The Jerusalem Inception

Chapter 36





The weeks since his visit to Tanya’s home in Jerusalem had flown by with exhausting drills and endless hikes in the desert. Bits of news reports told the trainees of the rising tensions in the country as tens of thousands of reservists, called up to guard the borders, sat idly in makeshift camps and waited for the government to tell them whether to fight or to return home to their families and jobs. But Prime Minister Eshkol continued to plead with the Americans to confirm the ten-year-old guarantee issued by President Eisenhower to use U.S. forces against Egypt in the event it attacked Israel, and the Arabs continued to build up their massive forces in the Sinai Desert, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank.

On the eve of Independence Day, Zigelnick informed Lemmy and Sanani that they would carry the flags at the main parade in Jerusalem. They tossed a coin, and Sanani won the national flag, Lemmy the IDF banner.

The soldiers had spent the night oiling guns, ironing shirts, and shining shoes. A military barber set up a chair near the outdoor showers, and the kitchen supplied hot coffee and cold sandwiches to keep everyone awake.

At sunrise, they lined up three-deep, and Captain Zigelnick inspected each soldier’s appearance. “Listen up,” he said. “You’ll represent the Paratroopers Brigade, but it’s not because you’re so good looking.”

Everyone laughed.

“But because everyone else is on alert along the borders.” The captain looked at them for a moment, letting the implication set in. “So wipe the milk from your lips and march like real soldiers. And don’t expect lots of adoring crowds. The Voice of Israel told listeners to stay home and enjoy the live broadcast of the parade, followed by the National Bible Bee.” He grinned. “Let’s load up!”

It took another hour to get all the gear on the truck. They left the camp as the heat of the desert began to rise. Sanani led the company in singing Israeli folk songs, which he modified to his own lyrics, mostly involving female body parts that rhymed with the names of Arab leaders.

The heartbreaking confrontation with Temimah Gerster had left Tanya shaken up. She wanted to call an ambulance, but Abraham disappeared into the night, carrying his wife in his arms. He must have feared a public scandal.

As the days passed, the intensity of UN communications rose steadily. Her work consumed every waking moment.

One morning, soon after Tanya finished her first cup of coffee, she picked up a radio conversation between UN General Odd Bull and one of his officers—an Indian by his accented English. Bull instructed the officer to alert the UN observers stationed at the Mandelbaum Gate that he would be crossing over to the Israeli side later to protest the Israelis’ Independence Day parade, which he called “That damned Jewish provocation!”

Tanya was still writing down the last sentence of their conversation, translated into Hebrew, when Elie arrived. He came in with a burning cigarette dangling from his thin lips. She held up an ashtray for him to stub it. He had been showing up occasionally since his return from Zurich weeks earlier, trying to pry open her memories of the years with Klaus. She had been honest in her denials. Klaus had never told her the account number and password. But fearing that Elie would somehow interfere with Lemmy’s new life, she forced herself to treat him cordially.

“I have to call in a report,” Tanya said. “General Bull is upset, even though Eshkol cut the parade down to a joke.”

“What choice did he have?” Elie removed his wool cap and rubbed his gaunt skull. “All the foreign ambassadors are boycotting our Independence Day. In all fairness, the Armistice Agreement bans heavy weapons in Jerusalem.”

“That agreement is long dead. The Arabs are violating it.” Tanya poured him a cup of coffee. “The Sinai and the West Bank are filled with their tanks and cannons.”

Elie took the cup from her hand cautiously. “It’s the diplomacy of oil.”

“It’s the diplomacy of turning the other cheek. Eshkol has no right to downgrade Israel’s national birthday. A parade is an opportunity to showcase the IDF’s power to our nervous population.”

“What’s to showcase? President Johnson suspended delivery of the new Patton tanks and Skyhawk jets on condition that we allow American inspections of the nuclear reactor in Dimona. And the French are holding up the weapons we’ve already paid for. You think a parade would reassure the nation?” Elie took a sip of coffee. “Listen, I was thinking. Do you remember von Koenig’s birthday?”

