In the towns the car passed through, he saw more and more evidence of public disarray and funk in the shuttered shops, empty store windows, littered streets, and only a few pedestrians hurrying here and there on usually crowded sidewalks. Mobilizing the reserves had half emptied the normal walks of life. The heaviest vehicle traffic was of army personnel trucks, tank and gun carriers, and he was glad to observe that at least the young soldiers looked cheerful.
Passing through the sentry gate of the Tel Nof air base was like flying out of overcast into sunshine. Heyl Ha’avir! Straight streets, smooth-cut lawns, smart-stepping squads of trainees, pert uniformed young women zipping past at the wheels of jeeps or striding along the walks with erect bosomy posture. Almost, it might be a time of peace, except for the heightening of pace, the charge in the air.
Benny left Aryeh with Dov at his quarters, and made a quick round of the hangars. Pilots were hovering near their planes in G-suits, ground crews were fussing at the Mirages, and one and all were complaining about the hesitancy of the government. “What are we waiting for?” The words were flung at him over and over. As he went from hangar to hangar he flung back standard drill questions about the strike plan code-named MOKADE (Focus).
“Chaim, what’s your target in the first wave?”
“Inchas, Colonel.”
“When do you take off? What’s your position in the flight? What altitude? Primary target?”
Snapped accurate answers from the pilot.
This was what had been haunting Benny since Nasser’s first move, making him edgier by the day as he flew around the States delivering UJA speeches. It was a hair-trigger plan, timing was everything, and if war came Israel might well stand or fall with that operation.
To another pilot: “Tali, time of arrival over target?”
“0745, Colonel.”
“Secondary target? Assignment on first pass? Next pass? Emergency options?”
Even if awakened at midnight they were expected to shoot back the answers. With the entire op plan in his head, Benny Luria found no flaw in their nervy responses. Now, he thought, if only the politicians will unleash them! Years of work were at stake. As facts changed, individual missions were updated, but the MOKADE plan stood: Surprise and smash the Egyptian air force in the first hours of the war.
33
The Wait
Now began the countdown to war, remembered in the chronicles of Israel as the Hamtana (the Wait).
Israeli strategic doctrine set out three conditions that could escalate a crisis to full-scale war: two regional, one international.
1. An imminent military threat to the nation created by the massing of troops on Israel’s borders.
2. A reversal of the status quo which Israel could not leave unchallenged without losing its military credibility.
3. An abandonment of Israel to its fate by the international community.
Two of these conditions had now been fully met. A hundred thousand Egyptian troops and hundreds of tanks had poured across the Suez Canal into Sinai; and Nasser had ordered out all the UN peacekeepers in the region, and closed the Straits of Tiran, choking off Israel’s southern access to the sea. The Soviet Union of course was publicly backing all Nasser’s moves, so there remained but one fateful question: Would the western powers and the UN induce or compel the Egyptian dictator to reopen the straits and remove the troops from Sinai, or would they confine themselves to disapproving statements and leave Israel to extricate itself from its peril?
To seek an answer Abba Eban, now Israel’s Foreign Minister, made a flying round of the three western capitals that mattered. In Paris he was greeted, as he walked into the office of President Charles de Gaulle, by the Frenchman’s booming warning, “Ne faites pas la guerre!” De Gaulle was vague about how Nasser might be persuaded to change his naughty course, but exceedingly clear on one point: if Israel fired the first shot, it would forfeit in toto and for good the friendship and assistance of France. In London, Eban fared better, receiving no such threat from Prime Minister Harold Wilson; but Wilson was just as foggy about what could be done to dissuade Nasser from his regrettable bellicosity.
Only in America did Eban encounter a concrete proposal. Receiving him cordially, President Lyndon Johnson told him he would try to create an “international flotilla” of warships, which would force its way through the straits if the UN reproof of Nasser, and the very existence of this flotilla, did not cause the Egyptian dictator to reconsider and call off the blockade. Forming such a flotilla would of course take time, the American President said, and he asked the Israeli government meantime to use forbearance—and wait.
