1948

Uri Avnery

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781780744445
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Acclaimed as the Middle East's "All Quiet on the Western Front" The first eye-witness account ever published of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, this riveting memoir of a young Israeli soldier became an instant bestseller on publication in 1949, and is still recognized as the outstanding book of that war, in the tradition of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. First joining the Givati Brigade and later volunteering for "Samson's Foxes", the legendary commando unit, Avnery took part in almost all the major battles on the Jerusalem and southern fronts. Written from the trenches, and from a military hospital bed, he offers an extraordinarily detailed account of the war, of fast-paced battles, and acts of extreme bravery, as well as the camaraderie and off-duty exploits of young men and women thrust into the front line. This is a gripping, sensitive, and at times deeply poignant account of the day-to-day brutalities of one of the most significant wars of our times.

PART ONE

In the Fields of the Philistines

Before the Battle

29 November 1947, a few minutes after midnight

No one is sleeping. Everyone is sitting by the radio. And over the ether comes the message: the General Assembly of the United Nations has decided in favor of the founding of a Jewish and an Arab state.

Joy explodes like a wild storm. Young people stream onto the streets, collect together, go wild. Such a demonstration of mass enthusiasm has never been seen before in this land. Groups are formed, people packed together, songs are sung, and wildly dancing circles form at the crossroads. Men and women who have never met before hug and kiss each other.

Joy washes away all boundaries; limits and differences disappear. In a sea of flags, drunk with enthusiasm, the youth celebrate the great news.

In the last few months the land of Palestine had fallen ever deeper into the abyss. Order collapsed and chaos ruled everywhere.

On 29 September 1947, exactly two months before the historic decision, Jamal Husseini¹ declared, in a clear and unambiguous speech, that the Arabs would take up arms to convert the land into an Arab state. On the same day the police station in Haifa was blown up by the Irgun, with the death of ten British soldiers. The governments of Syria and Lebanon began moving their armies to the border. On 12 November the British killed four young members of the Lehi. The next day the Lehi killed eight Englishmen in various parts of the country. Three days later the ship Aliyah ran the British maritime blockade and brought refugees to the beach of Nahariya.² On 19 November two new Jewish settlements were founded in the Negev. On 21 November ten people were injured when Arabs attacked a bus on the way from Cholon to Tel Aviv.

Three different groups were fighting against each other. A British government – without any moral authority – tried to keep out the refugees, who were streaming into the land from Europe, week after week. Their refusal to allow in the fugitives on board the Exodus³ sent shock waves around the world. A small group of young people, agents of the Haganah,⁴ were trying to set up an underground network in Europe and the Arab states. Their attempts to find ways through this blockade gained tremendously in support from the Exodus affair. At the same time other small groups were fighting the British administration through acts of sabotage. A continuous cycle of terror and counter-terror eroded the basis for a normal life.

And on the other side of the border Haj Amin al-Husseini⁵ was meeting with the leaders of the Arab states. They made the decision to use armed force to destroy the “Zionist danger” once and for all.

In this atmosphere of threatening crisis, the UN decision was like the first thunder announcing a refreshing storm after days of hot, sticky weather. Everyone felt instinctively: the die is cast. The uncertainty, the paralyzing indecision is at an end.

The most brilliant director would not have been capable of producing a scene of such spontaneously erupting joy. These young people were not happy about the partition, which would divide Palestine into little pieces. They were not celebrating the approaching battles. Their joy was an expression of freedom: the walls of the ghetto have fallen, the road out is clear, new horizons for activity and life are open.

But there were some who remained quiet on that night. They went around with gloomy faces, and took no part in the celebrations. They looked upon the dancing, jubilant youth and wondered: how many of these will still be living next year?

Because they knew the decisive battle was yet to come: a bloody war in the struggle between Israelis and Arabs, which had been approaching for thirty years, ever since the Balfour Declaration.⁶

30 November 1947

The enthusiasm continues. Young men and women, who didn’t sleep all last night, dance, rejoice, and sing on.

Suddenly there is a moment of quiet. Shots echo through the land. A bus on the road from Netanya to Jerusalem is attacked, leaving four dead bodies on the ground. The war has begun.

Everywhere the Arab youth rush to join the fighting organizations. And from Syria, from Egypt, from Iraq, and from Transjordan,⁷ volunteers come streaming into the country – along with large quantities of weapons.

The first attack is aimed at the lifeline of the Hebrew population – the lines of transport. The roads to Jerusalem and in the Negev are closed after repeated attacks by Arab groups. A bomb is placed under the water pipeline in the Negev, and after each repair it is blown up again. On 2 December an Arab mob rampages through the commercial center of Jerusalem, killing five Hebrews and chasing the Hebrew population out of remote parts of the city. At the same time the first attacks are mounted on the outskirts of Tel Aviv from the direction of Jaffa. The roads are blocked. The larger towns and also smaller villages are encircled.