“Sometime in 1910. April, I think.”

“You didn’t celebrate it?”

“Not really.” Tanya recalled Klaus returning from a field inspection, aching from endless hours in the car. When he saw the cake she had baked for him, he kissed her and asked her to give it to his driver, Felix. Instead of blowing out candles, they soaked in a hot bath. At first they listened to Wagner, but as Klaus’s mood improved, they piled more embers under the bath and started reciting lines from a play he had taken her to see in Berlin a month earlier. They ended up laughing so hard that the bathwater splashed all over the room.

“Tanya?”

“Yes.” She shook her head to drive away the sadness. “Klaus didn’t like to celebrate his birthday. But he was important enough that the date should be on record somewhere.” Before Elie could ask another question, she headed to the other room. “I must return to my work. Please let yourself out.”

Elie put down his cup of coffee. “Have you heard from Abraham?”

Something in his voice made Tanya pause. “Why should I hear from him?”

“Well, that’s interesting.”

“Why?”

He pulled the wool cap down over his ears and opened the front door. “It’s just that I assumed he would run straight to you with the bad news.”

“Bad news?” Her chest constricted with dread. “What bad news?”

The drive from the Negev Desert to Jerusalem took over three hours, providing time for much-needed sleep. They woke up in the city, which was crowded despite the government’s call to stay home. Lemmy sat in the back of the truck and took in the incredible sight of thousands of Israelis in white shirts and blue pants, the children waving little flags, the windows and balconies along the road packed with cheerful spectators.

The soldiers jumped off the truck and assumed formation for the parade. Lemmy adjusted the flagpole against his hip and glanced at Sanani, who struggled to do the same. Just ahead, two half-tracks rolled into position. On a stage farther down, a band played a fast-paced tune while dignitaries took their seats.

His eyes searched the crowds. He knew his parents would never attend an event celebrating the Zionist state, and neither would Benjamin. But could Tanya be among the revelers, unaware that he was marching with his unit? He sought her pale, delicate face, framed by black hair, even though he knew how unlikely it was for her to leave her post. No. She was sitting dutifully inside that half-ruined house, wearing the bulky headphones, eavesdropping on secret communications across the nearby border.

The music stopped, and the thousands of spectators gradually quieted down. On the stage, the loudspeakers crackled, and a woman’s voice announced, “Prime Minister Levi Eshkol!”

Lemmy saw a stout man stand up and wave, earning isolated applause.

The announcer said, “The Chief of Staff, General Yitzhak Rabin.”

A man of average height and build, dressed in khaki uniform and an officer’s cap, stood up and saluted. Cheering swelled up and down the boulevard, and many launched into spontaneous singing, “Nasser sits and waits for Rabin, ai, yai, yai…”

Barely heard over the singing, the announcer kept listing the names of civilian and military leaders on the stage. But the singing persisted, “And he should wait ’cause Rabin’s coming, ai, yai, yai…”

There were no speeches, which was a good thing as the sun was beating down on them with full force. But before the marching commenced, the announcer invited the chief rabbi of the IDF to recite a blessing. Lemmy stood on his toes to get a better look at the contradiction—a rabbi in uniform. At Neturay Karta, Zionism was equated with blasphemy, and those who called themselves rabbis while supporting the state were mocked. But Rabbi Shlomo Goren, now a full general, had transformed the IDF into a Jewish army, with kosher kitchens and observance of Sabbath, enabling religious soldiers to serve without compromising their faith.

The rabbi recited a prayer for the soldiers of Israel in battle and victory. Then he chanted, “If I forget thee, Jerusalem, my right hand shall wither.” Many voices joined him. “My tongue shall stick to my palate, if I don’t remember thee, if I do not put Jerusalem ahead of my own happiness.”

Lemmy recalled his father atop the squat boulder in view of the Old City, chanting the same mournful song, defying the Jordanian sniper, whose bullet perforated the black hat. He remembered his father’s arm, resting on his shoulders as they descended the hill. Had that gesture reflected love? No, Lemmy thought, a loving father wouldn’t rip the lapel of his coat and declare his son dead while that son was standing, very much alive, in the back of the synagogue.