***
Sam Pasternak sat drinking coffee in the office of Motti Hod, the air force chief, a tall balding lean man with a small mustache, in a trim blue uniform. “Sam, Sam, are you telling me we don’t act for two to three weeks? With the whole country paralyzed, the Arabs mobilized at our borders, and—”
“Motti, Lyndon Johnson wants time to create an ‘international flotilla’”—Pasternak’s tone was ironic, and his face skeptical—“so Eban reported, to force the straits open. The cabinet vote was close, but the decision was to play it Johnson’s way and wait. The idea is that the maritime powers will demand free passage for ‘all nations,’ that is, including us. If Nasser backs down, fine. If not, this international flotilla will enter the straits, so that—”
“But what maritime powers? De Gaulle’s gone over to the Arabs, that we know. From England we can as usual expect bopkess. America’s tied up in Vietnam. I ask you, what powers?”
“Well, maybe Holland, maybe Canada, maybe Sweden, maybe even Australia. Eban isn’t quite clear on that.”
“Maybe nobody?”
“Maybe nobody.”
Hod poured water from a large carafe and drank off a glassful, the only clue that he was tense. The joke about the air force chief was that his engine was water-cooled. He had drunk several glasses since Pasternak had arrived before dawn, red-eyed and unshaven, from the all-night government debate about going to war. “Does anyone in the cabinet believe in this flotilla? Does Eban?”
“It’s hard to tell what Eban believes, he’s so articulate,” said Pasternak. Hod grunted and almost smiled. “But he’s against going to war now, he made that plain.”
“Listen to me, Sam. Nasser openly proclaimed that he’s legally justified in closing the straits because he’s in a state of war with us. Correct?”
“Hundred percent.”
“Well, if we’re at war, why can’t we strike?”
“That’s what Rabin kept urging until his voice gave out. Going through three packs of cigarettes didn’t help.”
“How is he, honestly?” There were disquieting rumors about the Chief of Staff’s health.
“Rabin? Okay, from what I could see through the smoke.”
Hod’s voice dropped. “And the talk of his collapse?”
“Look, I was with him when he visited Ben Gurion. The Old Man may be out to grass, but he was his old self, absolutely furious at Rabin for calling up the reserves. He roared that Rabin was provoking the Egyptians, that we couldn’t fight such a war alone, that he, Yitzhak Rabin, would be personally responsible for the end of the Jewish State after only nineteen years. Rabin went into a black hole for two days. I didn’t feel so hot myself, after that. Ben Gurion was terrifying.”
After a silence Hod said, “A great man, but he lives in the past. Not calling up the reserves would have been criminal neglect.”
“I agree.” Pasternak glanced at his watch. “So, where’s Luria?”
“Benny drives fast. He’ll be along. I thought the Prime Minister was coming for this briefing, Sam.”
“Eshkol asked me to take the briefing instead and report to him. He must work on his radio speech. The whole country will be hanging on it tonight.”
“I don’t envy him.”
“Nor do I. The politicos are out for his head. It’s a crime.”
“You’ve always bee
n an Eshkol man.”
“For good reason! All the years Ben Gurion was the star, I tell you Eshkol was the worker. This country’s infrastructure is Levi Eshkol’s doing.”
“You don’t have to sell Eshkol to me. We’ll be flying Skyhawks soon because he went to America and got Lyndon Johnson to send them.” The buzzer sounded. “Yes? …Good…. Okay, Benny’s here. Let’s go.” They walked to the briefing room down a long corridor lined with pictures of Mirages and Skyhawks in flight, pictures of previous air chiefs, and recruiting posters of handsome pilots and beautiful air force girls.
Benny Luria was astonished to see General Hod come into the briefing room not with the Prime Minister but with Sam Pasternak, whom he deeply disliked. Pasternak had all but ruined his sister Yael’s life, he thought, by consuming her youth in nonsense. Now he was some kind of intelligence big shot, his status obscure, except that he was very close to Eshkol.