The third party is also active. The British, who had decided to withdraw from the country, intended thereby to leave the Arabs to finish off the Yishuv.⁸ They have no scruples about making it easier for them. With British support the Arab Legion⁹ enters the country. On 14 December fourteen members of the Haganah are killed outside the barracks of the Legion in Beit Nabala, as they are escorting a convoy of lorries to Ben-Shemen. On 22 February British terrorists blow up the center of Hebrew Jerusalem in Ben-Yehuda Street. On 28 February the British disarm eight Haganah people, who are securing the road from Tel Aviv to Cholon by the Hayotzek factory, and hand over the helpless victims to the Arab murderers. The Yishuv is fighting for its life and still may not carry its weapons openly.

The Yishuv is also unprepared for this war. The Zionist institutions, which have been campaigning for years for the partition of the country, didn’t believe that the Arabs would carry out their threat and go to war. They expected that the world, represented by the UN, would come to their aid and impose the division of the country by force of arms.

The rumors about huge quantities of hidden weapons, buried somewhere deep underground, pop like soap bubbles on the walls of reality. And the fairy tale of the 80,000 well-trained and armed Jewish soldiers, who would appear from the underground at the command of the national institutions, also dissipates like the morning mist.

The hope of early weapons supplies was also quickly dashed. The British blockade impeded the import of weapons, and the UN prohibited its members from arming the fighting parties. So the Yishuv was faced with two bitter alternatives: either to win the battle with whatever resources it had, or to give up without a struggle. There were only a few, light, weapons. And there were only a few organized troops, in small units. Survival was hanging from a very thin thread.

On 30 November 1947, when the first shots of the war sounded, the national institutions proclaimed the mobilization of everyone between seventeen and twenty-five years of age. With great enthusiasm the best of the youth streamed to the recruitment offices.

While small groups of the Palmach¹⁰ and the HISH¹¹ accompanied the supply convoys and defended the outer parts of the city with other volunteers, a new army was being formed all over the country. An army without a name, without insignia, ranks, or a uniform – the army of the young Hebrews. In the barracks of Tel Aviv and Sarona, which the British police had vacated on 15 December 1947, hundreds and thousands were hastily trained and instructed in the use of weapons.

The first fighting units began with reprisals, storming Arab villages and blowing up houses. With only a few rifles, which were passed from hand to hand, without sufficient armored vehicles to defend the transport arteries, these young people won great victories and suffered painful defeats. On 23 February 1948, thirty-five of them fell on the road to Gush Etzion. They were on their way to an action that only a well-trained and appropriately equipped company could have carried out successfully. On 4 March, fifteen fell near Atarot. On 28 March, forty-two fell defending a supply column near Yehiam.

New fighting units were formed from freshly recruited volunteers. From the companies, battalions were formed, from the battalions – brigades. It was an army without means of transport, without aircraft, and without a supporting infrastructure in the rear. There were neither cannons nor tanks. But they were supported by the enthusiasm of the population, in a way that has not often happened in the history of humankind, perhaps only with the troops of the French and later the Russian revolution.

When I read on 30 November that the first Hebrew bus had been attacked by Arab fighters, I knew what my duty was: to report for service.

In the days leading up to my recruitment I wrote a little pamphlet about the problems of the war. Unlike the troubles of 1936 to 1939 we were now faced with a real, lengthy war with many casualties, which would decide the question of our survival.

I used what money I had left to buy a khaki uniform, a sock hat, and the clothing a soldier needs, and reported at the gate of the training camp. I became a simple soldier of the infantry.

13 February 1948

Training camp

Initiation

They arrive singly, one after the other. Some with a firm step, with the forced smile that is supposed to show self-confidence. They give the guard at the gate their call-up papers as if they are showing a bus ticket. They look at the camp, trying to absorb everything with one glance, dump their luggage on the ground, light a cigarette, and wait for what may happen. But there are others who approach the gate hesitantly, cast a last, longing look at the “civilian” street behind them, and wait like small, nervous children, as though they felt guilty about something.

These two types differ even in their clothing. One kind is dressed like a staff officer, with a uniform bought “outside” – battle dress (as it is also called in Hebrew), and khaki trousers. Their berets are creased, as if they had already seen a couple of years’ service. The others are the civilians – colorful trousers, checkered jackets, some even wearing ties.

Now they are standing next to each other, examining each other – foreign to each other. In a few hours they will be living together, standing in line at the mess, pushing for a place to shave in the morning, borrowing shoe polish from each other, and firing off ancient curses in fourteen different languages. But now they are still foreign to each other. The distance between them is enormous – locally born, traditional Yemenites, Yekkes,¹² fat and thin, a roundish youth with glasses who was yesterday the director of finance in a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Maps
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: In the Fields of the Philistines
• Part Two: The Other Side of the Coin
• Endnotes
• Chronology of Events
• Indexes
• Copyright