A whistle sounded. An officer took the microphone and called the units to attention. The civilian crowds swelled as more people arrived. The police barricades threatened to topple over under the pressure. Lemmy kept his face forward, the flagpole at the correct angle. But his eyes moved left and right, stubbornly searching for Tanya among the sea of faces.

The band played the tune for Jerusalem of Gold, and of bronze, and of light, and the crowd sang, arms interlocked, thousands of Israelis swaying from side to side, until the last line.

Breaking into a fast military march, the band caused a dramatic change of mood. The spectators started clapping and waving flags. Zigelnick barked an order, Lemmy and Sanani raised the flags, and the company marched forward. Passing by the stage, they half-turned and saluted.

Elie Weiss heard the cheering from a distance. He didn’t like crowds. Instead of attending the parade, he borrowed a vehicle from the IDF car pool and drove along the border section of West Jerusalem to inspect the progress of trench-digging. Tanya had borrowed his Citroën for the drive to the base in the Negev where Abraham’s son was apparently stationed. She insisted on telling him face to face, rather than allow the army to deliver the news.

The ultra-Orthodox volunteers surpassed Elie’s expectations. Men who spent their lives as sedentary Talmudic scholars instead worked around the clock to create a system of deep trenches and walls of sandbags along the border. Beside the military benefit, Elie was pleased to see them out of their synagogues and yeshiva halls, where anti-Zionist fever would have peaked during such perilous times, when even secular Zionists doubted the Jewish state’s chances of survival. And for good reason. Jordan’s cannons could easily decimate the civilian Jewish population of West Jerusalem. Transportation of Israeli ground forces from the south or the north, even if some units could be spared, would take too long to reach the city in time.

The trenches would save some lives, but the only way to effectively defend the Jews of West Jerusalem would be a massive attack by Israeli jets on Jordanian artillery positions in East Jerusalem—a suicidal mission because of the UN radar at Government House, connected to the Jordanian anti-aircraft guns. Brigadier General Tappuzi and his team desperately needed a solution, and Elie believed he might have it.

He parked by an abandoned building and climbed to the roof, which offered unobstructed views eastward. The Old City’s ancient walls surrounded the densely populated quarters, and the two mosques on Temple Mount resembled domes of nuclear reactors. He focused his binoculars on Government House, high on the southern ridge. Two UN sentries in khaki uniform and blue caps lounged on a bench. The guard towers at opposite ends of the compound were not manned. The massive building was made of local stone. On the roof was a storage room, which served as a base for the steel mast carrying the giant UN flag. In the rear of the compound, Antenna Hill swelled up, topped by a wall of sandbags around a concrete structure, half-sunk in the ground. A huge reflector antenna rotated on top. Behind the radar station he could see gasoline tanks—a useful feature for faking an accidental explosion.

Lowering his binoculars to just outside the fence, Elie traced the Jordanian anti-aircraft batteries along the ridge, only the tips of the barrels showing above the surrounding defenses.

A commotion in the courtyard drew his attention. A white vehicle with the UN insignia drove around to the front of the main building. The driver stepped out to open the door. General Odd Bull emerged from the front doors and got in. The gate opened, the two sentries saluted, and the vehicle drove through. Elie followed it with his binoculars. The commander of UN forces in the Middle East was driven around the Old City, disappearing from view for a few moments behind the ancient walls. He reappeared near the Mandelbaum Gate and was waved through by the Jordanian border guards. The UN observers saluted, and the Israeli soldiers did the same. Once in West Jerusalem, he drove south to the IDF command center. Elie knew that, after the parade, Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin was going to take Bull on a helicopter tour along the borders in order to refute the Arabs’ allegations that Israel was preparing to attack them.

