The Jerusalem Inception

Chapter 29





“I’m not doing this!” Sanani pointed up at a wooden platform affixed to the summit of a giant eucalyptus tree. A thick rope came down from the platform, across a wide gulch, ending in a knot around the trunk of another eucalyptus.

“I need a volunteer,” Captain Zigelnick said, “to show Sanani how to be a man.”

The soldiers looked up. No one stepped forward.

“I’ll show him.” Lemmy raised his hand, and the captain tossed him a bent steel bar.

Short sections of wood were nailed to the trunk, forming a makeshift ladder. He stuck the metal bar in his belt, shifted the Uzi so it rested on his lower back, and started climbing. The trunk was smooth. It had a sharp smell. He climbed one rung after another. His muscles began to ache.

His friends clapped rhythmically. “Gerster! Gerster! Gerster!”

Lemmy paused and looked down. Their upturned faces surrounded the base of the tree, approximately four stories below him. He held on with one hand, his feet planted securely, and pretended to unzip his fly. They scattered, hooting.

A light breeze was blowing from the north, and the tree swung from side to side. The platform was built like a raft of rough-cut logs tied together with wires, the cracks between the logs wide enough to put his hand through. He made the mistake of looking down. Far below, his friends seemed small.

He reached up to the rope, which was tied to the trunk over his head, and slowly rose to stand on the platform. It swayed under his weight, creaking in protest. The rope was as thick as his arm. It dropped steeply about two-thirds of the way then curved in a gradual slope before leveling off near the opposite tree.

Gripping the rope with both hands above his head, Lemmy inched forward until the tips of his boots lined up with the edge of the platform. The chanting below stopped. He heard Zigelnick yell something.

Acting against every survival instinct, Lemmy let go of the rope with one hand and pulled the hooked bar from his belt. Slowly, without disturbing his careful balance, he slipped the hooked bar over the rope, slid his other hand to the opposite end of the bar, and eased forward into the air.

The acceleration was blinding. The friction of the metal bar on the rope produced a high-pitched whizzing. He heard himself howling.

The pressure on his arms and shoulders grew as his slide changed direction and leveled off. The deceleration was as drastic as the initial acceleration, and his vision cleared just in time to see that he was hurtling head-on toward the trunk of the opposite eucalyptus. He let go before colliding with the tree, curled up, and rolled on the ground several times, coming to rest in a cloud of dust.

A moment later, his friends were all over him, and someone emptied a bucket of water on his head.

Cursing and laughing at the same time, Lemmy got up. His knees were weak and his hands trembled, but he knew he could climb all the way up to the flimsy platform and rappel down again right now. But it was Sanani’s turn, and everyone goaded him up the eucalyptus tree.

Elie was summoned to a strategy conference at the King David Hotel. From the top-floor suite, the border with Jordan passed practically under the windows, which offered sweeping views of East Jerusalem and the Old City. A light breeze diluted the smoke of cigarettes.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abba Eban, who had arrived straight from the airport, spoke first. “My consultations in Paris left me with an unequivocal conviction that King Hussein has in fact received our non-aggression communiqué through the French consular intermediary.”

“You mean,” Eshkol said, “they told Jordan we don’t want war?”

“Precisely. The French ambassador to Amman personally conveyed our fervent preference for a non-confrontational détente in lieu of Jordanian participation in the belligerent military campaigns currently contemplated by Egypt and Syria.”

“And?”

“The Elysée Palace remains utterly concerned.” Eban’s British accent, usually a cause for chuckles among the sabra generals, somehow seemed appropriate in this opulent hotel suite. “Our diplomatic overtures, notwithstanding their sincerity, have been spurned decisively by the royal Jordanian court. The king’s counselors misinterpreted the message as insidious machinations, contrived merely to lure His Majesty toward injurious inaction while we surreptitiously prepare to launch the IDF at his prized territorial and theological possessions.”

“You mean,” Eshkol concluded, “the Jordanians think we’re bluffing.”

“A poignant understatement,” Abba Eban said. “The Jordanian consorts infused their analysis with undertones that historically have been accorded to our Jewish race, such as underhandedness in commerce and money lending. They advised King Hussein to array his armed forces in a forthcoming posture, cohesive with the other Arab armies, and to issue a proclamation soliciting the incursion of Iraqi and Saudi battalions into the West Bank as fortification of Jordan’s combat units.”