“Benny, brief General Pasternak on the mission of your squadron in MOKADE,” said Hod, “and on the overall picture of the first wave.”
Luria knew Hod well enough, and in any case was brassy enough, to blurt, “Motti, do we go tomorrow or don’t we?” Since his return he had been sensing, with a heavy heart, a slackness in the air force, an absence of the expected electricity before a strike.
“Never mind. Proceed.” The generals sat down in armchairs.
Luria’s crisp presentation of MOKADE aroused Pasternak, weary as he was, to towering enthusiasm. A tremendous thing! The succession of colorful maps and overlays, the minute-by-minute schedules of action, were worked out in stunning convincing detail. The Prime Minister would be cheered, and he could use some good news.
“Well done, Benny,” Pasternak said as the three men walked out afterward. “Did you see your sister in Los Angeles?”
“Of course.”
“How is she?”
“Too comfortable. Making too much money.” Luria stalked away.
“Benny’s beside himself,” said the air chief. “He thought the strike was on for sure today or tomorrow, and he’s frantic at the risk of delaying much longer.”
“Why? It’s a great operation, Motti, whenever it happens.”
“Wrong, wrong! If Nasser strikes first at our airfields, all that work, all that planning and rehearsing, go up in smoke! Sam, for God’s sake, you tell Eshkol that.”
“Don’t you think I will?”
***
In pajamas and a bathrobe, Levi Eshkol was breakfasting on a large broiled St. Peter’s fish, a dish of scrambled eggs, and a loaf of black bread. The bald big-bellied Prime Minister peered at Pasternak through thick rimless glasses. “Sam, kumt essen [come eat].” An old Yiddish greeting, and Pasternak declined in the old Yiddish way, “Ess gezunt [Eat in health].”
“Well, sit down. This is a delicious fish. They woke me after only an hour’s sleep with a letter from Kosygin. Food is fuel and I need it. Read that letter.”
Pasternak skimmed the Hebrew translation lying on the desk. Eshkol observed, “Not as bad as the letter we got from Khrushchev in 1956, hah? That was a real bombshell.”
“No. This is not good, though.”
“Not good at all. Now, what about the air strike plan?”
“Prime Minister, it’s masterly. I was totally won over. I went to the hangars, too. I talked to the pilots and the ground crews. They’re sharp as razors, all of them, eager to go.”
“So, let’s hear.” While Pasternak summed up MOKADE, Eshkol ate the fish down to the bones, then broke open the head for the morsels. “It sounds complicated,” he commented with a worried head shake. “Like a ballet. One performer makes a mistake and it’ll become a terrible balagan.”
Slowly he wiped his mouth with a napkin. “And meantime, Sam, such tzoress [troubles]! Menachem Begin’s been on the phone, urging me to step aside, and for Ben Gurion to return as Prime Minister!” He stared at Pasternak. “You hear? Begin wanting Ben Gurion! Then there’s Dayan! Out of the army for eleven years, he’s demanding to return and take immediate command of the Southern Front! My head is spinning, I’ll tell you the truth.”
All too aware of the growing ground swell for Dayan’s return—there was even newspaper talk of his replacing Eshkol—Pasternak shied off. “Have you finished the radio speech, Prime Minister?”
“That speech! Oy vavoi! No, I haven’t. Do you suppose I could postpone it?”
“Impossible!” Pasternak blurted with alarm. “The effect on the country—”
“I know, I know. Still, I dread it. And first I must answer Kosygin, and then meet with the generals, who are all in a boil over the Hamtana.” He got up and paced with slow heavy steps, his bald head bent. “But Sam, the Washington situation is the worst of it!” He turned a haggard face on Pasternak. “Eban comes back and says one thing, and the American ambassador here says something else entirely. Our ambassador there can’t get a straight word from the State Department. Secretary Rusk makes puzzling statements to the press. From President Johnson I hear nothing, and I thought I had good relations with him! Sam, to this minute I don’t know what’s really going on in Washington! You hear?”