He got down from the roof and drove off. The streets filled with civilians. Locals walked home, and a string of buses with out-of-town revelers crawled toward the city exit. He turned on the radio for the 1:00 p.m. news. The Voice of Israel reported that over two hundred thousand Israelis had attended the parade, which instigated an immediate UN resolution declaring Israel in violation of the Armistice Agreement. Egyptian President Nasser again threatened to remove UN observers and blockade the Straits of Tiran, cutting off Israel’s shipping routes to Asia and its oil supplies from Iran. A blockade, Elie knew, would mean war.

He found General Bull’s vehicle parked in front of the IDF command in West Jerusalem. He walked around it, taking a closer look. It was a Jeep Wagoneer, which resembled a tall station wagon with large tires and an elevated stance for off-road driving. The white paint seemed fresh, and the UN insignia on the doors shone as if the letters had been polished that morning.

“Is there a problem, sir?” Bull’s driver was a young, darkskinned UN sergeant, who spoke English with his native singsong Indian accent.

“To the contrary.” Elie returned his salute. “Happy Independence Day.”

It took an hour for the army truck to get through traffic, but Lemmy and his friends didn’t mind. They sang patriotic songs and ate candy that civilian pedestrians tossed in through the open back. The hearty adoration infused the soldiers with a sense of purpose that months of drills could never have achieved.

Once out of Jerusalem, on the open road to the Negev Desert, the excitement gave way to exhaustion. Lemmy’s mind was still racing with flashes of the day’s events. He was a real Israeli soldier, ready to defend the nation with his life, to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with his friends. His old life in Neturay Karta seemed like a distant memory. He hugged the Uzi to his chest and remembered what Zigelnick had said to them on the first day of boot camp: Your Uzi is your new mother, father, and girlfriend!

He dozed off.

After what seemed like a few minutes, the truck’s hydraulic brakes screeched and groaned, waking everyone up. A thick cloud of desert dust penetrated through the back and filled the truck.

“You have ten minutes,” Zigelnick yelled, “to change and get ready for tonight’s drill. Come on, ladies! Ten minutes!”

Sanani cursed in Mehri, an Arabic dialect from Yemen that his parents still spoke, making Lemmy laugh. The soldiers unloaded all the gear from the truck and changed into olive field drabs.

“Hey, Gerster,” someone yelled, “you have a visitor.”

In the parking area outside the camp, Lemmy saw a gray Citroën. The driver stepped out—a woman in a sleeveless, white-cotton dress and black hair. He ran over and took Tanya in his arms.

Elie watched the military helicopter approach from the south. The landing area near the IDF command was barely enough to clear the rotors, and the evening wind had picked up enough to challenge the pilot, who struggled to keep the craft pointing into the wind, its stubby nose downward. As soon as it landed, an aide ran to open the sliding door.

Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin stepped down, followed by UN General Odd Bull, who held his blue cap as they jogged from the helicopter, which departed immediately.

The Indian driver held the door for the UN general, and a moment later the Jeep drove off. Elie glanced at his watch, noting the time.

“Weiss!” Rabin noticed him and came over. “Impressive work with the black hats.”

“Fear is a great motivator.”

They strolled to the end of the parking area and stood by a stone wall, which offered southern views across a ravine, the border fence running north to south, and Government House on the opposite ridge.

Elie turned his back to the wind and lit a Lucky Strike.

Rabin pulled one from Elie’s pack and used his burning cigarette to light it. His fingers shook, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Is Bull going to help?”

“A pompous old stiff.” Rabin drew deeply and held the smoke inside. It drifted from his mouth when he spoke. “I took him everywhere—the Galilee, the coastal strip, the Negev. Wherever he pointed, the pilots went. He kept looking for the attack forces we’re accused of building up along the borders, but all he saw were our thin lines of defense, manned by our regulars and some very frustrated reservists. It confirmed what we’ve been telling him. He couldn’t argue with his own eyes, but he said that the Arabs have legitimate concerns about our belligerent intentions. Legitimate concerns!”

“They’re lying to justify attacking us first.”

“Bull said they’re afraid of us because of Dimona. Can you imagine? They are afraid of us!”

“Nuclear bombs are a scary thing.”

“But we don’t have anything useable!”

“Not yet.”