“Hussein is inviting the Iraqis into Jordan?” General Rabin threw his cigarette out the window. “If they reinforce the existing Jordanian units in the West Bank, we’re doomed. There’s no way we can defend the coastal strip. They’ll cut us in half between Natanya and Herzlia, then march south and north to take Tel Aviv and Haifa.”

“During our meeting,” Abba Eban continued, “President De Gaulle was lucidly unambiguous about the pertinence of Israeli non-aggression. He assured me that he’s a loyal friend of l’Etat Hébreu, but insisted that we unequivocally forgo war. When I left, De Gaulle pressed my hand and admonished me: Ne faites pas la guerre!”

“The French want to teach us national defense?” Prime Minister Levi Eshkol looked around the table. “It took Hitler three days to conquer France and gobble up all their baguettes!”

In the midst of laughter, Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin remained serious. “De Gaulle might be right. If Jordan fights us, the war will be a blood bath.”

“But look at this!” General Ezer Weitzman, CO of operations, went to the window and pointed. “How can we pass up the opportunity to recover the Old City? Return to our historic capital? It’s crazy!”

Now Elie understood why the prime minister had chosen to hold this strategy meeting on the top floor of the King David Hotel rather than at the Pit. The unobstructed views created an irresistible temptation for the sabra generals, whose lives had been dedicated to recreating the ancient Jewish kingdom in the Land of Israel. The glorious sights provoked them to say what they really had in mind.

“We must,” Weitzman said, “recapture our ancestral land, all the way to the Jordan River.”

“That’s enough,” Rabin said.

But Weitzman couldn’t hold back, “What kind of a Jewish state is it without Jerusalem? What kind of Jewish warriors are we without the courage to restore King David’s glory?”

“That’s a political question.” The prime minister shook his finger like a scolding teacher. “You boys harbor impossible dreams!”

Chief of Staff Rabin lit another cigarette.

“Strategic decisions,” Abba Eban said, “must be contemplated in conjunction with the appropriate analysis of all diplomatic, strategic, and fiscal ramifications. Acquisition of our ancient biblical sites, tempting as it might be, could jeopardize our very chance of national survival. The pending wholesale attack by the Arab nations could pit us against Soviet-supplied firepower of great magnitude. We must utilize diplomatic maneuvers to preempt a war through UN and American guarantees. The Egyptians won’t fight the United States!”

“In other words,” Eshkol said, “the Arabs are idiots, but not meshuggahs.”

“We have to assume,” Eban said, “rational behavior by our adversary.”

“Exactly!” The prime minister looked at Chief of Staff Rabin. “We shouldn’t let the holy places tempt us into a ruinous war.” He waved at the window. “The Arabs will throw us in the Mediterranean—a second Holocaust!”

Elie saw Yitzhak Rabin cringe, as if the word Holocaust was a slur. “Israel isn’t a shtetl in Poland,” the chief of staff said. “The IDF is stronger than the sum of our units. It’s a matter of sequence and allocation. And sacrifices. But we can win.”

“Ah!” Eshkol groaned. “Gambling with our lives!”

There was silence in the room, which Elie guessed was not because of General Rabin’s interjection, but due to the attendees’ shock at the prime minister’s explicit panic.

“It could be a pyrrhic victory,” Abba Eban said. “The territories biblically known as Judea and Samaria, where our forefathers once dwelled, will come into our proverbial hands with multitudes of hostile indigenous inhabitants whom we must feed, clothe, and treat medically. The costs would drastically surpass our financial means, deplete our scarce material resources, and overburden our bureaucratic infrastructure. Furthermore, ruling over an Arab population dominated by paternalism, tribalism, and primeval customs would conflict with our democratic, pluralistic, and modern social fabric. In time, this conflict could undermine Israel’s international standing.”

“That makes no sense,” Weitzman said. “Wouldn’t the world support our modernity?”

Abba Eban shook his head. “We must remember that democratic nations are, and will remain, a minority among the global community, while dictatorships and banana republics will continue to dominate the most powerful international organizations.”

Elie heard one of the generals whisper to his neighbor, “What the hell is he talking about?”

“Pardon me,” Abba Eban stood. “I am obliged to use the lavatory.”