“Prime Minister, launch the air force now. Today, tomorrow!” Eshkol blinked at him. “Go! Fight! I tell you the MOKADE plan will work. It’s brilliant, down to the last detail. There will be a cost, but we’ll win. After the fact the Americans will applaud you, Johnson included.”
“I can’t.” With a deep sigh, Eshkol sat down at his desk. “The cabinet gave me no mandate to go to war. A shaky tie vote, no will to act. Besides”—he squinted sidewise at Pasternak, and spoke in a strange voice—“maybe this Hamtana is not so bad. Gives us time to get good and ready. Though I can’t say that in this cursed speech.” He flourished papers full of scrawls, and added with a foxy side-glance. “Listen, Shafan [Rabbit].” This had been Pasternak’s code name in the underground. “You may have to fly to Washington yet. I must know where Johnson stands before I can move. I must know!”
Pasternak came back with Eshkol’s code name. “I’m ready now, Layish [Lion].”
“Oy vavoi!” Eshkol groaned and smiled. “Such a decrepit old lion!”
***
In the Berkowitz apartment in Haifa, crowded with Lena’s kibbutznik relatives and the professor’s academic friends for the newborn’s circumcision, all was noisy anxious speculation about what Levi Eshkol would say in his radio speech. Surely this Hamtana, the nerve-wracking time of no war and no peace, with an ever-mounting Arab threat at the borders, could not be endured much longer! Because Don Kishote was there in uniform he was pestered for his views. He replied with shrugs and grunts.
In the bedroom Shayna was trying to calm and comfort Lena Berkowitz, who cowered with her sleeping eight-day-old son on her lap, complaining, “Why don’t they get this barbaric business over with? If they have to mutilate the poor thing let them do it and finish!” Lena had grown up on a Marxist kibbutz, where all the boys had been circumcised as they were born. All the kibbutzniks had agreed that this was a primitive bloody rite that should be abolished, and no parents had omitted the circumcision.
“They’re not here yet,” said Shayna, glancing out the door.
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Colonel Luria and the Ezrakh. They’re coming together.”
“Well, so what? The Ezrakh is just religious window dressing, isn’t he?” Lena fretted. “And Colonel Luria may be a big hero, but if he’s late, too bad, let them do it already, for heaven’s sake.”
Shayna explained that they were the two designated honorees of the brit ritual. Colonel Luria would take the baby from his mother’s arms and ceremonially deliver him to the Ezrakh, and he would be circumcised on the Ezrakh’s knees, a great distinction for the family. “Actually it’s the baby that’s being honored,” Shayna said, “by two such important participants.”
“Yes, I’m sure he’ll be absolutely thrilled,” said Lena, hugging him close. “Poor sweetheart.”
Don Kisho
te looked into the room. “Shayna, they’re arriving.”
“Oh, God,” said Lena.
Shayna came to the doorway. Benny Luria was walking in with an erect little white-bearded man in a threadbare long black coat and a rusty broad-brimmed hat. They were followed by a blond girl in a new beige army uniform, black cap perched on her neat coiffure.
“Who is that creature?” Kishote asked Shayna.
“You don’t recognize her? That’s Daphna Luria.”
“What, snotty little Daphna with the buckteeth, running around Nahalal? That’s her?”
“Pretty now, isn’t she?” Shayna said. Daphna was smiling at Noah Barak, who emerged in uniform from among the guests to kiss her cheek. The teeth had obviously been fixed.
“A child,” said Yossi. In fact, to him she seemed Yael reincarnate, the warrior goddess he had been smitten with on the Latrun battlefield. “Are she and Noah engaged, or something?”
“She’s stationed at Ramat David,” said Shayna, “and they see each other. Envious, Yossi?”
Kishote ignored the dig. “Shayna, I must talk to you about Aryeh.” The boy was staying with her during the Hamtana emergency, for Kishote was encamped in the field with his mobilized brigade.
“Why not?” She tried to keep her manner light. “Drive me and Aryeh home afterward. We can talk on the way.”
The noise in the flat was rising to a great hubbub, with much gesticulating and arguing among the men clustering around the Ezrakh and Luria.