General Rabin took another cigarette from Elie’s pack and lit it with the stub. “I need a vacation,” he said. “Maybe we’ll all end up together in a POW camp—a long vacation.”

“You don’t really believe that, right?”

“No. There won’t be any POW after an Egyptian first strike.” Rabin made a cutting gesture. “They’ll demolish our air force on the ground and own the sky. Their tanks and infantry will swarm us like arbeh!” He used the biblical word for the locusts God had sent to scare the Egyptians into freeing the Israelite slaves. “The Jordanians and Syrians will jump in, and we’ll be dead in twenty-four hours.”

The wind, which had calmed down for a while, suddenly lashed at them. The chief of staff shielded his cigarette. “Our only chance,” he said, “is a preemptive strike.”

“What about the UN radar?” Elie motioned at Government House across the gulch. “Won’t they notice our jets taking off?”

Rabin sucked on his cigarette as if it were oxygen. “I’m still waiting for a Mossad assessment of the radar system’s range. We know it can detect planes approaching Jerusalem. But if this radar is strong enough to track our jets over the Negev and the Mediterranean, then Bull could alert the Egyptian high command. That kills our first-strike option. Which is our only option.”

“I’m not an expert in radars,” Elie said, “but the rotating reflector on that thing is huge.”

They stood together, gazing at the radar on the hill behind Government House, smoking their cigarettes.

“Whatever the range of this thing,” Rabin finally said, “without an order from our government, there won’t be a first strike. I need Dayan to take over the defense ministry.”

Elie pulled a few photos from his pocket. They showed Moshe Dayan holding various antiques for the camera, directing uniformed IDF soldiers at an archeological dig, and sitting in his garden among valuable treasures.

“Everyone is entitled to one vice.” Rabin lit a third cigarette with the stub of his second. “Or two.”

“A thief as defense minister?”

“You’re looking for an honest politician?” Rabin sneered. “Good luck!”

“There’s a difference between dishonesty and criminality.”

The chief of staff watched the smoke drift away from his mouth. “Most of my career I’ve served under Dayan. He’s arrogant. Dishonest. A braggart. But he has steel balls. As defense minister, he’ll give the green light and save Israel. That’s all I care about right now.”

Across the gulch, on the Jordanian side, they could see the white ant that was General Bull’s Jeep. It approached Government House from the east. Elie glanced at his watch. Eleven minutes since leaving the IDF command in West Jerusalem. “Eshkol promised me the top Mossad post.”

Rabin smiled. “Why would you want such a headache?”

“To save our people from another Holocaust.”

“Get over it, Weiss. The Nazis lost the war. They failed to exterminate us. Look around. We’re still here.”

“You’re a naïve sabra,” Elie said. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“You haven’t seen your family butchered like sheep on market day, haven’t smelled the crematoria, still glowing red with our people’s ashes.”

“I’ve lost comrades in battle,” Rabin said. “I’ve fought for Israel since my Bar Mitzvah.”

“Playing defense. That’s why you boys call your army the Israeli Defense Force. It’s delusional to think that the Holocaust ended with the Third Reich. The Final Solution didn’t start with Hitler, it didn’t end when the Americans reached Auschwitz, and it will continue until we finish it off!”

“You’re paranoid.”

“The way I see it, our people have been the subject of a Final Solution campaign for thousands of years, since the day idol worshippers chased the patriarch Abraham from his home, through the Egyptian slavery, Amalekite attacks, Canaanite raids, the Babylonian exile, the Greek massacres, the Romans burning down the temple, crushing Masada—”

“I don’t need a history lesson.” Pointing with his cigarette at the border, Rabin said, “I’m worried about the here and now.”

Elie looked over his shoulder at the staff car awaiting Rabin, his driver and aide standing by, watching. “The here and now include the Final Solution. Think of the crusaders, who killed more Jews in Europe than the Muslims they had set out to vanquish. And the Inquisition, another phase in the Final Solution. The expulsions from Spain, Portugal, and England. The pogroms in Poland, Latvia, the Ukraine, and Russia. Stalin’s mass murder of Jews.” He paused to take a draw, blowing the smoke into the wind. “Hitler’s camps were just another phase in the effort to exterminate the Jews. And now? Are you listening to Nasser’s speeches? He’s the leader of the Arab world, and what did he declare in Cairo’s giant square last week? Annihilate Israel! Throw the Jews into the sea! Isn’t it the familiar language of the Final Solution?”