As soon as the foreign minister was out of the room, Prime Minister Eshkol shook his head. “Der gelernte Narr!”

Everyone laughed. By calling Eban The learned fool, Eshkol punctured the foreign minister’s inflated aura. Unlike the erudite, highly educated Eban, who had taught at Oxford before devoting himself to the Zionist movement, the sabra generals were at best high-school graduates. They distrusted his wordiness, tailored suits, and oversized spectacles, yet recognized the value of his ability to meet world leaders as an equal and deliver awe-inspiring speeches in world capitals. Eban’s startling ability to communicate Zionist concerns with Churchillian oratory had won many of Israel’s existential diplomatic battles, as well as the breathless pride of Diaspora Jews everywhere. But the sabra warriors never accepted him as a true Israeli, and Prime Minister Eshkol’s contemporaries, the older generation of pioneers and party apparatchiks, mocked Abba Eban behind his back.

“Our strategy must be logical,” General Rabin said. “If diplomacy succeeds and the Arabs stand down, then all is well. But if diplomacy fails, we’ll have to disable the Egyptian fighter jets and bombers before they mobilize. If we achieve air superiority, then we can destroy their armored forces in Sinai and turn to Syria.”

“If. If. If.” The prime minister took off his eyeglasses and made like he was throwing them away. “If we had enough locusts! Or frogs! Or if we could turn their rivers to blood, or kill their firstborn, ah?”

“Those would work too.” Rabin drew from his cigarette. “But whether or not we can fend off Egypt and Syria, Jordan is the wildcard. If the king orders an attack, fifty thousand Jews will die in West Jerusalem, and Jordanian forces in the West Bank will roll across the coastal strip and slash Israel in half.”

Elie was impressed with Rabin’s ability to offer a clear analysis that solidified a consensus in the room. The soft-spoken Chief of Staff was cleverer than his boyish appearance implied—no less a politician than a soldier. He raised his hand. “The Armistice Agreements forbid military activity in West Jerusalem, but we can mobilize civilians to dig trenches as shelters.”

General Rabin nodded. “Trenches are defensive in nature. Very clever. But who’s going to dig?”

“The ultra-Orthodox.”

Everyone burst out laughing.

Elie lit a Lucky Strike and took a deep draw, waiting for the laughter to die down.

“Do you really think,” Rabin asked, “that the black hats would come out of their synagogues and yeshivas to dig trenches?”

“They avoid military service because they object to Zionism, but they’ll pick up a shovel to keep the Arabs out of West Jerusalem.”

“Why?”

“Because they remember ’forty-eight. Many of them saw with their own eyes what happened when the Jordanians captured the Jewish Quarter of the Old City—the burning of Torah scrolls, the raping of girls, the indiscriminate killing of defenseless Jews.” Elie drew from the cigarette again, letting them digest what he’d said.

“Okay,” Rabin finally said. “There’s no harm in trying.”

Abba Eban returned, carrying a cup of tea. The discussion turned to diplomatic efforts to obtain a U.S. promise to honor its 1956 guarantee to punish Egypt if it attacked Israel. Eban explained that President Johnson was already overwhelmed by losses in Vietnam. Prime Minister Eshkol was unmoved, insisting that only an American declaration would prevent war—and Israel’s demise.

As everyone was leaving, an aide asked Elie to join the prime minister in his car for a moment.

Elie sat on the jump seat, facing him.

“Excellent meeting, right?”

“Yes,” he said, though he didn’t think so.

“My job is to prevent war. But these sabra hotheads want to use their toys, conquer and pillage like King David. They’re children who dream childish dreams!”

“They beat the Arabs before.”

“But not the Soviet Union. What chance do we have?” Eshkol formed a circle with his finger and thumb.

“Soviet weapons and a few thousand advisors, but the commanders and soldiers are Arabs, and Rabin seems confident—”

“Yitzhak Rabin is a nice boy.” Eshkol made a dismissive gesture. “A schmendrik, that’s what he is. I’m not worried about him. He’ll follow my orders. My problem is Moshe Dayan. He’s a warmonger, strutting around with the fancy eye patch. Who’s ever heard of a Jewish pirate?”

Elie touched the scabs over his burns. “My agents are combing his past. I’ll let you know as soon as we find something useful.”