line for a championship bout. That’s all I see.”
“That is a ridiculous comparison!”
“I don’t think so. Destroy, defeat the Zionist state? Don’t tell me you can take that seriously.”
“Indeed I can, and I do.”
“All that nonsense about fulcrums and levers?”
“It is not nonsense!”
“Sorry, Melanie, I think it is.”
“That is because you do not know what is planned.”
“And you do?”
“I know a little, yes.”
That was the first thing I had wanted to find out. I went on needling her.
“Plans for defeating Israel are easy to make. The Arabs have made quite a few. Carrying them out, though, doesn’t seem to be so easy. The combined forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan couldn’t do it. I can’t see your Mr. Ghaled improving on their efforts.”
“He will.”
“What with? Bombs in grapefruit?”
“You were not so contemptuous of bombs when they were planted in airliners by the Popular Front.”
“No. But what did that little campaign achieve against Israel? Did it stop the tourists going to Israel by air with their travellers’ checks? It did not. More tourists than ever went. When your Mr. Ghaled’s friends shot up the Israeli buses taking tourists into the occupied territories, did they stop the buses running? At no time.”
“It will be a different story when Salah has finished.”
That was the second piece of information she gave me.
I shrugged “So what? A few unfortunate tourists are killed. Okay, the tourist trade is important to the Israeli economy, but it’s not that important. A slight letup in the dollar flow isn’t going to destroy Israel.”
“Who can tell what it might lead to?” She was becoming angry now. I didn’t think I would get any more out of her, but after a moment she went on. “You said ‘destroy’ again. The word Salah used was ‘defeat’. You see now why he insisted on tape recordings.”
“Destroy, defeat? What’s the difference? He used both words.”
“But in different contexts. Where Israel is concerned the distinction is important. If it cannot be destroyed from without it must be defeated from within,”
“Sorry, I don’t get it.”
“You said yourself that Israeli unity has been an Arab achievement.”
“That was part of a loaded question I was asking. Israeli unity is a product of many things — religion, faith, history, the drama of the Ingathering, the toughness of the sabras, the dedication of the aliyah immigrants, common purpose, self-respect — all the ingredients of high national morale are there. The presence of Goliath and the continued success of David against him are only parts of the story.”
“They are the parts that count most. Without the pressure on it from the outside the Israeli state would have fallen to pieces. Even now, with Goliath, as you call it, still at the gate, they are torn by hate and dissension.”
“Dissension is part of democratic government.”
“But not hatreds such as theirs. The Ashkenazim hate the Sephardim, and both are hated by the Oriental Jews, the underprivileged proletariat. The Aduk hate the Ostjuden and the Taymanim hate those of Mea Shearim and their like who are Jewish anti-Zionists. The sabras hate everyone, even themselves.”
“You mean Ghaled is counting on Israel becoming politically unstable and falling apart? Because if so…”
“Who can say,” she challenged, “what will happen when, for the first time, David’s boasts are proved empty, when it is Goliath who has the sling and the simple bag of stones, when the Israelis have to taste defeat?”
“I’d say they’d close ranks and make damn sure it didn’t happen again.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Defeat does strange things to those without experience of it.”
“Israel isn’t going to be defeated by pinpricks.”
“One pinprick will collapse a balloon, especially if the pressure inside is high.”
“And if Ghaled had the right fulcrum he could move the earth, I know. Let’s skip it, Melanie.” I yawned. I didn’t want her to realize how much of the cat she had let out of the bag, so I didn’t leave it there. “One thing I forgot,” I went on, stifling the yawn. “How do you spell the name of that village Ghaled mentioned, the one near Haifa? Majd el something, wasn’t it?”
“Majd el-Kram.” She spelled it out. “But I thought you said that there was no story.”
“I don’t think there is, not for me anyway, but the tapes will be transcribed. We may as well have it right.”
I had another drink and slept for a couple of hours in a spare room. She got me back to Beirut in time for a late breakfast. When I had showered and changed I went to the bureau office.
Frank Edwards was there and expectant.
“How did it go, Lew?”
I told him about the setup of the meeting and gave him my two tape cassettes.
“Most of it’s there,” I said. “There’s one thing I’d like to check if it’s possible here. There was an incident in Israel about three weeks ago in a village called Majd el-Krum near Haifa. An Arab was sentenced for not informing the police about a visit from his brother who was a member of the PAF. Is that sort of thing reported in the Israeli press?”
“Sometimes. We get the Israeli papers by mail via Cyprus. Three weeks ago you say?”
“About then.”
He found the item to the English language Jerusalem Post.
“Here we are. The case was heard in the Haifa District Court. The man Ali gave the brother a drink of water and them turned him away.”
“The Israelis blew up his house for that?”
“What do you mean, blew up his house? He was sentenced to three months in jail and then the judge suspended the sentence. Ali left the court amid the cheers of friends from his village.”
“What about the PAF man?”
“He was caught. In fact, it was he who told the police that he had been to see his brother Ali. Charmimg fellow. He’ll be up for trial soon. The judge won’t suspend his sentence.”
“What’ll he get?”
“Eight to ten years. He was caught armed, you see.” He picked up the tapes. I'll have these transcribed for you right away.”
“No hurry, Frank,” I said. “I’m not filing any story yet on Ghaled.”
“No story?”
“Yet. You wanted to know what he’s up to. You’ll read some of it to the transcript, but I can sum up. He’s out to defeat the State of Israel. No less.”
“They all are, to a manner of speaking.”
“He means it literally. I quote: 'Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world.' Well, he claims to have found a fulcrum. Incidentally, he told me that the Israelis blew up that man Ali’s house. He probably thought that I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, trouble to check. Stupid of him, and a bit odd, because he didn’t strike me as a stupid man, at least not stupid in that way. Very close-mouthed. Lots of cute double-talk about M's plans. I got more out of La Hammad afterwards.”