“What do you want?” Rabin’s voice rose in anger. “We’re ready to move! We’re ready to fight! We’re ready to win!”

“This time, maybe. But what about next time? And the next?” Elie’s cigarette burned his fingers. He dropped it. “When I escaped our village in ’forty-one, powerless to stop the butchery of my parents and siblings, I vowed to dedicate my life to our final solution. I call it: Counter Final Solution.”

The chief of staff looked at him, waiting for an explanation.

“Exterminate our enemies before they exterminate us.”

“You want to kill all the Gentiles in the world?”

“Only those who want to kill us. A dose of preventative medicine.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Kill Nasser, for example, and you’ve eliminated a charismatic leader capable of marshalling a Pan-Arabic military attack on Israel.”

“There would be another Nasser.”

“We kill him too.” Elie pointed at his own chest. “When I’m in charge of Mossad, the game will change. I’ll set up a worldwide network of fearless Jewish assassins and go after our enemies preemptively.”

“Sounds expensive,” Rabin said.

“Money is available. Our agents will operate on every continent. They’ll identify our enemies and eliminate them. We’ll muzzle up preachers who plant seeds of hate, silence demagogues who fan anti-Semitic flames, and bring down the businessmen who sponsor the factories of hate and terror. Under me, Mossad will act as a powerful antidote—dispensing the ultimate vaccination against infectious anti-Semitism.”

General Rabin tossed his cigarette over the low wall. “Human beings are not a disease.”

“Some humans are a deadly virus that must be eradicated.”

“Viral strains can be controlled, not eradicated.”

“A few might slip through the cracks,” Elie conceded. “But even they will know that those with Jewish blood on their hands—or on their minds!—will never sleep in peace again. We’ll hunt them to the ends of the earth. Counter Final Solution!”

General Rabin peered at him through creased eyes. “You’re a dangerous man, Weiss.”

One of the guys whistled, which reminded Lemmy they were not alone. He let go of Tanya. “I was looking for you at the parade. But there were so many people—”

“I didn’t know you’d be there,” she said. “Could have saved me the long drive.”

“You missed me?”

Her eyes smiled and hurt at the same time. She reached up and caressed his hair. “I have bad news.”

“You’re leaving for Europe?”

“No, not yet. It’s about your mother.” Tanya held his hands. “She passed away.”

He heard her words, but they didn’t sound real. How could his mother be dead? “That’s impossible.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“But she wasn’t sick.”

“I wish it wasn’t true, but she died yesterday and, you know, buried last night.” That wasn’t unusual, because Talmud required same-day burial in Jerusalem, lest the rotting dead sullied the holy city.

“It’s my father!” Lemmy kicked the dirt, filled with sudden rage. “He broke her heart! I hate him!”

Tanya waited while he informed his commanding officer and packed a small bag.

The car struggled up the Judean Mountains, its small engine screaming in a high pitch. The narrow road detoured around Arab villages. She steered through tight curves, avoided gaping potholes, and passed under precipitous boulders that seemed ready to drop. She stopped at the side of the road while long military convoys made their way to the Negev Desert. Army trucks towed tanks, heavy artillery, and armored personnel carriers. Civilian trucks with hastily brushed-on camouflage ferried troops, most of them reservists still in their street clothes.

Lemmy watched in silence. He pushed away any thoughts of his mother, of his life before the army. That boy in Neturay Karta had been someone else, not him.

It was dark when they entered Jerusalem. Tanya drove quickly through the narrow streets. Closer to the border, Lemmy saw Orthodox men dig trenches under the glare of electric lights. Women carried heavy shopping bags with food in anticipation of shortages. It was a far cry from the jubilant mood at this morning’s Independence Day Parade.